Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

>  >
>  >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.