Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>]

> From: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org
> Subject: Re[2]: b-hebrew digest: December 03, 1998
> Maybe an accurate description of what many people do: first define 
> your straitjackets, and then try to force your living (or formerly 
> living) language into them. Let's stop trying to define b-hebrew as a 
> tense-based language or an aspect-based language and let it be 
> b-hebrew!

mathematicians and scientists do not consider formal models
straightjackets, they call them "working hypotheses". in principle all
such hypotheses are open to revision and correction. if you turn your
back on scientific method, on theory construction, well.... what is
there to say?

your choice is between a rigorous articulated model or an
unarticulated poor model.

there is no reason why a rigorous theory of semantics wouldn't let BH
be. it should in fact be able to show in what ways it *is* unique. but
unless you reject the notion of human language as a unified
phenomenon, it stands to reason that BH will be like other languages
in many respects.

just some thoughts.
cheers
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Vincent DeCaen, Ph.D.  <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~decaen/hsei/intro.html
c/o Deparment of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor, University of Toronto, Toronto ON, M5S 1A1
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...the idea of a perfect language risks becoming nothing more than a
waste bin for prejudices which have not survived confrontation with
linguistic reality.
  --Mark Sainsbury, "Russell", 1979: p15