Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Rolf,

Correction -- I spent many hours on your dissertation!

See below for some clarifications etc:




> Dear David,
>
> I do not want to continue this discussion, but for the record I will say a
> few things. Your comments below makes me wonder if you really have read my
> dissertation, or if you just have rushed through it in a short time.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Kummerow" <farmerjoeblo at hotmail.com>
> To: <b-hebrew at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 12:25 AM
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues
>
>
> snip
>  >>
>  >
>  > I think Rolf objects because to him "uncancellable semantics" is
>  > tautologous -- for him, semantics is 100% uncancellable, so there is no
>  > need to additionally supply "uncancellable". For him "semantics" =
>  > "uncancellable intrinsic meaning".
>
>
>
> This is wrong! I define "semantics" as does D. Chrystal in "A Dictionary of
> Linguistics and Phonetics": "Semantics...is the study of meaning in
> language". The word "meaning" (=semantics) can refer to many things;
> therefore I use the qualification "semantic meaning" to refer to
> uncancallable meaning. Neither "semantic" nor "meaning" refer to something
> uncancellable, but together I use the words as atechnical term for
> "uncancellable meaning", i.e, meaning that cannot be changed by the 
> context.

I know "semantics" can be used in different ways. Again, I'm happy to 
use your terms to please you. So to rephrase the above: "I think Rolf 
objects because to him 'uncancellable semantic meaning' is tautologous 
-- for him, semantic meaning is 100% uncancellable, so there is no need 
to additionally supply 'uncancellable'. For him 'semantic meaning' = 
'uncancellable intrinsic meaning'."

To me, it doesn't really change a lot, because what ever way it is 
phrased to your liking, I still object to the assumption.

> My objection to this is just this
>  > assumption -- the assumption that semantics is uncancellable, so for me
>  > since I don't hold to his view using "uncancellable semantics" in
>  > reference to his view is fine. The principle of uncancellable intrinsic
>  > meaning is basically assumed in his work. In his post in reply to this
>  > one of yours, he provides some English examples which he takes as proof
>  > of his position; however, Peter particularly and intermittently have
>  > replied to him in the past that such a presentation of our language is a
>  > misrepresentation to which Rolf chooses to not respond. No progress will
>  > be made, I think, because Rolf seems unwilling to discuss these basic
>  > issues of methodology which have profound effects upon his critique of
>  > past scholarship and his own conclusions regarding the BH verbal system.
>
> You should not interpret a lack of comments as unwillingness to make
> comments. I found your original examples irrelvant to my study, so I just
> made some general comments. Later I commented on NUN paragogicum when
> someone asked me to do so,andshowed that this was irrelevant as well.
> In the past, discussions with one list-member used
> to reach a point where everything just became silly. It should not be
> interpreted as unwillingness when I want to avoid such discussions.

Rolf, there are other issues besides paragogic nun which you have not 
dealt with. Besides, your treatment of paragogic nun was unsatisfactory, 
but I'm too tired to go into that and am happy to save it for a more 
lengthy review.


>  >
>  >
>  >> Karl seems to hold to some similar, though not identical, notion
>  >> to what an amateur like me would understand by uncancellable intrinsic
>  >> meaning. But Karl has said he doesn't know what to make of Rolf's
>  >> theory either.
>  >>
>  >
>  > Karl's approach to lexicography may perhaps be seen as analogous to
>  > Rolf's work on the verbal system. Their approach assumes that there is
>  > something uncancellable between every occurrence of a lexical item in
>  > Karl's case and every occurrence of a verb form in Rolf's.
>
> You are wrong again! I cannot understand how you can write the above words
> if you really have read my dissertation. I definitely do not believe "there
> is something uncancellable...in...every occurence of a verb form". The very
> opposite is true!
> On p. 35 under the heading "The search for semantic meaning" it is said: 
> "In
> this
> study, therefore, we are not concerned with the thousands of verb forms
> whose function is caused by the interplay of many linguistic factors, but
> rather with the few hundred examples where we, with a reasonable certainty,
> can know that a particular characteristic is caused by a particular verb
> form alone /I add here: this is uncancellable meaning, as the context
> show/."
> And you can hardly have read chapter 8, where a principal point is that
> both aspects (YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, QATAL, and  WEQATAL) can be used in the
> same situations without any visible
> difference in meaning. This is exactly the opposite of what you say my view
> is!

You misunderstand me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I read your 
dissertation is that you have sought to identify examples where in your 
opinion you are able to identify semantic meaning/uncancellable 
intrinsic meaning. Once this is identified, you are able to conclude 
that this is the uncancellable property of the other examples also where 
pragmatic implicature has meant that you have not been able to 
satisfactorily isolate semantic meaning/uncancellable intrinsic meaning. 
If this is true, I don't think my brief statement above is divergent 
from this -- this is just the lengthier explanation.


> Bryant has several good points in his recent post: the essence is  there
> is a need to explicate.
>
> I supply two examples from C. Smith  "A Parameter of Aspect" (1991:149) in
> order to illustrate my view of semantic meaning:
>
> 1) John has arrived.
>
> 2) #John has arrived yesterday.
>
> There are no problems with 1), but 2) is ungrammatical, since Perfect
> sentences with specifying adverbials du not appear in English. From this I
> draw the conclusion that there is an intrinsic property of the Perfect verb
> that forbids it to be used with adverbials signifying the past, and that
> this property cannot be cancelled by the context. This is "semantic 
> meaning"
> as I define it. This property is not found in preterit verbs.

See Peter's examples.

What about other examples of past-tense cancellation:

a) When you get to school tomorrow, remember to hand in your homework.

b) When you have gotten to school tomorrow, remember to hand in your 
homework.

The same happens in BH with qatal in hypothetical/conditional clauses, 
performatives, etc.


>  >
>  >
>  >>  >Have you noticed, though, that Rolf never concedes anything himself?
>  >>
>  >> Yes, and it is concerning to me. As Peter says this debate has been 
> going
>  >> on for ten years or so. Mostly I've just watched. It appears to me 
> to be
>  >> going nowhere. Some list members have suggested the apparent
>  >> misunderstanding is a religiously motivated behaviour. I tend to give
>  >> people the benefit of the doubt, so I'm currently of the opinion 
> that the
>  >> misunderstanding is real.
>  >>
>  >
>  > Like I said, Rolf has been presented with evidence time and again with
>  > seeming errors but chooses often not to reply. Often his reply restates
>  > his position. The debate will continue to go nowhere if this remains the
>  > case as it will not be able to get beyond the the issues which have been
>  > raised but not dealt with satisfactorily. For me, I'm going to write a
>  > longer publishable review of Rolf's work and then move on.
>  >
>  >
>  >> Bill Rea, ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
>  >> E-Mail bill.rea at canterbury.ac.nz                </   New
>  >> Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332        /)  Zealand
>  >> Unix Systems Administrator
>  >>
>  >
>  > Regards,
>  > David Kummerow.
>  > _______________________________________________
>  > b-hebrew mailing list
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo

Regards,
David Kummerow.