Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 10/08/2005 14:00, Awohili AT aol.com wrote:

> 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?  
>  

Yes, certainly if you take Rolf's rigid approach to semantics.

> 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.
>  

Rolf's research may be good on his working hypothesis. But others have 
done the same kind of analysis on a working hypothesis (or perhaps a 
presupposition) of four of five conjugations. And they have not found a 
contradiction. Rolf claims that he is the only one to have analysed all 
the data, but he does not claim to have analysed it against the working 
hypothesis of four of five conjugations. Therefore there is no reason to 
think that Rolf's results are any better than the four or five component 
model. The only way either model can be considered even the preferable 
is if the other one can be found to be contradictory.

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