Inconsistent Treatement of Clauses

[Harvey]

I find it confusing, and problematic, that in a verse such as Gen. 1:6, the clause beginning with יהי is treated as dependent while the foloowing clause, beginning with ויהי, is treated as independent.

 

Is there a way to exclude the latter when looking for only independent clauses?

[Robert Holmstedt]

Rather than "problematic," I'd prefer to say that language is simply complex.

 

A direct speech clause is by its very nature both a dependent and independent clause. It is the complement (object) of the verb of speaking, thus dependent. Direct speech does establish a deictic centre of its own, often distinct from that of the governing narrative clause, thus within the domain of the direct speech, a direct speech clause can be "independent".

 

This complexity is why speech clauses are both dependent, and yet you can also search them under "independent clauses" by selecting "speech only" in the bottom third set of buttons.

 

Edited November 5, 2015 by Robert Holmstedt

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi Robert,

 

I thought you would answer along these lines. I think is a very elegant solution to the complexity, both theoretically and practically.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

[Harvey]

I still find puzzling the different treatment of the two (conjoined) direct speech content clauses in examples such as Gen 1:6, but I appreciate your pointing out the option of excluding clauses like the second one from a search for independent clauses---which solved my particular problem.

[Robert Holmstedt]

The difference is only visual.

 

The first case of a direct speech is kept visually embedded within its quotative frame (e.g., as the complement of the verb אמר). But you can imagine that if we kept all subsequent direct speech clauses embedded like that, for certain books, the entirety of the book would be at that level.

 

It was not so much a linguistic decision, but a practical one that was instigated by the programmers and the effect on the visual display of trees in Accordance. 

[Robert Holmstedt]

Michel,

 

Thank you. I did not anticipate half of the complexities that this project forced us to confront, just to get it to an initially usable stage. The issues were often worked out over long, multi-person email chains. The whole project (including the DSS) has been a huge team project that has had many frustrating moments, but when I look at the data and results, I would do again, even if only for my own use. But appreciation from other users is deeply rewarding, since the primary goal was to draw Hebrew Bible readers further into syntactic exploration.

 

Robert