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# Approaching the mountain of Exodus 19: thou shalt explore syntax first

**Authors:** Eep Talstra · **Year:** 2016 · **Venue:** HIPHIL Novum 3 (1), 2–24 **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

[**2** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2754088639) openalex · 2026-10-18[**2** citations in our library](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/cited-by/hbo-2016-talstra-approaching-mountain-exodus-19-thou/) of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read[HIPHIL Novum 3](https://openalex.org/S5406958382)[licence](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/about)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142160)
- [PDF](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/article/download/142160/185851)
- [DOI 10.7146/hn.v3i1.142160](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142160)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2754088639)

**Authors (1)**

1. [Eep Talstra](https://openalex.org/A5052458753) h 5 · 130 citations · 201 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex (2026-10-18); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

A design report on adding participant tracking to the ETCBC database, worked through Exodus 19 (God, Moses, the people, the priests, the mountain). The problem: one actor appears as יְהוָה, הָאֱלֹהִים, "I" and "you"; the people as בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, יִשְׂרָאֵל, בֵּית יַעֲקֹב, הָעָם, "you" and "we"; a singular collective (הָעָם) takes plural verbs; and in 19:4–6 Moses speaks God's words, so the quote's "I" is God, not the announced speaker. Talstra's procedure, bottom-up from the existing clause and domain hierarchy (narrative N, quote NQ, quote within quote NQQ): (1) collect every phrase marked for person, number, gender as a referent candidate; (2) link them by morphology, subject–predicate agreement and identical lexemes; (3) group them into sets per text domain; (4) at each domain border, equate the speaker and audience of the verb of saying with the 1st and 2nd persons of the quote; (5) link remaining 3rd-person sets across domains by lexeme; (6) merge into text-level actors; (7) merge actors with different names interactively (YHWH + Elohim → God); (8) relate part-of actors (the mountain, the top of the mountain). Machine proposals need human correction; the output also serves to check translations.

## Ideas

- I1. Implement steps 1–6 over our trees and `prag`'s speech cuts: every quote gets a sender and addressee taken from the frame's subject and its אֶל/לְ complement; 1st/2nd persons in the quote are linked to them; nested quotes (NQQ) get their own pair. Report the share of 1st/2nd-person forms that get an actor.
- I2. A prophetic-relay exception: when the quote is introduced by "thus you shall say" (כֹּה תֹאמַר) or the speaker relays God's words, the inner "I" is God; test on the Torah's "speak to the children of Israel and say to them" frames.
- I3. A small alias table of actors for the Torah (YHWH/Elohim; Israel/children of Israel/house of Jacob/the people; Moses/"the man"), written as data, applied after the grammatical steps, so the dictionary's names and the world share one actor id.
- I4. Collective nouns (עָם, עֵדָה, קָהָל) with plural agreement: accept number mismatch for a known list in the agreement checks, and count how often the Torah switches singular/plural with the same subject.

## For Mova

I1–I2 extend the speech carrying of `tools/macula/src/prag.rs` (voice, frame and quote) towards participant tracking, written up 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). I3 links the names section of `10-lexicon.md`, the Torah dictionary and the world. I4 belongs in `08-syntax.md` (agreement) and the converter's checks in `tools/macula`.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.7146/hn.v3i1.142160](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142160)

```
@inproceedings{talstra2016approaching,
  title = {{Approaching the mountain of Exodus 19: thou shalt explore syntax first}},
  author = {Talstra, Eep},
  booktitle = {HIPHIL Novum 3},
  year = {2016},
  doi = {10.7146/hn.v3i1.142160},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v3i1.142160}
}
```

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