- The University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Department MemberThe University of Queensland, Australia, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, Department Memberadd
- Biblical Hebrew (Languages And Linguistics), Functional Grammar, Construction Grammar, Biblical Hebrew, Role and Reference Grammar, Biblical Interpretation, and 17 moreBiblical Hebrew poetry, Functional Discourse Grammar, Debate over Same-Sex Marriage, Disability Studies, Canaanite Languages, Semitic languages, Afro-Asiatic Linguistics, Ancient Hebrew, Gender Studies, Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Ethics, Research Methodology, Gender, Psychology, Sociology, and Philosophyedit
- Matthew has research interests in Biblical Hebrew linguistics, especially in the study of phrase and clause structure... moreMatthew has research interests in Biblical Hebrew linguistics, especially in the study of phrase and clause structure, utilising digital annotated versions of the text of Hebrew Bible. To facilitate this research he has published online a complete Interlinear Morphemic Gloss of the Hebrew Bible (www.bhgrammar.com), used by Hebrew scholars internationally. His expertise in Biblical Hebrew language extends into interdisciplinary research both on the literature of the Old Testament, especially its narratives and poetry, and more broadly to the role Scripture plays in theological reasoning and the formulation of Christian doctrine. This interdisciplinarity informs and enriches all areas of his research, making Matthew one of the few scholars in the world who publishes both in the areas of linguistic analysis of Biblical languages and on the significant literary, exegetical, and theological concerns of these religious texts.edit
Research Interests: Christianity, Queer Studies, Theology, Queer Theory, Gay And Lesbian Studies, and 14 moreBiblical Studies, LGBT Issues, Anglicanism (Anglicanism), Public Theology, Debate over Same-Sex Marriage, Biblical Interpretation, Anglican Church History, Same-sex relationships, Homosexuality, Same-sex marriage, Anglican Theology, Church and Homosexuality, Same Sex Marriage, and Sexual Desire
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The description of English nominal compounds (ENCs) poses a challenge to linguistic theories because ENCs compress a bewildering array of semantic and conceptual information into a relatively simple syntactic structure. The present... more
The description of English nominal compounds (ENCs) poses a challenge to linguistic theories because ENCs compress a bewildering array of semantic and conceptual information into a relatively simple syntactic structure. The present contribution reviews linguistic and psycholinguistic efforts to meet this challenge in a variety of ways. It is proposed that a superior explanation is one that treats the semantic and syntactic (and conceptual and prosodic) information as a constructional unity, learned and used as a distinct linguistic entity rather than as a derivative of construction-independent rules and processes. The proposed ENC construction is claimed to have theoretical, functional, and cognitive adequacy, a desideratum of linguistic theories.
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This article surveys the history of Simon Dik's theory, Functional Grammar.
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Functional discourse grammar (FDG) is a theory with a rich descriptive apparatus, facilitating the modeling of language data that takes into account the several tiers of interdependent information that are present in any utterance,... more
Functional discourse grammar (FDG) is a theory with a rich descriptive apparatus, facilitating the modeling of language data that takes into account the several tiers of interdependent information that are present in any utterance, namely, interpersonal, representational, syntactic, and expression. The explanatory component of FDG comes through complementary principles of linguistic cause and effect, be they diachronic, synchronic, areal, typological, neurological, and so forth. It is this comprehensiveness that sets it apart from many other theories that tend to predicate- or syntax-centricity. FDG is used to analyze the Biblical Hebrew so-called qatal verb (QV), which is characterized by a high degree of multifunctionality. An FDG analysis of several of its functions is provided and although this analysis is shown to be descriptively robust it is also theoretically problematic in some respects. These broader problems in the description and explanation of QV according to the theory of FDG are considered.
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One of Functional Grammar's (FG) most important features is the so-called LAYERED STRUCTURE OF THE CLAUSE (LSC). The LSC is used as both a descriptive and explanatory construct, dividing the linguistic world into various hierarchically... more
One of Functional Grammar's (FG) most important features is the so-called LAYERED STRUCTURE OF THE CLAUSE (LSC). The LSC is used as both a descriptive and explanatory construct, dividing the linguistic world into various hierarchically related layers, such as predicate, predication, and proposition layers. But problems with the LSC eventually led to the development of Functional Discourse Grammar, which divides FG's unitary LSC into two layers, the Interpersonal and Representational and also adds a third, Syntactic Layer, a long-standing desideratum for FG.
Nevertheless, the present article argues that there are several problems remaining in FDG's LSC, namely, the place of operators and satellites, the use of a quasi-predicate logic notation, and the insertion of lexemes as parts-of-speech in the Representational Layer.
Moreover, the third of these problems relates to a deeper issue, which concerns the understanding of what SEMANTICS refers to in FDG. Specifically, should it refer only those interpersonal/representational distinctions that are relevant to syntax, or should it embrace conceptualisation more broadly and refer to the speaker's intended meaning? Through a consideration of MULTIFUNCTIONALITY, the latter, broader definition of conceptually-relevant semantics is deemed superior, because multifunctionality requires a prising apart of the one-to-one function-to-form bond between semantics and syntax implicit in FDG. It is suggested that a reinterpretation of FDG along the lines of Construction Grammar offers a way of accounting for such multifunctionality satisfactorily.
Nevertheless, the present article argues that there are several problems remaining in FDG's LSC, namely, the place of operators and satellites, the use of a quasi-predicate logic notation, and the insertion of lexemes as parts-of-speech in the Representational Layer.
Moreover, the third of these problems relates to a deeper issue, which concerns the understanding of what SEMANTICS refers to in FDG. Specifically, should it refer only those interpersonal/representational distinctions that are relevant to syntax, or should it embrace conceptualisation more broadly and refer to the speaker's intended meaning? Through a consideration of MULTIFUNCTIONALITY, the latter, broader definition of conceptually-relevant semantics is deemed superior, because multifunctionality requires a prising apart of the one-to-one function-to-form bond between semantics and syntax implicit in FDG. It is suggested that a reinterpretation of FDG along the lines of Construction Grammar offers a way of accounting for such multifunctionality satisfactorily.
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Research Interests: Performance Studies, Poetry, Hermeneutics, Biblical Studies, Anglicanism (Anglicanism), and 7 moreBiblical Interpretation, Biblical Hebrew (Languages And Linguistics), Prophets of the Hebrew Bible/"Old Testament", Biblical Hermeneutics, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Book of Habakkuk, and Prophetic Literature
The present paper considers how prosodic analysis can assist in the investigation of the status of Tiberian Hebrew (TH) constituents with respect to their position on the grammatical-lexical cline. The introduction presents one area of... more
The present paper considers how prosodic analysis can assist in the investigation of the status of Tiberian Hebrew (TH) constituents with respect to their position on the grammatical-lexical cline. The introduction presents one area of research where such an analysis is necessary, namely, the presentation of TH in a typological format. The first section summarizes such a format, presented in detail in Anstey (2005). The second section then demonstrates how the Masoretic diacritics, as encoded in the Westminster Hebrew Morphology Database 4.0 (Groves et al. 2003), can be interpreted as an indication of the degree of morphophonological fusion of constituents, which is one variable affecting diagnosis of grammaticalization vis-à-vis lexicalization. Constituents are divided into three ranges of fusion and candidates for grammatical constituents are suggested. Based on this analysis, suggestions are provided for a more fine-grained subdivision of TH parts-of-speech. The conclusion suggests areas for further research.
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Perhaps Functional Grammar's most distinctive feature is its extensive use of the so-called layered structure of the clause (LSC). The LSC is used as both a descriptive and explanatory construct, dividing the linguistic world into various... more
Perhaps Functional Grammar's most distinctive feature is its extensive use of the so-called layered structure of the clause (LSC). The LSC is used as both a descriptive and explanatory construct, dividing the linguistic world into various hierarchically related layers.
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This thesis endeavors to describe as fully as possible the intra-sentential linguistic features of Biblical Hebrew as found in 2 Samuel 11-12, from the perspective of Functional Grammar as formulated by Simon Dik. After an overview of... more
This thesis endeavors to describe as fully as possible the intra-sentential linguistic features of Biblical Hebrew as found in 2 Samuel 11-12, from the perspective of Functional Grammar as formulated by Simon Dik. After an overview of Dik’s theory, the definitions and formal notation of the semantic functions relevant to each layer of the clause are presented. These layers are built up according to the “bottom-up” analysis of Functional Grammar. The first layer of description is the nuclear predication and since this layer is so important, three chapters are devoted to it. Subsequent chapters cover the core predication, the extended predication, the proposition, and, finally, the illocution. In addition, syntactic and pragmatic functions are included in the description.
At each stage, further refinements are introduced into the description, both of the words as stored in the Lexicon (Appendix 1) and of the representations of the underlying semantic structures of the clauses (Appendix 2).
In these descriptive chapters, several important issues concerning Hebrew are necessarily addressed to describe adequately the semantic functions of 2 Samuel 11-12. The four most substantial arguments presented are that (1) 'et functions to mark fully Affected terms; (2) terms governed by a noun in construct and non-argument pronominal suffixes are related to their head by the semantic function of Associated; (3) the perfective/imperfective aspectual opposition is not grammaticized in Biblical Hebrew; and (4) the four major verb forms: wayyiqtol, qatal, yiqtol, and weqatal, grammaticize tense distinctions of past, anterior, non-past, and non-anterior, respectively.
The analysis chapter is devoted to analyzing how the semantic representations that have been described can be mapped onto the actual linguistic forms of the text, concentrating mostly on the correct linear placement of constituents (traditionally called word order) and choice of verb form. Two constituent templates are proposed that describe the order of constituents within sentences and their movement according to pragmatic functions and displacement phenomena.
It is proposed that the semantic representations formulated according to Functional Grammar contain sufficient information to be mapped accurately onto the surface form of the text, thereby validating the linguistic description as proposed within this theoretical framework.
At each stage, further refinements are introduced into the description, both of the words as stored in the Lexicon (Appendix 1) and of the representations of the underlying semantic structures of the clauses (Appendix 2).
In these descriptive chapters, several important issues concerning Hebrew are necessarily addressed to describe adequately the semantic functions of 2 Samuel 11-12. The four most substantial arguments presented are that (1) 'et functions to mark fully Affected terms; (2) terms governed by a noun in construct and non-argument pronominal suffixes are related to their head by the semantic function of Associated; (3) the perfective/imperfective aspectual opposition is not grammaticized in Biblical Hebrew; and (4) the four major verb forms: wayyiqtol, qatal, yiqtol, and weqatal, grammaticize tense distinctions of past, anterior, non-past, and non-anterior, respectively.
The analysis chapter is devoted to analyzing how the semantic representations that have been described can be mapped onto the actual linguistic forms of the text, concentrating mostly on the correct linear placement of constituents (traditionally called word order) and choice of verb form. Two constituent templates are proposed that describe the order of constituents within sentences and their movement according to pragmatic functions and displacement phenomena.
It is proposed that the semantic representations formulated according to Functional Grammar contain sufficient information to be mapped accurately onto the surface form of the text, thereby validating the linguistic description as proposed within this theoretical framework.
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A sermon preached for the commissioning of Rev'd Stephen Daughtry, Holy Innocents Belair, 2015 "Jesus comes to each of us, and says in one way or another, “Put out into the deep water. Do not be afraid.” You basically have very little... more
A sermon preached for the commissioning of Rev'd Stephen Daughtry, Holy Innocents Belair, 2015
"Jesus comes to each of us, and says in one way or another, “Put out into the deep water. Do not be afraid.” You basically have very little idea of what will happen, where it will lead, and sometimes even why you should do it. But it’s something about his voice, its closeness, its thoughtfulness, its cut-through-all-the-crap-ness.
“Put out into deep water. Let go of your fears. Because whatever it is you fear, that’s what is holding you back from venturing into the vast and fathomless ocean of God’s life.”
And it is that life in the depths of God’s heart that we dare to hope is our true destiny."
"Jesus comes to each of us, and says in one way or another, “Put out into the deep water. Do not be afraid.” You basically have very little idea of what will happen, where it will lead, and sometimes even why you should do it. But it’s something about his voice, its closeness, its thoughtfulness, its cut-through-all-the-crap-ness.
“Put out into deep water. Let go of your fears. Because whatever it is you fear, that’s what is holding you back from venturing into the vast and fathomless ocean of God’s life.”
And it is that life in the depths of God’s heart that we dare to hope is our true destiny."
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I reflect on resurrection in Ezekiel 37, and conclude with thoughts on reading this text in light of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It includes a poem I wrote in response to the Royal Commission
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This text, like all our sacred texts, made it into the Jewish and Christian Scripture because it proved its worth as a faithful witness to God and a gift of life to God's people in their struggle to live an authentic faith in the midst of... more
This text, like all our sacred texts, made it into the Jewish and Christian Scripture because it proved its worth as a faithful witness to God and a gift of life to God's people in their struggle to live an authentic faith in the midst of exile, displacement, and habitual failure. There is therefore a moral responsibility to attend to the witness of Hosea, to its witness to this gift of life and faith. We are obliged to undertake responsible interpretation. For fundamentalism, and its kin, religious violence, is a perennial problem of the human condition, and the scaffolding of fundamentalism is the misuse of religious texts. A critical fact about any sacred text is that its meaning is not self-evident.
We must guard against literal, shallow and self-serving readings of our difficult texts otherwise we show we have learned nothing from history. Hence the thoughtful interpretation of our sacred texts and the articulation of their life-giving theology is the most pressing task facing the church and God's people today. In fact, the more regularly we fail to preach these difficult texts, the more ground we cede to the fundamentalists. And worse still, the more we neglect these difficult texts in public worship, the more we foster precisely the theological illiteracy and spiritual atrophy that rends the heart susceptible to undertaking violence in God's name.
We must guard against literal, shallow and self-serving readings of our difficult texts otherwise we show we have learned nothing from history. Hence the thoughtful interpretation of our sacred texts and the articulation of their life-giving theology is the most pressing task facing the church and God's people today. In fact, the more regularly we fail to preach these difficult texts, the more ground we cede to the fundamentalists. And worse still, the more we neglect these difficult texts in public worship, the more we foster precisely the theological illiteracy and spiritual atrophy that rends the heart susceptible to undertaking violence in God's name.
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The process of canonisation of the Hebrew Bible resulted in more than simply a collection of discrete short stories, linked only by all being about God’s relation with creation focused through Israel. Instead, the redactional work of... more
The process of canonisation of the Hebrew Bible resulted in more than simply a collection of discrete short stories, linked only by all being about God’s relation with creation focused through Israel. Instead, the redactional work of chronological ordering, thematic linking, and intertextual allusion brought about something greater than the sum of the parts: the story of Israel. There is a discernible narrative logic, coherence, and momentum present in the canon. Hence it is appropriate to interrogate this overarching narrative with questions of narratological analysis: what sort of story is this? what is the occasion/s of its telling? who are its characters? and crucially, what makes this story “tellable”?
Theories of narrative claim that the “tellability” of a story depends on a story containing both disruption/disequilibrium, a breach of expectation, and the subjective experience of such disruption, “what it’s like” to live through it. As applied to the story of Israel as a whole, the catastrophe of Exile is the ultimate breach, for it strikes at the heart of the canonical claim that the God of Israel is a God of promise, compassion, and sovereign power, committed to the wellbeing of Israel and all peoples without reserve.
And here we encounter a conundrum: the expression of the subjective experience of undergoing the Exile is notably absent in the accounts of the Exile (2 Kings 25; Jer 52), but nevertheless found elsewhere in the canon in poetic form (Lamentations), displaced from its narrative frame. Why is this the case, and given such displacement, can we have confidence that the story as a whole is tellable?
We begin by noting that this absence of subjectivity in Exile narratives is not an isolated instance. Rather, Hebrew Bible stories are renowned for their emotional minimalism, their disinclination to render the interiority of characters. As Robert Alter famously said, they excel in “the art of reticence”. So why then are these stories not untellable?
Literary critics of the Hebrew Bible, such as Alter, Sternberg, Kermode, and Josipovici, have argued convincingly that despite (and sometimes even through) such minimalism, Hebrew Bible stories do in fact convey a depth of characterisation, but do so in subtle, understated ways, in a style unfamiliar to most modern Western readers.
This paper however explores a different argument to address this question of tellability, especially as it pertains to the story as a whole. First, when we study poetry embedded in/paired with narratives, the poetry in each case conveys an abundance of subjectivity (e.g. Gens 2; Exod 14-15; Judges 4-5; 1 Sam 1-2; Jonah; Job; etc.). This suggests that the Israelites expressed “what it’s like” to live through disruption primarily through poetry. Secondly, there are many examples of richly subjective poetry that have been displaced canonically/literarily from their originating stories but are strongly tied to such (e.g. Lamentations, Psalm 51). Thirdly, there are a number of such poems which are weakly moored to a narrative event, typically through a superscription or vague referents in the poem itself (e.g. Psalm 34). Finally, there are many examples of such poetry which are free floating, able to be read as the subjective experience of the inside any number of stories (e.g. Psalm 13).
In developing the argument in this way, not only is the rationale for this disjunction (and its gradable variants) explained, but crucially, our confidence in the tellability of the story of Israel as a whole is shown to be well-founded, because expressing the subjectivity of the experience of disruption through poetry is shown to be as much a part of Hebrew Bible literary technique as its narrative minimalism.
The implications of this are significant, for if the Hebrew Bible lacked lament altogether the problem would not be simply its ostensible emotional blandness – the arguments of literary critics notwithstanding – but that the story of Israel in its entirety would risk losing its “tellability” and hence fail as a story. So for this reason I endeavour to argue the case for the narratological necessity of lament.
Theories of narrative claim that the “tellability” of a story depends on a story containing both disruption/disequilibrium, a breach of expectation, and the subjective experience of such disruption, “what it’s like” to live through it. As applied to the story of Israel as a whole, the catastrophe of Exile is the ultimate breach, for it strikes at the heart of the canonical claim that the God of Israel is a God of promise, compassion, and sovereign power, committed to the wellbeing of Israel and all peoples without reserve.
And here we encounter a conundrum: the expression of the subjective experience of undergoing the Exile is notably absent in the accounts of the Exile (2 Kings 25; Jer 52), but nevertheless found elsewhere in the canon in poetic form (Lamentations), displaced from its narrative frame. Why is this the case, and given such displacement, can we have confidence that the story as a whole is tellable?
We begin by noting that this absence of subjectivity in Exile narratives is not an isolated instance. Rather, Hebrew Bible stories are renowned for their emotional minimalism, their disinclination to render the interiority of characters. As Robert Alter famously said, they excel in “the art of reticence”. So why then are these stories not untellable?
Literary critics of the Hebrew Bible, such as Alter, Sternberg, Kermode, and Josipovici, have argued convincingly that despite (and sometimes even through) such minimalism, Hebrew Bible stories do in fact convey a depth of characterisation, but do so in subtle, understated ways, in a style unfamiliar to most modern Western readers.
This paper however explores a different argument to address this question of tellability, especially as it pertains to the story as a whole. First, when we study poetry embedded in/paired with narratives, the poetry in each case conveys an abundance of subjectivity (e.g. Gens 2; Exod 14-15; Judges 4-5; 1 Sam 1-2; Jonah; Job; etc.). This suggests that the Israelites expressed “what it’s like” to live through disruption primarily through poetry. Secondly, there are many examples of richly subjective poetry that have been displaced canonically/literarily from their originating stories but are strongly tied to such (e.g. Lamentations, Psalm 51). Thirdly, there are a number of such poems which are weakly moored to a narrative event, typically through a superscription or vague referents in the poem itself (e.g. Psalm 34). Finally, there are many examples of such poetry which are free floating, able to be read as the subjective experience of the inside any number of stories (e.g. Psalm 13).
In developing the argument in this way, not only is the rationale for this disjunction (and its gradable variants) explained, but crucially, our confidence in the tellability of the story of Israel as a whole is shown to be well-founded, because expressing the subjectivity of the experience of disruption through poetry is shown to be as much a part of Hebrew Bible literary technique as its narrative minimalism.
The implications of this are significant, for if the Hebrew Bible lacked lament altogether the problem would not be simply its ostensible emotional blandness – the arguments of literary critics notwithstanding – but that the story of Israel in its entirety would risk losing its “tellability” and hence fail as a story. So for this reason I endeavour to argue the case for the narratological necessity of lament.