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  • From: "B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] We and us
  • Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 07:49:48 -0500

Hi David,

Thank you for your helpful clarifications.

One minor clarification on my side: in my post (quoted below) I purposely avoided discussing 'adoni hammelek for the very reasons you mention. I focused on only the transformation from 2nd person notion (e.g. tishma') to 3rd person surface (yishma`) and `ebed + pronominal suffix, which has wide application.

I do accept that grammaticalization may be more rigorous than I had realized. I am still not sure why tishma` -> yishma` would not qualify.

Thanks also for the bibliographic references!

Shalom,
Bryan

David Kummerow wrote:


Looking again at the example: to what extent are the phrases 'adoni hammelek and `abdo grammaticalised? 'adoni hammelek will only be used in reference to a king, that is, the politeness expressed by the phrase has not extended past such a context. For it to be a polite pronoun, it would need to have lost much of the reference to "king" such that the phrase could be used more widely of any addressee when the expression of politeness is desired. Sure the phrases expresses politeness in the example; but the phrase isn't grammaticalised. Is this the situation too with `abdo? I'm not sure that the word has lost its lexical meaning of "servant" and instead is a polite pronoun. Note that the suffix is not obligatorily 3ms, but will change depending of the context (3mp, 2ms, 2pl, etc). This points to the non-grammaticalised nature of the expression, with `ebed still being a lexical word denoting "servant/slave". It is via the use of this lexical word denoting "servant/slave" that politeness is being expressed, not by the use of a grammaticalised polite pronoun. The issue is where `abdo is situated on the lexical-grammatical cline, with lexical words being used for the expression of politeness on one end of the spectrum, and grammatical items reserved solely for this purpose on the other.


Hope this helps to clarify things.

Regards,
David Kummerow.

Hi David,
Begging your patience.

Take 1 Sam 26:19 for an example:

yishma` na' 'adoni hammelek 'et dibrey `abdo

We have a 3rd person subject prefix on the verb. Surely this is a transformation from the second person notion "you" (2nd person) as in "you listen."

We have a third person pronominal suffix on `abdo. Surely this is a transformation from the first person possessive notion, "The words are mine."

The question is not whether the notions surface as noun clauses or independent pronouns. The question is whether the transformation from a notion in one person to a surface structure in another person is driven by politeness.

Am I thinking correctly?

If yes, why wouldn't the surface structure qualify as grammaticalization since it requires third person reference?

Shalom,
Bryan


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B. M. Rocine
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