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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect (was Tenses - Deut 6:4)
  • Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 12:53:08 +0000

On 07/03/2007 11:09, Rolf Furuli wrote:
Dear Peter,

Here you completely miss the mark! The point is as follows: All linguists know, and ordinary people know that some verbs can refer to the past because the verb forms themselves have an intrinsic past tense, and other verbs can in one context refer to the past and in other contexts to the future. This is absolutely not theory-dependent, since this is a fact that no one would dispute. ...

Rolf, I'm sorry, but I don't know this, neither as a linguist nor as an ordinary person, and I do dispute it. As an ordinary person, I have no conscious understanding of any distinctions of this sort, I simply use and understand verbs and other parts of language. As a linguist, I am aware that in some languages in many circumstances there are clear distinctions of this kind, but I am also aware of examples where there is no clear distinction, such as where a verb form which ordinarily has a past meaning (in a loose sense of the word) can also be used in a non-past way.

Your appeal to "All linguists know, and ordinary people know..." is a double logical fallacy. The first, "All linguists know...", is an appeal to authority fallacy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority. The second, "ordinary people know..." and repeated in "this is a fact that no one would dispute" (even if these statements were true, which I don't accept), is an "Argumentum ad populum" fallacy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum. You have to prove things like this, not assume them. If your theoretical model assumes them, then it is an inadequate model.

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





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