Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 18/09/2004 19:57, C. Stirling Bartholomew wrote:

> On 9/18/04 11:28 AM, "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org> wrote:
>
>  
>
> ...
>
> > Perhaps (rather off the top of my head) we should see the different verb
> > forms, in Relevance Theory terms, as helping to select between various
> > interpretations which might be relevant in the context, to find which is
> > the most relevant. Does that sound like a promising approach?
> >    
>
> Along these lines, I am still finishing up the two books you recommended but
> E-A Gutt* and I am wondering if the code view of communication possibly has
> something to do with our problems dealing with hebrew verb aspect?
>
> Any ideas on this?
>
>  
Well, still off the top of my head: I rather feel that Gutt and other RT
proponents have set up the "code model" as a straw man to attack, one
which does not accurately reflect the views of any recent linguists,
including Rolf. And they use "code model" as a pejorative term. So,
while I disagree with Rolf on a number of linguistic issues, I don't
think it would be fair to call him an adherent of the "code model". On
the other hand, I would think that many of Gutt's criticisms, and the
general criticisms made by Relevance Theory, of other linguistic
approaches are very applicable to Rolf's approach, as well as to many
other approaches to Hebrew verb forms including the more traditional ones.

I would describe one of the main insights of Relevance Theory as being
that there is no rigid linkage between the form of an utterance -
whether lexis, syntax or morphology - and its meaning. Rather, the form
is a general indicator of the meaning. But I can't go into more details
at the moment, not having the books available.

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