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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] How does biblical Hebrew describe a present event?

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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] How does biblical Hebrew describe a present event?
  • Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:47:19 +0100

I haven't analysed all the verb forms as Rolf Furuli has but as a computer scientist I can offer my 2p's worth. Everything Rolf says about his method is empirically correct and cannot be ignored. The more variables you throw into a problem the less certain you can be of your conclusions. This is especially more so with biblical hebrew where our data set is so small.

This is similar to a simulation problem I am currently working on. I am modelling the reactions in human cell on a super computer. If you raise the amount of protein x the amount of protein y may also increase. But if you raise the amount of protein v and protein x the amount of protein y may decrease. This is because protein v is an inhibitor of protein y. This is just a quick example to show the effect of throwing more varibles into the equation and how difficult it can be to extract rules that can be trusted.

I am not saying that I automatically agree with all of Rolf's conclusions. I am just saying that his method is scientifically sound. The only thing it probably lacks is that he was the sole analyser of the verb forms. The study would have more worth if many hebraists performed the same tests and statistics were averaged. As it stands we can only take his word for it.

I would suggest that anyone with doubts should select a sample text and apply Rolf's method and gather their own statistics. While discrepancies are to be expected I would suspect that there would not be any large variations from Rolf's results.

James Christian

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