Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi,

2010/2/6 <dwashbur AT nyx.net>

> On 6 Feb 2010 at 1:14, James Christian wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi,
> > What about words including clitics? e.g.
> >     > it's, I'm,
> >     > he's got. Are they one word or two?
> >
> > Those are not clitics. They're contractions, and English usage still
> > understands them as
> > basically elisions of two words into one phonetic string.
> > I don't know if you realise it but you just gave a pretty good
> > definition of clitics after claiming they
> > weren't clitics.
>
> I'm constantly amazed at how you do that.  No, a contraction is not the
> same as a clitic.
> Look them both up if you're confused.
>
>
I know some people here don't like wikipedia but it's quick and easy to
refer to eletronically. Take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitics#English It would appear that community
that has agreed on the Clitic page of wikipedia also seem to share my
confusion. From my experience I can also say that at least one world famous
morphologist (the one who taught me what a clitic was) also seems to share
the same confusion. In fact, you to date are the single source I have come
across that doesn't share this confusion.


> I'm not sure what you mean by 'one phonetic
> > string'. Both I'm and I am are
> > continuous sequences in a speech signal. It is only our perception
> > (guided by whatever
> > psycholinguistic principles) that has the word divisions.
>
> I don't know where you got that, but it's wrong.
>
>
Record yourself saying I'm and saying I am. Send me a .wav file and please
show me where the space in the speech signal is between I and am. I don't
like to play the academic but you really should get some experience with
speech signals before you make blatantly incorrect statements of this kind.


> >     The question is far too dependent on languages like English that
> > do things very differently
> >     than semitic languages did/do. I have argued in print that the
> > wa+doubling of the
> >     wayyiqtol
> >     is a specified grammatical formative, roughly equivalent to a
> > "morph" in your terminology,
> >     and as such it's not really possible to speak of the "meaning"
> > of the yomer part of
> >     wayyomer
> >     because the wa+doubling is part of the word, and yomer by itself
> > is a different form. We
> >     know from usage that there's a big difference between yiqtol,
> > "yomer" and wayyiqtol,
> >     "wayyomer." Hence it's not possible to answer most of your
> > questions.
> >
> > Seems to me like you've answered it quite well. You've stated a
> > concrete position that the
> > difference in meaning between yomer and wayyomer is more than just a
> > simple conjunction.
> > Could you back it up with examples to show your case?
>
> Truthfully, considering the way I've seen you ignore evidence and attempt
> to manipulate
> other evidence so as not to bring down your little house of cards, I'm not
> sure why I should
> bother.


Dave. I haven't built any little house of cards. I haven't even stated a
position. All I've done is asked you to clarify your own position. No need
to get defensive. Nobody is trying to destroy your theory. If you don't want
to clarify your position publicly that's fine.

James Christian