Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 07/09/2005 00:17, Heard, Christopher wrote:

> ... Traditional lexicography recognizes two roots spelled CLM,  
> CLM I "image" and CLM II "shadow, shadowy thing." If this arguable  
> distinction is followed, CLM II is solidly attested for biblical  
> Hebrew only in two verses from the Psalms. If you are going to try to  
> make "shadow"--attested only twice--the "_basic meaning_," and then  
> try to interpret the more commonly attested sense in light of that so- 
> called "basic meaning," then you really must _justify_ your claim  
> that "shadow" is the "basic meaning" of CLM, and that this "basic  
> meaning" then carries the semantic-conceptual freight that you  
> attribute to it (above) into other senses. If you want to be  
> persuasive, you can't just _posit_ this, but must _demonstrate_ it.
>
>  
But traditional lexocigraphy also needs to justify its claim that there 
are actually two different words here, rather than an extended meaning 
of one word. I guess this is done by appealing e.g. to two different 
cognate Arabic roots with different initial consonants, ظَلَمَ and صَلَمَ, but 
the cognate صَلَمَ "cut off" posited by BDB for "image" seems improbable, 
so I wonder if the case is as certain as you might think.

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



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