Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Richard Steiner on Sin and Shin

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: B Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Richard Steiner on Sin and Shin
  • Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:13:28 +0000

On 11/01/2007 18:11, K Randolph wrote:
...
In our numerically driven world, that observation can either be
verified or falsified by doing a statistical study, but no one has
done it. So at the moment it remains an observation, neither proven
nor falsified.

I agree that this would be a useful test. But it would be a useful test only if it is agreed beforehand to accept well known lexicographers' opinions as to whether words are semantically similar or distinct. While certainly some of these opinions are debatable, it is unlikely that they have been deliberately chosen to support or counter the hypothesis being tested, whereas the personal opinions of any of us involved in this debate may be framed with the hypothesis in mind. I would propose following the opinions of the compilers of the Westminster Hebrew morphological database, which is widely available in computer Bible packages.

We should also bear in mind the fact, at least as recognised by many linguists, that two originally different letters have come together in Hebrew het and similarly in Hebrew ayin. As a result we might expect an extra large number of homonyms in words containing het or ayin. It will be interesting to see how far the statistics actually bear this out.

Given the morphological database, it would actually be rather trivial to discover the proportions of homonyms for each letter, among three letter verbal roots attested in the Hebrew Bible. I may even do this!

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





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page