Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Awohili AT aol.com]

But doesn't the problem of working with the corpus of a "dead" language  hold 
for any researcher in biblical Hebrew?  Does that mean that drawing  any 
conclusions on semantic distinctions is therefore, futile?  
 
I would say that the best research regimen would yield the best results  
possible, even if not iron-clad.  And such a best-case regimen is what I  see 
in 
Rolf's work.
 
Solomon Landers
 
In a message dated 08/10/2005 3:40:18 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
peterkirk AT qaya.org writes:

Well, the  difference is that you claim to 
have examined all of the verb forms in a  corpus. But a corpus is not the 
whole of a language, it is simply a large  body of sample data. And in 
fact the more serious problem with using a  corpus from a dead language 
is that you have no way to determine which  alternative sentences would 
in fact be ungrammatical or have a distinct  meaning. That is, you have 
no access to native speaker insight. I would  suggest that because of 
this your method is incapable in principle of  distinguishing real 
semantic distinctions from pragmatic ones, and so  incapable in principle 
of falsifying your working  hypothesis.