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  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] We and us
  • Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:15:34 +1100


Sure, part of our problem is that we will always remain at a distance from the language: we are neither native speakers, nor do we have access to native speakers. For me, this is where the functional-typological method is so helpful (for others, generative grammar, etc) as it helps to narrow the options, provide alternatives, offer critique, etc. Because language grammaticalisation follows certain pathways, it is helpful in the analysis of "dead" languages. Two competing theories can be assessed for which has more validity (see Cynthia Miller's essay in _The Future of Biblical Archaeology_, for example).

Regarding the issue of politeness distinctions in pronouns (I assume here that Revell's earlier account has more validity than his later appeal to a vague "immediate/non-immediate" distinction), known languages can develop this opposition in the first-person, but they do only after the opposition is first expressed in the second- and third-person pronouns. This observation can be expressed as an implicational hierarchy: 2 < 3 < 1. Helmbrecht demonstrates that the grammaticalisation of politeness distinctions in the first-person is from a number of options: nouns denoting "servant" and "slave" etc (Japanese, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Turkish); a reflexive pronoun (Korean, Japanese, Burmese); demonstratives (Thai); plural (Turkish, Malay, and some Mayan languages) and dual pronouns (Kunimaipa); and borrowing of another language's polite pronoun(s) (Thai, Chomorro, Malay, Kalispel, Spokane). This is the way other known languages have grammaticalised the function and it is expected that BH should conform to this cross-linguistic patterning. Hebrew may divert, but it needs to be established why this is.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
David Kummerow.


What we do have, though, is

Dear David, Bryan, etc.

At the risk of being too simple, could it be that some of the phenomena that
is being seen with "ani, anoki, etc." is due to the 430 years in Goshen,
then 40 years in the desert? True, there are some Egyptian loan-words, but
the Egyptians, as indicated by Moses in Genesis that the Egyptians would
have nothing to do with sheepherders; therefore, the descendants of
Israel/Jacob were placed in Goshen.

Again, 470 years, even with servitude, still is long time for some facets of
a language to remain static. I wonder if we are dismissing the period in
Egypt too readily? What say ye, or should I say you?

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III







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