----- Original Message -----
From: "Isaac Fried" <[email protected]>
To: "Arnaud Fournet" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Pere Porta" <[email protected]>; "Hebrew List"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vav Nun Suffix
I am sorry, but what you are saying appears to me to lie somewhere
between the world of mythology and the realm of dream-work. Do you have
even the remotest idea how people spoke "when they first moved out of
Africa"?
***
it's possible to make some tentative statements.
A.
***
Are you sure they were actually "people" like us?
***
What reason do we have to think they were not just like us (minus
televisions and computers)?
My point of view is that they were exactly like us.
And I tend to think that Neanderthals were not that much different, whatever
some people say to push them into non-mankind.
A.
***
In any event, language developed spontaneously and by agreement (no books
nor schools) by "simple" people and hence "primitive" languages like
Hebrew must have (or have had) a very simple logical inner structure.
***
I really do not see any reason to think Hebrew is "primitive".
Even though the bulk of vocabulary of Ancient Hebrew may be small,
especially when compared to classical Arabic, this is probably caused by the
nature of the documentation, not a feature of the language per se.
A.
***
In my opinion Hebrew is basically a primeval language that has retained
this fundamental "grammar": word = root + identifiers (personal
pronouns). The identifiers were the sounds I and U.
***
There's nothing fundamental in that typology.
This is just something you decree.
In addition vocalic schemes amount to infixes, and infixes are a complex
feature.
A.
***
There is, and there can't be, anything "deeper".
Isaac Fried, Boston university
***
"there can't be".
ok => decree
Arnaud Fournet
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