Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stoney Breyer" <stoneyb AT touchwoodcreative.com>]

I concur with Karl respecting "plod"; indeed, I would go further and say that 
"slow" is in fact uncancellable in "plod" and that "plod quickly" is an 
oxymoron in *any* English dialect. What I think this demonstrates is that we 
have to take a commonsense attitude towards "uncancellability". Clearly, 
*any* property of *any* word or morpheme may be "cancelled" for rhetorical or 
artistic purposes; for rhetoric and poetry depend for their effects in large 
part on deliberate violation of normal usage. Equally, however, we must 
recognize that language itself would be impossible if the overwhelming 
majority of meanings were not at some fundamental level "uncancellable". A 
society of Humpty-Dumpties could not communicate at all.

And by the way: Rolf is clearly wrong in designating non-perfectivity as an 
uncancellable meaning of the English "present participle". That form (which I 
should prefer to call the "-ing form", to avoid use of grammatical categories 
proper to a different language) doubles as an "active participle", in which 
capacity it may with perfect propriety bear a perfective meaning:

The *winning* teams advanced to the finals; the *losing* teams met in a 
consolation match.
Andrew Jackson invented the notion of the president as the only true 
representative of the popular will, and *succeeding* presidents built on this 
to create what would become known as the Imperial Presidency.


Stoney Breyer
Writer

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of K Randolph
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:32 AM
To: B-Hebrew
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] b-hebrew Uncancellable meaning and Hebrew verbs

David:

It appears to me that you are reading ideas into “uncancellable
meaning” that Rolf never intended.

> The
> so-called uncancellable meaning of "plod" can in some contexts be
> cancelled, as in the this sentence which is acceptable in my English
> dialect:
>
> (1) I plodded quickly through the mud to the garage.
>
I don’t know which dialect of English you refer to, but Rolf never
intended that “uncancellable meaning” would mean that individual words
would have exactly the same meanings across dialectal and language
boundaries, nor would the meanings remain unchanged over time. Just
that within a particular language at a particular time words may have
meanings that are uncancellable.

Now in the variety of English that I grew up learning, namely that of
the upper Midwest of the United States, “plod” has exactly the same
meaning as listed in the dictionary that came with my computer,
namely, “Plod [verb] [intrans.] walk doggedly and slowly with heavy
steps, • work slowly and perseveringly at a dull task [noun] a slow,
heavy walk • the sound of a heavy, dull tread; a thud.” That makes
your example above an oxymoron outside of your dialect. Therefore,
within the variety of English that I grew up speaking, namely upper
Midwest U.S., “plod” does have an uncancellable meaning referring to
slowly. (As a non-native speaker of English, Rolf would have to refer
to dictionary meanings more than would native speakers, hence you need
to respond to him according to dictionary listings instead of your
dialectal understandings.)

This is not a defense of Rolf’s dissertation, as I have not read it,
so I don’t know if Rolf has been correct in his attribution of
uncancellable meanings to Biblical Hebrew terms. But it certainly
appears that your attack on his work is based on an incorrect
understanding of the idea of uncancellable meaning.

Karl W. Randolph.
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