Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Peter,
> Dear Dave,
> 
> Thank you for your answer. I must say you have a good point with the 
> development of children's speech etc. Let me just take up one point. 
> You wrote:
> 
> "So I'm suggesting that we need to answer more of the questions still 
> pending about
> the nature of individual clauses before our discourse analysis has a 
> solid basis on which to stand.  We can attempt discourse analysis 
> based on the current state of things, of course, but IMO the results 
> are far from assured because we're building on assumptions as
> much as anything else.  Does that help?"
> 
> Yes, it does help. But I wonder if we are expecting too much to get 
> things right first at the low level. It looks as if we never will get 
> an agreed firm foundation to build on (I guess they had similar 
> problems building the tower of Babel!). So perhaps we should look on 
> discourse analysis not as a fancy decoration which might be top-heavy 
> on a weak foundation, but rather as a buttress to keep our shaky 
> building standing firm. Less metaphorically, we can try to use 
> discourse analysis to test and refine our assumptions or hypotheses 
> and make a firmer and better rounded model of the whole of b-hebrew.

Yes.  I can see the two fields playing off each other and refining 
one another, and would be delighted to be part of such an 
enterprise.  

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.