Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Karl,

What I'm saying is that construing "plod" as a quick action is not a 
non-standard use for me, it is not poetic, or rhetorical, or anything. 
It is quite an acceptable use of the term. So all of these are fine for me:

(1) I plodded quickly to the barn.

(2) I plodded slowly to the barn.

(3) I plodded slowly through my homework.

But (4) is unacceptable:

(4) *I plodded quickly through me homework.

The question is: What is the uncancellable meaning of "plod" in such a 
dialect as mine, if semantics is supposed to be uncancellable meaning as 
claimed by Rolf? Personally, I'm happy to allow for cancellable 
semantics, but for those who take semantics to be uncancellable meaning, 
then what is the uncancellable semantics of "plod"?

Regards,
David Kummerow.


> David:
>
> I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.
>
> As a communicator, I still reference dictionaries in order to learn
> standard ways terms are used. Even for my native tongue. Using terms
> in non-standard ways may sometimes work for poetry, but usually
> results in misunderstanding. And using tools such as dictionaries
> leads to certain understandings not only for something as simple as
> “plod”, but also for “uncancellable meaning” and what is referred to
> by such terms.
>
> With this example, it appears to me that your criticism of Rolf stems
> from a different use of terminology than understood by Rolf, Stoney
> Breyer and myself, among others.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 5:47 PM, David Kummerow<farmerjoeblo at 
> hotmail.com> wrote:
>  > Hi Karl,
>  >
>  > I disagree. "Plod" is just a case in point. For me, "plod" can in fact
>  > be used even of a "quick" action, it is entirely acceptable. So the
>  > question is: What is the uncancellable meaning of "plod" in such a
>  > dialect, or is the meaning of "plod" solely pragmatic in such a case? In
>  > that case, does "plod" not have any semantics?
>  >
>  > I think it's better to think of semantics in terms of frames as per
>  > Fillmore etc. This way, we may locate "slow" as part of the semantics of
>  > "plod", but not have to say at the same time that such semantics cannot
>  > be cancelled.
>  >
>  > The fact remains, though, that for a methodology which equates semantics
>  > to uncancellable meaning at the end of the day has to reckon with such
>  > examples which challenge the notion of "uncancellable meaning". Rolf has
>  > yet to interact in any way with the copious examples of such aspects of
>  > language which challenge his assumption. What this means is that the
>  > principal of uncancellable meaning needs to be established on a case by
>  > case basis if it is going to be established at all, ie it cannot be
>  > extrapolated cross-constructionally or across languages. Now, Olson may
>  > have established that there is an uncancellable meaning to some English
>  > verb forms, but that says nothing about BH, nor that the ultimate
>  > principal of "uncancellable meaning" has been established.
>  >
>  > Regards,
>  > David Kummerow.
>  >