Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear David:

This is not an attempt to defend Rolf and his dissertation, as I don't
have access to it (nor to most books cited in these discussions), but
I question some of your questions.

First a general statement: dissertations and the research that leads
to them are sometimes very narrow and restricted in their goal such
that what applies to that narrow niche, does not work outside that
niche. So when you question Rolf concerning aspects of the language
outside of his niche, 1) he may not have researched them, so he cannot
really answer you and 2) your questions may not apply to what he wrote
about, or at least he thinks they don't. But like you, I question
whether Rolf's use of Popperian logic is proper for linguistics.

You have repeatedly mentioned the use of "yesterday", yet when I
looked at its uses in Tanakh, I found only 8 uses: of the three times
as an adverb, once was with a yiqtol, the other two times with a qatal
(hardly evidence for your position); the other five times modified
with a prefix and used adjectively. Similarly, if Rolf is correct that
the weqatal is a form of the qatal that does not change its function,
and that the waw-flipper (or whatever the latest term for that is) is
not operative, then "tomorrow" is used some times with a qatal.

On 3/22/07, David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com> wrote:
....
> Note that grammaticalisation can also EXTEND meaning. There's plenty of
> stuff on this in the linguistic literature. Regarding BH verbs, this is
> likely to have occurred with, say, the hithpael. The range of meanings
> is neatly described by Anstey 2005: 74-76, ie reflexive, grooming/body
> motion, naturally reciprocal, anticausative, and generic passive. It
> likely that meaning has been extended over time towards the passive, but
> it has not lost its reflexive function. Some, eg W-O, claim that it
> expresses even the passive and not just generic/gnomic passive. But do
> you see the problem if I were to follow your method? What is the
> uncancellable semantics denoted by the hithpael binyan? The more we move
> to "passive" the less "reflexive" the semantic, but the more "passive"
> the semantics, the less "reflexive". However, similarity exists between
> anticausative and generic passive and similarly reflexive and body
> motion and reciprocal. But if I were to strictly follow your approach
> you have applied to the verbal system, I am indeed very hard pressed to
> find a common denominator between all of these "functions"....
>
> ...
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.

In this case, how many of these functions are the result of
lexicographic methodology, and how much the result of different
functions? Can you cite examples of each of all of these claimed uses?
Sorry, I don't mean to put you on the hot grill, but I haven't seen
all those functions in the hitpael. All I have seen is the reflexive
usage, though my understanding of reflexive may be broader than your's
or the authors' above.

In the past I have mentioned that I use a different lexicographic
methodology than did Gesenius, BDB, or even list member Reinier de
Blois, who emphasize the form of a word's use within semantic domains,
which I have called sloppy lexicography (shame on me, that epithet is
not really accurate nor fair), whereas I look for the action denoted.
So when looking at a verb, I make note of whether it is a simple
action (qal), passive (niphal), stative active or passive (piel and
pual), causative active or passive (hiphil and hophal) and reflexive
(hitpael), and look for a definition that fits the use. Whereas
traditional dictionaries based on form can sometimes have different
definitions depending on the binyan used, I see one action used in
these different ways.

As a result of my methodology, I have not seen the different functions
of the hitpael that you mention above. That's why I ask for further
clarification. (Will this be a new thread?)

I have to admit at this point that my choice of looking at the action
as primary instead of the form is a direct result of my ideology.

Getting back to your questioning of Rolf, how many of your questions
have responses that have differing answers from several sources, not
just grammaticalization? And depending on responses from other
sources, may or may not apply to Rolf's theories? But I wonder if Rolf
is carrying the "uncancellable" too far in linguistics? Especially for
an ancient language like Biblical Hebrew, which had sometimes creative
spellings and inconsistent sentence word orders, and what other
flexible elements?

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.