Abstract
In a joint effort of the Peshitta Institute Leiden and the Werkgroep Informatica of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam an electronic database of Syriac texts is being developed. Percy van Keulen and I have been assigned the Books of Kings, which we have analyzed from morpheme level up through clause-level parsing. Using the Hebrew material already available in the Werkgroep Informatica database, a synopsis of the Masoretic text and the Peshitta has been made at clause level. On the basis of the synop-sis, clause constituents have been matched, providing a basis for matching phrases within clauses, and for matching words within phrases. One of the products is an elec¬tronic translation concordance with lists of translation correspondences occur¬ring within Kings, which was introduced at the 2005 ISLP meeting in Philadelphia. The lexical items occurring at corresponding points in the two texts need not necessarily be lexicon-based semantic translations of one another, but they are what do occur at that point in the two texts. In this manner, both similarities and differences are brought to light. The occurrences of the two cognate verbs sym and swm within Kings are illustrative of the factors at work during the process of translation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Foundations for Syriac Lexicography IV |
| Editors | K. Heal, A. Salveson |
| Place of Publication | Piscataway, NJ, USA |
| Publisher | Gorgias Press |
| Pages | 185-198 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781611439335 |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |