A Discourse Analysis of First Corinthians	Ralph Bruce Terry
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In this chapter, the results are presented from using a database of clause structure in I Corinthians to study the questions of peak, participant analysis, clause word order, quotations and their introducers, and the influence of the rhetorical situation on the grammatical structure of stylistic features in I Corinthians. Each of these areas of study is important in its own right. They are combined here because they all lend themselves to machine analysis.

First, the study of peak gives the interpreter a way to determine those parts of the text which the writer viewed as especially important. In narrative texttype, peak marking features are found in such areas as inciting incident, climax, and denouement. The exact significance of peak in non-narrative text has not yet been fully determined, but it is hypothesized that this technique is used to mark important parts of the text. Second, the study of participant tracking in subject slot gives the student of discourse a way to determine any grammatical rules that may lead the writer to use a noun, a pronoun, or simply a verb ending in referring to a given concept. Third, the study of clause-level word order gives the student a way to find the non-emphatic order so that both sentential and discourse motivations for varying the order can be isolated. Fourth, the study of quotations allows the student of a text to discover the usual ways of introducing overt intertextuality. And finally, the study of the relationship of style and rhetorical situation provides a tool for understanding why variations in grammar occur.

The information in this chapter was complied using a computer database containing twenty-eight variables for each clause in the book of I Corinthians. These variables and their possible values are listed in Table 18. The database program used was ANACLAUS, developed by this researcher specifically for the study of Greek clause structure. It allows the variables to be charted against one another, and against a division of the text into various sections (i.e., chapters, discourses, blocks, etc.). It also allows the production of tables showing the data in various ways for further study.

The database was constructed for this study from a chart of the Greek text of I Corinthians developed along the lines presented in (2) in chapter I. Information was checked against the Analytical Greek New Testament (Friberg and Friberg 1981) to insure accuracy. A computer-generated chart showing how the 1378 clauses in I Corinthians combine into colons is found in Appendix C of this study.

DATABASE CATEGORIES FOR STUDYING CLAUSE STRUCTURE

Variable                                           Values

Chapter and Verse
Sentence Location                                  Preceding Dependent, Independent,
                                                    Following Dependent
Clause Type                                        Independent, Dependent, Quote,
                                                    Relative
Relationship of this                               Main, Subordinate, Conditional,
 clause to others                                   Embedded Noun, Adjectival,
                                                    Adverbial, Absolute
Independent Relationship                           I, DI, ID, DID (I=Indep.; D=Dep.)
Level of Embedding                                 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Same Subject as Previous                           Yes, No, In a previous clause,
                                                    In the previous colon, New subject
Complex Order Description                          V, VO, SVO, SVN, SVA, etc.
Order Type                                         V, VO, SVO, VSO, VOS, OV, SOV, OSV,
                                                    OVS, SV, VS, SO, OS, Other
Verb Mode                                          Indicative, Subjunctive,
                                                    Imperative, Infinitive,
                                                    Participle, Optative,
                                                    Periphrastic, Modal
Verb Tense                                         Aorist, Present, Perfect, Future, 
                                                    Imperfect, Pluperfect
Verb Voice                                         Active, Middle, Passive
Number                                             Singular, Plural, Compound
Verb Semantic Type                                 Action, Motion, Sensing, Thinking,
                                                    Feeling, Speech, Equative,
                                                    Depiction, Creation
Type of Subject                                    Noun, Vocative, Participle, Clause,
                                                    Pronoun, Article
Subject Semantics                                  Agent (Actor), Patient (Undergoer)
Subject Person                                     First, Second, Third, First & Third
Subject Article                                    No, Yes, Demonstrative
Type of Object                                     Noun, Oblique, Participle, Clause,
                                                    Pronoun, Adjective
Object Case                                        Accusative, Dative, Genitive,
                                                    Nominative
Object Article                                     No, Yes, Demonstrative
Indirect Object                                    Dative Pronoun, Dative, Accusative
Negative                                           Positive, Negative
Prepositional Phrase                               Location, Time, Both, Other, All
Texttype                                           Narrative, Expository, Hortatory,
                                                    Procedural, Persuasive
Number of Words in Clause                          1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
First Clause in Colon                              Yes, No
Introductory Words                                 de, kai, gar, hoti, etc.
Form                                               Statement, Question, Command

The database program employs the chi-square test to check for the significance of variable relationships. Where the number of occurrences in each cell of a matrix is greater than five items, this test is a valid indicator of the probability of statistical significance (Hoel 1962, 244-247). For the purposes of this study, a relationship between variables that the chi-square test shows as having less than a 5% probability of being due to random factors of data is said to be significant. Similarly, a relationship between variables that the chi-square test shows as having less than a .5% probability of being due to random factors of data is said to be highly significant.