Marilyn Burton

Despite its centrality in mainstream linguistics, cognitive semantics has only recently begun to establish a foothold in biblical studies, largely due to the challenges inherent in applying such a methodology to ancient languages. The Semantics of Glory addresses these challenges by offering a new, practical model for a cognitive semantic approach to Classical Hebrew, demonstrated through an exploration of the Hebrew semantic domain of glory. The concept of ‘glory’ is one of the most significant themes in the Hebrew Bible, lying at the heart of God’s self-disclosure in biblical revelation. This study provides the most comprehensive examination of the domain to date, mapping out its intricacies and providing a framework for its exegesis.

"Fundamental to any cognitive approach to semantics, or indeed linguistics in general, is the use of data collected from native speakers. This poses an obvious problem when we address the semantic analysis of ancient languages, for which the kind of data usually gathered for a study based on cognitive principles is simply not available. This has led to the wholesale rejection of cognitive methodologies by scholars such as Francesco Zanella as inappropriate for the study of dead languages. However, where suitable data are available, a cognitive approach is widely acknowledged to be superior in many ways to more traditional structuralist and generativist methodologies. Indeed, cognitive theory has been called by semanticist Dirk Geeraerts ‘the most productive of the current approaches’ to lexical semantics. The question, then, which will be addressed in this paper is whether a cognitive approach to dead languages is in fact hopeless, or whether rather, in the words of van Keulen and van Peursen, our lack of native speaker input ‘challenges the biblical or semitic scholar to discover signals that reveal the process of communication’. This paper examines those attempts made so far within biblical semantics and related fields to compensate for the lack of available native speaker input, and propose some new avenues for exploration. "

In The Semantics of Glory, Marilyn Burton offers a new model for a cognitive semantic approach to ancient languages, and in particular Classical Hebrew, demonstrating this model through its application to the semantic domain of the term “Glory” in Classical Hebrew.

In The Semantics of Glory, Marilyn Burton offers a new model for a cognitive semantic approach to ancient languages, and in particular Classical Hebrew, demonstrating this model through its application to the semantic domain of the term “Glory” in Classical Hebrew.

In The Semantics of Glory, Marilyn Burton offers a new model for a cognitive semantic approach to ancient languages, and in particular Classical Hebrew, demonstrating this model through its application to the semantic domain of the term “Glory” in Classical Hebrew.

Fundamental to any cognitive approach to semantics, or indeed linguistics in general, is the use of data collected from native speakers.  This poses an obvious problem when we address the semantic analysis of ancient languages, for which the kind of data usually gathered for a study based on cognitive principles is simply not available.  This has led to the wholesale rejection of cognitive methodologies by scholars such as Francesco Zanella as inappropriate for the study of dead languages.  However, where suitable data are available, a cognitive approach is widely acknowledged to be superior in many ways to more traditional structuralist and generativist methodologies.  Indeed, cognitive theory has been called by semanticist Dirk Geeraerts ‘the most productive of the current approaches’ to lexical semantics.
The question, then, which will be addressed in this paper is whether a cognitive approach to dead languages is in fact hopeless, or whether rather, in the words of van Keulen and van Peursen, our lack of native speaker input ‘challenges the biblical or semitic scholar to discover signals that reveal the process of communication’.  This paper examines those attempts made so far within biblical semantics and related fields to compensate for the lack of available native speaker input, and propose some new avenues for exploration.