Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] tenses; frequency

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Awohili AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses; frequency
  • Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:00:31 EDT


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.








Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page