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

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14
  • Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 22:21:38 +0100

On 19/09/2005 20:36, Vadim Cherny wrote:

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.


This is not proper scientific method. A hypothesis like this which cannot in principle be falsified cannot be established by the absence of falsification.


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.

I dispute that such deictic shifts exist in Hebrew, at least unless you can provide evidence of them. I accept that they exist in Russian in the case of indirect speech and similar.


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.


It did not. It arose from the past tense of the verb "will" = "want".

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



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