Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Karl,

The discussion was sparked by my pointing out that typology would raise 
questions concerning the grammaticalisation of a politeness distinction 
with the BH 1st person singular independent personal pronouns, the main 
functional distinction posited in the literature. Sure, OUR discussion 
may have been Eurocentric, but this cannot be raised concerning 
Helmbrecht: he uses typological sampling to minimise such bias and his 
language sample includes over 200 languages. So I disagree with you very 
strongly that the "literature displays a Eurocentric view". What 
literature are you referring to?

Further, Revell's study is not completely a "statistical analysis", but 
it is not wholly "speculation", either. What's your opinion of it?

Regards,
David Kummerow.

> David:
>
> The problem I am having with this discussion is that it is done with
> only a minimal reference to Hebrew usages. Further that the literature
> displays a Eurocentric view. If after analyzing the many hundreds of
> usages of )NY and )NKY that the contexts indicate politeness function,
> I'd like to see a statistical analysis of those contexts, but so far
> all I have seen is speculation.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.