Participant Analysis focuses on the characters in the psalm and asks, “Who are the main participants (or characters) in this psalm, and what are they saying or doing? It is often helpful for understanding literary structure, speaker identification, etc.
The relationships among the participants may be abstracted and summarized as follows:
The Participant Analysis Mini-Story is forthcoming.
Participant Analysis Summary Distribution
This resource is forthcoming.
Macrosyntax
What is Macrosyntax?
The macrosyntax layer rests on the belief that human communicators desire their addressees to receive a coherent picture of their message and will cooperatively provide clues to lead the addressee into a correct understanding. So, in the case of macrosyntax of the Psalms, the psalmist has explicitly left syntactic clues for the reader regarding the discourse structure of the entire psalm. Here we aim to account for the function of these elements, including the identification of conjunctions which either coordinate or subordinate entire clauses (as the analysis of coordinated individual phrases is carried out at the phrase-level semantics layer), vocatives, other discourse markers, direct speech, and clausal word order.
Discourse markers (such as כִּי, הִנֵּה, לָכֵן) are indicated by orange text.
The scope governed by the discourse marker is indicated by a dashed orange bracket connecting the discourse marker to its scope.
The preceding discourse grounding the discourse marker is indicated by a solid orange bracket encompassing the relevant clauses.
Subordinating conjunction
The subordinating conjunction is indicated by teal text.
Subordination is indicated by a solid teal bracket connecting the subordinating conjunction with the clause to which it is subordinate.
Coordinating conjunction
The coordinating conjunction is indicated by blue text.
Coordination is indicated by a solid blue line connecting the coordinating clauses.
Coordination without an explicit conjunction is indicated by a dashed blue line connecting the coordinated clauses.
Marked topic is indicated by a black dashed rounded rectangle around the marked words.
The scope of the activated topic is indicated by a black dashed bracket encompassing the relevant clauses.
Marked focus or thetic sentence
Marked focus (if one constituent) or thetic sentences[1] are indicated by bold text.
Frame setters[2] are indicated by a solid gray rounded rectangle around the marked words.
[blank line]
Discourse discontinuity is indicated by a blank line.
[indentation]
Syntactic subordination is indicated by indentation.
Direct speech is indicated by a solid black rectangle surrounding all relevant clauses.
(text to elucidate the meaning of the macrosyntactic structures)
Within the CBC, any text elucidating the meaning of macrosyntax is indicated in gray text inside parentheses.
If an emendation or revocalization is preferred, that emendation or revocalization will be marked in the Hebrew text of all the visuals.
Emendations/Revocalizations legend
*Emended text*
Emended text, text in which the consonants differ from the consonants of the Masoretic text, is indicated by blue asterisks on either side of the emendation.
*Revocalized text*
Revocalized text, text in which only the vowels differ from the vowels of the Masoretic text, is indicated by purple asterisks on either side of the revocalization.
(Click diagram to enlarge)
This resource is in the process of reformatting. To view the notes on the Macrosyntax of Psalm 133, click here.
Speech Act Analysis
What is Speech Act Analysis?
The Speech Act layer presents the text in terms of what it does, following the findings of Speech Act Theory. It builds on the recognition that there is more to communication than the exchange of propositions. Speech act analysis is particularly important when communicating cross-culturally, and lack of understanding can lead to serious misunderstandings, since the ways languages and cultures perform speech acts varies widely.
The following chart is scrollable (left/right; up/down).
Legend
Verse
Hebrew
CBC
Sentence type
Illocution (general)
Illocution with context
Macro speech act
Intended perlocution (Think)
Intended perlocution (Feel)
Intended perlocution (Do)
Verse number and poetic line
Hebrew text
English translation
Declarative, Imperative, or Interrogative
Indirect Speech Act: Mismatch between sentence type and illocution type
Assertive, Directive, Expressive, Commissive, or Declaratory
Indirect Speech Act: Mismatch between sentence type and illocution type
More specific illocution type with paraphrased context
Illocutionary intent (i.e. communicative purpose) of larger sections of discourse
These align with the "Speech Act Summary" headings
What the speaker intends for the address to think
What the speaker intends for the address to feel
What the speaker intends for the address to do
If an emendation or revocalization is preferred, that emendation or revocalization will be marked in the Hebrew text of all the visuals.
Emendations/Revocalizations legend
*Emended text*
Emended text, text in which the consonants differ from the consonants of the Masoretic text, is indicated by blue asterisks on either side of the emendation.
*Revocalized text*
Revocalized text, text in which only the vowels differ from the vowels of the Masoretic text, is indicated by purple asterisks on either side of the revocalization.
This resource is forthcoming.
Emotional Analysis
What is Emotional Analysis?
This layer explores the emotional dimension of the biblical text and seeks to uncover the clues within the text itself that are part of the communicative intent of its author. The goal of this analysis is to chart the basic emotional tone and/or progression of the psalm.
If an emendation or revocalization is preferred, that emendation or revocalization will be marked in the Hebrew text of all the visuals.
Emendations/Revocalizations legend
*Emended text*
Emended text, text in which the consonants differ from the consonants of the Masoretic text, is indicated by blue asterisks on either side of the emendation.
*Revocalized text*
Revocalized text, text in which only the vowels differ from the vowels of the Masoretic text, is indicated by purple asterisks on either side of the revocalization.
↑When the entire utterance is new/unexpected, it is a thetic sentence (often called "sentence focus"). See our Creator Guidelines for more information on topic and focus.
↑Frame setters are any orientational constituent – typically, but not limited to, spatio-temporal adverbials – function to "limit the applicability of the main predication to a certain restricted domain" and "indicate the general type of information that can be given" in the clause nucleus (Krifka & Musan 2012: 31-32). In previous scholarship, they have been referred to as contextualizing constituents (see, e.g., Buth (1994), “Contextualizing Constituents as Topic, Non-Sequential Background and Dramatic Pause: Hebrew and Aramaic evidence,” in E. Engberg-Pedersen, L. Falster Jakobsen and L. Schack Rasmussen (eds.) Function and expression in Functional Grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 215-231; Buth (2023), “Functional Grammar and the Pragmatics of Information Structure for Biblical Languages,” in W. A. Ross & E. Robar (eds.) Linguistic Theory and the Biblical Text. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 67-116), but this has been conflated with the function of topic. In brief: sentence topics, belonging to the clause nucleus, are the entity or event about which the clause provides a new predication; frame setters do not belong in the clause nucleus and rather provide a contextual orientation by which to understand the following clause.
