Biblical Hebrew Forum

[<tladatsi AT charter.net>]

It is my own fault for having commented on a topic that has both many 
technical aspects and is highly contraversial without access to my usual 
refernece materials.  My house is being painted and I writing from a coffee 
shop.

The term semantic domain of course is a metaphor, derived from the feudal 
term domain (dominus = lord), the geographical territory controlled by a 
lord.  The political domain had a capital (core) and borders (periphery). The 
borders of a feudal domain of course could change due to through the 
acquisition of new territory, either existing feual lands of another lord or 
through feudalization of non-feudal lands.  Lose of lands can occur as well.

I find it useful to extend this metaphor to semantics.  A semantic domain has 
a core concept, for example to kill a domesticated aminal - to slaughter in 
English.  When domesticated animals are killed, they are usually easy to 
find, are killed in close quarters, and there is rarely much of fight put up 
(pigs are something on an exception). This is why there is usually a separate 
lexeme for killing wild animals since they must be found, they can put up 
much more of a fight, and as a result are usually killed from a distance.

The domain of slaughter however can be expanded to the killing of people, 
either when those dying are unarmed and are unable to resist, soldlers kiling 
civilians for example, or when those dying, even if armed and capable of 
resistence, are dying in such a way that they may as well be unarmed.  These 
people are dying as if they were domesticated animals.

The domain might be extended even further to conflicts between people where 
no one actually dies, but the conflict is so one sided, that it had lives 
been on the line, it would have seemed like the passive death of a sheep.  
Sporting events or elections come to mind ("They got slaughtered.")

The core concept of the domain is an easy, passive death (viewed from the 
slaughterer's perspective of course) of a domesticated animal, the capital of 
the domain. The borders include non-domesticated animals (including 
people)that die as if they were domesticated animals and situations where 
difficult opposition would be expected but fails to materialize resulting in 
one-sided outcome.  Where one is in this wide semantic domain is determined 
by what the neighboring semantic domain are, i.e. the context.

XRM could have grown the same way. I would think that originally it applied 
to ritual events were domesticated animals were slaughtered, butchered, and 
burnt beyond the point where they might be consumed by humans (and by 
extention only consumed by God).  The animals was made inaccessable to the 
owner (given-up) and accessable to only to God (given to).  This core concept 
might be extended to non-dietary objects that are given up by the owner and 
given to God, although not physically destroyed although perhaps 
metaphorically.  The semantic domain could also be extended to military 
conflicts that differed from the normal fighting between warriors (who can 
put up a fight) to military conflicts where civilians (who are not expected 
to be able to defend themselves) are also targeted, resulting in the complete 
eradication of the opposing party.  That this eradication might have divine 
sanction only makes the link to the core conept stronger.  I think the Isaiah 
citation is an eve!
 n greater extention of the borders.




Jack Tladatsi