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  • From: Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[4]: Qatal, 1 Kings 11:1
  • Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 17:33:20 -0500 (EST)



Dear Dave,

I think you had already adequately communicated to me at least that
you hold to this principle, though I was glad of your clear statement
of it. What you have failed to demonstrate is the correctness of this
principle and its adequacy for study of verb forms of Biblical Hebrew,
or for that matter of any other language.

I do not in fact want to criticise the correctness of this principle
as far as it goes. With this principle, we can identify clauses which,
taken in isolation, are grammatically correct in Hebrew; this would
include clauses with X + qatal, weqatal, X + yiqtol, wayyiqtol,
weyiqtol etc, but would rule out as ungrammatical clauses with
non-existent verb forms such as *waqqatal. For this, there is no need
for discourse analysis.

But I also see your principle as inadequate for describing which verb
forms are appropriate in a particular context. Take this fragment from
the start of an English discourse: "I got up at eight o'clock this
morning. I take a shower and get dressed. Then I had some
breakfast..." Is this good English or not? Each individual clause is
grammatical. But the second sentence should read "I took a shower and
got dressed.", because the discourse context is a single past event
rather than present and habitual. Does your principle, and your
grammatical approach as a whole, give a way of determining that this
English discourse is ungrammatical? If not, I would suggest that it is
inadequate, and unable to deal with the analogous questions in Hebrew
of when to use which verb form.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: Qatal, 1 Kings 11:1
Author: dwashbur AT nyx.net at internet
Date: 03/02/1999 08:05


<snip>

Yes, and therein lies one of my major differences with nearly
everybody else here: I hold to the autonomous syntax principle.
One recent statement of this principle says "No syntactic rule can
make reference to pragmatic, phonological, or semantic
information." (Andrew Radford, *Transformational Grammar*,
Cambridge U. Press, 1988 p. 31). This is one of the chief
distinguishing features of transformational grammar, and one that I
seem to have had trouble communicating here.

<snip>

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




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