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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Kamatz katan; Ashkenazi pronunciation; was: Translating

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Kamatz katan; Ashkenazi pronunciation; was: Translating
  • Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 14:39:46 +0500

On 05/10/2006 20:10, Rolf Furuli wrote:
...

The important question, which seldom have been scrutinized, is: The morphological
distinction, is it semantic (different semantic groups are distinguished) or is it
pragmatic (basically represening function, i.e. past, present, and future reference
/not "tense," which would be a semantic term/ and modality? ...

On the contrary, it has been scrutinised ad infinitum on this list. Do we really have to go through this again?

... The answer stands and falls with the view of WAYYIQTOL. As a matter of
fact, the WAYYIQTOL did not exist before the Masoretes! ...

This is not a matter of fact but of your interpretation. Even if there was a real absence of evidence (and there is in fact plenty from apocopation, and from distinctions in translations in LXX etc), absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are plenty of things about ancient languages of which we don't have direct evidence, only more or less speculative reconstructions. The absence of evidence of how ancient peoples spoke is not evidence that they didn't speak!

... Thus, the narrative form with prefixed vaw would have a retracted stress,
and future and modal forms would not. ...

This sounds like a phonetic distinction corresponding to a semantic distinction, which sounds to me like the distinction between two different verb forms which were rightly (if on your reconstruction somewhat perversely) marked by the Masoretes. Yes, I call the difference between past narrative actions and future and modal senses a semantic one. Again, maybe we can't prove it, but that is not evidence that it was not semantic, as it is in most modern languages for which we can prove such things with mother tongue speakers.


--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/






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