Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> 
> I don't think these are examples of "idiolect", which is, I think, the 
> odd speech of just one person. More likely this is a particular 
> dialect of English used by teenagers within their sub-culture, either 
> in your own area or more widely. 

Yes, I knew "idiolect" was not the best term, but I couldn't think of 
a better one at the time.

> You wrote: "These statements are not well-formed according to English 
> grammar". Well, indeed, according to the type of grammar we learned 
> from old-fashioned books based on Latin. On the other hand, such 
> statements are perfectly normal and correct, and therefore 
> "grammatical", within the dialect in which they occur.

I'm not talking about the type of grammar we learned from old-
fashioned books, I'm talking about the type of grammar that is 
intuitive to the bulk of English speakers.  The majority of a society 
that uses a particular language may comprehend such a sub-
dialect without considering it grammatically "correct" (a term I 
prefer to avoid, and use "well-formed" instead).  The fact is that 
outside her little circle, these types of phrases are considered 
malformed in some way, and unless we adopt Humpty-Dumpty's 
criterion for well-formedness and assume that anything goes and 
there's no such thing as "well-formed" or "malformed," we have to 
have some basis to go on.  Two things suggest to me that the 
information we glean from the "bigger picture" is the basis: 1) 
When a speaker or writer uses the grammatical patterns accepted 
by the bulk of the society using the language, the vast majority of 
hearers or readers don't need to shift their thinking into a sub-
dialect to comprehend it; rather, their understanding comes 
perfectly naturally and the recognize it as the "natural" formation 
within their language.  2) The overwhelming majority of kids who 
currently use this sub-dialect will ultimately "grow out of it."  That 
is, at some point of maturity they will cease using it and adopt a 
dialect closer to that used by the majority of the society which 
uses that language.  What these factors tell me is that this sub-
dialect is an aberration, and should not be used as a basis for 
determining what is well-formed and what is not.

> > To get back to Hebrew, this means that we cannot find "bad 
grammar" in > the Hebrew Bible (except perhaps where the text is 
corrupted, or > conceivably where foreigners are speaking (e.g. 2 
Kings 18:19-35)), > but rather "different grammar", corresponding 
either to a different > dialect (regional, sub-cultural etc) or to a 
different genre. > > Peter Kirk > > > 

What this tells me is that we have no basis at all to determine what 
may or may not be well-formed.  That bothers me more than a little 
bit...


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