Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ken Penner <kpenner AT stfx.ca>]

Dear Dr. Cohen,

This is an admirable quest. Perhaps you might be interested in my article on “The History of the Research on the Hebrew Verbal System” in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, available at http://www.academia.edu/4271352/History_of_the_Research_on_the_Hebrew_Verbal_System

 

You asked for feedback, so I will make a few notes on your first page.

It would be good to see a footnote for the claim “The history of the field goes back at least to the mishnaic era.” I was surprised to see “אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה” in your first paragraph in connection with the above claim about the Mishnah, since (1) the phrase refers to historical chronology, not grammatical tense; and (2) it is from the 10^th century at the earliest, much later than the Mishnah.

It would be good to define some of your technical terms. In the third paragraph, “grammaticalizing” is used in a non-standard way. There are actually two ways “grammaticalize" is used in linguistic literature: (1) the way of expressing a semantic value through grammar e.g. “the wayyiqtol form grammaticalizes tense”; (2) the diachronic process by which a way of expressing a semantic value becomes a grammatical construction. Neither of these meanings permit the _expression_ “The difficulty in grammaticalizing the BH verb form”.  The phrase “synchronic grammaticalizing model” is an oxymoron according to definition (2), so I imagine you are either using meaning (1) or using “grammaticalize" in an unusual way.

 

Such difficulties discourage me from reading further.

 

Até mais,

Ken

 

 

Ken M. Penner, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Religious Studies

2329 Notre Dame Avenue, 409 Nicholson Tower

St. Francis Xavier University

Antigonish, NS  B2G 2W5

Canada

(902)867-2265

kpenner AT stfx.ca

 

 

 

 

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 12:11 AM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:

dear colleagues,

i have completed a text (or draft) on the BH verb system, which can
be found in

www.researchgate.net/profile/Nir_Cohen/contributions/?ev=prf_act