Happy happy joy joy! New Books!!

I went to a bookstore today and found FOUR books I want to read -- and they're all fiction!  I am so delighted!  The new Ariana Franklin mystery, A Murderous Procession, the new Laurie King in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, The God of the Hive, and the new Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven, which looks to be a historical fantasy (fantastical history?) set in a China-like country.   Also, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson, which my mother raved about and which I am half-way through already!  A sweet and witty novel.

This is such a treat!  I have been re-reading old fiction (and trying to finish a Marcus Didius Falco novel that I started around Christmas time), and now I have 4 (well, 3 and a half, now) fat novels just begging to be read.  Will I inhale them all?  Read them slowly to make them last?

Ahhh, decisions decisions.

X-Qatal in the beginning?

I just thought of an x-qatal example.

Wouldn't bereshit bara elohim be x-qatal?

"It is in the beginning that God is a creator"... or maybe "It was in the beginning that God was a creator?"

Hmmm.  It does kind of change the way I think about that phrase.

Uruk and X-Qatal

Uruk. I've been reading all about this place/culture.  I love the way writing arose.  Specialization of agriculture meant that families & individuals were no longer self-sufficient, therefore exchange was required.  The city arises as a place/mediator of exchange.  Writing is required to record this -- if you are depositing your harvest in the city depot/temple, you will need a record of that in order to draw on the other supplies you need.  Ergo, let's invent writing!

I'm becoming quite fond of the Mesopotamians.

I've started in on Rocine too.   Verrrrrry interesting.

I'm cool with the wayyiqtol being the mainline verb form for Historical Narrative, but now in chapter 5 I am encountering the x-qatal.   Rocine is working on the theory that qatal indicates attribution.  Rather the way Ehud described participles, if I recall correctly, Rocine suggests x-qatal be understood (or translated, but that's not the goal) thus:
"It is (X) who/that (qatal)" with the qatal being "he is a qatal-er" or "qatal-ing".

So with the example וּלְאָדָם אָמַר, we would understand it as "(and) it is (to Adam) who/that (he - God in this case - is a speaker/he is speaking)".  It is to Adam that God is a speaker. It is to Adam that God is speaking.

I have a surface understanding of this, but I can see that it might take a while for it to sink in when reading the Hebrew.  This is supposed to be the function of topicalization -- that is, changing the focus, I think.  I will have to read that part again.

But I am getting glimmers of how useful this could be -- how it can change the way I see the meaning in the Hebrew.

I also gave in and signed up for English Syntax (Linguistics 204) in Summer School.  That way I can take advanced Syntax & Semantics after Christmas and maybe Discourse Analysis in 2011/12.  There's something to this stuff.   Maybe I'll get a degree in Linguistics with a Hebrew minor?

Summer Plans

Lots to do this summer!  Hebrew Club is translating Joshua.  I took a look at the first couple of verses and managed to sight read them.  So much better than Trito-Isaiah, which was a major pain in the vocabulary.  Am noting all the verb forms (wayyiqtol, qatal, etc) as I go, so that as I learn more about Niccacci's approach to syntax using discourse linguistics, I won't have to backtrack too far.


Speaking of which.   I have almost finished chapter 4 of his Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, and am just getting a glimmer of what it's all about.  Cool concept, really, discourse linguistics, but I don't know that the terminology is universal.  I've been dipping into my Linguistics 101 textbook and hitting Wikipedia and I think I maybe know what he is talking about, but hey, I've been wrong before.  Which is where Rocine comes in. His text  Learning Biblical Hebrew: A New Approach Using Discourse Analysis is going to be my baby this summer.  It's a beginners' textbook, but uses Niccacci's approach from the get go, and more importantly, explains discourse analysis clearly, step by step, in English.  Niccacci is translated from the Italian -- it might be wonderful, but I have no way of knowing if the Italian is better.  I have learned to distrust translations.

I've read the first couple of lessons, and Rocine uses a similar format to Kittel's book.  I am really looking forward to getting my teeth into this.  I love the idea of discourse analysis and I want to see it in action!  I have never been comfortable with what I know of Hebrew verbs - it never seems to be enough -- I hope discourse analysis can change that.

Next on my list of summer fun -- A History of the Ancient Near East by Marc Van de Mieroop.  This little jewel -- and it is! -- is introducing me to the historical background I need to study Hebrew.  Now that I have successfully navigated my first research paper, I am going to brave a history class next year!  But being such a slow reader, I am giving myself the summer to acclimate myself to the terminology, the maps, the dates, the empires.

It's funny.  When I went to university the first time round, I could absorb masses of information at  top speed.  Is is that my brain it too full now?  Not as flexible? I don't know.  I just find I struggle with new information.  It gets into the old brain eventually, but I find the learning curve very steep.  I fight and fight and fight and then all of a sudden, I know it.  All that fighting is pretty hard on the nerves though (to say nothing of hard on the husband, the kids, the furniture...) so this summer I am dipping my foot in the ANE (Ancient Near East) pool.  Learning enough so that I can appreciate the classroom lectures without worrying about which is Iraq and which is Iran and which one was Persia or Babylon or Assyria.