Poetics and Grammar. Discourse Analysis of the Verbal Structure in the Hymn "God, Where Shall I Find You" by Jehuda Halevi.

The hymn יָהּאָנָהאֶמְצָאֲךָ "God, Where Shall I Find You”, ascribed to the morning prayers cycle, belongs to one of the most recognisable masterpieces among the lyrics of Yehuda Halevi. Nonetheless, (discussed often as it might has been from the literary, theological or philosophical perspective) the poem (as well as the medieval Sephardic Hebrew poetry in general) has scarcely been looked upon from the linguistic point of view.

Having in mind how complexed the phenomena of Medieval Hebrew language is I would like to investigate into that particular representative and discuss its verbal structure, reaching for the tools applied by the grammar of discourse - which would hopefully allow me for a coherent description of the grammatical system functioning within the frames of that single poetical unit.

Moreover, that paper would also aim to answer the question to which extend, on one hand, the poem reflects (as declared by the author himself) the psalmic structural and the grammatical matrix of Biblical Hebrew; and at which points, on the other hand, it proves itself to be a grammatically independent unit, governed by its own innovative rules.

I also hope to be able to demonstrate how those innovative rules (governing the distribution of the Hebrew verbal forms) allowed the author for composing a consistent, logical and skilfully designed template where grammatical patterns tend to broaden their functions to those of poetic devices.