Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dewayne Dulaney <dewayne.dulaney AT gmail.com>]

I second what Kimmo says about the methodology. I studied comparative
Romance language linguistics (we called it philology) in grad school.
As part of an Old Spanish course (Old Spanish period defined as c.
A.D. 800 to about 1500, if memory serves), we learned the sound
(phonetic) laws that applied to Vulgar Latin (i.e., non-literary
Latin) that led to the development of Spanish. Once we learned these,
we were given lists of Latin words to turn into Spanish ones by
applying the appropriate sound changes. These were not speculative on
our part as students or on the part of the professor, but based on
solid linguistic work that had been done by people who had learned the
languages and studied the historical evidence.

While details of application and even method of course differ, the
same basic idea of how to reconstruct language development over time
applies to reconstruction of earlier forms of Semitic languages. In
fact, most of the basics of linguistics as a discipline apply
regardless of which language or languaages one is working with. To
give another example, the work of Noam Chomsky, which in part dealt
with the syntax and sound system of English, also had more general
application, and is one of the authors referenced in the online
Lexicon of Linguistics produced by the University of Utrecht, the
Netherlands (http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/), which I found
listed as a resource for the study of Ancient Greek (Hellenistic) on
the Greek Language and Linguistics site,
http://greek-language.com/Home.html.

Dewayne Dulaney

On 10/8/11, Kimmo Huovila <kimmo.huovila AT kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> On perjantai 07 lokakuu 2011, K Randolph wrote:
>>
>> I question some of the presuppositions of “historical” linguistics.
>> Languages and language families both lose and gain phones and phonemes.
>
> This is very true.
>
>> Languages within a family develop at different rates, even those that
>> close
>> geographically can be very different in their developments.
>
> This is also true. The question of whether there is a strong connection
> between the people groups or whether they are isolated from each other plays
> a
> major role. A strong connection will increase mutual influence between the
> languages.
>
>> Close languages
>> can go on divergent development paths.
>
> Yes.
>
>> Therefore, one cannot count on being
>> able to use cognate languages as guides to studying a target language. It
>> is
>> speculation to use them as evidence, proof will have to come from the
>> target
>> language.
>
> Your statement comes across as a total rejection of a methodology based on
> some recognized limitations in it. A total rejection of the methodology is
> not
> justified by the premises mentioned alone.
>
> A lot depends on what you are trying to establish. Comparative linguistics
> is
> not at its best trying to figure out the meaning of an individual idiom or
> precise meaning of a vocabulary item in one of the languages. However, it
> may
> give reasonable confidence in the structure of the language and its history.
>
> Those doing historical linguistics are usually aware of your very valid
> reservations above on gaining and losing phonemes and divergent development
> paths (at least if they are academic linguists). They share these
> presuppositions of yours instead of opposing them. These phenomena are taken
> seriously and studied. Language change has been studied extensively by
> historical linguists. Two important areas of change are sound changes and
> semantic changes. Both have been studied across languages.
>
> Language relationships and historical reconstructions are not based on
> isolated, individual items bearing some fancy relationship to each other.
> That
> weight of evidence would be close to zero. Rather you must have cumulative
> evidence. If you see that there is a systematic change from one language to
> the other across the shared vocabulary, then you can use that to do
> historical
> reconstructions. Preferably you need to know well several of the known
> related
> languages to make proper reconstructions.
>
> People fluent in two related languages can often tell if two vocabulary
> items
> are the same across the two languages, even if they are not linguists.
>
> Now, if you have languages that can be shown to be related (systematic
> correspondences with systematic sound changes across enough vocabulary items
> and morphemes), you can reconstruct a proto-language. You may consider the
> reconstructed language (for example proto-Semitic) as a theoretical
> construct
> instead of a historical one, if you so wish – many in the field do. The
> proto-
> language will often be a reasonable approximation of the historical
> language,
> but because of the methodology it will be a smoothed-out language in the
> sense
> that real languages tend to have more exceptions than what a reconstruction
> will give you.
>
> Unless any related (=Semitic) language has a CV-only syllable structure, and
> the later Hebrew language does not have it, for CV Hebrew there are two
> alternatives.
> 1) Earlier, pre-Hebrew language had also CVC syllables, Hebrew lost them and
> regained them. This theory would need positive support for Hebrew losing
> them.
> 2) Earlier, pre-Hebrew Semitic language never had CVC syllables, but the
> daughter languages all gained them, with Hebrew gaining them late (after
> Biblical Hebrew). This also requires more complex presuppositions than also
> Hebrew having been a language with CVC syllables, so it would need positive
> support.
>
> I personally do not know the syllable structures of related languages and
> evidence for them, so I leave that part for other to address, if need be. My
> point here is methodological.
>
> Are these scenarios for CV Hebrew completely impossible? Not really, but are
> they likely? Is there supporting evidence? This is the right question.
>
> You offer the aesthetic argument of CV syllables sounding poetic. Does that
> prove more than that you find CV syllables poetic? Would any language gain
> the
> same poetic touch if you opened all closed syllables?
>
> I wonder whether you rejection of historical linguistics is because of lack
> of
> knowledge about how they address your concerns. If so, and if you are
> interested in pursuing this further, I would encourage to read a good
> introduction to historical linguistics. Even older ones may be reasonably
> good, though the 19th century dogma on the universality of sound change is
> not
> so popular anymore because of contrary evidence. Studies over the last few
> decades are more aware of variation within a language as a driving force of
> language change. Also, in recent decades there has been more debate and
> awareness of the role of language contacts in linguistic change.
>
> If you only look at introductions to comparative Semitics, they may not
> address the deeper methodological questions. Their concern is the
> application
> of the methodology, not the methodology itself. Go for the general
> introductions to the methodology.
>
>> I know enough of language development over history that I need more
>> evidence
>> than just generalized calls for comparison with cognate languages and an
>> appeal to authority “for those with the background to evaluate it”. I need
>>
>> evidence from Hebrew itself (more accurately in this case, direct
>> transliterations from Hebrew to other languages).
>
> Evidence from comparative Semitics, to really cover the case, takes a lot of
> time to go over. First, the language relationship needs to be established.
> You
> cannot use the methodology on unrelated languages. Then you need to be able
> to
> reconstruct a proto-language and figure out sound changes from the proto-
> language to the daughter languages. This is a lot of work, and requires
> knowledge of the languages in question. You need to see how well your
> reconstructions work and where they do not yet work, and work on the
> reconstructions and sound laws until you are satisfied you know where it
> works
> and where not.
>
> Having done all this work, you will have enough background knowledge to see
> how an individual piece of the puzzle fits into the whole. Fortunately for
> us,
> we do not need to start from scratch. You can read an introduction to
> comparative Semitics, and find a lot of information there. To evaluate much
> anything, you should know at least two Semitic languages, preferably more.
>
> If you are not willing to get that expertise, I do not blame you for that.
> It
> is a lot of work. So I understand if it does not count as evidence to you,
> if
> you feel incompetent to evaluate it. It does not mean that the baby should
> be
> thrown out with the bath water, though.
>
> Kimmo Huovila
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>


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—John 16:33, DDV (Dewayne Dulaney Version)

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