--- title: "Speaking to One's Heart: דבר and its Semantic Extension — Mylonas 2016" description: "The lexicons list many senses for דָּבָר: word, matter, affair, deed, thing, anything, plan, decision, request." authors: ["Natalie Mylonas", "Stephen Llewelyn", "Gareth Wearne"] year: 2016 venue: "Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 16" source: "https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7" doi: "10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7" licence: "JHS open access; no licence statement on this article page — not verified, read only" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/mylonas-2016-speaking-one-s-heart-semantic/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/mylonas-2016-speaking-one-s-heart-semantic/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2016](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2016/page/4/) / Speaking to One's Heart: דבר and its Semantic Extension # Speaking to One's Heart: דבר and its Semantic Extension **Authors:** Natalie Mylonas, Stephen Llewelyn and Gareth Wearne · **Year:** 2016 · **Venue:** Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 16, article 7 **Link:** [doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7](https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7) · **Licence:** JHS open access, no licence on the article page — treated as copyrighted, summary only [**2** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2746745752) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 · [Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 16](https://openalex.org/S2764683527) - [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7) - [PDF](https://jhsonline.org/index.php/jhs/article/download/29358/21376) - [DOI 10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7](https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2746745752) **Authors (3)** 1. [Natalie Mylonas](https://openalex.org/A5086847774) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/117754516) · h 2 · 4 citations · 7 works 2. [Stephen Llewelyn](https://openalex.org/A5026383425) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0992-2178) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/118015357) · h 7 · 205 citations · 40 works 3. [Gareth Wearne](https://openalex.org/A5047389314) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8426-5553) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/50343404) · h 3 · 65 citations · 23 works Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about The lexicons list many senses for דָּבָר: word, matter, affair, deed, thing, anything, plan, decision, request. The authors explain them as a radial category built mainly by metonymic chains. Part for whole: one "word" stands for a whole utterance, and is then glossed by the kind of speech act it is (report, command, request, claim). Medium for message: words stand for what they express — thoughts, plans, intentions, a decision (Deut 17:8–11), linked to the idiom "to speak in one's heart". With the verb "to do", דָּבָר becomes the act or event, and then the thing acted on. Beyond metonymy, a grammaticalised use: indefinite דָּבָר under negation means "anything/nothing" (Gen 19:8, 22; Deut 22:26), and in construct before a noun it individuates ("such a vile thing", Judg 19:24). Senses overlap even within one passage, so the same gloss cannot be assumed for nearby occurrences. ## Ideas - I1. Sense rules for דָּבָר in the Torah dictionary, by construction: object of a verb of speaking or with לֵאמֹר → "word(s)/speech"; object of עָשָׂה, especially with הַזֶּה → "thing/deed"; indefinite under לֹא/אַל or in a question → "anything/nothing"; in construct before an abstract noun (דְּבַר הַמִּשְׁפָּט) → the kind named by that noun. Measure each rule against the JPS rendering of every Torah occurrence. - I3. A radial-sense layout for polysemous dictionary entries: core sense first, each extension tagged with its link (part-for-whole, medium-for-message, act, grammatical) so the entry says why the sense exists. ## For Mova - I2. "Speak in/to one's heart" (אָמַר/דִּבֶּר בְּלִבּוֹ / אֶל לִבּוֹ) → inner speech: a `prag` rule giving the quote voice "thought", not spoken dialogue. - I4. When דָּבָר stands for an utterance, the speech-act label of `prag` (command, request, report) can serve as its gloss; check whether the act of the quote that follows agrees with the English noun JPS uses. I1 and I3 are for the Torah dictionary (the dictionary builder) and [languages/hbo/10-lexicon.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/10-lexicon/) (polysemy). I2 and I4 are candidate rules for `tools/macula/src/prag.rs` (voice; act), written up in `09-discourse.md` (direct speech). ## Institutions [🎓**Macquarie University** Sydney · Australia 12 works · 4,052 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/macquarie-university/) Also on the byline: [Australian Catholic University](https://ror.org/04cxm4j25). ## Cite Cite as Natalie Mylonas, Stephen Llewelyn and Gareth Wearne. 2016. Speaking to One's Heart: דבר and its Semantic Extension. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 16. The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7](https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7) ```bibtex @article{mylonas2016speaking, title = {{Speaking to One's Heart: דבר and its Semantic Extension}}, author = {Natalie Mylonas, Stephen Llewelyn and Gareth Wearne}, journal = {Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 16}, year = {2016}, doi = {10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7}, url = {https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a7} } ``` - [← previous Semantically Motivated Hebrew Verb-Noun Multi-Word Expressions Identification](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/liebeskind-2016-semantically-motivated-hebrew-verb-noun/) - [next → Syntactic Variation in Masoretic Hebrew: The Object Clause Reconsidered](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/naaijer-2017-syntactic-variation-masoretic-hebrew-object/) - [↑ back to papers of 2016](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2016/page/4/)