Biblical Hebrew Forum

[dwashbur AT nyx.net]

I have no intention of continuing this.  If you were taught that you "can't" 
start a sentence 
with "and" then you were taught wrong.  By commonly-accepted literary 
standards, it's less 
elegant stylistically, but that doesn't mean people "can't" do it.

As for your comparison to the Torah, that illustrates massive linguistic 
ignorance, because 
obviously beginning a clause with a wayyiqtol was in fact standard usage for 
pre-exilic BH.  
Making such a comparison to the English you were taught in school is both 
silly and 
pointless.  I will not respond again.

On 1 Feb 2010 at 21:16, James Christian wrote:

> 
> And while we're on the subject David I was taught at primary school
> that you can't start a 
> sentence with and. The first sentence in this email and the ease
> with which you understood it, 
> pyscholinguistically speaking, show that this is quite clearly
> wrong. If there existed such 
> misguided teachers in the day of Moses then just about every
> sentence in the Torah would have 
> to be rewritten being 'bad' grammar. Also, I don't know if you ever
> heard of that famous paper. 
> The one that lists hundreds of high profile English authors who ALL
> start sentences with 'and'. I 
> would challenge any supporter of such an absurd position to hole a
> conversation for any 
> considerable length of time without starting a sentence with 'and'.
> I hope this may illustrate to 
> the difference between 'standard' English grammar and actual natural
> English grammar. 
> James Christian
> 
> 2010/2/1 James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>
>     Hi,
>     
>     2010/2/1 <dwashbur AT nyx.net> 
>     Karl already answered most of this, so I'll just add a comment
> or two: 
>     
>     On 1 Feb 2010 at 10:03, James Christian wrote:
>     
>     >
>     > Hi Dave, so let's take a look at the 'present tense'.
>     > (1) He knows Sally
>     > (2) John works at the factory
>     > This expresses both past, present and future. 
>     
>     Wrong. Both express present and say nothing about past or
> future. You're doing classic
>     eisegesis there. 
> No I'm not. As I mentioned to Karl a simple modification of sentence
> (2) shows the sense I 
> meant: 
> (2b) John works at the factory every day 
> which has a different meaning from
> (2c) John is working at the factory 
> If you can't see that 2b includes temporal references that 2c
> doesn't then I don't know what 
> further I can do to show you.   
>     > (3) And so after he went into the bar he goes up to the barman
> and
>     > orders a pint
>     > These express actions in the past. 
> 
> And it's faulty English grammar. Aberrations cannot be used to
> determine normative usage.
> I'd say "nice try," but really it's not. 
> 
> It's faulty English according to who? According to a minority of
> English speakers who attempt 
> (often failingly) to adhere to some form of 'standard' English? Or
> to the billions of native English 
> speakers who say things like this all the time, it being an accepted
> part of the natural grammar 
> they carry in their heads? This is a well known use of English
> present simple. Do even a basic 
> TEFL course and these elementary concepts will be introduced to you.
> 
> I have to say I am quite shocked seeing this reaction from you. I
> really didn't expect it. I've seen 
> you in the past defending the fundamental principle of language that
> usage defines the 
> meanings of words and thought that to someone who accepts such a
> position would also plainly 
> see the futility in trying to command a living language not to
> evolve or to conform to its natural 
> usage but to be constrained to some ideal of a 'standard' which only
> a minority (failingly) attempt 
> to use. 
>     > (4) And so when you come to me you can check.
>     > This expresses something that will happen in the future 
> 
> Once again we are looking at subjunctives in both clauses. I'm not
> sure what part of that
> idea is beyond your grasp. 
> 
> Which part of 'it doesn't matter what you call them' is beyond your
> grasp? For the intents and 
> purposes of a naive analysis with no informants (as we are
> attempting to do with Hebrew) the 
> verb form is exactly the same. The fact that you analyse these (as
> an informant) differently only 
> goes to show that more than one function can map onto the same form.
> If you stand back and 
> look at the greater picture for a moment you might just realise that
> we are actually saying exactly 
> the same thing. 
> 
>     > Conclusion. No fixed tense is grammaticalised and
> uncancellable to
>     > the 'present simple' verb
>     > form. Are we to conclude that these are homonyms as well
> David? How
>     > many examples will it
>     > take to show that tense is not uncancellable to any verb form
> in
>     > English you could possibly
>     > chose? 
>     
>     No, they're not homonyms, and this pale attempt at reductio ad
> absurdum falls on its face.
>     How many examples? A few legitimate ones might suffice, but so
> far I haven't seen any.
>     What I have seen is a pitifully inadequate understanding of
> English grammar, coupled with
>     massive reading-in of preconceived ideas.
>     
>     This is a waste of my time. I will not respond to this butchery
> of English grammar again. 
> 
> All of the examples are legitimate David. They are natural language.
> Examine any corpus of 
> spoken English large enough and you will see it for yourself. We
> could claim that every native 
> speaker of English speaks 'bad English' but this is, linguistically
> speaking, the very definition of 
> naive. (for many examples of the historic use of the present simple
> just turn on any stand up 
> comedian and you will hear lot's of them) 
> Similar phenomenon can be seen in many languages. Let's take Italian
> for example. In 'correct' 
> Italian when formally addressing a crowd of people you don't know
> very well you're supposed to 
> address them as 'Loro' (they). Try doing this in real life and you
> are only likely to do one of two 
> things. Either make them think you really are talking about 'they'
> and not addressing the crowd or 
> causing outbreaks of hilarious laughter when they realise you are
> talking some kind of archaic 
> Marco Polo style version of Italian. Natural languages do NOT obey
> text book grammars. Their 
> grammar is defined by their usage. Much to the dissatisfaction of
> primary school teachers and to 
> the minority who took it in good faith that they actually know what
> they are talking about. 
> James Christian 
> 
>     Dave Washburn
>     
>     http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
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> 
> 
> 
> 


Dave Washburn

http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur