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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod

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  • From: Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
  • To: fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org, randallbuth AT gmail.com
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
  • Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2010 17:26:51 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 08:14:32 +0100, "Arnaud Fournet"
<fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Will Parsons" <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>
>
> >
> > The point was not that Hebrew wasn't spoken over a compact area, but that
> > a
> > small area doesn't preclude there being significant dialectal differences.
> > One can point to numerous examples of "small" languages where there are
> > (or
> > were) significant differences in dialect from village to village.

> *** yes, and we can point to numerous examples where there are little
> differences over large areas. So your argument is just irrelevant.
> A.
> ***

Irrelevant to what? *You* were the one that seemed to be claiming that there
is necessarily a correlation between physical area and dialectal variation.
I'm not claiming anything in particular with respect to Hebrew.

> > Much more
> > important than physical area is the mobility of the population. Greek
> > became
> > *less* differentiated dialectally as it expanded outward in the wake of
> > Alexander's conquests.

> ***
> It became less differentiated because there was a political and cultural
> unification under way. Again this argument is irrelevant.
> A.
> ***

Of course there are reasons why one language can have many dialects in a
small area and another can be quite uniform over a large area. How is that
relevant?

> > In the case of Hebrew, it's harder to judge than Greek
> > both because of the much more limited evidence and the fact that the
> > using a
> > defective method of indicating vowels could conceal major differences in
> > pronunciation.

> ***
> If we have no indication of differences, then the best hypothesis is to
> avoid positing ghost entities.
> A.
> ***

What are these ghost entities? *I* haven't claimed anything about how
uniform Hebrew was in Biblical times. But if you're suggesting something
along the lines of: "We don't have clear evidence of major dialectal
differences in Biblical times, therefore none existed", well, that's a
fallaceous argument.

> >> ***
> >> Akkadian tsade and tsade cuneiform signs are doubtless an affricate as
> >> it is
> >> rendered as affricates in other languages, which have the distinction
> >> affricate / non affricate.
> >>
> >> Cuneiform S was probably just s
> >> Cuneiform s, z and s. are affricates.
> >>
> >> So I suppose it must have been an affricate in the original proto-Semitic
> >> (and before).
> >> A.
> >> ***
> >
> > We've covered this before in another thread. Rendering X in language A
> > by Y
> > in language B doesn't prove that X is pronounced Y in A if B doesn't have
> > an equivalent to X. So, no "doubtless an affricate", &c. Making dogmatic
> > statements about details of Akkadian phonology (let alone Proto-Semitic!)
> > is
> > simply not justified.
> > William Parsons

> ***
> I consider this point of view to be definitely dogmatic and possibly even
> sterile.
>
> Arnaud Fournet
>
*You* are the one making dogmatic statements. I am merely pointing out that
your arguments claiming "proof" are fallaceous.

--
William Parsons




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