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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] HEBREW HOMONYMS (2)

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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: Ishinan <ishinan AT comcast.net>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] HEBREW HOMONYMS (2)
  • Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:58:36 +0100

Hi,

Quoting Ishinan <ishinan AT comcast.net>:

Ishinan:

Ibn Asher, Mūsā ibn Maymūn and all the other Hebrew scholars mentioned in
the previous response are in complete agreement of the existence of "tagnis"
or homonyms in Hebrew. Having recognized the homonymic conflict in Hebrew
might have caused frequent misunderstandings of the scriptures, these
scholars authored numerous treatises on this very topic. As G. R. Driver
put it, "this misunderstanding was mainly attributed to the deficiencies of
the Hebrew alphabet."

The crux of the matter is, so far, all the examples offered by Karl are
simply homonyms. A simple comparative exercise of these terms with their
cognates in sister Semitic languages with a more developed alphabet can put
this matter to rest.

Would you care to expand on this? Could be interesting...

James Christian




Hope that this helps.

Best regards

Ishinan B. Ishibashi


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Vadim Cherny : "

I agree, it is hard to argue with ben Moses ben Asher and Rambam ) However,
the fact is that they understood homonyms differently from modern
grammarians. Thus, for example, Rambam in Moreh Nevuhim treats "elohim" as a
homonym denoting God, angels, rulers, or judges. We would, of course, find
those meanings closely related. It seems that for Rambam any two meanings
were homonyms, even if semantically related. In a sense, he spoke of
theological rather than semantic homonyms. Still in other words, while we
call *totally unrelated* meanings homonyms, Maimonides calls them homonyms
if they are not *strictly equal* in theological terms. To that end, he
introduced a concept of perfect and imperfect homonyms."


Previously Vadim Cherny also wrote:

"The thing is, Hebrew lacks homonyms. What you see as homonyms are actually
related meanings. As Karl saw for himself, finding the common meaning
requires some study but it is always there. This is a function of root
cells. I take Steinberg's dictionary for a fine example of such search. "

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