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# Participant-Reference Shifts in Zech. 1:1-6. An Assessment of Diachronic and Synchronic Approaches

**Authors:** Christian Højgaard Jensen · **Year:** 2016 · **Venue:** HIPHIL Novum 3 (1), 25–38 **Link:** [hiphil.org](http://hiphil.org) ([tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum)) · **Licence:** free to read, no CC licence (vols 1–8) — copyrighted, summary only

[**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4391942987) openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14[HIPHIL Novum 3](https://openalex.org/S5406958382)[licence](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/about)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142159)
- [PDF](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/article/download/142159/185850)
- [DOI 10.7146/hn.v3i1.142159](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142159)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4391942987)

**Authors (1)**

1. Christian Højgaard Jensen [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2068268408)

Citations and author metrics from openalex-snapshot (2026-10-14); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

Zechariah 1:1–6 switches addressee in ways that puzzle translators: God is angry with "your" (plural) fathers, then "you" (singular) are told to speak to "them", and in 6b "they returned" refers by grammar to ancestors already said to be dead. The author argues for starting from the received text: track every participant reference (person, gender, number, speech markers), using Talstra's participant tracking, before emending or rewriting. The tracking shows God as the single speaker after the narrator's frame in v. 1, with seven speech markers stressing that it is an oracle; it rules out several modern translations (e.g. making Zechariah the speaker or the narrator report the audience's repentance). Shifts are then read rhetorically with Glanz's (2013) types from Jeremiah: 3rd→2nd person "subjectivisation" (confrontation), 2nd→3rd "objectivisation" (distance), singular→plural "extension", plural→singular "condensation"; Regt finds Israel addressed in the singular 69% of the time in Deuteronomy, rising to 92% in the blessings and curses.

## Ideas

- I1. A participant-shift detector over our trees: within one speech (as cut by `prag`), list every change of person or number in the addressee (2ms ↔ 2mp verbs and suffixes) and of the referent of 3rd-person forms; label each with Glanz's four types.
- I2. Measure the Deuteronomy "Numeruswechsel" on our Torah: share of 2ms vs 2mp addressing Israel by chapter, and test whether a shift coincides with a paragraph boundary (petuḥah/setumah) more often than chance.
- I3. Count speech markers (אָמַר, נְאֻם, לֵאמֹר, כֹּה אָמַר) per speech unit as a signal of whose voice dominates; a frame with several markers should keep God as speaker across embedded quotes.

## For Mova

I1 and I3 are candidate rules for `tools/macula/src/prag.rs` (the voice column and speech carrying across sentences), described in [Discourse: narrative, speech and the shape of a text](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/09-discourse/) (participant tracking, direct speech). I2 is a count for `09-discourse.md` and `05-pronouns-particles.md` (2nd-person forms), using the paragraph marks of `01-script.md` if our data holds them.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.7146/hn.v3i1.142159](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142159)

```
@inproceedings{jensen2016participant,
  title = {{Participant-Reference Shifts in Zech. 1:1-6. An Assessment of Diachronic and Synchronic Approaches}},
  author = {Jensen, Christian Højgaard},
  booktitle = {HIPHIL Novum 3},
  year = {2016},
  doi = {10.7146/hn.v3i1.142159},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142159}
}
```

- [← previous The Biblical Hebrew wayyiqtol and the Evidence of the Amarna Letters from Canaan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbo-2016-baranowski-biblical-hebrew-wayyiqtol-evidence-amarna/)
- [next → Time in Ancient Hebrew Lexicon: The Case of yrḥ and ḥdš](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbo-2016-legnaioli-time-ancient-hebrew-lexicon-case/)
- [↑ back to Ancient Hebrew](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbo/)

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