Hi David,
please don't bow out quite yet. I'm sure there is more you can give to this thread. While I am attracted to Rolf's study I also don't like discussing credentials. Logic should be the winning factor. So let's try to stay on that track.
What I would be interested in hearing from you is answers to the following. You keep picking at the assumption of uncancellable meaning as if the value of Rolf's study fell without this foundation. I don't really see this to be the case. While I am not sure whether hebrew verbs have or do not have uncancellable meaning what I am almost sure of is this: Rolf's study indicates that we should all take a fresh look at the hebrew verb system. I would like to invite you to challenge Rolf's study without making a deal of his assumption of uncancellable meaning. Choose a section of the tanakh and make a count of the unambigous temporal senses of the verbs in a section and show us if there is any major disagreement between your figures and Rolf's figures. Only then can we have any basis for objective consideration of which way we to be convinced.
James Christian
P.S. Regards uncancellable meaning. Personally, I don't believe such a concept exists in languages. Context can do anything. It is usage that dominates meaning. However, this does not mean that generalisations can not be made. Our brains learn by making generalisations. And it is this mechanism we use to create a grammar of our first language. We take examples as input, we generalise, we experiment with our generalisations and we make conclusions based on limited feedback.
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