Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Peter wrote:
> Dave Washburn wrote:
> 
> "However, I would argue that it is not enough simply to say "somebody 
> says it that way, so it must be well-formed."  There
> must be some guidelines of some kind for determining what is a 
> well-formed clause and what isn't, or we end up back with Humpty 
> Dumpty."
> 
> I consider it extremely offensive to speakers of minority languages 
> and/or "dialects" to suggest that what they speak is not a well-formed 
> language, apparently when its syntactic rules are different from those 
> of the "standardised" form of the language and/or don't fit a theory 
> nicely. 

It's not my intention to be offensive to anybody, and it seems to me 
that changin the subject line to "language prejudice" is more than a 
little confrontational and perhaps trying to start something.  I won't 
bite in any case.  However, from a purely theoretical point of view, 
it's still the case that there must be some guidelines of some sort 
to determine what is well-formed and what isn't.  Otherwise, 
anything goes and we may as well throw theory straight out the 
window and give up because there's no possible way to study 
language scientifically.

If a community speaks in a particular way, it is the job of 
> linguists to describe their language and adjust their theories to 
> account for it, not to pass value judgments on it on the basis of how 
> well it fits their existing theories.

Excuse me, but saying that according to normal syntactic patterns 
something is not well-formed is hardly a "value judgment."  Again, 
it's a scientific approach that understands the nature of generated 
language and the fact that particular linguistic societies accept 
certain things as well-formed and certain things as not.  Trying to 
attribute things like "value judgments" and "prejudice" to me goes 
far beyond productive discussion, Peter.  

> Do I have any support on this list for my view?

I hope not much, because it sounds like you're trying to start a 
fight.

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