Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

See comments below

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Dave Washburn
Sent: Tue 8/23/2005 5:18 PM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] XSD
 
On Tuesday 23 August 2005 10:01, Karl Randolph wrote:

[snip]
> As for lexemes having diverse meanings, while I don't rule
> that out, after studying a few foreign languages I have
> found that lexemes having diverse meanings are quite rare.
> That is not the same as recognizing that a lexeme may have
> such a broad meaning that it can be translated by several
> lexemes in another language, nor is it a claim that all
> lexemes have narrowly defined boundaries in meaning,
> rather a recognition that it is rare for a lexeme to have
> both one meaning and its near opposite, or even a
> completely unrelated one. Biblical Hebrew is no exception.
> (This is one area where I, as a lexicographer, disagree
> with Reinier de Blois and his lexicon according to
> semantic domains.)
Dave Washburn wrote:
I'm not sure what languages you have studied, but English apparently isn't 
one 
of them.  Consider the word "strike": it can mean to hit (strike the rock and 
water will come out), to miss (in baseball), to begin something (strike up a 
conversation), to stop something (go on strike), a positive event (strike a 
bargain), a negative event (strike that from the record), to name just a few. 
 
As I have said before, words mean what they mean because a language group or 
subgroup chooses to use them that way.  Words have no "inherent" or "root" 
meaning and it is not unusual at all for a word (or lexeme, to use your term) 
to have as many meanings as the users agree upon.  So I'm afraid your basic 
premise about lexemes is built on a fallacy, unfortunately.
END QUOTE

JCR: Yes. And that's why I so adamantly claim that small phrases and not 
words are the 
bsic unit of translation. All the examples you gave above of the use of the 
word 'strike'
have completely different meanings but when they exist in their little 
phrases such as 
'strike up a conversation' 'go on strike' 'strike 3! you're out!' it is very 
difficult to 
imagine situations where they could have a different meaning.

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Karl wrote:-

>I've noticed that when you see someone who has a PhD and
>a reputation, that you seem to accept his words almost as
>canon. Hence you go into kniptions trying to justify the
>statements of the "experts" that you espouse. I question
>everyone, including myself. Give me a good argument based
>on the language, and I may change how I understand the
>text: merely quoting "experts" aint goin te cut th'
>butter.

I'm not intending to pick on Karl as this sentiment is trotted
out many times by many people. While this attitude is superficially
attractive, in practice it's a dead end. Some have said that truth
isn't decided democratically, but in reality that's exactly how
our current understanding is reached. Researchers publish in
peer-reviewed journals, those articles are read by other
researchers and cited in articles of their own. Citation indexes
help us to find out which of the multitude of articles are
important as they are cited many times, and which are of little
significance as they are rarely cited. Over time a consensus grows.
That's how its actually done. The whole academic structure of degrees,
journals and so on is not the hindrance to the advancement of knowledge
that some (usually the ones not getting published) claim. It is a well
tested system which, while not perfect, works remarkably well.

New and radical ideas are advanced within this framework all the
time -- witness Rolf's theory which has been debated here on an off
for a number of years. Rolf earned a Ph.D. for a new and, currently,
controversial understanding of the Hebrew verbal system.
Whether it has the merit Rolf claims or lack of merit Peter claims
is not decided by either Rolf or Peter. It will be decided by the
community of Hebrew scholars over time as they examine the evidence and
weigh it up against other understandings of the Hebrew verbal system.
There is nothing conspiratorial in this. It is the best way we know
of establishing which ideas have value and which do not.

As skeptics often say - extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence. That saying is not designed to exclude new ideas, it merely
reflects the actual requirement for a extraordinary new idea to
supplant a currently accepted idea.

Questioning ``experts'' is fine if you have what it takes to
actually critically examine what they say. If someone says that
because they don't have a Ph.D. in a particular field they can
look at it more objectively and so their ideas have special merit
usually that person is a crank and can be safely ignored.

See the seven warning signs of crank science:-

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

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