Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] We and us

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] We and us
  • Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:37:36 +1100

Hi Peter,

If were are talking about grammaticalisation here, we should not need to EXPECT grammatical agreement. If `abdeka were a grammaticalised polite pronoun, it should be analysable pretty much solely as a polite pronoun, i.e. [`abdeka] = polite 1st person polite pronoun, rather than [[`ebed] = "servant" + [ka] = 2ms] = polite 1st person noun phrase reference. Do you see the difference? The question is: to what extent is `abdeka grammaticalised, or, put another way, synchronically analysable? I think in the minds of speakers it was still thought of in its constituent parts.

Regards,
David Kummerow


On 15/11/2006 12:49, B. M. Rocine wrote:
>/ 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.
/>/
/>/ /We should certainly expect forms like plural pronouns and "your slave" to continue to agree in person and number with their original literal meanings even when they are fully grammaticalised as pronouns, whatever that might mean. Thus French "vous" and German "Sie" take second person plural and third person plural verb forms even when used as polite second person singular pronouns, and I am almost sure that Turkish "bendeniz" continues to take third person pronouns. Thus this is not a test of grammaticalisation. It would indeed be strange if Hebrew 'adoni hammelek took second person singular agreement.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter at qaya.org
<http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page