Feature List

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This list may not be complete. Please stay in touch with what you’re finding through your own explorations or through other published studies and let me know so we can keep the list updated: katie_hoogerheide@diu.edu.

  1. Incidence of rhetorical questions =
  2. Distribution of Divine Names (יְהוָה‬ אֱלֹהִים ‬‬ אֱלוֹהָי‬‬ אֵל אֲדֹנָי‬‬, etc.)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
  3. Character features
    1. Change in perspective (or speaker): I, we, you (s/pl), he/she/they
    2. Change in addressee: to self, to God, to evil men, to community, ambiguous
    3. Change in subject/agent/patient (semantic roles)
  4. Verb-related features
    1. Distribution of verb TAM
    2. Appearance of imperative
    3. Incidence of paragogic nun or he (Robar p. 180)
    4. Incidence of long wayyiqtol (Robar p. 180; check if this is what’s happening in Psalm 8; flashback reference, p. 181, to creation?)
    5. Distribution of verb stem types (e.g., Hiphils in center of Ps 13)
  5. Content-word features
    1. Repetition/distribution of exact words, phrases, or word roots
    2. Distribution of semantic/thematically related words (or common word pairs)
    3. Distribution of rare (for right now defined as fewer than 50 occurrences) or borrowed words (cf. clumping of b/r with bar at end of Psalm 2)
  6. Particles and other word-bound features
    1. Distribution of negative markers (לֹֽאאַל אֵין בַּל לְבִלְתִּי ‬)‬‬
    2. Distribution of independent personal pronouns
    3. Distribution of prepositions (cf. beg/end use of בַּ in Psalm 13)
    4. Distribution of vav
    5. Distribution of other particles (אַךְ הֵן הִנֵּה גַּם כֵּן כִּי עַתָּה פֶּן לְמַעַן אִם לוּ\לוּלֵא, etc)—what thoughts might similar particles be connecting?
  7. Clause/sentence-level features
    1. Distribution of cola (monocolons, bicolons, tricolons, tetracolons) and selah
    2. Unusual or repeated word orders (see, for example, Lunn p. 169, DEF/CAN parallelism at boundary markers and peak; continue studying Lunn for more insights)
    3. Ellided information
    4. Local/mini chiasms (clause/colon level)
    5. Quotations and direct speech
  8. Distribution of sounds—vowels and consonants (assonance, consonance, alliteration, rhyming, prominence or connections through a certain reserved sound, Eccl 1, Ps 13 connections, etc.)
  9. Counting syllables, words, or lines (cf. the three middle words of Psalm 23 or 76)
  10. Incidence of figurative language:
    1. metaphor, simile
    2. metonymy (association: sword=war)
    3. synecdoche (part for whole: Jerusalem for inhabitants of)
    4. merism (outer limits for whole: Dan to Beersheba)
    5. personification (abstract concepts do things, cf. righteousness in Psalm 85) anthropomorphism (God has eyes)
    6. apostrophe (direct address to inanimate object or absent person)
    7. euphemism, hyperbole
    8. sarcasm, irony (verbal, intratextual, intertextual), etc.
  11. Incidence of broad reference/allusions (words/phrases pointing to other places in the OT, especially first 5 books); note that NT authors also often quoted the OT—research further whether they generally chose the most highly linguistically marked sections, such as the middle verses from Psalm 8, cornerstone verse from Psalm 118.
  12. Distribution of possessives (may coincide directly with changes in suffixes and/or in subject and change in addressee; perhaps check with Ps 23)
  13. Change of scene/location (Salisbury Glossary on boundary markers; is his “change in participant” covered by change in perspective, addressee, and subject above?)
  14. Gender on nouns
  15. Types/functions of suffixes