text segmentation
I recently read a good book by Zeelander, Susan., Closure in Biblical Narrative. Leiden: Brill, 2012. How can I find when text segmentation has been used in biblical texts? I am looking at the instance of Mark 2:22-26. I think that "και εγενετο" is a good indicator of segmentation in narrative. "εγενετo" is the unique word which has the semantic meaning for introducing a new section. On the other hand, there is less specific pragmatic usage for the imperfect tense. Thus, the text should be divided into distinct sections. Furthermore, the usage of ἔεγοv follows naturally from there. Is there a way Logos can help me with this request?
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I'm having trouble finding the question here. It sounds more like you want to share some interesting information that you have not yet digested sufficiently to form a well-formed question. Is this the sort of thing that you are looking for? Evangelical Textual Criticism: A Text Segmentation Edition of the Greek New Testament or are you wanting to create something similar based on your own analysis? To do the latter in Logos, you need to:
- define all the lexical, grammatical or syntactic structures that potential mark a segment break
- define a search for each of those structures to find potential segment breaks
- review the results for each search to identify actual segment breaks
- use you review to refine your structures and search and repeat until you are satisfied with your results.
The forums can help you if you run into difficulties with the Logos coding of grammatical or syntactic structures OR if your search argument for a structure fails to work.
NOTE: my answer is very generic because there are many types of text segmentation (ignoring Hebrew specific types)
- chapter and verse divisions
- pericope analysis - sometime with sense line analysis
- genre identification
- redactional analysis
- structural analysis
- discourse analysis
- in some manuscripts word, clause, and sentence divisions
- in narrative analysis - events, acts
- whatever didn't come to mind when I created this list
My personal method for narrative analysis is a search for finite verbs with a display of all semantic roles connected to that verb.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I want to do the latter in the Gospel of John. I do not know what kind of analysis fits this for the Gospel of John. What kind of analysis fits?
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All of them depending upon the question you want the answer to. You can't start any analysis project until you've chosen what you want to look for and why.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Thank you for your response. I think my question fits under narrative analysis and genre identification. Well the question I want to answer is a 3 part pitted question. How does the topographical and topological information given in the Gospel of John serve to create the setting for the narrative action and a narrative world in the reader’s mind and how is the Gospel of John a narrative with a wider plot. Peter Brooks' has a suggestion that we read 'for the plot.' This involves viewing plot as a tracing of desire through narrative. And that is what I want to analyze in my study. Any tips or pointers to get me started are appreciated.
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Christian Alexander said:
This involves viewing plot as a tracing of desire through narrative.
I would not rely on segmentation to answer essentially geographic questions - I would use narrative analysis for the questions you raise. I've looked specifically at space only in a class on Mark.
For linguistics based genre identification, I would recommend
- Longacre, Robert E. The Grammar of Discourse, (New York: Springer), 1996 this is the basis of a Logos dataset
- I personally prefer Amazon.com: Genre Relations: Mapping Culture (Equinox Textbooks and Surveys in Linguistics): 9781845530488: Rose, J R Martin and David: Books
I've not read this particular book but Biber is a mainstay of corpus linguistics. This would probably add a number of additional skills to your skill set.
This would provide an introduction and example of several elements of narrative analysis
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Christian Alexander said:
Thank you for your response. I think my question fits under narrative analysis and genre identification. Well the question I want to answer is a 3 part pitted question. How does the topographical and topological information given in the Gospel of John serve to create the setting for the narrative action and a narrative world in the reader’s mind and how is the Gospel of John a narrative with a wider plot. Peter Brooks' has a suggestion that we read 'for the plot.' This involves viewing plot as a tracing of desire through narrative. And that is what I want to analyze in my study. Any tips or pointers to get me started are appreciated.
I've been tossing around ideas for an answer to the narrative analysis side of your question. What came to mind repeatedly, was the advice of my eldest brother, a research electrical engineer who worked on the navigation for the lunar landing module, atomic level computer storage, etc. ...He would say, if you can't explain the problem to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it well enough to begin researching it. Now mind you, this is the brother who gave me a calculus book with answers for Christmas when I was in the 4th grade. I struggled and struggled until I finally figured out what the word "function" meant ... then taught myself just enough to have screwed myself up when I actually studied calculus a decade later.
It seems to me that you may have recently read a book that used text segmentation very effectively ... but it did not provide you with what you needed to either identify where the method is the best tool or how to translate its identification of segments into doing it for yourself. It seems to me that you may need to:
- read and reread the book until you are comfortable that you understand what kind of segmentation it is dealing with and what questions it answers with the method.
- Then you can ask for resources to learn how that type of segmentation works - or likely choose some resources from the footnotes and bibliography of the book read.
- then search for other examples of a researcher using that kind of segmentation. Pore over them until you are certain that you could paraphrase the source in a way to explain it to a high-school Bible study group.
- at this point you should be ready to try applying the method yourself - you should recognize what questions it will answer. You should also be able to write focused questions to which forum members can easily tell if they know the answer or not.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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