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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14

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  • From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • To: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14
  • Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 22:36:07 +0300

Let us first consider a method. How do you expect me to prove narrator's
deictic center? Psychoanalysis? No.

OK, so you are putting forward a hypothesis which is, by your own admission, unprovable - and for the same reason is unfalsifiable. As such it can only be a speculation.


Of course, not. As I described, and what is a standard method of scientific proof, a hypothesis can be accepted if no contradicting facts can be brought against it, and if the hypothesis is simler than others.

I think you need to suggest how it is even reasonable to consider that a habitual action in the past is described from a deictic centre shifted even further into the past, when there is no evidence at all for such a deictic shift.

The discussed fact of using future tense to describe past events is just such evidence.
I assume, you don't dispute that deictic shifts exist.


To prove b), I invoke Russian and English examples, and show that such
shifts are not alien to human mentality.

The English example, "would" for a past habit, certainly does not indicate a deictic shift into the past.

I can settle for calling that idiomatic usage, and then we can discuss whether that idiomatic usage originally arose from deictic center shifts.

Vadim Cherny




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