To celebrate the end of the term, we invite you to join us this Thursday on Zoom for our final Linguistics Circle meeting of the academic year. Our final presenter is PhD student, Solomon G. Ayecheluhim, with a paper entitled “Cohesive Personal References in 1 Tim 1:1-20.” The paper is posted on the CBLTE forum (forum.cblte.org). Here is the abstract:
There seem to be a conclusive assumption that third person personal forms are the primary source of cohesive personal references in a text. While this assertion might be true to some text types, the analysis of personal references in 1 Tim 1:1–20 seems to question this assumption. Out of the thirty cohesive personal references in 1 Tim 1:1–20 37% of them are first person forms and 16% of them are second person forms. The remaining 47% personal cohesive references are third person forms. Most of them without a significant contribution to the cohesion of the text because of their primarily exophoric function. Therefore, it may be better to decide the cohesiveness of personal references based on their function in different type of text or registers than categorical assumptions.
A cohesive analysis of 1 Tim 1:1–20 has shown that 53% of its cohesive pattern comes from first and second person forms than the third person references. The outcome of this sample analysis may preview the general pattern of personal cohesion relations in the Pastoral Epistles (PE). In addition, out of the fourteen occurrences of plural third person forms 86% are indefinite and their meaning needs to be retrieved from the context of situation. The remaining two first-person plural forms play a minor cohesive role. They just comprise 14% of these forms. The indefiniteness, situationality, and plurality of such personal references together with other textual features such as lexical choice and collocation may suggest a polemical sub-register within the PE.
For more information on this month’s gathering, access to the CBLTE forum, or Linguistics Circle in general, please contact Dr. Dave Yoon (yoond2@mcmaster.ca).
Linguistics Circle is a monthly gathering where we have a paper distributed to interested people beforehand, and discussed during the meeting. Anyone interested in biblical linguistics is welcome to join.
All meetings are on a Thursday evening, from 7-9pm. For those interested in joining and not yet a member of CBLTE, please contact Dr. Dave Yoon to get connected.