Diachronic and synchronic linguistics pdf

Ferdinand de Saussure — Swiss linguistics scholar. View all related overviews ». Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription. Please subscribe or login to access full text content. If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs , and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice. Oxford Reference. This branch of linguistics is the diachronic linguistics.

Main concerns of diachronic linguistics are as follows:. Furthermore, comparative linguistics comparing languages to identify their historical relation and etymology study of the history of words are two main sub-fields of diachronic linguistics. Synchronic linguistics is the study of language at any given point in time while diachronic linguistics is the study of language through different periods in history. Thus, the main difference between synchronic and diachronic linguistics is their focus or viewpoint of study.

Diachronic linguistics is concerned with language evolution while synchronic linguistics is not. Moreover, the latter focuses on subjects such as comparative linguistics, etymology and language evolution while the former focuses on grammar, classification, and arrangement of the features of a language.

The difference between synchronic and diachronic linguistics depends on their focus of study. This is because the former looks at language at a given period of time while the latter looks at language through various periods in history.

However, both branches are important in order to study a language properly. Nordquist, Richard. Available here 2. Redactors may have similarly planned other complexes such as the kingdom of Solomon, 1 Kgs 3—11, or the prehistory recounted in Gen 1— While these structures are not quite as artificial since some sort of overall sequence of events governs these units, they are nevertheless composed of materials that pertain to different genres, abound in repetitions and contradictions, and, mainly are connected by a plan meditated for them from without, rather than exhibiting connections from within.

In sum, inherent structures are different from structures created by redactors, and both are a far cry from virtual structures imposed by scholars. The story of the first return Ezr 1—6 , that awkwardly accommodates the complaint sent to Artaxerxes Ezr —23 , is linked to the story of Ezr-Neh by a redactional formula that skips over some sixty years.

Ezra' s career Ezr 7—10 stops abruptly to allow the incorporation of Nehemiah' s memoirs Neh 1—7 , but Ezra reappears on the scene, as if he never left it, in Neh 8, for the reading of the Torah, interrupting, together with other ceremonial activities, Nehemiah' s initiative to repopulate Jerusalem Neh 7 continued in chap.

Does this mean that this manufactured work necessarily has a coherent structure? In his reading of Ezr-Neh, Grabbe posits structures for different parts of the book as well as correlations between them. In a chart, there is always room for cover-ups. Thus, 43 L. Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches 21 Chapters 1—6 do indeed begin with Cyrus' edict —4 , but Chapters 7—10 do not start with Artaxerxes'edict, as presented in the chart, but with a long introduction of Ezra — In order to be parallel in structure, the first unit should also have begun with the introduction of the leaders of the first return.

This sequence is borrowed from I Esd! Characteristically, the same chapters are provided with different titles to meet the needs of the new chart. In my opinion, Ezr-Neh hardly presents an overall structure. The compiler strived to create a reasonable sequence of events, and this he accomplished with only meager success. Intertextuality The totality that accompanies the introduction of new trends into scholarship is characteristic also of intertextuality. The problem is when intertextuality turns into a branch of synchronic approaches and operates as an illegal offspring of ancient Midrash 44 See Tull's sharp description of the volume Exegesis, Eisegesis, Intergesis — Intertextuality and the Bible ed.

Aichele and G. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art ed. Roudiez; New York, Lemaire and M. Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches 23 that links between texts that have nothing to do with one another, just because they share a certain feature. Intertextuality, like Midrash, is liable to neglect the world of the text, its author and milieu, and invest it with the world of its occasional reader.

Readers associate a text with texts of different times and provenance: texts older than the text concerned, such that were or were not part of the author' s cultural inheritance; contemporary texts with which the author may or may not have conducted a dialogue; and, naturally, also later texts that did not exist when the discussed text was created and whose setting may be completely divergent.

This practice is apt for Midrash where the dialectics of early and late does not apply. One example regards the speeches in Prov 1—9. It is not enough to open the concordance, find all the occurrences of women with or without the epithets " or " and import all their contexts into these speeches; one must first make some distinctions, lest some completely irrelevant texts are brought into the discussion.

What justification is there to introduce into the wisdom teacher' s repeated warnings against forbidden liaisons with another man' s wife the bitter struggle of Ezra and Nehemiah against intermarriage with foreign women? The book of Proverbs never uses " and " in reference to foreign nationality or provenance.

It is even more disdaining to find diachronic conclusions based on the assumed affinity between these texts, arguing that the speeches must have been written in the days of Ezr-Neh since both share the interest in foreign women and the objection to intermarriage. The 47 This midrashic practice lives on in Saturday synagogue Derashot and Sunday church sermons where it belongs. Synchronic Reading of Complex Books Only a few remarks follow concerning the question: Is it possible to read synchronically complex books such as the Minor Prophets or the book of Isaiah?

The concept that the entire book originated with the eighth century prophet is well rooted in ancient traditions, such as the Praise of the Fathers, that concludes the Wisdom of Ben Sira —25 , and Josephus who has Cyrus read the words of the ancient prophet. A different unity and hence a different synchronic reading is based on the supposition that Second Isaiah perceived himself as the disciple of the ancient prophet, continued his work and echoed his words and ideas.

Modern classical research on Isaiah did not initially concern itself with interrelationships between First and Second Isaiah and the 49 Claudia V. Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches 25 different parts of the book were treated separately usually in different volumes and by different scholars.

This attitude changed over the years and more and more studies now tend to find correlations, real or imaginary, between the different parts of the book. These studies are usually based on the perception that parts of Isa 1—39 rather belong to later writers who might relate to the initiators of the book in its entirety.

Moreover, it makes a difference whether the correlations originated with the author or with a redactor. A redactor puts together materials already existent in a set literary and conceptual form. He usually intervenes mainly at the borders of the various constituent components; the body of the materials he more or less quotes so that they do not take on a different form or meaning.

In all, I find that the endeavors to reveal the unity of Isaiah,55 by far exceed the reality of this complex book. I find it difficult to accept synchronic readings that acknowledge the fact of multiple 52 H. Melugin and M. Sweeney, eds. Also, M. Such approaches can only lead to the kind of reading that in turn is liable to distort the character and meaning of the entire book as well as its individual layers. The book of the Twelve was created on the level of transmission and especially preservation, rather than on the level of composition or even redaction.

Truly, this is a quite ancient formation, known as early as Ben Sira' s Praise of the Fathers, where the Twelve are briefly mentioned after Jeremiah and Ezekiel The author mentions the twelve prophets together because in his day they are already perceived as one entity. Otherwise, he would have treated them separately since his survey is obviously chronological. Nogalski and M.

Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches 27 the end of the prophets, he is reckoned with them. But why should he not be written separately and placed first? Since his book is so small, it might be lost Bab. Baba Batra 14b. This is probably the actual reason why the twelve prophets were written on one scroll and hence became, technically, one book.

The book of the Twelve is surely not one composition, despite some external editorial interventions. It is disrupted first of all by the book of Jonah that belongs to a different genre altogether.

It originated with different authors, from within different times and situations. Allegedly shared topics, such as the call for renewal of the covenant between the people and God, similarly unite all the prophets, not only the twelve, and other books as well.

It is difficult to understand how these completely different works that ended up in one scroll for a purely technical reason can be read synchronically. The case of the Twelve may be expanded to other complexes, e. Circles close. The ancient self-evident unitarian view of the entire Tanakh as one Torah, i. Parallel Works — Synchronic Approaches with Diachronic Results Since comparison lies at the heart of diachronic research, it is interesting to investigate what synchronic approaches make of parallel works and the interrelationship between them.

Our two examples for synchronic attitudes towards redactions whose interrelationships are basically diachronic concern Chr created mainly on the basis of Sam-Kgs, and I Esd based primarily on Chr-Ezr-Neh.

Let me just note in passing that the beginning and 57 E. A modern redactor would hardly have thought of such a beginning. The redactor who created I Esd may have worked according to the same standards when he began his account with Josiah' s Passover. On a different level, the last verses of Chr are not a conclusion but rather the beginning of the story of the return as recounted in the book of Ezr-Neh.

Similarly, one may say, I Esd abruptly ends in the middle of a sentence, where the book was damaged, or, interrupted on purpose leaving a marker saying that the story continues elsewhere. There is nothing new about this, except the need to halt the research-wagon rolling down the slippery slope of synchronic concepts.

Let me comment here on two different, in fact opposite, attempts, to place Chr and Sam-Kgs on the same level. In , Graeme Auld published a study carrying the intriguing title Kings without Privilege. Its argument, therefore is either 58 W. Auld, Kings without Privilege Edinburgh, The solution offered is that the relatively early material is composed of the parts that both books share, while the rest of the material in both books consists of Hellenistic additions.

Even the synchronic dates correlating the kings of Judah and Israel — meaningless in Chr — survived on two occasions 2 Chr ; Other remnants as well of rejected materials exist in Chr, such as the Michal episode 1 Chr , the story of David and Bathsheba 1 Chr , the prophecy of Ahijah 2 Chr and others.

Another equation between Kgs and Chr, from an opposite angle, was offered by Anson Rainey in a comprehensive article. The Chronicler chose to include them while the Deuteronomist preferred to leave them out. Rainey comes to this conclusion on the basis of the closing formulae to each and every kingdom that refers to the sources of the Chronicler.

However, Rainey makes a fundamental mistake that undermines his entire study: the Chronicler does not refer to the sources used by the author of Kgs but rather to his own sources.

He quotes a synchronic source that deals with both Israel and Judah, probably 60 Auld gives some undeserved credit to Chr, while discrediting Kgs, misusing alleged affinities between Chr and 3 Kgdms; Z. Both Auld and Rainey do not take into consideration the deep and fundamental difference between the material borrowed by the Chronicler from Sam-Kgs and those parts in his book that are labeled in diachronic circles as his Eigenegeschichtschreibung.

These additional materials are designed differently in every respect, linguistically, literarily and, self-evidently, ideologically.

They cannot be equated with Sam-Kgs materials as either early, according to Rainey, or very late, according to Auld. In sum, these two scholars approached Kgs and Chr synchronically and came up with two completely opposite ideas, both logical, were they suggested in a vacuum. They neglected, however, the results of a long series of classical diachronic studies that refute their conclusions completely.

As it happens, these scholars are followed by their students. Rainey and A. Demsky; Bar-Ilan University, Heb. The Case of Chr-Ezr-Neh versus I Esd I will refer to this case briefly, since I have presented my views on the matter quite extensively on other occasions.