[b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14
Peter Kirk
peterkirk at qaya.org
Mon Sep 19 17:21:38 EDT 2005
On 19/09/2005 20:36, Vadim Cherny wrote:
>>> Let us first consider a method. How do you expect me to prove
>>> narrator's
>>> deictic center? Psychoanalysis? No.
>>
>>
>> OK, so you are putting forward a hypothesis which is, by your own
>> admission, unprovable - and for the same reason is unfalsifiable. As
>> such it can only be a speculation.
>>
>
> Of course, not. As I described, and what is a standard method of
> scientific proof, a hypothesis can be accepted if no contradicting
> facts can be brought against it, and if the hypothesis is simler than
> others.
This is not proper scientific method. A hypothesis like this which
cannot in principle be falsified cannot be established by the absence of
falsification.
>
>> I think you need to suggest how it is even reasonable to consider
>> that a habitual action in the past is described from a deictic centre
>> shifted even further into the past, when there is no evidence at all
>> for such a deictic shift.
>>
> The discussed fact of using future tense to describe past events is
> just such evidence.
> I assume, you don't dispute that deictic shifts exist.
>
I dispute that such deictic shifts exist in Hebrew, at least unless you
can provide evidence of them. I accept that they exist in Russian in the
case of indirect speech and similar.
>
>>> To prove b), I invoke Russian and English examples, and show that such
>>> shifts are not alien to human mentality.
>>
>>
>> The English example, "would" for a past habit, certainly does not
>> indicate a deictic shift into the past.
>
>
> I can settle for calling that idiomatic usage, and then we can discuss
> whether that idiomatic usage originally arose from deictic center shifts.
It did not. It arose from the past tense of the verb "will" = "want".
--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/
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