Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] 998 non-past wyyqtl's, Dave

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 998 non-past wyyqtl's, Dave
  • Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 20:22:02 +0000

On 01/12/2004 19:47, Dave Washburn wrote:

Hi Bryan,

On Wednesday 01 December 2004 12:13, B. M. Rocine wrote:

...

Take paraphrasing with wayyiqtol as an example of "crossing the white
line." When a second wayyiqtol paraphrases or is identicle an earlier one,
the writer and reader's shared world knowledge cooperate with the meaning
of the wayyiqtol. Writer and reader know the same event doesn't happen
twice. Writer and reader both realize we are back-looping with the second
wayyiqtol to cover the same sequence again.


Let me be sure of one thing here: are you indicating that such a "crossing" is deliberate on the part of the speaker or writer? To continue your analogy, in general when someone crosses that line, they do it on purpose, and for what they consider to be a good reason ...


I'm not sure that I like this traffic laws analogy. Sure, it explains why people don't always follow the rules. But it also implies that there is some set of prescriptive rules of language which people consciously break. But there were no prescriptive rules in biblical times, which people could get in trouble for breaking. There was just a set of conventions.

Perhaps a better analogy would be that people don't go to weddings and funerals in jeans or to the beach in a tux, although it is nowhere written down that you mustn't. At least, usually they don't. If you find someone breaking such rules, there may be a good reason, or it may just be that someone is being eccentric, or doesn't understand the conventions. So you are wasting your time trying to find explanations for every last case. And if you go back to insisting that such social rules are meaningful (or semantic) only if there are no exceptions, you have to conclude that there are no meaningful rules.


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






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page