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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] knowledge of language versus language use (was Pronoun )nky in Judg 6:8)
  • Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 23:11:32 -0500

Dear Robert,

Dave is right: we are talking past each other. Let me give an
illustration, and in the process hopefully clear one of your questions up.
"Knowledge of language" has nothing to do with what we self-conciously
"know" about our own language, or the grammar of any language, for that
matter. Rather, "knowledge of language" refers to the actual language
ability hard-wired, or innate, witthin the human mind. This refers not
only to the vast mental lexicon within a speaker's mind, but also to the
actual processes by which sentences are generated. It should be
self-evident (particularly when we ask first-year language students what a
"preposition" is) that speakers need not have any awareness of the
"grammar" of the language in order to use it. So, I completely reject
your assertion that knowledge of ["grammar," which is what you mean] leads
to language use. Instead, the innate knowledge of "language" (and
particularly one's own native language) leads to language use. Language
users can no more explain the actual mental processes that any human can
explain why he or she sees yellow on a daisy. That is to say, we can
observe the outward data and propose explanations, but they may or may not
have anything to do with the real nature of the mental processes behind
the actions/events.

HH: I understand this native ability, but as we are schooled we learn what we've been doing. What we've been doing, I believe, is copying those around us, and learning.

Furthermore, by simple observation, Chomsky argues for a severe
distinction between the "language" that we all have in our mind, that
generates "grammatical" sentences and what often comes out of our mouth or
from our pen or keyboard, since the latter is often influenced by
performance issues (absent-mindedness, lack of sleep, drugs, nervousness,
etc.). The former is what he calls "competence," the latter
"performance." Furthermore, he asserts that performance is for the
psychologists or psycholinguists to study, but pure linguists only study
competence. By the way, here is where the current struggle in minimalism
is: how many pragmatics topics can we treat under competence, and are
phenomena like implicature always in the realm of performance/use (and
thus not to be subsumed under linguistics proper)?

HH: This distinction Chomsky makes does not seem that significant to me, although of course what we do does not always measure up to what we know. Why is it significant? As for implicature, I am assuming that you have definition 1 below in mind, rather than definition 2 (American Heritage Dictionary). Is that right? Perhaps you mean both.

1. The aspect of meaning that a speaker conveys, implies, or suggests without directly expressing. Although the utterance "Can you pass the salt?" is literally a request for information about one's ability to pass salt, the understood implicature is a request for salt. 2. The process by which such a meaning is conveyed, implied, or suggested. In saying "Some dogs are mammals," the speaker conveys by implicature that not all dogs are mammals.

Now, back to extraposition and )$R clauses: yes, I agree that there are
"reasons" that extraposition occurs. However, I carefully call these
"processing" issues in my dissertation to alert the reader that it is
unlikely that such reasons can really be identified within a linguistics
(proper) approach. They are better addressed within the realm of
psycholinguistics.

HH: I am not seeing a sharp distinction here either. Rules of good English language use have been formulated and taught (some of the principles can apply to Hebrew). The examples of extraposition you gave suggested to me instances of modifier placement to avoid confusion. I don't see why this is not linguistics proper. Encarta says linguistics is the study of language. Webster's says it is: "the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language." Modifier placement is not necessarily a subjective matter but has an objective component.

Also, the issue came up of placing modifying clauses so that the sentence is not awkward (the one about Joseph's wife bearing him a child). This also seems an aspect of linguistics proper. It has to do with how much secondary matter can occur before one loses the train of thought in the main clause.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard
From dwashbur AT nyx.net Sun Oct 10 00:13:13 2004
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From: Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] GDD (was not: Self-mutilation)
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 22:13:09 -0600
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On Saturday 09 October 2004 18:04, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:
Dear Dave,

> Even his own documents had to be
>written in Aramaic and Greek as well as Hebrew; if Hebrew was as common as
>some claim, the question then is, why?

HH: My first guess would be that there were three languages in use. A
good number of scholars say that.

Definitely they were. The question is, which was used for what purposes? That's where we differ.

--
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No good. Hit on head." -Gronk



  • Re: [b-hebrew] knowledge of language versus language use (was Pronoun )nky in Judg 6:8), Harold R. Holmyard III, 10/10/2004

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