Schade, Aaron

Dr. Aaron Schade is Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Brigham Young University Hawaii. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. His main areas of teaching and research are the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Semitic languages and literatures.

Syntactic and Literary Analysis of Ancient Northwest Semitic Inscriptions

2006 0-7734-5526-4
Northwest Semitic syntax has been explored extensively on word, phrasal, and clausal levels. This has contributed much to our understanding of the languages in this linguistic family. There have also been numerous studies on micro level and isolated occurrences of literary devices within the corpus of texts. This work examines Northwest Semitic inscriptional material from the 10th – 5th centuries BCE and includes writings predominantly from the Phoenician, Moabite, and Hebrew languages. The inscriptions are analyzed based on a text level approach, and it will be demonstrated how clauses and sentences work together to form larger syntactic units. Additionally, the literary structure of the texts will be defined and the function of the macro level literary devices will be explained. As these larger levels of literary devices can only be detected when viewed in combination with the syntax of the compositions as a whole, the two approaches will be explained independently, yet cooperatively. Thus, the syntax and literary structure of the texts will compliment each other, as the syntax is the vehicle that conveys the literary devices within the inscriptions.