Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>

> 
> On 8/25/05, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:
> > Dear James,
> >
> > >>Recourse to scholars usually indicates a lack of ability to support
> > >>one's position from data
> > >>alone. And IMNSHO all discussion on this list should be based on
> > >>data alone if it is to be
> > >>taken seriously.
> >
> > HH: The virtually unanimous opinion of Bible translations,
> > commentaries, and lexicons is data.
> >
> Another issue is that when you are working without knowledge
> of various scholarly discussions on a word or any issue, you find
> yourself with one hand or both tied behind your back.  You have
> the data, at least some of it.  You are not aware of additional data,
> that may be raised from comparative linguistics or analysis, and
> you are not aware of various arguments in support and against the
> various positions that have been raised.  You may not even be
> aware of the various positions that have been raised.  Working
> directly with the sources is fine and preferred, but you should also
> be at least familiar with the positions and arguments that have
> been proposed, especially when they are widely accepted.
> 
Aaah, but in a discussion like this, those positions and 
arguments still need to be justified as not everyone 
accepts them even if they know them.

> On 8/25/05, Karl Randolph wrote:
> > studies on scholars and traditions, I base mine on
> > methodology. One part of the methodology is that it is
> > very rare for a lexeme to have two or more distinctly
> > different definitions. Another part is to use an
> > unpointed text. Another is where there are synonyms
> > and antonyms recognized, that comparisons with these
> > can help. And there are others.
> 
> If that is methodology, it is very faulty methodology.  It can be
> more properly described as assuming certain attributes of the
> evidence (such as that it is very rare to have two or more
> distinctly different definitions) ahead of viewing the evidence.
> I'm not saying you should come to a text and assume it
> definitely has a meaning different from all other cases.  But
> you shouldn't come to a text and assume it has a meaning
> equal to all other cases as well.  You should assume neither,
> and decide whether it does or does not based on what seems
> most convincing and most appropriate for that case.  After you
> have done this for all words, then you can check each word
> and see how many times it has two distinct meanings.  Then
> you can conclude if it is rare or not.
> 
This is not a complete description of what I did. The most 
time consuming part was looking up every usage of the 
majority of lexemes that appear in Tanakh. I started with 
the assumption that I would be able to find one and one 
only distinct meaning per lexeme, and with rare exceptions 
I was able to do that. This is not the same as claiming 
that it can be translated smoothly using one term in 
English, rather in Hebrew some have broader meanings, 
others narrower, but only one distinct meaning per lexeme.

> > I think you are confusing idiomatic phrase with compound
> > lexeme. In the English example of "strike out" one has a
> > meaning one would never guess from just the meanings of the
> > individual lexemes that make up the compound lexeme. Other
> > compound lexemes are not so obscure, but still share the
> > property of having a definition that is distinct from
> > either word taken seperately. On the other hand, BYT )B in
> > Hebrew can readily be understood even never having seen the
> > term before, when one recognizes that BYT refers not only to
> > a physical house, but also to a family and )B to ancesters.
> 
> You are applying two different methods to the words "strike out"
> and "byt )b."

Well, yes and no. Yes in that with "strike out" I am 
applying the knowledge that comes with a native speaker's 
knowledge of the language, and no in that, apart from a 
discussion as here on b-hebrew forum, I have never studied 
either outside of contextual clues.

>  Starting with the phrase "byt )b" and having no idea
> of what it means, could you guess it?

I can't answer that in that I have always read it in 
context and with a knowledge of its wider meaning.

>  Why can't it mean
> "ancestral home"?  Do you really think that you could guess the
> meanings of the words just from the meanings of the individual
> lexemes and without examples of its use in context?  On the
> other hand, if you have such examples of the use of "strike out"
> do you really think you could never guess the meaning?
> 
If I were ignorant of baseball where "strike out" means to 
fail to get on base (or even there if this were the first 
time I had ever observed baseball) and I were at a single's 
bar and heard my host laugh that his friend had "struck 
out" in his amourous attention of a pretty young thing, I 
would have no idea, or very vague at best, what he meant 
until it were explained to me.

> Yitzhak Sapir

Karl W. Randolph.

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