Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 24/03/2004 17:22, Sameer Yadav wrote:

> ...
>
> So although I appreciate your warning about being
> cautious to reject explanations which appear to cover
> much of the data, I would also caution you from
> accepting an entire theory of modal semantics in
> natural language simply because it can be formed in a
> neat distribution around the usage of the conjugations
> in BH.  I think that the relationship has to be
> reciprocal, with good reasons to accept the general
> semantic account independently of the way those
> semantics are uniquely exhibited in one particular
> language.
>  

Thank you, Sameer. I agree with you. From the data I have seen, Hatav's 
hypothesis is neither confirmed nor disproved. And even if it is 
confirmed for Hebrew, that does not imply that it is generally 
applicable to all natural languages - any more than are models derived 
from English, Russian etc. Modality is obviously a rather slippery 
concept (as we can see from English, Greek etc examples recently 
posted), and Hatav's definition is not the last word on it.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/