Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

John:

On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 4:00 PM, John Leake <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Karl, why do you keep repeating that multiple meanings to a word are uncommon.

Because rarely do words refer to more than one function.

 

It doesn't become truer in the repetition.

I have trouble understanding why you all don’t recognize what I say.

 

In fact, common verbs (nouns are more likely to have stable meanings) regularly exhibit polysemy, multiple meanings, in modern languages. In fact it's hard to think of common verbs that don't. Look at your monoglot English dictionary. How many common verbs have a single entry, a single lexical meaning in terms of their own language? Few. Now, if you were to say 'in a given context words generally have a single meaning' I might well agree with you.

But can’t you see that the same action can apply to many different contexts?

For example, “to swing” can refer to a dance movement, an attempt to strike a ball, leading an orchestra or band, children playing on a playground construction, regulating the speed of a clock with a pendulum, and so forth, yet they all share the same action, namely limited circular movement around an arc. I see the action. But are you all blinded by the different contexts?

 

Words with contradictory meanings - the Biblical 'let', for example,

I have no idea what you’re talking about with this example, as I have not read an English translation of the Bible in decades.

 

or a word I used a lot when young, 'billion' (which could mean either 'million million' or 'milliard'),

In American English, “billion” refers to a thousand million, in tech speech also known by the prefix “giga-”.

 

soon settle for one meaning or other in a given context (so 'without let or hinder' is as unambiguous as 'I let you eat'  or, indeed, 'to let blood').

Isn’t this last example archaic, which violates the claim that I make?

 

Similarly 'billion' now almost exclusively means 'milliard' and the latter word is forgotten. Incidentally the same goes for etymologically different words that coincide through phonological change (words like 'let', indeed).

Haven’t you been reading what I write, namely that I don’t count words that have different etymologies but have become homonyms, when I make my claim? 

Now, there is still ambiguity even in context - in far more than 0.1% of the lexis - and we depend on it somewhat for irony, but once you take context into account your statement is much closer to the truth than the converse. However, this means that in our original example of Exodus 21:8, finding יעד in a context of marriage/concubinage does perhaps allow for the meaning that the LXX and the rabbinic sources seem to give it of something near to appointing (as a mistress)/betrothing, where another context might demand 'to arrange a meeting'/'to meet'. Of course, two other processes might be at play in our text: (1) change of idiom or the development of an idiom, changing the significance before the LXX appeared, or (2) legal reinterpretation by stretching the meaning of the verb in a context where the 'ipsissima verba' are fixed. That might well produce a legal 'term of art' that would go on to become a new contextualized use of יעד.

Thanks for getting back to the Hebrew.

As I understand this verse, the main difference is whether we read the Kethiv לא or the Qere לו and understand the rest of the verse in the light of that difference. And I include the understanding of יעד in that reckoning.

Personally, I go with the Kethiv. One reason is that the Kethiv allows me to continue to use יעד in the same manner as I understand it from other contexts.

John Leake

Karl W. Randolph.