Biblical Hebrew Forum

[fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>]

Hello Chavoux:

Thanks for your most interesting comments.

It is becoming more and more clear to me that words do not exist in
isolation, but rather only in symbiosis with other words, actually used in a
narrative, book, culture, sentence, etc.

I know that sounds a bit unreasonable. But then so does quantum mechanics,
and the idea that measurement determines reality.

I don't know about other languages. I haven't ever thought about english in
this manner. But it seems that the pieces and parts (words, letters) of the
ancient hebrew language enjoy a range of potential functions and meanings.
And until the pieces and parts become employed in actual communication
(sentence, paragraph, book), the words have no specific and precise meaning
or existence.

It's quite obvious from your remarks that your mind immediately (and
probably unconsciously) searches for context in order to breathe
precision, meaning and life into individual words. (I may do the same thing
with english, constantly. I simply have never thought about it.).

So, suffixed and prefixed verbs, in the language at hand, appear to have
a preferred usage, then and now; but .... actual context could, and does
frequently, alter that preference.

regards,

fred burlingame



On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Fred
>
> On 3 February 2011 18:38, fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> > Take proverbs 31:15. If someone read those words to you today, without
> > identifying the source of the words, (other than the person speaking to
> > you) ... how would you "hear" the two verbs; ותקם (va-ta-kam); and ותתן
> > (va-ti-ten)?
> >
> > a. "and she rose;" "and she gave?"
> >
> > b. "and she is rising;" "and she is giving?"
> >
> > c. some other manner?
> Probably c... and she rises ... and she gives. If I heard them
> together like that in one sentence. However, this would probably flow
> from the context of the sentence rather than just from the words
> themselves.
> E.g. if I heard the sentence as part of a narrative /story, I would
> probably hear "and she rose" ... "and she gave" .
> And if I heard only the two words (no sentence), I would probably
> hear: "and she will rise" ... "and she will give".
> >
> > And is what you "hear" first determined by your initial decision that:
> >
> > a. the speaker is speaking to me in "modern" or current hebrew; or
> >
> > b. the speaker is speaking to me in biblical hebrew language?
> My first reaction on hearing Hebrew would normally be to hear "modern"
> Hebrew (and that is the way I would hear it if I heard the words in
> isolation). However, in this case the repeated waw's will probably tip
> me off to the fact that it is biblical Hebrew. In "modern" Hebrew the
> waw functions exclusively as a conjunction and is also much less used
> than in biblical Hebrew. E.g. you would very seldom (if ever) begin a
> sentence with waw.
>
> Shalom
> Chavoux Luyt
>