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Unité spécifique de l'écrit, palier intermédiaire entre l'espace linguistique de la phrase et celui du texte, le paragraphe joue un rôle important dans la lisibilité de la construction du sens.Le paragraphe et l'alinéa ont été souvent rejetés hors du champ de la linguistique et ce livre est un des rares à leur être entièrement consacré. Après une vaste mise au point, l'auteur développe une théorie générale du paragraphe et met en œuvre une méthodologie d'analyse de ses usages à des époques et dans des genres très différents : pratiques discursives journalistique, publicitaire, encyclopédique-didactique et littéraire (poème, conte, roman : de Perrault et Baudelaire à Butor et Simon).

'Research on the function and semantics of the verbal system in Hebrew (and Semitics in general) has been in constant ferment since McFall's 1982 work The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System. Elizabeth Robar's analysis provides the best solution to this point, combining cognitive linguistics, cross-linguistics, diachronic and synchronic analysis. Her solution is brilliant, innovative, and supremely satisfying in interpreting all the data with great explanatory power. Let us hope this research will be quickly implemented in grammars of Hebrew.'Peter J. Gentry, Donald L. Williams Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY.In The Verb and the Paragraph in Biblical Hebrew, Elizabeth Robar employs cognitive linguistics to unravel the notorious grammatical quandary in biblical Hebrew: explaining the waw consecutive, as well as other poorly understood verbal forms (e.g. with paragogic suffixes). She explains that languages must communicate the shape of thought units: including the prototypical paragraph, with its beginning, middle and ending; and its message. She demonstrates how the waw consecutive is both simpler and more nuanced than often argued. It neither foregrounds nor is a preterite, but it enables highly embedded textual structures. She also shows how allegedly anomalous forms may be used for thematic purposes, guiding the reader to the author's intended interpretation for the text as it stands.