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# NP References to Active Participants and Story Development in Ancient Hebrew

**Authors:** Stephen H. Levinsohn · **Year:** 2000 (online 2018) · **Venue:** Work Papers of the SIL, University of North Dakota Session, vol. 44 **Link:** [doi.org/10.31356/silwp.vol44.01](https://doi.org/10.31356/silwp.vol44.01) · **Licence:** copyrighted (free to read, no CC licence) — summary only

[**4** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2936069400) openalex · 2026-10-18[Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics University of North Dakota Session](https://openalex.org/S4210223709)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.31356/silwp.vol44.01)
- [PDF](https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1365&context=sil-work-papers)
- [DOI 10.31356/silwp.vol44.01](https://doi.org/10.31356/silwp.vol44.01)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2936069400)

**Authors (1)**

1. [Stephen H. Levinsohn](https://openalex.org/A5002099189) h 9 · 425 citations · 164 works

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

## What it is about

The full text is not in the library (the download was blocked); this card rests on the repository's abstract, so the ideas are provisional. Languages usually name an already active participant with a full noun phrase, instead of a pronoun or verb agreement, in two places even when the subject does not change: at the start of a narrative unit and to highlight a speech or action. Comparing Hebrew narrative with two languages that mark new developments with a conjunction or preverbal particle, Levinsohn finds Hebrew uses many more full NPs for active participants, and argues that in Hebrew a full NP also marks a new development in the story: the work other languages give to a particle.

## Ideas

- I1. Count, in Torah narrative, wayyiqtol clauses with an explicit subject NP whose referent was already the subject of the previous clause (no switch). These are the candidate "development" or "highlight" points.
- I2. A prag/discourse rule: same-subject full NP after a wayyiqtol chain → new development / unit boundary; check against the paragraph marks (petuhot/setumot) and the JPS paragraphing.
- I3. Participant tracking: before treating a full NP as a switch of subject, compare it with the last subject; keep "same referent, renamed" as a separate category.

## For Mova

I1–I3 apply to participant tracking in [Discourse: narrative, speech and the shape of a text](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/09-discourse/) and to `tools/macula/src/prag.rs` (a segment/boundary signal next to the speech-frame carrying). The count runs on the Torah trees with lemma identity as a cheap proxy for coreference.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.31356/silwp.vol44.01](https://doi.org/10.31356/silwp.vol44.01)

```
@inproceedings{levinsohn2018np,
  title = {{NP References to Active Participants and Story Development in Ancient Hebrew}},
  author = {Levinsohn, Stephen H.},
  booktitle = {Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics University of North Dakota Session},
  year = {2018},
  doi = {10.31356/silwp.vol44.01},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.31356/silwp.vol44.01}
}
```

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