Psalm 8 Macrosyntax
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Psalm 8/Macrosyntax
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How majestic is your name
Psalm 8
Please note: Resources for Psalm 8 are in the process of being reformatted for visual consistency and improved functionality.
Macrosyntax
Macrosyntax Diagram
| Macrosyntax legend | |
|---|---|
| Vocatives | Vocatives are indicated by purple text. |
| Discourse marker | Discourse markers (such as כִּי, הִנֵּה, לָכֵן) are indicated by orange text. |
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The scope governed by the discourse marker is indicated by a dashed orange bracket connecting the discourse marker to its scope. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Coordination is indicated by a solid blue line connecting the coordinating clauses. |
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Coordination without an explicit conjunction is indicated by a dashed blue line connecting the coordinated clauses. |
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Marked topic is indicated by a black dashed rounded rectangle around the marked words. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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)
- v. 1: Superscription
- vv. 2-3. The use of a vocative marks this unit.
- vv. 4-5 are bound together as a syntactic unit. Verse 4 is the protasis, verse 5 the apodosis. The temporal כִּי in v. 4 begins a new paragraph.
- vv. 6-9. The distribution of second person verb forms in vv. 6-7 (wayyiqtol, yiqtol, yiqtol, qatal) binds these clauses together as a unit. Vv. 8-9 are in apposition to כֹּל (v. 7b) and are thus part of the same macrosyntactic unit.
- v. 10. The cessation of appositional phrases and the use of a vocative marks a new macrosyntactic unit.
- vv. 2, 10. The unmarked word order of verbless clauses is Subject-Predicate.[3] The use of interrogative>exclamatory מה and the consequent fronting of the predicate adjective (אַדִּיר) means that the predicate is probably marked.[4] The particle ma "functions as an introduction to an exclamation in which a speaker usually expresses a value judgment about something."[5]
- v. 3a. The PP מִפִּ֤י עֽוֹלְלִ֨ים ׀ וְֽיֹנְקִים֮ is fronted for marked focus (Lunn 2006:296 – "MKD"). YHWH has founded a fortress not by means of the powerful and eloquent, but by means of the feeble cries of the weakest and most vulnerable.
- v. 7b. The direct object "everything" (כֹּל) is fronted for marked focus.[6] YHWH has subjected everything to humanity's rule; no creature has been excluded. On the significance of this word in the psalm, see repeated roots.
- vv. 8-9. For the numerous and complex appositional relationships in this verse, see the grammatical diagram.
- v. 3a. "לְמַעַן is a subordinating conjunction that is also used secondarily as a preposition" (BHRG 40.36). In this clause, where is governs only a NP, it functions as a preposition (see grammatical diagram). "The clause or noun phrase with לְמַעַן typically follows the matrix clause" (BHRG 40.36).
- v. 4a. Despite the agreement among the ancient translators that the כִּי in v. 4 is causal (LXX [οτι], Symmachus [γαρ], Peshitta [ܡܛܠ], Targum [מטול], Jerome [enim]), there is virtual unanimity among modern translations and commentators that כי here introduces a temporal clause: "When I see... [then I think/exclaim] what is mankind...?"[7]
- v. 5. On מה followed by כי followed by yiqtol, cf. 1 Sam 18:18. "A result clause can be introduced by כי, notably after a question."[8]
- v. 6a. On the wayyiqtol see notes on verbal semantics.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ BHRG 46.2.3.1.
- ↑ Cf. Ps 36:8.
- ↑ BHRG 42.3.6, citing Ps 8:2/10 as an example.
- ↑ So Lunn 2006, 296 – "MKD".
- ↑ Cf. GKC 159dd; IBHS 38.7a.
- ↑ IBHS 38.3b.