Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Your story kind of reminds how I learned Italian. I did two semesters of
intensive grammar at University. At the end of the 2 semesters I could pass
grammar exams with flying colours but couldn't speak much Italian. Then I
went to live in Italy for the Summer. When I came back I was fluent and knew
that most of what I learned in 2 semesters at Uni was utter tripe.

I also learned in this way that it is the language that defines the natural
grammar not the textbook grammar that defines the natural language. This
kind of reminds me of the discussion we had not long ago which centred on
hair splitting between the construct and apposition. Grammar boffins tend to
get hung up on precise definitions of forms. Those who have learned by
immersion tend to think more functionally i.e. if it behaves like a
construct but doesn't have the exact form then let's just call it a
construct anyway because that's the function that is clearly being
expressed.

In the fields of computational linguistcs, pyscholinguists and cognitive
linguistics things are changing. The age of empiricism is taking academics
to an understanding that the data describes the rule system and not the
other way around. It is the embracing of empirical evidence that is, at the
moment, largely responsible for pretty much all major breakthroughs in these
fields. e.g. machine learning of translation models and language models for
statistical machine translation is data driven, data oriented parsing (DOP)
is data driven, hidden markov models of language are data driven.

However, we still have a lot of these theoretical linguists who just don't
seem to be able to make friends with empiricism. They are largely behind
theoretical linguistic frameworks such as lexical functional grammar (LFG)
and head driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG). Their repeatedly poor
attempts at defining wide coverage grammars that can compete with data
driven methods can be summarised in their antipathy to empiricism. One
particular paper had me laughing my socks off. It introduced the testing of
examples from a theoretical linguistics textbook in an attempt to show
competitive coverage of the system. Little did the authors seem to realise
that their test proved only one thing. That their system was well trained to
deal with examples of language from a theoretical linguistics textbook but
not for examples of real natural unseen language. i.e. the two phenomena are
completely different.

James Christian

As for which Hebrew text to begin with? I am tempted to have students just
> start with Genesis within a few weeks of starting first year class,
> starting
> with the first chapter. Get the students used to reading the text, teaching
> the grammar along with the text. Even though I attended one year of college
> Hebrew, that is basically how I learned Hebrew. I mean, really learned
> Hebrew, how it is really used instead of the way it was presented in class.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Barry <nebarry AT verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
> > To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 7:34 PM
> > Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ruth
> >
> >
> > > As for “first year lies” (a phrase I to which I was introduced on
> > this list, I don’t remember who taught it to me), I was taught that
> Hebrew
> > followed certain grammar, syntax and spelling rules, and all the examples
> in
> > the text books followed those rules. Later, when I started reading Tanakh
> > for myself, cover to cover, I was in for a shock—those rules were often
> > violated. I had to learn a new set of rules to fit the data before my
> eyes.
> > >
> > > My criticism in this particular example (not by any means for
> > anything with which I disagree) was that you seem to insist that Hebrew
> > follow those rules as taught in first year class, rather than how the
> > language is actually used in Tanakh.
> >
> > Beginning grammars always present an ideal version of the languages for
> > didactic purposes, usually using particular authors.  For beginning Latin
> > it's Caesar and Cicero with a dash of Vergil for flavor.  For beginning
> > (Classical) Greek it's usually Xenephon and Plato.  What beginning
> grammars
> > can't communicate is the licence that individual authors use with the
> > languages.  But this freedom is usually stylistic, lexical selection,
> > idiomatic phrases.  You never see violation of basic grammar, such as
> > subject verb agreement, and forth.
> >
> > So, what are the models for the ideal grammer of biblical hebrews.
> >
> > N.E. Barry Hofstetter
> > Classics and Bible Instructor, TAA
> > http://www.theamericanacademy.net
> > (2010 Savatori Excellence in Education Winner)
> > Mentor, TNARS
> > http://www.tnars.net
> >
> > http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog
> > http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry
> >
> >
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