Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Stoney,

See below.

> 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.

Good observations!

> 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.

There is one problem with your examples, because the -ing forms are 
used adjectivally. In such situations we do not speak of aspect. The 
-ing forms used as adjectives are not a part of the English verbal 
system. So, to show that my (rather the linguist Broman Olsen's) 
claim is wrong,  you must produce examples of -ing forms used as 
predicates with completed actions.

BTW, I can give you one example of a completed -ing form used 
predicatively. A friend of mine defended her Ph.D dissertation, and 
in her corpus was the following clause: "Crossing the floor, she 
opened the cupboard." The meaning was that when she had crossed the 
floor, she opened the cupboard. However, this was a poetic passage 
where the author used some particular effects. and as you say above, 
poetry may include some violations of grammar and syntax. But 
interestingly, to the best of my knowledge, no one has demonstrated 
that poetic passages in BH violates grammar or syntax.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo

> 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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