Biblical Hebrew Forum

[decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)]

chers amis/cheres amies,

i will try to outline the basics of tagmemics, with the hope that if my
outline is incorrect, that someone will correct me in the spirit of
cooperation...

essentially, the goal appears to be the exegesis of the biblical text and
the analysis of nonindoeuropean languages for the purposes of bible
translation (admirable goals, but not usually the goals of mainstream
theoretical linguistics).

there are continuities with american structuralism a la bloomfield,
harris, etc; but more directly with the basic principles of structuralism
going back to Saussure's lectures. the tagmeme is the correlated class and
slot, by which is meant paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations a la
Saussure. i take this to be a non-generative, taxonomic exercise.

the upshot is a methodology for field work, summarized e.g. in Longacre's
work on "discovery procedures": "guess-and-check" structuralist analysis.

my interest is, what is a "possible language"? according to Pike & Pike,
all human behaviour including language is system: a strong claim for
structuralist anthropology, which is very much outdated. crucially, there
is no constraint in principle on the number and nature of linguistic
levels, no constraint at all, except that it would conform to
structuralist analysis. pure, unconstrained "induction". it reminds me
very much of "stratificational" approaches, again with no constraints.

longacre's discourse grammar is, crucially, "deduction": very much so. and
i don't think it is descriptively adequate, judging by the work on
Genesis, IMHO.

how is that for a start...?

V-- 
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Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/
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Love work. Hate authority.  --Shemaiah, from Avot