Suspense and Authority amid Biblical Hebrew Front Dislocation

Articles in JHS are being indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, RAMBI, and BiBIL. Their abstracts appear in Religious and Theological Abstracts. The journal is archived by Library and Archives Canada and is accessible for consultation and research at the Electronic Collection site maintained by Library and Archives Canada. ISSN 1203–1542 http://www.jhsonline.org and http://purl.org/jhs Volume 15, Article 1 DOI:10.5508/jhs.2015.v15.a1

The one piece of information that the injured King Ahaziah of Israel urgently wants to learn is whether or not he will recover from a fall through the lattice of his upper chamber in Samaria (2 Kgs 1:2).Alas, in finally receiving his answer, Ahaziah is not presented with this one piece of information.Instead, Elijah the Tishbite, mimicking the words from the angelically mediated oracle of Yahweh (2 Kgs 1:4), couches this singular bit of crucial data ‫מֹות(‬ ‫י‬ ‫כִּ‬ ‫מּות‬ ָּ ‫)ת‬ within a prefatory flourish that both delays and augments its full impact: ‫ן‬ ‫כֵ‬ ‫לָּ‬ ‫ה‬ ‫נָּ‬ ‫מֶׁ‬ ‫מִּ‬ ‫ד‬ ֵ ‫ר‬ ֵ ‫ֹא-ת‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ם‬ ָּ ‫ש‬ ָּ ‫ית‬ ‫לִּ‬ ‫ר-עָּ‬ ֶׁ ‫ש‬ ‫אֲ‬ ‫ה‬ ‫טָּ‬ ‫מִּ‬ ‫הַ‬ Therefore, the bed which you have climbed onto-you shall not descend from it (2 Kgs 1:6, 16).
Both Elijah and the angel of Yahweh deliberately speak here in a suspenseful and authoritative manner.Both of them, accordingly, resort to the linguistic device of Front Dislocation (FD). 1 1 The construction under consideration has amassed a diverse nomenclature.Semitists have preferred casus pendens (Driver 1998(Driver [1892]:264-74;]:264-74;Gesenius 1910:457-58 §143;Muraoka 1985:93-99;Joüon and Muraoka 2006:551-54 §156).A less frequent alternative is nominative absolute (Waltke and O'Connor 1990:76-77;Williams 2007:12).Both of these titles are technically anachronistic, given that Biblical Hebrew does not preserve a functioning case system.Other notable designations have included Pendenskonstruktion (Gross 1987), and extraposition (Khan 1988), although the former has also been applied to fronted constituents that are not syntactically detached, whereas the latter can refer to constituents that are relocated to the back of a syntagm.Linguists (following Ross 1967:421-28) have grown partial to the term left dislocation or, occasionally, left detachment (e.g., Lambrecht 1994:181-84).But these descriptions apply literally only to languages that are written from left to right; in all other instances the terms are formally incongruent and descriptively confusing.Front Dislocation (e.g., Leech 2000) entails the important dual benefits of remaining formally and functionally accurate for this construction in whatever lan-boundaries of the construction, which inevitably impacted their functional explanations.Driver (1998Driver ( [1892]]:265, 268) viewed the casus pendens as an "artifice . . .for the purpose of avoiding an unwieldy sentence . . .[to] give the subject (or object) a prominent place at the beginning, and ease the body of the sentence by permitting a light pronominal suffix to take its place . . .at once less cumbrous and less abrupt." Gesenius (1910:458 §143c) argued that "prominence is given to the principal subject 6 (by its mere separation from the context by means of a greater disjunctive, as a casus pendens) in a manner which would be quite impossible in a simple noun or verbal-clause." Brockelmann (1956:121-23 §123) characterized the construction as conveying "die dominierende Vorstellung" of a sentence.Joüon and Muraoka (2006:551-52 §156a) observed that casus pendens "is sometimes occasioned by the importance of the [front dislocated] noun, i.e., it is the element of the clause which first springs to the speaker's mind, and sometimes by a desire for clarity or smoothness of expression." Subsequent studies continued to proceed mostly from within the framework of the construction's syntactic boundaries.The detailed work by Gross (1987) was largely descriptive and taxonomic, venturing only occasionally into the territory of broader functional claims. 7 Muraoka (1985:93) suggested that FD "may be motivated by many factors, one of which is possible emphasis."More specifically (ibid.:94), he claimed that "in most examples of casus pendens, the extraposed part announces the topic of a whole statement to be made."A subsidiary function can involve signaling some sort of contrast with a foregoing situation (ibid.:98-99).Similarly, Waltke and O'Connor (1990:76) argued that "the nominative absolute construction serves to highlight or focus one element of the main clause, [and] it may serve in context to contrast this element to a comparable item in another clause." Khan (1988:78-97) was among the first to apply a discourse analysis framework to FD (which he termed "extraposition"), concluding that it can alternately signal onset/closure boundaries for discourse topic spans, contrastive assertion, or anticipatory agreement.
In the wake of an influential cognitive linguistics study by Lambrecht (1994), numerous scholars have examined FD from the perspective of information-structure theory, which explores how speak- 6 Or, to "other members of the sentence" (ibid.). 7Gross subscribed to inclusive formal criteria for the Pendenskonstruktion which did not mandate the overt presence of a resumptive coreferential element (Aufnahme).This yielded him more than one thousand examples which he categorized according to seventy sentence models.Yet given the morphosyntactic and pragmatic ambiguities that can arise between a dislocated phrase with a "null element" coreferential versus a topicalized constituent lacking any coreferential (see Lambrecht 2001Lambrecht :1056-57)-57), my study will, out of due caution, consider an overt resumptive coreferential element to be a necessary formal diagnostic criterion for the FD construction in Biblical Hebrew.ers build and package their language to integrate newer data with older data in a contextually effective manner. 8Lambrecht  (1994:183) argues that FD constructions are invoked by languages "pragmatically as a grammatical device used to promote a referent . . .from accessible to active status" within discourse.The syntagm, in other words, functions as "a topic-promoting device" (Gregory andMichaelis 2001:1665;cf. Lambrecht 2001cf. Lambrecht :1072-74)-74).Additional meanings-such as contrast, emphasis, anticipation-can co-occur with FD, but information-structure theorists tend to view these as pragmatically derivative from the superordinate function of topicpromotion. 9Front Dislocation in Biblical Hebrew has consequently come to be understood as either establishing or reactivating a referent and raising it to the status of current discourse topic 10 (e.g., Heimerdinger 1999:151; Van der Merwe et al. 1999:346; Van der  Merwe and Talstra 2002-2003:86; Floor 2004:85-88; Lunn  2006:33; Westbury 2010:104). 11 Notwithstanding certain descriptive and functional insights, much of the foregoing scholarship on FD remains hampered by its limited explanatory efficacy with respect to the Biblical Hebrew data. 12Resorting to FD in order to avoid unwieldy sentences, to 8 Lambrecht (1994:5) formally defines information-structure as "That component of sentence grammar in which propositions as conceptual representations of states of affairs are paired with lexicogrammatical structures in accordance with the mental states of interlocutors who use and interpret these structures as units of information within given discourse contexts." 9 So argue Gregory andMichaelis (2001:1695), contra Prince (1997;1998), who contends that FD can encompass multiple language-specific functions.Lambrecht (1994:183) understands FD as "often used to mark a shift in attention from one to another of two or more already active topic referents," thereby yielding a contrastive function (cf.Givón 2001:229;Geluykens 1992:153-60).Westbury (2010:120) views contrastiveness amid Biblical Hebrew FD as an "additional optional pragmatic overlay" to topic (re)activation.
10 Notions of topic in cognitive linguistics are as broad as they are vague.Information-structure models define topic, more or less, as "the matter of current interest which a statement is about and with respect to which a proposition is to be interpreted as relevant" (Lambrecht 1994:119).
11 Khan (1988:230)-whose study predates Lambrecht's-perceptively observed that extraposition in Semitic languages "coincides either with a point where a certain topic referent is made cognitively dominant (= topic shift) or with a point where the cognitive dominance of a topic referent is renewed and confirmed (= shift on some other axis of the discourse)." 12In her syntactic and pragmatic analysis of Biblical Hebrew preposing, Moshavi (2010:81-83) devotes cursory attention to FD as a "marked word-order construction . . .[that] bears a close resemblance to preposing but has an entirely different syntactic structure," given that the clause subsequent to FD remains syntactically complete, unlike with a preposed construction.She provisionally concludes (ibid.:169)that FD entails a increase sentence clarity, and/or to foster smoothness of expression is vaguely plausible concerning extended constructions, 13 The Rock-perfect is his work (Deut 32:4). 14  Furthermore, notions such as "prominence," "emphasis," "importance," "highlight," and "salience" 15 remain largely intuitive, amorphous, and ad hoc.Even the more linguistically refined concept of "topic promotion" turns out to be explanatorily constrained, since it typically does not proceed much deeper than the surface structures which sculpt the discourse topography.Information-structure dynamics might plausibly capture certain of the formats and procedures by which FD organizes its data into coherent discourse; yet these dynamics do not substantially address the underlying contents and intents of the information itself, as it is so organized.What, in other words, are such topics altogether doing with their promotions? 16Without deeper descriptive and explanatory mechanisms, functional overlap with preposing (i.e., focusing and topicalization), yet she concedes that an in-depth study into FD pragmatics still awaits. 13The substance of Driver's suggestion (above) has been echoed and developed by some linguists.Prince (1997:138;cf. Westbury 2010:104) argues that one function of FD is "to simplify discourse processing by removing a discourse-new entity from a position in the clause which favors discourse-old entities, replacing it with a discourse-old entity (i.e., a pronoun)." 14See Khan 1988:xxxi.  1The Sixth International Workshop on Multidisciplinary Approaches to Discourse in 2005 achieved merely this anodyne description: "Salience defines the degree of relative prominence of a unit of information, at a specific point in time, in comparison to the other units of information" (Chiarcos et al. 2011:2). 16Nebulous notions of "aboutness" risk circular reasoning: viz., if a referent has high discourse saliency it will be promoted to an active topic, and if a topic is active it must be due to its high discourse saliency.For rigorous linguistic and philosophical attempts to define "aboutness" (and our conceptions of Biblical Hebrew FD themselves remain rather topical.In here pursuing such mechanisms, it is first necessary to address the underlying semiotic structures and cognitive dynamics that are involved.

A COGNITIVE-SEMIOTIC APPROACH
In terms of the classic structuralist models, every sign constituting language (or any other semiotic system) bifurcates into a perceptible component and an intelligible component, termed signifier and signified, 17 or code and message. 18At an abstract semiotic level, language would operate most coherently wherever there existed a oneto-one correspondence between each signifier and each signified composing a sign. 19Actual languages are never so perfectly aligned, of course; nor would their users wish them to be.For it is precisely the incongruity between signifier and signified-the semiotic slippage-that enables the construction of figurative language and the creation of rhetorical tropes, such as metaphor and metonymy.Front Dislocation is also structured upon semiotic incongruity, in that portions of its code end up preceding elements of its message.In being separated from its ensuing predication, and thereby distanced from its surrounding context, an FD substantival phrase will tend to default toward its denotative semantic core. 20Only once the juxtaposed predication is expressed does the FD become fully situthe persistent ambiguities involved), consult Salmon 2007; Endriss and  Hinterwimmer 2007.  1Originally characterized by Saussure (1959Saussure ( [1916]]:11-12) as "soundimage" (signifiant) and "concept" (signifié).Latinized alternatives include signans and signatum.
18 Most notably by Jakobson (1987Jakobson ( [1960]]; 1990). 19Andrason (2011) rightly reminds Hebraists of the critical role that evolutionary processes (amid diachrony) exercise upon the systemic manifestations of language (amid synchrony)-a circumstance to which Jakobson (1985:11-24;28-36) repeatedly drew attention.Yet Andrason (idem:29) overstates his case in claiming that linguistic "description in terms of binary oppositions is inadequate."Intersecting stages and pathways of development are variously (in)operative for any given gram, as Andrason recognizes, and they "can never be simplified to a single opposition between two domains" (ibid.).But this in no way prohibits crafting productive descriptive analyses of language in terms of binarisms predicated upon multiple oppositions across multiple domains, both synchronic and diachronic.Indeed, binarism likely even entails powerful explanatory capacities for language origins and usage, given the adaptive bilateral (a)symmetric morphology of Homo sapiens (see Corballis 2012) that evolved in response to selective pressures within Hominin (sic) environments (see Hodgson 2011). 20The extent of this semiotic drift toward lexical-semantic base forms will depend upon whether the FD contains a discourse-old referent or a discourse-new referent.If the former, then a greater degree of contextualized meanings will be rendered accessible; if the latter, then a lesser degree of such meanings will be available.SUSPENSE AND AUTHORITY AMID FRONT DISLOCATION 7 ated semiotically, attaining its connotative pragmatic overlay.Yet until the moment that this happens-amid the communicative interim-the FD construction remains over-encoded and underinformative.Even once the full signatum has been resolved, portions of the signans linger superfluously in the way of the FD phrase and its resumptive element.When evaluated purely against language's referential 21 function, FD constructions end up speaking more but saying less.What are the reasons for this structured redundancy?Why is a linguistic fissure deliberately fashioned between code and message?
Front Dislocation is evidently capable of conveying more than merely the referential contents of its signs.At an informationstructure level, cross-linguistic evidence does indeed suggest that FD can function as a discourse topic-promoting device.But from a cognitive-semiotic perspective, FD entails additional features which can be put to effective rhetorical use.By rendering a breach between a morphosyntactic unit's signifiers and signifieds, FD actively delays the cognitive resolution between code and message.This suspension, effected by the language-sender, establishes a tension between the unit's denotative and connotative meanings, producing within the language-receiver an awareness of uncertainty between what is expressed and what is meant. 22Such contrived ambiguity provokes suspense 23 for the receiver even while it pro- 21 Jakobson (1987 [1960]:66) astutely realized that "even though a set (Einstellung) toward the referent, an orientation toward the contextbriefly, the so-called referential . . .'cognitive' function-is the leading task of numerous messages, the accessory participation of the other functions in such messages must be taken into account by the observant linguist."In distinguishing the poetic from the mimetic dimensions of language, Sternberg (1990:84) spoke of the "rich and subtle art of temporal deformation" which yields "a system of gaps" (Sternberg 1985:186) that must be actively bridged by the reader on behalf of narrative cohesion. 22In his classic philosophical treatise on conversational implicatures, Grice (1975:49) recognized that "a participant in a talk exchange may fail to fulfill a [cooperative] maxim in various ways . . . he may flout a maxim; that is, he may blatantly fail to fulfill it."Within a Gricean framework, FD can be characterized as flouting some or all of the following maxims under the category of Manner (i.e., how what is said is to be said): "1.Avoid obscurity of expression; 2. Avoid ambiguity; 3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity); 4. Be orderly" (ibid.:46). 23Sternberg (1985:264) provides the foundational definition: [S]uspense derives from incomplete knowledge about a conflict (or some other contingency) looming in the future.Located at some point in the present, we know enough to expect a struggle but not to predict its course, and above all its outcome, with certitude.Hence a discontinuity that extends from the moment of prospection on the unknown to the moment of enactment and release.Hence also the state of mind that characterizes the intermediate phase: expectant restlessness, awareness of gaps, gap-filling inference along alternative lines, with the attention thrown forward to the point in time that will resolve it all and establish closure by supplying the desired information.
motes authority 24 for the sender.In using an FD construction rhetorically, the sender deliberately places the receiver into a momentarily extended state of cognitive-semiotic vulnerability, 25 thereby exercising enhanced dominance over the communication event.It turns out that Biblical Hebrew employs this rhetorical trope frequently and to great effect, rendering FD largely synonymous with authoritative speaking: language that is variously categorical, prescriptive, didactic, declaratory.

STRUCTURE BUILDING FRAMEWORK
The rhetorical features of Biblical Hebrew FD proposed herein are not merely intuitive; they are grounded within dynamics of human cognition, and they receive empirical support via psychophysiological processes that have been captured experimentally.These scientific data, furthermore, are not only descriptive; they also provide explanatory insights into the semiotic means and mental mechanisms by which FD enhances suspense for the languagereceiver and bolsters authority for the language-sender.These insights are achieved through a model of cognition developed by M. A. Gernsbacher and her colleagues called the Structure Building Framework (SBF).The SBF approaches language as an integral component of a person's overall cognitive capabilities (Gernsbacher 1990:1;1991:217). 26The guiding goal for any mode of com- 24 The dialogic definition of authority posited by Lincoln (1994:10-11) will serve as a sufficient heuristic, in which language-sender and languagereceiver dynamics "combine in such a way as to produce attitudes of trust, respect, docility, acceptance, even reverence, in the audience" toward the individual(s) exercising claims upon such influence. 25This semiotic breach has a psychological impact because "the cognitive system attempts to integrate information elements of the locally constructed text base into the mental model as quickly as possible . . .any delay in these operations leads to an imbalance of the system and thereby forms the basis for the development of suspense experience" (Ohler and Nieding 1996:143).On the one hand, a cognitive-semiotic approach is not incongruent with the literary-critical model of Sternberg (e.g., 2003a:327-28), which grounds itself upon three "universals of narrative" (and their attendant mental dynamics): suspense (prospection), curiosity (retrospection), and surprise (recognition).On the other hand, the generation of suspense is neither solely nor even chiefly dependent upon reader-response, which constitutes merely one among many modes of semiotic receivership.That a reader might not always experience the same suspense which is intrinsic to the participants and episodes of a given text does not mean that such suspense fails to register as a genuine psychological phenomenon (contra Sternberg 2003b:518).
26 Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tests have confirmed that common regions of the human brain get activated regardless of whether a discourse comprehension task involves written, spoken, or graphic media (Gernsbacher and Robertson 2005:164-65).Concerning the ongoing scientific research and debate regarding cognitive modularity, see Barrett and Kurzban 2006.prehension is to build a coherent mental representation (i.e., structure) of the information being presented.Several component processes are involved: "First, comprehenders lay foundations for their mental structures.Next, comprehenders develop their mental structures by mapping on information when that incoming information coheres with the previous information . . .if the incoming information is less coherent, comprehenders engage in another cognitive process: they shift to initiate a new substructure" (Gernsbacher 1990:1-2; italics added).For SBF, these interactive processes of laying, mapping, and shifting one's mental representations represent how comprehension gets constructed within the mind.
Cognitive psychologists have found that initial words in phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs are read more slowly by test subjects than are post-initial words, and that even the exact same words take longer to read when positioned at the onset of a linguistic unit rather than farther back (Gernsbacher 1990:5-8;Gernsbacher and Hargreaves 1992).These comparatively slower reading times are taken to indicate that greater cognitive capacity is being devoted toward comprehending the initial signs of semiotic units,27 and data garnered via electroencephalography (EEG) experiments confirm this hypothesis. 28According to SBF, this increased cognitive effort happens because comprehenders are using initial words to lay the foundations for their communicatory mental structures; first words function as the cognitive cornerstones for their linguistic units.This results in what SBF terms the "Advantage of First Mention" (Gernsbacher 1990:10-12;Gernsbacher and Hargreaves 1992:88-96), whereby the initial participant of a sentence retains greater cognitive accessibility than subsequent participants. 29This also has been verified empirically via faster recall times by test subjects for the first-mentioned participant of a sentence. 30Initial words are read more slowly and first participants are recalled more quickly "because they form the foundation of their sentence-level representations, and because it is through them that subsequent information is mapped onto the developing representation" (Gernsbacher 1990:25;cf. Gernsbacher and Hargreaves 1992:89). 31 According to SBF, the foundations of mental structures are established via the activation of memory nodes (Gernsbacher 1991:218). 32If subsequent information is sufficiently coherent 33 with these foundations, then it will activate similar memory nodes, thereby mapping (i.e., attaching) onto the same mental structure.But if incoming data are insufficiently coherent with previous information, then different memory nodes will get activated, thereby shifting (i.e., detaching) away from the current structure and toward development of a new mental substructure.Because laying a new foundation consumes more cognitive effort than maintaining an existing foundation, more time is required to comprehend shifting structures than mapping structures, as verified by numerous reading experiments (see Gernsbacher 1990:64).
Gernsbacher has further demonstrated that the three structure building processes of foundation-laying, mapping, and shifting are regulated by two cognitive mechanisms: suppression and enhancement.These two mechanisms work to modulate levels of activation for more cognitively accessible than a first-mentioned participant for a very brief moment after its introduction (within 150 milliseconds), after which it becomes increasingly less accessible relative to the first-mentioned participant.
30 Advantage of First Mention persists regardless of whether the initial participant functions as a semantic agent versus patient, or a syntactic subject versus object (Gernsbacher 1990:12-25). 31Psychologists have long known about the Primacy Effect, whereby information that occurs earlier within a discourse unit retains greater cognitive salience.Narrative critics have not remained unaware of the rhetorical possibilities: "That a literary text cannot yield its information all at once is not just an unfortunate consequence of the linear character of language.Literary texts may effectively utilize the fact that their material is grasped successively; this is at times a central factor in determining their meanings" (Perry 1979:36). 32Originally termed "memory cells" in Gernsbacher 1990. 33Gernsbacher (1990:52-63) operationalizes coherence in terms of its referential (who/what), temporal (when), locational (where), and causal (why) dimensions, citing numerous empirical studies that record faster reading and comprehension of sentences in which information is perceived as being related/sequential as opposed to nonrelated/nonsequential.Coherence thus entails information "connectedness" within cognitive representations (Sanders and Gernsbacher 2004:80).Giora (1996:423-24) argues for the added necessity of a "discourse-topic proposition" in order to maintain coherence at a superordinate (rather than merely sentence-tosentence) level.memory nodes by transmitting processing signals via the brain's neural activity: "Suppression decreases or dampens the activation of memory [nodes] when the information they represent is no longer as necessary for the structure being built. 34Enhancement increases or boosts the activation of memory [nodes] when the information they represent is relevant to the structure being built" (Gernsbacher 1990:87). 35Suppression and enhancement are themselves triggered by the particular configurations of the linguistic signs composing a speech event.Two especially effective triggers are anaphora and cataphora.Anaphora stimulates memory nodes in relation to a foregoing referent, thereby enhancing the mental activation of that referent while also suppressing surrounding nonreferents. 36Cataphora stimulates memory nodes in relation to a subse- 34 Comprehension experiments involving homonyms (Gernsbacher and Faust 1991;1995;Gernsbacher and Jescheniak 1995:48-52;Gernsbacher 1997:88-90;Gernsbacher and St. John 2002:48-65) show that all of a lexeme's possible meanings get activated initially (within one hundred milliseconds) in accord with their respective usage frequencies (bug = insect; virus; defect; listening device; to pester).But very soon thereafter (within two hundred milliseconds), the lexeme's contextually inappropriate meanings get actively suppressed-they neither decay, nor are they inhibited-by the neural activity associated with the developing sentence-level structure (The bug flew away = insect; ≠ virus; defect; listening device; to pester).The same process is attested with homophones (patience vs. patients).Suppression even operates (Gernsbacher and Robertson 1999;Gernsbacher et al. 2001) with morphosyntactic parsing (Time flies like an arrow vs. Fruit flies like a banana), as well as with figurative language such as metaphor (Lawyers are sharks = aggressive; ≠ aquatic).Suppression is thus "a directed reduction in activation" (Gernsbacher and St. John 2002:48), and in all cases it functions to attenuate interference to comprehension posed by "extraneous, unnecessary, or inappropriate" (Gernsbacher andRobertson 1999:1619) units of information. 35Enhancement effects have been empirically demonstrated with respect to metaphor comprehension (Gernsbacher et al. 2001), wherein a metaphorical sentence (That lawyer is a shark) produces faster verification response times in relation to a superordinate target property statement (Sharks are tenacious) than does either a simple baseline sentence (That fish is a shark) or a nonsensical sentence (My house is a shark).Enhancement is also operative amid homonym comprehension, as measured by faster response times to target sentences that follow same-meaning prime sentences, versus either neutral-meaning or different-meaning prime sentences (Gernsbacher et al. 2002). 36Because anaphora functions as a memory retrieval cue, the degree of an anaphor's explicitness about its referent is directly scalar with the amount and rapidity of enhancement and suppression involved.Experimental results (Gernsbacher 1989;1990:110-27;1991:240-44) confirm that suppression and enhancement are triggered more quickly and strongly by a repeated proper name anaphor (Spot chased the ball, and Spot got tired), than by a pronominal anaphor (Spot chased the ball, and he got tired), than by a zero anaphor (Spot chased the ball, and Ø got tired).quent referent, enhancing that referent's representational status and suppressing accessibility to foregoing and following nonreferents. 37 Structure Building Framework delineates an empirically verifiable cognitive matrix for human comprehension that entails rich explanatory capacities for the rhetorical uses of FD in Biblical Hebrew.This is because the aforementioned three processes (foundation-laying, mapping, shifting), two mechanisms (suppression, enhancement), and two triggers (anaphora, cataphora) belonging to SBF all turn out to be operative within Biblical Hebrew FD constructions.By being positioned at the beginning of its associated discourse unit, a front dislocated substantival phrase functions as the cognitive foundation upon which ensuing components of the discourse unit get constructed.Because foundation-laying for a new mental structure demands more cognitive effort than continuing on with an established mental structure, comprehenders take longer to process unit-initial information than subsequent information.Given that these cognitive dynamics have been proven to operate consistently across spoken, written, and pictorial discourse modalities (Gernsbacher and Robertson 2005:164-65), it is reasonable to expect that they obtain also for Biblical Hebrew.Thus, a reader/listener will need to invest more time in comprehending an FD construction's initial substantival phrase than its subsequent juxtaposed clause (and any ensuing associated information).The SBF process of shifting is also frequently attested with Biblical Hebrew FD, precisely because shifting entails new foundation-laying which gives rise to "branching substructures" (Gerns-37 Cataphora clears a cognitive pathway for heightened mental activation of its associated subsequent concept.This too has been verified empirically (Gernsbacher 1990:142-61;1991:244-46;Gernsbacher and Jescheniak 1995) via experiments involving the unstressed indefinite article this (There was this dog :: There was a dog), as well as spoken stress (There was a DOG :: There was a dog).Referents marked with these cataphoric devices get recognized more rapidly and accurately by test subjects (enhancement) than nonmarked nonreferents (suppression).bacher 1990:2). 38As a result, "words and sentences that change the topic, point of view, location, or temporal setting [thereby diminishing discourse coherence and connectedness] take substantially longer to comprehend" (Gernsbacher 1990:223) The sons of Israel came to buy grain among those who arrived, since there was the famine in the land of Canaan.As for Joseph-he was the governor over the land; he was the grainseller to all the people of the land (Gen 42:5-6), a reader/listener is, via the FD, presented with a break in discourse coherence regarding topic (sons of Israel Joseph), viewpoint (sojourners/buyers governor/seller), location (Canaan Egypt), and temporality (punctual event durative situation). 39Consequently, the comprehender must shift away from actively developing the cognitive substructure containing the prior clause, and toward developing a new substructure encompassing the FD construction. 40 Inside the morphosyntactic parameters of the FD construction the process of mapping is prominent.This happens because the same (or similar) memory nodes that get activated by the data within the dislocated substantival phrase remain activated by the data contained in the adjoining clause.Since there is cognitive coherence, the comprehender can continue to develop one and the same mental (sub)structure, augmenting existing information with incoming information.So, for example, upon encountering: Concerning the share of the men who went with me-Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre-let them take their share (Gen 14:24), 38 Foundation-laying does not necessarily presuppose shifting, however, since the inaugural foundations of a discourse unit (Once upon a time, there lived a king) constitute the unit's bedrock structures for comprehension. 39Cf. the FDs which introduce Deborah (Judg 4:4) and Abishai (2 Sam 23:18; 1 Chr 11:20) into their respective narratives. 40Gernsbacher (1990:70-83) cites numerous empirical studies showing that, after the onset of a new clause boundary, comprehenders become measurably less capable of accurately and rapidly recalling and recognizing words that occurred in the immediately preceding clause.The same findings hold for episode boundaries within narrative stories.This occurs, according to SBF, because the mind packages coherence-disjunctive information into distinct branching mental substructures.a reader/listener is presented with two embedded FDs (the share of the men as well as Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre) which exhibit strong discourse coherence with constituents located in the subsequent main clause (their share and them, respectively), thereby permitting the latter to be mapped onto the former as cognitively integral and cumulative.
The SBF posits that enhancement and suppression are the mechanisms by which foundation-laying, mapping, and shifting get activated (via boosting) and deactivated (via dampening).These mechanisms get triggered for the language-receiver by various configurations of morphological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and discourse structures employed by the language-sender.Anaphora and cataphora are two such triggers, and both of them are operative within Biblical Hebrew FD.For example, when encountering:

‫ים‬ ‫ֹלהִּ‬ ‫אֱ‬ ‫ית‬ ‫בֵ‬ ‫לֹו‬ ‫ה‬ ‫יכָּ‬ ‫מִּ‬ ‫יש‬ ‫אִּ‬ ‫הָּ‬ ‫וְ‬
As for the man Micah-to him there was a shrine (Judg 17:5), a reader/listener comes upon a third person masculine singular pronoun ‫)ֹו(‬ within the main clause, the referent41 of which is located within the antecedent front dislocated phrase ‫ה(‬ ‫יכָּ‬ ‫מִּ‬ ‫יש‬ ‫אִּ‬ ‫.)הָּ‬This renders the pronoun anaphoric (lit."back-carrying"), thereby improving cognitive access to the previously mentioned referent.Conversely, the front dislocated phrase-because it is syntactically detached and semantically deferred from its full referential context-directs a comprehender's cognitive energies in a cataphoric (lit."down [forward]-carrying") direction, toward the coreferential constituent in the juxtaposed clause.Experimental results confirm that concepts marked with cataphoric devices are more highly activated (i.e., recalled more quickly and accurately by test-subjects) than are concepts which lack such devices (Gernsbacher 1990:146-49).Because the FD construction entails both cataphora and anaphora (in this mutually reinforcing sequence), it substantially amplifies the cognitive mechanisms of referent enhancement and nonreferent suppression.Front Dislocation is not only an attention-getting device, but also an attention-creating and attention-directing device.42

THE BIBLICAL DATA
The semiotic structures and cognitive dynamics composing FD are, time and again, put to powerful rhetorical usage within the texts of the Hebrew Bible.The language-sender's manipulation of a communication event by combining cataphora with the Advantage of First Mention serves to amplify anticipation on the part of the language-receiver. 43Such anticipation is, of course, rapidly defused: simply upon full syntagmatic integration of the anaphoric constituent into its clause adjacent to the dislocated phrase. 44Yet the con-FD from its subsequent main clause into a distinct "intonation group," thereby forming a "prosodic island" (De Cat 2006:63-66).Such intonational breaks occur consistently with FDs in other Romance languages, including Italian (Cecchetto 1999:40), Spanish (Casielles-Suárez 2003:331-32), and Catalan (Feldhausen 2010:165-71).A similar prosodic profile is operative within several Indo-European languages, including the Germanic subgroup's English (Geluykens 1992:97-114), and German (Grohmann 2003:143-44), as well as the Slavic subgroup's Russian (Pereltsvaig 2008:64-65), Czech (Sturgeon 2008:39-41), and Bulgarian (Krapova and Cinque 2008:259).This broad consistency for FD is not surprising, given that "stronger syntactic boundaries are more likely to be associated with the tonal and break index properties of an intonational phrase boundary" (Warren 1999:166).This association occurs because linguistic practice in real time is constrained by speakers' and hearers' capacities of cognitive processing . . .[and] this constraint guides the packaging of information in prosodic and syntactic units . . .[therefore] establishing a referent is often a full-blown action by itself.It is performed by clausal and phrasal constructions which separate it from the following predication and serve as a starting point for it . . .Moreover, referential act and predicative act each occupy an intonational unit of their own (Deppermann 2011:431-32; italics added).
These prosodic dynamics of FD structurally distinguish it from topicalization, where referent and predication both occur within one and the same intonational unit (Frey 2004:207;cf. Lambrecht 2001cf. Lambrecht :1052cf. Lambrecht , 1071)).Front Dislocation, unlike topicalization, leverages discourse features at both morphosyntactic and prosodic levels to activate cataphora and anaphora, thereby heightening attention and amplifying anticipation amid the language-receiver's comprehension process.The more prominently these discourse features are invoked, the greater their cognitive-rhetorical impacts.The spoken cross-linguistic data strongly suggest, furthermore, that Biblical Hebrew FDs preserve discernible residues and recoverable patterns of intonation within their graphic medium (contra, e.g., Westbury 2010:6).
43 Cataphoric devices "are not used primarily for the representation or the exposition of the narrative course of events, but rather for the manipulation of the anticipated course . . .[cataphora operates] in an 'open' textual field of reference where further developments have not yet become manifest and where they can only be forecast with more or less probability from the respective place of reading . . .cataphora are constructions of attention" (Wulff 1996:2-3, italics added). 44Whether the coreferential (anaphoric) constituent is situated at the beginning, middle, or end of its clause appears to result from a combination of syntactic constraints and stylistic preferences.Verbal clauses, for cern here is not with literary or cinematic genres of sustained narrative suspense, but rather with the semiotic structures, cognitive dynamics, and rhetorical impacts composing punctuated uses of a particular suspense-building device. 45It is this device-Front Dislocation-that can be applied authoritatively to produce heightened yet deferred comprehension.A survey of the biblical corpus reveals that FD constructions are often so utilized within contexts which can be broadly categorized as narrative, juridical, oracular, lyrical, and Yahwistic.Examples from each category will be examined in turn.

NARRATIVE CONTEXTS
Biblical narrative texts contain numerous instances of rhetorical FD.Following the joyous birth of her own son Isaac (Gen 21:9-11), Sarah's jealousy toward her slave-woman's and husband's son Ishmael abruptly triggers not only domestic tension among the characters but also cognitive tension within the audience.A conflict has erupted, but the narrative has not yet clarified whether and how it can be defused.The initial resolution arrives quickly via God's instructions to Abraham-yet not as quickly as it otherwise might have, since the text incorporates two FDs: All which Sarah says to you-heed her voice; for by Isaac your progeny will be called.As for even the son of the slave-womaninto a nation I will establish him, because your progeny is he (Gen 21:12-13).
Two acute uncertainties produced by this episode involve whether Abraham will yield to his wife's demands and what fate will befall his firstborn son.Via the FDs, both of these uncertainties get resolved in a manner that is semiotically, and thereby cognitively, protracted.In terms of the SBF rubric, the language-receiver is confronted with information from the language-sender which entails the Advantage of First Mention, yet which also lacks suffiexample, tend to shunt the anaphor farther down the syntactic chain than non-verbal clauses (see note 70), though not always (e.g., Deut 1:36, 38, 39).Regardless of the sequence employed, both the anaphor and its associated clausal constituents must be comprehended before the front dislocated phrase can get fully integrated into the accumulating cognitive structures of the communication event.
45 "At a formal level we generate suspense when[ever] the distancethat is, the duration experienced together with other moments of consciousness-between two elements is greater than normal, which means greater than expected" (Stutterheim 1981:177).Similarly, "suspense has also been treated as the result of any retardation in closing the structure, in a wide sense, of a narrative text" (Tan and Diteweg 1996:150).Consult Sternberg (1985:278) for a discussion of "retardatory suspense" in biblical narrative.cient contextual cues for signaling whether this information should be mapped onto the receiver's preceding cognitive structure, or whether it requires shifting to build a new structure.The unit-initial position of the FD, coupled with its immediate contextual ambiguity, demand additional cognitive effort for decipherment.Comprehension is momentarily retarded until the front dislocated constituents can be coherently integrated into their associated syntagms.Amid the interim, moments of micro-suspense 46 get generated for the language-receiver, as the language-sender manipulates the semiotic constituents of the communication event by structuring a rift between code and message, thereby exercising enhanced dominance over the information exchange.
Earlier in the Abr[ah]am story (Gen 15:2-3), the would-be patriarch laments his lack of progeny and the impending necessity of having to bequeath his household to a steward.Yahweh soon puts an end to such talk-although not quite as soon as he otherwise could have, had he used a simple declarative sentence instead of this FD: This one will not succeed you; only one who comes forth from your loins-he shall succeed you (Gen 15:4).
Abraham-and by narrative extension, all Israel-is here confronted with a looming existential crisis.This threat is duly defused, but the answer to the problem ("one who comes forth from your loins") is syntactically detached from the solution ("he shall succeed you") by means of FD.The language-sender demands greater cognitive processing efforts from the language-receiver, rhetorically prolonging the latter's suspense and amplifying the former's authority. 47 At the cusp of the Israelites' entry into Canaan, Moses recites divine judgments making it painfully clear that possession of the land remains contingent upon loyalty to Yahweh.Neither a single person from the faithless generation (Deut 1:34-35), nor even Moses himself (Deut 1:37), will be permitted entry into the promised land.The narrative here intentionally cultivates apprehension and anxiety on the part of its audience: Of what ultimate good are the triumphant exodus from Egypt and the mighty travails in the wilderness if all Israel is condemned to perish beyond the Jordan? 46Proceeding from pragmatic insights by literary and cinematic critics, cognitive psychologists acknowledge that suspense can be a componential phenomenon consisting of multiple elements ("mini suspense and resolution episodes" [Brewer 1996:116], "episodic suspense" [Zillman 1996:207]) that contribute cumulatively to a larger narrative structure (cf.Sternberg 1990:84). 47This same technique with FD is employed when Yahweh variously pledges the land to Abraham and his descendants (Gen 13:15;35:12;Josh 1:3;13:6;23:9).Each of these constructions generates moments of micro-suspense within the unfolding narrative, directing the audience to focus attention upon linguistic structures and cognitive values that are acutely ambivalent.Caleb is explicitly exempted from the fate of his generation-but is this for better, or perhaps for even worse?The FD in v. 36 momentarily postpones Yahweh's decree by channeling the audience's cognitive energy into a specific referent situated amid an ambiguous context.If the incomparable Moses can be excluded from the promised land, then what is to become of his loyal deputy Joshua?The slightly longer FD in v. 38 defers clarification until the syntactic arrival at, and cognitive processing of, the associated main clause.Given that the entire generation of rebellious adults is doomed to extinction, what fate can possibly be in store for their offspring?The extended FD of v. 39 suspends the language-sender's answer for an even greater space and longer time, thereby requiring increased cognitive effort from the languagereceiver to ensure integration of its data into the accruing mental structures of comprehension.Biblical Hebrew FD elsewhere gets employed by Israel's patriarchs on behalf of rhetorically augmenting their authority.Joseph's dream interpretations are practically formulaic in this regard, each beginning with a front dislocated phrase that simultaneously highlights and yet postpones the very information most sought after by Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker, respectively: This is its interpretation: The three branches-three days are they (Gen 40:12).The dreaming of Pharaoh-identical is it. 48That which God is about to do he has announced to Pharaoh.The Seven good cattle-seven years are they; and the seven good ears-seven years are they.The dreaming-identical is it.As for the seven gaunt and bad cattle which arose after them-seven years are they, as are the seven empty wind-scorched ears.They will be seven years of famine (Gen 41:25-27).49 Joseph's father Jacob is also no stranger to FD, using it to decree the patrilineal and covenantal fate of Joseph's sons-and by extension, Israel's dominant tribes-Ephraim and Manasseh: As an episode of micro-suspense, Jacob's demise is skillfully crafted.Jacob uses his dying words (Gen 49:29-32) to make it unmistakably clear that he wants to be buried with his wife and forebearers inside the cave at Machpelah.But Joseph soon after (Gen 50:2-3) initiates formal Egyptian embalming and lamentation rituals for his father, raising the question whether Jacob's last request will be honored.As the audience encounters the front dislocated constituents of Gen 50:5, it remains uncertain whether Egyptian funerary pomp and circumstance will trump patriarchal fidelity: Did Jacob carve out his tomb in the land of Canaan for nothing?Will the powerful son pay heed to his father's dying words?This suspense is relieved precisely at the moment when the FD gets integrated syntactically and cognitively into its adjoining clause ("bury me there"), making it clear that Joseph has indeed remembered Jacob's wish, and that he does intend to fulfill it (as Gen 50:5-14 duly illustrates). 50 The motif of divine plague is amenable to FD's rhetorical dynamics of suspense and authority, as with Yahweh's decree of hail against Egypt: 51 The importance of the cave at Machpelah is also evidenced by the account of its sale in Gen 23.Amid their business transaction Ephron the Hittite twice incorporates FDs into his responses, leveraging his language to render Abraham (and the audience) momentarily off-kilter, thereby enhancing his influence over the communication event (and the deal).Abraham expressly wants to purchase the cave within Ephron's field (Gen 23:9), yet this is precisely the object over which the Hittite delays resolution: ‫ת‬ ַ ‫ת‬ ‫נְ‬ No, my lord, hear me: The field I give to you; as for the cave which is in itto you I grant it (Gen 23:11).
Even as the transaction reaches its monetary stage, Ephron remains cagy, naming a price within the FD phrase, yet not explicitly acceding to that price until the juxtaposed clause: My lord, hear me: A land, four hundred shekels of silver-between me and between you, what is that?(Gen 23:15).
Note elsewhere the bargaining undertaken by the Reubenites and Gadites with Moses to secure Transjordanian cattle country (Num 32:3-4), as well as Jephthah's theological-territorial parley amid tense negotiations with the Amorite king Sihon (Judg 11:24; cf. 1 Kgs 18:24).A different kind of currency (human life) gets arbitrated between King David and the Gibeonites (2 Sam 21:5-6), as the latter finally present their terms via an FD.
51 References to divine retribution and reward are similarly structured in Deut 4:3-4 concerning fidelity to Baal-Peor versus Yahweh. 52Although the syntagmatic ambiguity triggered by the FD phrase here gets resolved at the object pronoun of the subsequent clause ‫ם(‬ ‫הֶׁ‬ ‫לֵ‬ ‫,)עֲ‬ the micro-suspense is not fully defused until the language-receiver The Israelite memory-and dread-of Yahweh's plagues against Egypt are also invoked amid the Deuteronomic blessings promised for covenant loyalty: The one who attacks Kiryath-Sepher and captures it-I will grant to him Achsah my daughter for a wife (Josh 15:16; Judg 1:12).
encounters the additional coreferential element via the ensuing verbal subject ‫תּו(‬ ‫מֵ‬ ‫.)וָּ‬ Cf., e.g., Gen 42:5-6, where Joseph is not only Egypt's governor but also the manager of its grain resources.Thus, one suspenseepisode dissipates (Will Joseph and his brothers have occasion to meet in Egypt?), even as another coagulates (What will be the outcome of such an encounter?). 53The Philistines are acutely apprehensive about this fearsome reputation of Israel's deity, as the FD in 1 Sam 4:8 makes clear. 54Cf. the FDs in vv.54, 56, where even the most genteel men and women of Israelite society will eventually succumb to barbarity for defiance of Yahweh's covenant.Encounters with divine proximity and/or agency elsewhere avail themselves of FD, such as with Moses' inaugural encounter of Yahweh upon the mountain (Exod 3:5), and with his receiving the divinely inscribed law (Exod 32:16,below).ple. 61In some instances FD demarcates subgroups contained within larger categories. 62But the most frequent and formulaic categorizing function of FD occurs with the royal acts motif, by which the numerous unnarrated actions and events of a king's reign get generically dangled before the audience-only to be promptly deferred via an explicit rhetorical question: The story could indeed continue, as the narrator teasingly informs the audience within the front dislocated phrase.But the story will not continue biblically, as the juxtaposed clause with its resumptive element finally reveals. 6461 These include the temple's dimensions (1 Kgs 6:2, 3, 6); the value of the ritual objects and size of the bronze pillars (Jer 52:20-21); the length of the cherubim wings within the holy of holies (2 Chr 3:11); and even the building's raw materials (1 Chr 29:16).

JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES
Regarding a man who commits adultery with the wife of a man, who commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor-the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death . . .Concerning a man who lies with his daughter-in-law-they both shall be put to death . . .Regarding a man who lies with a man like the lying of a woman-they both have committed an abomination . . .Regarding a woman who approaches any beast to copulate with it-you shall kill the woman and the beast . . .Concerning a man who lies with a menstruating woman, and has revealed her nakedness, and has exposed her flow, and she has revealed the flow of her blood-they both shall be cut off from the midst of their people (Lev 20:10,12,13,16,18). 70  The foregoing examples demonstrate that FD phrases employed in juridical contexts function similarly to conditional protases for juxtaposed clausal apodoses (see Gesenius 1910:494 §159i;Waltke and O'Connor 1990:529, 535-36). 71Unlike the syntactically subordinate protasis of a formal conditional sentence, however, the FD remains syntagmatically indeterminate with respect to its ensuing clause, becoming momentarily suspended within the comprehender's cognitive architecture.In terms of modality, furthermore, FD constructions in juridical contexts present their contents in a prescriptive and declarative (realis) manner, whereas conditional sentences are structured as conjectural and contingent (irrealis).Rhetorically, this categorical clarity of the FD gets leveraged against its cognitive-semiotic ambiguity, simultaneously demanding attention and postponing clarification.In this regard such FDs function not unlike titles or captions, which declare their own semiotic content even as they defer their full semiotic context. 7270 English translations that literally convey Hebrew word order are frequently awkward, given the divergent morphosyntactic profiles of each language (subject-verb-object and verb-subject-object, respectively).The clausal predication of Lev 20:10, for instance, is structured as die (infinitive) + shall be made dead (3ms prefix verb) + adulterer (participle) + adulteress (participle), whereas Lev 20:12 unfolds syntactically as die (infinitive) + shall be made dead (3mp prefix verb) + two-them (pronominal).Discerning the precise cognitive impacts of differing word orders upon native versus non-native language users would be a fruitful enterprise for cognitive psychology and evolutionary linguistics.Although such data are not directly accessible for an ancient unspoken language such as Biblical Hebrew, comparative and cross-linguistic studies into how the human brain processes morphosyntax would likely shed some light on our homologous ancestors (N.B.Heine and Kuteva 2007;Givón 2009).
71 Akkadian omen, medical, and legal texts (see Khan 1988:158-59) commonly go so far as to integrate an FD into the protasis of a formal conditional ( ) syntagm: e.g., -ma a-wi-ḫ -bu--------ma, "If a man-a debt upon him has happened . .." 72 Baicchi (2004:19) observes that "The cataphoric quality of titles derives from their being indexical signantia, whose signata have to be retrieved from the text base.Although titles are external to the text, they are related to it in terms of contiguity . . .co-interpretability is delayed, Front Dislocation in the foregoing liturgical 81 and sapiential 82 genres is evidently leveraging its semiotic structures and cognitive dynamics to heighten the rhetorical and aesthetic qualities of the associated poetic parallelism, which typically functions in such lyrical contexts as the dominant formal device. 83By employing an FD to introduce the first portion of a parallel distych, the languagesender often announces a topic shift between the onset of the distych and the immediately foregoing discourse unit: a shift that calls enhanced attention to itself via the added cognitive processing time and effort required from the language-receiver.When using an FD to commence the second portion of a parallel distych, the languagesender introduces increased cognitive load demands at a syntagmatic point that heightens a topic shift 84 between the first and the second portions of the distych itself.FD within poetic parallelism thereby gives rise to bifurcated suspense peaks for the languagereceiver, wherein comprehension slows and attention grows as ambiguity amid active and potential mental structures momentarily spikes, before getting resolved.This unexpected cognitive rhythm is thereby brought into a productive and playful tension with the anticipated metrical rhythm that is constitutive of Biblical Hebrew parallelism (cf.Tsur 2003:150-53).

YAHWISTIC CONTEXTS
Biblical Hebrew also incorporates FD into explicitly Yahwistic settings, where the construction's properties are centered upon the supremely authoritative God of Israel.The motif of Yahweh as warrior god who fights for his people when they invade the covenantal land is prevalent within Deuteronomistic texts: 85 81 Several instances of liturgical FD do initiate a topic shift within their discourse contexts, as information-structure theory predicts (see Lambrecht 1994:183-84).Rhetorically, however, all of the extant examples also speak about their referents in overtly authoritative manners, such as by praising God (Ps 18:31;145:6;cf. 103:15), or by contrasting the righteous psalmist with the despicable actions of others (Ps 35:13;41:13;46:5;57:5;59:17;69:14;73:28;101:5). 82Examples of FD where parallelism is either less prominent or absent include Prov 17:15;18:9;20:10,12,20;21:13;23:8;24:12,24;28:9,10;29:12,14;30:17;31:30;Job 3:4,6;21:4;28:5;36:7; Qoh 1:16. 83 Khan (1988:89) suggests that in such instances "the major function of extraposition (sic) is to place in clause-initial position an element which is required to be in this position by the parallelistic or chiastic matrix of the construction." 84 A topic shift does not necessitate changing to an entirely different discourse topic per se.It may also, or instead, involve switching amid multiple referents which are encompassed, information-structurally, by a superordinate discourse topic (see Lambrecht 1994:183-84). 85See also Deut 3:22;31:3,6,8;Josh 23:3,5,10 (cf. 24:17) FDs are further employed 89 to depict Yahweh as not simply a jealous deity, but as the one and only valid God: 86 This is masterfully conveyed by the ominous descriptions provided in Deut 9:1-2 (which preface the FD in 9:3): "Hear, O Israel!You are today crossing the Jordan to enter and dispossess nations greater and more mighty than you; great cities fortified sky-high; a people big and tall, the Anakites, of whom you know, and of whom you have heard [said], 'Who can withstand the sons of Anak?'." 87 See also Exod 34:14; 2 Kgs 17:36; Isa 8:13. 88The dominant function of this FD (and numerous others: Deut 3:22; 4:35, 39; 7:9; 10:17; 31:6; Josh 23:3, 5, 10; 2 Sam 22:31; 1 Kgs 8:60; 18:39; Ps 50:6; 100:3; 2 Chr 16:9; 33:13) is neither to shift nor to (re)activate a topic within the discourse information-structure, but rather to momentarily dissociate an already highly activated topic (here, Yahweh your God [Deut 4:2,3,4,10,19,21]) from its larger syntagmatic framework.This has the effect of acutely decontextualizing the referent for a language-receiver, requiring increased cognitive effort for its (re)integration into the ongoing communicative event.Such instances of heightened attention are optimal times, both cognitively and rhetorically, for a language-sender to speak in authoritative manners. 89See also Deut 7:9; 10:17; Josh 2:11; 1 Kgs 8:60; 18:39; Ps 100:3; 2 hender 97 and then cognitively (re)routed into an appropriate mental structure.For FD, this is facilitated by the presence of cataphoric and anaphoric lexemes and/or morphemes linking the substantival unit and its resumptive element; for topicalization, this is facilitated by the absence of such morphosyntactic features (see notes 3 and 4).In an oral-aural medium, however, both the language-sender and the language-receiver have access to additional cognitive cues in the way of prosodic features such as length and pitch (see Cruttenden 1997:2-12, 175-77;Repp and Drenhaus 2015).By employing increased length and rising pitch amid an initial substantival unit, a language-sender can craft a cataphoric intonation group 98 and can thereby signal to the language-receiver the onset of a front dislocated construction.This, in conjunction with the morphosyntax, cognitively primes the language-receiver for processing a mental structure that is simultaneously imminent and yet deferred.That Biblical Hebrew availed itself of such prosodic features is quite likely, judging by modern cross-linguistic evidence (see note 42).But further suggestive evidence resides within the biblical corpus itself, given that FD is so frequently employed within syntagms involving direct discourse between the characters of a narrative, as well as within proclamatory utterances amid juridical, oracular, lyrical, and Yahwistic contexts.
At the level of a communicative event's information-structure, FD does indeed possess a cross-linguistic utility for signaling the (re)activation of a particular topic in the given discourse. 99But the foregoing study has shown how Biblical Hebrew 100 frequently puts 97 This is often resolved graphically by the use of a comma or an emdash to separate the FD from its clause. 98A familiar contemporary example of cataphoric prosody is operative in English's High Rising Terminal, colloquially known as "upspeak," whereby a rising intonation pattern is employed at or near the end of a preliminary assertion (akin to interrogative prosody) in order to introduce a referent that figures into the subsequent conversation: e.g., "So, y'know what?I have a professor, 'n he . .." (Gernsbacher and Jescheniak 1995:54;cf. Warren 2005). 99Biblical Hebrew is certainly no stranger to this function of FD.Some instances where topic shifting is prominent include Num 11:7 (Israelites manna); Josh 17:3 (Manassites Zelophehad); 1 Sam 9:20 (Saul asses); Ps 46:5 (sea river); 69:14 (drunkards psalmist); 73:28 (licentious psalmist); 103:15 (Yahweh mortals).Although the information-structure functions and the rhetorical functions proceeding from FD are not coextensive, neither do they preclude each other. 100Whether and to what degrees other languages so utilize FD remain to be explored (cf.Arabic in notes 69, 90).Koine Greek is clearly acquainted with it: ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν ὁ ἐμβάψας μετ' ἐμοῦ τὴν χεῖρα ἐν τῷ τρυβλίῳ οὗτός με παραδώσει.So he answered, saying: "He who has dipped with me the hand in the bowl-this one will hand me over" (Matt 26:23).
Following his accusation in v. 21 (ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εἷς ἐξ ὑμῶν ‫מִּ‬ ‫,)עַ‬ and thereby establishing it as the base for comprehending what follows.This up-front mental investment yields cognitive dividends via the Advantage of First Mention, whereby the front dislocated substantival phrase becomes-and remains, notwithstanding the Advantage of Clause Recency-the most cognitively accessible (i.e., rapidly and accurately retrievable) portion of information within its discourse unit.
, since these shifts initiate the buildings of new (and cognitively costly) foundations.
It turns out that there are some key exceptions interspersed with Yahweh's restrictions, all of which are conveyed via FDs: Your younglings whom you said would become prey, and your sons who still do not know good and evil-they shall enter there (Deut 1:39).