Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Prophetic Perfect? Psalm 107

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Prophetic Perfect? Psalm 107
  • Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 17:52:22 +0200

Dear Vadim,

You beg the question! Classical Hebrew is a dead language without informants, so you do not hear anybody say words, and you do not see anybody use verb forms. I am not sure that you understand the very important linguistic difference between "semantic meaning" and "conversational pragmatic implicature" and how this applies to WAYYIQTOLs and other verb forms.

A substantive (e.g. duck) has nothing to do with a verb, and you even argue on the basis if the *reference* of the substantive, not on the basis of its *^meaning*. Remember Ogden's triangle of signification with sign, meaning, and reference at the three corners. This is applicable to substantives but not directly to morphosyntactic (verb) forms. But if we should learn anything from it, we agree regarding the *reference* of the WAYYIQTOL of )MR in Genesis 1:3, it has past reference. The crucial question, however, is its *meaning*. Is its past reference based on the context, just as in the case of the Phoenician infinitive absolutes I have mentioned -thus being pragmatic? Or is its past reference an instrinsic part of the verb form WAYYIQTOL itself - thus being semantic? You cannot answer this question by mentioning how modern people refer to substantives.



Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo








Dear Rolf,

In my view traditional Hebrew grammar itself contains many fundamental
errors<
I wrote Hebrew grammar book. The ancient language is mathematically precise,
without a single oddity.

How do you know that English word "duck" means a duck and not an elephant?
Because most times you hear someone say "duck" it refers to this food (dead
or still alive). If someone calls another bird a duck, or uses the word as a
verb, etc, yourecognize it as deviations. Why? Because statistically the
word "duck" refers to a duck.
Sometimes the words change their meaning over the time. How do we know that?
Because statistically the new meaning becomes increasingly common.
Some people, perhaps, write "duk." How do we know it's wrong? Because most
others write "duck."
But then English lost "thou" form, How do we know that it is not people who
err, but the language change? Because no one uses this word in the modern
communication.
Grammar is about statistics.


Best regards,

Vadim

I trust a physician who examines my eyes much more than one who just
counts them. To apply general statistical models and to use known
error rates in connection with the verbal system of a dead language,
is the same as to count eyes. We have to make a *qualitative* study
of the verbal system of Classical Hebrew, not just a *quantitative*
one! True, statistics is a part of a qualitative study, but just a
part of it.

My basic criticism of previous studies of Hebrew verbs is the
following: No scholar, as far as I know, have ever published a study
of Hebrew verbs where a systematic difference between past reference
and past tense have been carried out.

Let me now ask you a question: Please take a look at Genesis 1:1 and
the first WAYYIQTOL in the verse and tell me: How can you know (and I
am asking for scientific reasons) that this WAYYIQTOL *semantically*
speaking *is* past tense (grammaticalized location in time), and that
the past reference is not pragmatic implicature? To state the
question a little differently: Which scientific reasons do you have
to argue that this WAYYIQTOL is not a YIQTOL with past reference (as
the two in Genesis 2.5 which have past reference) with the
conjunction WAW prefixed? I am not satisfied with references to
grammars, but I want to hear linguistic arguments.

BTW. I do not say that the Tanakh does not contain errors, but to
speak of "grammatical errors" you must first establish "the true
grammar" by which you can detect these errors. In my view traditional
Hebrew grammar itself contains many fundamental errors.


Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
>





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page