***
I did study some linguistics many years ago, but I have forgotten most of
the terminology since then.
The terminology was developed to describe European languages and Biblical
Hebrew is not a European language. Those linguists who believe that the
terminology refers to all aspects of languages, and refuse or are unable to
think outside the box (limits of the terminology), may not recognize how
Biblical Hebrew verbal usage differs from what is described in the
terminology. I wonder how many other aspects of the language are not
recognized because of the terminology?
I read Tanakh, not as a linguist, but as an act of worship, to find out what
God has to say to mankind. Hence I read for meaning, not as an exercise in
developing theoretical models of the language. I am not a member of any
established school of linguistics. I wrote my own dictionary because the
dictionaries I bought do not accurately describe what I read. And I long ago
stopped looking at the grammars for the same reason.
Now comes the hard question, how to explain what I observe?
Karl W. Randolph.
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