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

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  • From: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] How does biblical Hebrew describe a past event?
  • Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:44:43 +1000


>
>It is difficult for me to see how operating with the assumption of
>"uncancellable meaning" can operate in areas of language which face
>grammaticalization. I wrote in my review (pp.131-132):

snip

As mentioned above, I have made research
regarding grammaticalization, and I have found no
traces of it.


Hi Rolf,

You really have missed my point here. I was not referring to BH verbal system per se, but any feature of any language where grammaticalization is apparent. If I were to construe your response against my own claim it would me that you have made research into grammaticalization phenomena cross-linguistically and that you have found that grammaticalization is a misnomer. Now, you don't believe that, which shows that you haven't addressed my criticism. Again: how might your methodology actually work in areas of language with existent grammaticalization?

Grammaticalization of the BH verbal system has indeed be found. Cook notes the shift from adjectival predication taking verbal encoding to adjectival encoding taking a nominal encoding. This language shift corresponds cross-linguistically to a shift from aspect to tense (see Stassen's monograph). Some shift has indeed occurred, whether this be seen as aspect-prominent with some move to tense (as per Cook), or tense-prominent with not a complete move to tense (as I see).

Regards,
David Kummerow.




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