Lesson 4 | Types of Offline Clauses
[3] Labeling Offline Clauses
There are five basic functions of offline clauses. And you’ve seen an example of all but one in your work on Jonah so far!
Background
Background clauses often introduce a paragraph by setting the stage for the events about to unfold. In this text hierarchy, the narrator describes what Jonah had been doing before the events of the storm outlined by the sequential-imperfect verbs, beginning with a vav + noun, followed by a perfect form verb.
Notice that I added a space between 5e and f. You’ll find it easier to read phrases when you add a space wherever things start to look cluttered.
Supplemental
Supplemental clauses give parenthetical information, such as further describing a person or thing (9d), or giving a reason for a verbal action (10d and f).
Speech
This is simply the content of a quotation, whether direct speech (2a-c) or indirect (2d, if the כִּי is giving the content of the speech rather than the cause).
Dramatic
This category “invit[es] the audience to enter into the story as a participant or an eyewitness,” when introduced by an interjection like והנה, or can “signal a shift in focus from one character or participant to another.”¹ Here it is a simple vav + noun clause that introduces the surprise in 4a.
Negated Clarification
This type of offline clause stresses what did not happen, as a contrast with the clause it modifies, and thus shows its importance.² So Jonah 1:13 doesn’t say that the sailors tried hard to row and then that they failed, using two equal sequential-imperfects, but rather draws attention to their failure with the וְלֹ֣א clause in 13c. (The verbs are not highlighted, since verse 13 is in this lesson’s assignment.)