Department of Ancient Studies

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Browsing Department of Ancient Studies by Author "Atkinson, Ian Thomas"

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    In pursuit of a more comprehensive framework for fronting in classical BH prose
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Atkinson, Ian Thomas; Van der Merwe, C. H. J. ; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Ancient Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The present dissertation is an investigation into the phenomenon of fronting within Classical BH prose. Applying developments of linguistic analysis and typological patterns of linguistic constructions that have come to light in recent years, it is my conviction that we can work towards a comprehensive model to account for pre-verbal constituent order in the Genesis-Kings corpus. The sheer number of previous treatment in BH studies is testament to the importance of paying attention to such nuances and their pragmatic effects as the Bible continues to speak to us today. Yet, besides the information structural concepts of topic and focus, which will be discussed at length throughout the study, the results of these (primarily functional) approaches to BH constituent order, and specifically fronting, has been limited to a diverse and seemingly disconnected taxonomy of semantic values imposed upon the clause. As we will see in the literature survey, these semantic values surface time and time again from different scholars in different decades, who have intuitively arrived at similar proposals. Nevertheless, a robust linguistic organising factor has been lacking. On the other hand, those studies which have limited themselves to tried-and-tested models with descriptive adequacy have fallen short of comprehensive explanatory adequacy. It is hypothesised that the linguistic model proposed here will provide an expansion of explanatory power under an organised understanding of information flow and common ground in human communication. Drawing upon an integral approach of treating both information structure and information status, I will apply insights primarily from Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar to the study of BH fronted clauses along with the thetic-categorical distinction in information profiling as a typologically-informed approach. Taking into account discourse tendencies as well as the prototypical semantic and morphosyntactic characteristics of thetic statements, the explanatory power of the model will then be tested on the corpus of 1241 fronted clauses in Samuel-Kings, which is hypothesised to be representative of the entire Classical BH corpus.