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b-hebrew - Re[2]: over and under-specification

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  • From: Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[2]: over and under-specification
  • Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 21:53 -0500 (EST)


Another point which Bryan has missed is that the Midianites of 37:28
are very indefinite: ):ANF$IYM MID:YFNIYM SOX:ARIYM. One might even
wonder if they are the same people as the Ishmaelites of vv.25,27 and
later in v.28, though v.36 apparently makes this clear. Now the last
clause of v.27 has a definite subject ):EXFYW. I wonder if the
indefinite subject is in some sense weaker than the definite one and
so has a range restricted to the one clause, so that the for the
subjectless verbs WAY.IM:$:KW. and WAY.A(:ALW. the implied subject is
the stronger, although more distant, ):EXFYW. (The verse division also
confuses the issue, but presumably this is secondary). This would make
sense, and almost happens in English, as in this rendering: "His
brothers agreed, and when some Midianite merchants came by they pulled
Joseph up out of the cistern..." - where I think an English reader
would probably take the indefinite clause about the Midianites as
parenthetical. But does this sort of thing happen elsewhere in Hebrew?

Bryan wrote:

"yes, i do think translations for the general public should preserve
the under and over-specification of actants as per the Hebrew. but i
also think the translations should include some notes of explanation,
if nothing else than a note observing that the Hebrew writers display
a different sensitivity to specification of the actants and a blurb
about possible explanations..."

I disagree. We cannot expect the general public to understand the
subtleties of Hebrew, and they certainly wouldn't understand the type
of note you suggest. (Indeed they wouldn't read it, as presumably it
would be in an introduction and who reads introductions or anything
called blurb?!) In many cases there will be in the Hebrew more or less
subtle and untranslatable indicators disambiguating the apparent
ambiguities of under-specification - most obviously the gender
distinctions in the 2nd person (also those in the 3rd person in the
language I am working with, so we are forced to add name reference to
disambiguate in conversations between men and women), but also
contextual clues which might work quite differently in the target
language compared with Hebrew.

Peter Kirk







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