Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

Hi David,

Quoting David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>:

> Hi James,
>
> I think you may notice that you've changed lexemes, thus different
> semantics involved.

No real big difference. All of my examples have verbs of motion with  
an adverbial phrase that contradicts the semantics of the verbs of  
motion. The only difference is that you used a single adverbial word  
whereas I used an adverbial phrase.

> In this case, same meaning may be discerned across
> different uses. I'm not disputing this type of thing at all. If you take
> closer notice, this is entirely allowed for in the quote from my review.
> It's the rigid definition of equating semantics to uncancellable meaning
> is what I dispute and which has not been demonstrated yet on this list
> despite this topic being raised again and again.

OK! So now we are getting into the semantics of 'semantics'. You are  
arguing that there is no uncancellable meaning of semantic units and  
to substantiate your case you argue for a different uncancellable  
meaning of 'semantics' than the definition of 'semantics' used in  
Rolf's review.

All of this aside I see no reason why Rolf should not define his usage  
of 'semantic' in his work. To the contrary, I see this as good  
academic practice. Especially, given that if he did not define his use  
of the term 'semantics' his usage would then be ambiguous and it would  
be possible to misread his work.

In my 2008 dissertation on Interlingual machine translation I had to  
do a similar thing as my use of the term 'Interlingua' was different  
from past usage of the term in the literature. Yet if I used another  
term as I have in the past (concept text) I run the risk of seeming  
ignorant of the literature for not using the term 'Interlingua'. In  
such cases, the only way to satisfy all critics is to provide a  
definition of your usage of the term in question.

James Christian

> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
>
>
> > Hi David,
> >
> > 1) Newton watched as the apple fell upwards.
> > 2) The Mary Rose sank from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the
> > water.
> > 3) The space shuttle landed in the sky about 3,000 feet above London.
> >
> > No doubt the above sentences make complete sense to you with no comic
> > value.
> >
> > James Christian
> >
> > Quoting David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>:
> >
> > > Hi James,
> > >
> > > It's the English I myself use and hear about me, nothing comically meant
> > > by it at all.
> > >
> > > I guess you see my point now, that there isn't a single meaning across
> > > the uses I've brought. Semantics defined as uncancellable meaning leaves
> > > "plod" in my dialect without semantics. Better to define semantics
> > > prototypically, and probably best done by way of frame analysis.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > David Kummerow.
> > >
> > >
> > > > Hi David,
> > > >
> > > > I don't know which variant dialect of English you are using but the
> > > > following sentence doesn't make much sense to me (other than comic
> > > > value).
> > > >
> > > > James Christian
> > > >
> > > > Quoting David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>:
> > > >
> > > > >
> > >
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>
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