Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

Dave, if you want to avoid trouble from the moderators I suggest you avoid
implying that you understand this but the rest of us don't. Now you may
understand Chomsky etc better than the rest of us except perhaps Liz, but
there is more to understanding than Chomsky.

If you wish to argue that within your particular framework there is a
theoretical construct called "basic word order" and you are trying to
determine that within your framework, then that's fine but say so. In that
case criticisms of your framework are irrelevant. But the rest of us are
free to ignore as irrelevant those results which depend on your framework
and are meaningful only within it.

As for your suggestion that basic word order can only be found in sentences
without affixes, that doesn't really make sense. You will find hardly any
such sentences in your already limited Hebrew corpus. You might find a few
in English. In many languages the grammar implies that there are none at
all. Anyway, I wouldn't call the Hebrew conjunction an affix, it is more
like a clitic - though I agree that there is more going on in WAYYIQTOL.

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 Dave Washburn
> Sent: 30 May 2003 00:29
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] VSO vs SVO
> 
> On Thursday 29 May 2003 16:14, Bill Rea wrote:
> > Dave wrote:-
> >
> > >>>We've been down this road before, and the upside-down methodology is
> > >>>the one that assumes, a priori, that the form most common *within the
> > >>>limited and specialized corpus that has come down to us,* is the most
> > >>>fundamental one.
> >
> > and I said:-
> >
> > >> If your assertion is correct then the question become unaswerable.
> > >> To decide whether Hebrew is VSO or SVO requires evidence. If the
> > >> only evidence we have is deemed an unreliable witness then we are
> > >> stuck.
> >
> > And Dave replied:-
> >
> > >But since that's not what I said, we're unstuck, I guess.
> >
> > How so? If you can't assume "the form most common *within the limited
> > and specialized corpus that has come down to us,* is the most
> > fundamental one.", then how do you decide? It looks to me like you are
> > discounting the only witness we have because it is specialised and
> > non-representative.  I'm not questioning your right or reasons for
> > doing so. No one doubts it is specialised, whether it is not
> > representative of the spoken language seems to me another unanswerable
> > question.  But, then, where are you going get the evidence we need to
> > know the fundamental form is SVO and not VSO? Perhaps we should pose a
> > different question which may be answered -- within "the limited and
> > specialized corpus that has come down to us", is Hebrew VSO or SVO?
> > But looking back at the posts by Dale Wheeler and Liz, perhaps agreement
> > can't be reached on that question either.
> 
> Once again, that's not what I said.  In fact I never used the term
> "non-representative."  I never addressed that subject at all.  I said that
> counting occurrences within a specialized corpus like the OT, where the
> prose
> sections tend to focus on past narrative, will not tell us what the basal
> form of the Hebrew verb was.  We have to use other criteria.  In the case
> of
> the Hebrew verbal system, it seems clear that the WA. of the waw-
> consecutive
> forms is an affix of some kind, and in general affixes indicate a
> departure
> from the basal form.  If someone wants to argue that it's not an affix at
> all, they're welcome to.  But they have to explain the phonetic changes,
> the
> shifts in accent, the well-known shortening in some wayyiqtol cases, and
> all
> the rest, in a way that accounts for changes in both form and force when
> the
> WA. is dropped or whatever happens to it.  It's clear that I'm talking
> over
> some heads here, and it's getting frustrating and I don't want to get put
> on
> moderated posting again :-) so I think I'm going to drop out of this
> thread.
> 
> --
> Dave Washburn
> http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur