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b-hebrew - Re[3]: Diachronic study (was Purpose for discussion)

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  • From: Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[3]: Diachronic study (was Purpose for discussion)
  • Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 17:03:00 +0100


At 01.00 22/02/00 -0500, Peter Kirk wrote:
>Good point, Ian. I may not have given the "alone" its full force. On
>the other hand, linguists cannot be expected to be cutting edge
>historians as well, and should be allowed to present language-only
>arguments. That is the point of the rest of my posting, which has been
>carefully ignored.

Actually no, it hasn't been ignored. I was merely dealing with your
misplaced attack on NPL. However, as I understand the assumptions, the
position espoused doesn't seem to be correct.

If we are dealing with synchronic linguistics, a linguist may present
linguistic only arguments. Yet, if we are dealing with diachronic
linguistics, we need a manner to anchor the information into a historical
space. To deal with the various sources needed for a linguistic study one
needs the historical component.

The necessity to deal with aspects of history in this day and age requires
cross-discinplinary expertise: linguistic, iconographic,
epigraphic/philological, economic, archaeological, and whatever else is
seen as relevant. We can no longer afford single disciplinary analyses of
most matters from the past.


Ian

>>>This is what may happen when philologists enter a discussion about
>>>language datings segments of language on the basis of language alone.
>
>The magic word is the last one: "alone".





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