45 marker” is more helpful than merely using the term “discourse marker,” but at the same
time, it does not help the reader know when has which function. The additional
comments about adverbial clauses being followed by infinitives, etc. help further specify how and where
is used, but the function in these environments is still unclear. To clearly understand the uses and functions of
, greater precision is needed.
3.4.10 Exter Blokland, In Search of Text Syntax, 1995
In Exter Blokland’s In Search of Text Syntax, most of the remarks referring to are found in the author’s review of Longacre’s model. Exter Blokland, citing
Longacre 1996, 30, comments that , with or without temporal expression, seems at times to play a role in
marking peak. About Gen 37:23 where with temporal expression
marks a discourse level break, Longacre says: ‘Such an introduction of an episode in this more explicit fashion may serve here to prepare the reader
for a crescendo of activity’. Exter Blokland 1995, 49
Exter Blokland’s comment is yet another acknowledgement of the perceived role of
in signaling a transition point in biblical Hebrew narrative. The citation from Longacre raises certain questions, however: 1 Does the expression “more explicit
fashion” indicate that there are less explicit ways to introduce an episode? 2 What type of episodes are introduced by
+ temporal expression? 3 If the “crescendo of activity” mentioned here is a feature of peak, what type of peak is this and what are the
implications for the overall flow and organization of the narrative? Exter Blokland further comments on the association of
with peak: In other instances, in which
is in some way associated with peak … the expression lends a certain elaborateness to the passage in question, and
46 elaborateness, in any case, is a general characteristic that describes most
features of peak. But since occurs so often in environments that are
not associated with peak or climax, one need only look at those instances where
stands at the beginning of main episodes in the Joseph story – additional data are needed to identify the cases in which the expression
functions as a peak feature. Exter Blokland 1995, 49 Two comments are in order here. First of all, it is questionable whether
gives the “elaborateness” to the passage described here by Exter Blokland. This is not to deny
that may have certain unique functions, but a term like “elaborateness” needs to be
more precisely defined. Often the perception of elaborateness is the result of the outsider’s perspective on what is very commonplace to the language user. At the same
time, however, it is certainly true that the speaker or writer is usually unaware of the structural or functional complexity of seemingly mundane expressions. The issue here is
that “elaborateness” is too vaguely defined. The second part of this comment also calls for further scrutiny. The function
attributed to of marking peak is not necessarily contradicted by its occurrences “so
often in environments that are not associated with peak or climax,” but the non-peak occurrences definitely need to shape the way
’s function is defined. What exactly is ’s role if it does indeed occur in both peak and non-peak? Exter Blokland’s solution
is found in the following citation: We have seen … that episode boundaries can be marked by, e.g.,
. But not all episodes are marked by such a “grammatical” or text-syntactical marker, and even if they were, one would still be faced
with the question, whether an episode is embedded or not. The main divisions of our text will have to be determined on the basis of subject
matter. Exter Blokland 1995, 65
47 For Exter Blokland, the fact that some episodes are not introduced by a text-
syntactical marker like + temporal expression, leads to the conclusion that subject
matter or content determines the episode boundaries. This seriously argues against being assigned any unique function in marking episode boundaries. If content is really the
final arbiter of episode boundaries, the occurrence of becomes quite inconsequential
in terms of marking that boundary. The issue that faces the textlinguist at this point is to investigate what has motivated
in some episode boundaries and not in others. This requires further analysis and will be commented on in Chapter 10.
3.4.11 Endo, The Verbal System of Classical Hebrew in the Joseph Story:
