Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 15/09/2005 06:31, tladatsi AT charter.net wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Since we are in Semantics 101, we can say that a lexeme is 
> the minimal semantic unit of a language.   So flee, fled, 
> fleeing, and fleer are forms of the English lexeme flee (to 
> get away from danger quickly), even though they are spelled 
> and pronounced rather differently.   Although pronounced 
> exactly the same and spelled very similarly, the noun flea 
> (any of various small, wingless, bloodsucking insects of 
> the order Siphonaptera) is an entirely different lexeme 
> from the verb flee.   In contrast, the lexeme fly probably 
> includes both the verb fly (flying, flown, flies, flew and 
> even flied) as well as the noun fly (any of numerous two-
> winged insects of the order Diptera or a baseball hit high) 
> since the noun is derived from the verb can both capture 
> the same idea, i.e. flight (either doing it and something 
> that does it).  A nearly identical relationship exists 
> between the Hebrew word for *bird* and the verb *he flies*, 
> they are spelled identically (un-pointed ?VK) and 
> pronounced very similarly. 
>  

Well, on my idea of semantics 101, the noun "fly" would count as a 
separate lexeme from the verb "fly", although they are clearly related. 
This relates to the distinction between inflectional morphology (the 
difference between fly, flying, flown, flies, flew etc) and derivational 
morphology (changes to words to make a new word, generally with a 
different part of speech) - although in this case there is no actual 
change of form between the noun and the verb (a peculiarity of English 
never found in Hebrew).

There is a grey area here with certain forms such as participles, in 
both English and Hebrew, which are on the borderline between being 
inflected forms of verbs and independent nouns. Consider Hebrew ro`eh 
"shepherd" - or is it just the participle of R`H?

So I would certainly disagree with your suggestion that one lexeme 'DM 
is being used for Edom etc. Rather, there is a word play between 
different lexemes with similar or identical forms.

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



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