The contribution of Wolfgang Richter to current developments in the study of Biblical Hebrew

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to create a greater understanding of Richter's work without losing sight of its limitations. It commences with a brief description of the background against which Richter's initiatives must be understood. Secondly, the theoretical frame of reference and the basic features of both the morphological, and the morphosyntactic databases he developed are discussed. Some of the prospects these linguistically highly differentiated tools have in store for a better description of Biblical Hebrew are illustrated by means of examples. Thirdly, the theoretical foundations and the structure of the sentence syntactic database which he is compiling are outlined. In conclusion it is pointed out that one may argue that one of Richter's major weaknesses from a theoretical linguistic point of view is his eclectic use of mainly structuralist-oriented principles. However, it will also be illustrated that the practical application of many of these principles does not necessarily jeopardize the usefulness of Richter's databases.