Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

James is correct, to wit:
Robert H has to add an AD-HOC rule in order to bring his theory in line with
the data. Occam is very unhappy and wants to shave Robert.
(He justifies this on the grounds that TG/GB/Minimal grammar accepts such an
adhoc rule for German, where again it is unnecessary, as Simon Dik showed 30
years ago. And why would anyone want to import an adhoc rule from German to
BH?)
Plus Robert's S-V finite verbal clauses are no longer pragmatically marked
although he regularly adds pragmatics when he is forced to/wants to. VSO is
the stronger theory in this case in that it sends a pragmatic signal to the
user at every SV clause and that will trully make for a sensitive reader.

My advice to anyone learning BH is to take a theory out for a test drive.
See what you start to produce with it and start comparing differences with
attested text. Robert's theories end up counter-intuitive to the user and
unnecessary. That a theory can be made to cover the data by adding adhoc
rules is irrelevant to the reality of the situation. Any theory can cover
the data if allowed enough rules.

RB



On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 3:33 PM, James Spinti <jspinti AT eisenbrauns.com>wrote:

> While I agree with Randall that the basic word order in prose is VSO (and
> Eisenbrauns has a book arguing it--Word Order in the Biblical Hebrew Finite
> Clause), you should be aware that there are linguists, such as Robert
> Holmstedt, who argue that the basic order is SVO. You can read his arguments
> here:
> http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_161.pdf
>
> Muddying the waters,
> James
> ________________________________
> James Spinti
> Marketing Director, Book Sales Division
> Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 35 years
> Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies
> jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com
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> Phone: 574-269-2011 ext 226
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>
> On Oct 27, 2011, at 8:06 AM, Randall Buth wrote:
>
> > david katav (note good BH word order)
> >> However, when it comes to Hebrew, I'm not convinced that we know as
> > much as we need to about the "basic" syntax of the language to be able
> > to sift out what are "violations" in poetry. Scholars can't even agree on
> > such basics as basal component order: VSO or SVO? >
> >
> > Just because some scholars are not clear on what is happening doesn't
> > mean that others don't or can't know what is happening. Normally with
> > language, the understanding of the texts is already in place before
> > linguistic writeups. Linguistics is normally only a dispute on how best
> to
> > write up and describe the rules, not what the language means.
> >
> >
> >> There are good arguments for both. (I'm in the latter category,
> > if it matters.)
> > This is why I have chosen to restrict my own syntactic investigations to
> > prose. >
> >
> > Sorry to hear about your trouble with SVO, though starting with prose is
> > the correct place to begin.
> > In main sentences in prose you will find good pragmatic reasons for any
> > Subject in front of the "remaining verbal clausal core". Pragmatic
> functions
> > with
> > Subjects typically include various 'topicalization' functions as well as
> > Focus.
> > [[Naturally, that does not apply to nominal/participial sentences, which
> in
> > fact
> > do use a Subject-Participle basic order.
> > For a fuller explanation of Subject-Participle order, see
> > http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/verbless-clause-article/ ]]
> > Topicalization
> > functions include setting up a new topic chain, setting up a new unit,
> and
> > breaking up the sequentiality structure, typically for marked temporal
> > overlap
> > or backreference, but also for simple pause and dramatic effect.
> >
> > As confirmation,
> > with finite verbal clauses you will find that when a clause uses a
> single,
> > non-Subject pragmatic-fronting order then the following clausal order is
> > ... V-(presupposed)-Subject-Other... ('presupposed' is optional, highly
> > presupposed, typically pronominal material placed between Verb and
> > Subject, e.g. vayyomer elav ha-melex "..." where 'elav' is positioned as
> > highly presupposed). An SVO template would have produced X-S-V-O
> > after placing a pragmatic item in the "X".
> >
> > Likewise, in subordinate clauses like ki, asher, im, you will find that
> if
> > anything is fronted for pragmatic reasons (and in subordinate clauses the
> > reasons are typically Focal), the following core is ... V-S-O. A person
> can
> > only generate from an underlying SVO template by using an extra ADHOC
> > rule, and you are aware what stigma attaches to 'adhoc' in linguistics.
> > That, and the pragmatics really does fit wonderfully tight when generated
> > from V-S-O. It is very satisfying to read pages and pages of text and
> > to pick up all of the pragmatic signals from Subjects and non-Subjects in
> > front of finite verbs.
> >
> > Your starting with prose is interesting because it is specifically
> poetry,
> > not
> > narrative prose, where SVO and the ensuing pragmatics become more
> > frequent.
> >
> > braxot
> > Randall
> >
> > --
> > Randall Buth, PhD
> > www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
> > Biblical Language Center
> > Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
> > _______________________________________________
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> > b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>
>


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life