Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT ozemail.com.au>]

Vincent, I understand the serious danger of the root fallacy. But I
can't accept your general principle. Lexicographers generally make a
distinction between homonyms, which are words of different origin and
different meaning which happen to be spelled the same, and polysemy,
which is when the same word has acquired multiple senses through a
process of semantic shift. Sometimes this semantic shift is very
dramatic, as in this example, but that does not imply that this is no
longer polysemy. The different senses of the root BRK are generally
acknowledged to be a case of polysemy, not of homonyms.

There is a danger in your approach, especially for a dead language with
a limited corpus like biblical Hebrew, which is that it implies that
every occurrence of a word form must be classifiable as one or other of
a set of homonyms, or perhaps as a word play. It does not allow for the
possibility that some occurrences may be of an intermediate sense of a
word which has a broad semantic range and is most commonly used at one
extremity or the other. For example, for BRK it would imply that in Gen
24:48, 2 Ch 6:13, Ps 95:6 etc a decision be made whether the sense is
"kneel" or "bless, praise" and would rule out any idea that both of
these concepts are sometimes included in the sense of the word.

Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
  
-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Medina, Vincent
Sent: 23 January 2003 02:43
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [b-hebrew] regarding the root fallacy

Peter:
 
Word meanings are determined by usage, not by some penumbra of meaning
generated by a root or even a concept. When similarly spelled words have
meanings as distinct as “pool,” “knee,” “bless,” etc. it is best to see
these lexemes as homonyms. Your efforts to bring these three ideas under
the umbrella of some broader cultural idea are heroic though misguided.
 
When a term has a range of related meanings we can easily classify this
as polysemy, but that stretches the boundaries of believability with
regard to brk and these three very distinct usages.
 
Vince
 
Solo Deo Gloria