Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Dear Isaac,

I am again baffled as to where you get your ideas from. Again, the view 
you espouse below allows you to maintain your etymological fallacies in 
the face of being shown that they are in fact wrong. Of course the 
classical grammarians weren't using our language of "phoneme" and 
"morpheme", but the concepts of "phoneme" and "morpheme" can be found 
though.

Still you haven't countered my point that you have attributed morphemic 
status to phonemes. Because of this mistake, your work is shot through 
with errors.

Regards,
David Kummerow.



> Hebrew etymology has nothing to do with linguistics. People have
> analyzed the structure and meaning of Hebrew words for thousands of
> years prior to the morpheme the phoneme and the phonemic and
> morphemic analysis.
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
> On Jun 25, 2008, at 6:56 PM, David Kummerow wrote:
>
>  > Dear Isaac,
>  >
>  > It seems to me that you are again unable to provide answers to the
>  > critique levelled at your position and do not engage with, or seek to
>  > understand, linguistic methodology proper so that you can still
>  > hold on
>  > to your fallacious view of linguistics, the language of BH, and
>  > etymological reconstructions.
>  >
>  > Look, you wanted to converse in "plain" English, so I attempted a
>  > definition of "morpheme" for you that was in plain English. Now you
>  > just
>  > want to nit-pick. Of course I could define "morpheme" more
>  > elaborately,
>  > and also define the words I did use: "unit", "bears", and "meaning".
>  > Comparing the definition I gave and reading the sections I pointed
>  > to in
>  > Joüon-Muraoka and Waltke-O'Connor would, if you wanted to see,
>  > elaborate
>  > the point and flesh out more of what "morpheme" means. The answer's
>  > there if you want it.
>  >
>  > If your view of linguistics is that it is "but one big tautology", why
>  > don't you just stay clear of it and stick with mathematics? Why
>  > write a
>  > book on etymology if you do not understand the basics of the required
>  > methodology, viz. phonemic and morphemic analysis (of course, there's
>  > more to than simply this; one also has to be familiar with historical
>  > linguistics, etc.)? I'm sure you would take to task someone who
>  > attempted some algebraic maths without having first come to grips with
>  > how to add, subtract, etc. Similarly, etymological reconstruction
>  > cannot
>  > be done without first knowing some linguistic basics.
>  >
>  > I find it quite ironic that someone who does not understand
>  > linguistics
>  > claims that linguistics is "but one big tautology"! My suspicion is
>  > that
>  > claiming that linguistics is "but one big tautology" is but a cop-out
>  > indicating (a) that you don't want to budge from your position, even
>  > when proven wrong; and (b) you will never budge from your position,
>  > even
>  > when proven wrong. I more than willing to be proven wrong on these two
>  > points!
>  >
>  > Regards,
>  > David Kummerow.