Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 18/11/2005 07:25, Rolf Furuli wrote:

> ...
>
> You have spoken of the etymological fallacy (J. Barr (1968) "The Semantics 
> of Biblical Language" has a fine discussion). But you have repeatedly 
> comitted what I would call the "meaning fallacy" (i.e., you have used the 
> word "meaning" without qualification, as if "meaning" is one and the same 
> thing). For example, you have said that NP$ has several "meanings". If 
> "meaning" in this case refers to "lexical meaning in Hebrew", I disagree, 
> and I would argue that NP$ has only one meaning (there is no diachronic 
> difference in the use of NP$ in the Tanakh). I equate lexical meaning with 
> the concept in the mind signaled by the word inside a particular 
> presupposition pool. Some Hebrew words can signal more than one concept and 
> therefore have more than one meaning.
>  

Let me clarify here. As I understand it, NEPE$ is a single lexeme which 
has a number of related senses. This is normal for most lexemes in all 
languages, which is why dictionaries sometimes list many different 
senses for a word. I do not accept your psycholinguistic speculation 
that individual words signal concepts in the mind, at least as more than 
a gross oversimplification of something which is far more complex than 
anyone yet understands.

> I use the principles of Psycholinguistics as a point of departure (J. 
> Aitchison (1989) "The Articulate Mammal An Introduction to 
> Psycholinguistics"; (1993) "Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental 
> Lexicon"). The background for the use of the "core" of a concept, is the 
> tendency of people  in Psycholinguistic experiments to have an idea of an 
> ideal exemplar of a concept, a "prototype". The robin has for example been 
> viewed as more "birdier" than the ostrich and the penguin. ...

I am sure that these results are valid. But are they based on single 
isolated words being presented to test subjects? Fair enough if this is 
recognised, but the researchers are here presupposing that the basic 
unit of meaning is the word. It would be interesting, although very 
complex, to repeat such studies based on whole sentences (and ideally 
even longer discourses). One might well then discover that the prototype 
meaning of the individual words is never signalled, or in your terms 
"made visible", when that sense is clearly contextually irrelevant. For 
example, if someone holds out a plate and says "Would you like a 
penguin?", I am sure that my mind never thinks in terms of prototypical 
or non-prototypical birds but recognises immediately from the context 
that the reference is to a brand of chocolate bar. Well, that is not a 
normal kind of extended sense of a word, but the same principle applies 
to normal types, e.g. if someone asks me to run a program I don't even 
start to think in terms of putting on my running shoes.

> ... Hebrew concepts 
> cannot be defined, they could only be known by those having the same 
> presupposition pool.  The best we can do is to look at all the occurrences 
> of NP$ to get an idea of a "prototype," and that can be "a living creature". 
> The "core sense" relates to this "prototype". The context indicates which 
> part of the concept the author wants to make visible in a particular clause 
> (and that is not always the core), or the reference of the word in the 
> clause. What is made visible, or the references are not different "(lexical) 
> meanings" of NP$, because the word has only one lexical meaning. This seems 
> to be close to what Karl is saying.
>  

I accept that in some sense there may be a "core sense", although that 
may change in time. (I have a late 19th century English dictionary, and 
it is amazing how many words in modern use have almost lost the sense 
which according to that dictionary was the primary sense, but now have a 
"core sense" which is quite different from what it was more than a 
century ago. An example I recently found is "magazine"; your 
psycholingustic tests would surely now give a core sense of a glossy 
periodical, rather than the old core sense of an ammunition store.)

> When translators of a literal translation choose one English word to 
> represent the "prototype" or core of the concept, that does not necessarily 
> represent ignorance on the part of the translators (we should not be quick 
> to doubt others motives or abilities). It simply represents one legitimate 
> approach to translation, namely to try to convey the Hebrew concepts to 
> modern people and let the readers do much of the interpretation. ...

OK, it is a legitimate approach to translation for your special 
audience. But it is still not clear to me, is it legitimate to criticise 
as misleading the specific choice of English word (for example, I have 
criticised "soul" for NEPE$) for having a prototypical meaning different 
from the prototypical meaning of the Hebrew word? Or is such criticism 
irrelevant because the choice of English word is essentially arbitrary?

> ... When the 
> translators of idiomatic translations find English words for what is made 
> visible in a particular clause (situation), or what is referred to, this is 
> a legitimate approach as well. Such translators  interpret the text to a 
> much greater extent than those who make the literal translation, and much 
> more theology is introduced in such a translation , but many readers want it 
> this way.
>  

Thank you. I am glad that we recognise the legitimacy of one another's 
translation methods.

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