Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Karl,

Perhaps I'm wrong. I realise your actually methodology is different -- 
your working in lexicography, Rolf on the verbal system -- but are the 
assumptions different? That is, do you think any given lexeme will have 
some meaning which is consistent across its uses? This is what I got 
from your treatment of the Hithpael binyan: you were seeking to find 
something consistent between all the examples, which you gave as 
"reflexive". It really depends how tightly you hold to this and what you 
do with the examples that don't "fit".

Regards,
David Kummerow.





> Dear David:
>
> On 3/27/07, David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo at hotmail.com> wrote:
>  >...
>  >
>  > > 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.
>  >
>  > ...
>  >
>  > Regards,
>  > David Kummerow.
>
> Unlike Rolf, I have never used "uncancellable" in my descriptions of
> my methodology. That's because I don't know how it can be applied to
> lexicography.
>
> Rather I have looked at definitions according to action (or in the
> case of nouns actors) while most lexicography that I have seen
> emphasizes semantic domains (form). Often the same action is carried
> across several semantic domains. Thus defining according to action
> often will see one definition, where according to form (semantic
> domains) can see several. It's a different model. As far as I can
> tell, there's nothing uncancellable in that.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.