A Functional Discourse Grammar of Joshua: A Computer-Assisted Rhetorical Structure Analysis (Coniectanea Biblica. Old Testament Series, 40)

This work on Joshua, the author's dissertation written at Lund University, applies grammatical and textual insights and new computational tools for syntactic analysis. The old story of the conquest is studied by attacking its Hebrew grammar. After explaining the new strategy, the theoretical landscape of functional grammar is surveyed to decide on the angle of attack. The author tests the method on Joshua 2, conquers the pragmatics of discourse in Joshua 3-8 and uncovers the structures, grammar and themes of the whole Book of Joshua.
The study combines several interdisciplinary approaches to textual analysis. It develops a theory of functional grammar and discourse-pragmatic textual analysis for the study of Hebrew. It adopts the model of Rhetorical Structure Analysis to explain a writer's communicative goals as expressed by relations in texts. It applies computational tools for syntactic description of all levels of the language, from phrase to text.