A resubmission as my original seems to have gone astray (and had a couple of typos and spell-check mutations in it, a hazard if writing on an iPhone)
> 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? Oh, Karl, this is a bit of a 'lumpers' vs 'splitters' argument, isn't it? Are you sure you're not a little blinded by the 'word'? Now, 'to swing'. Sure, 'to swing' in the sense of 'to be hanged' originally meant 'swing to and fro (on the end of a rope)', a graphic idea that this use of 'to swing' admittedly never quite loses. But the main idea of this use is surely 'be hanged' once it becomes a common usage. For me, the meaning is in the overall significance of the word. Full understanding of what the speaker meant by the short sentence 'He swung' is impossible without context. Is the speaker saying the verbal subject died? Were they in a playground? 'He' can't be an object, so it's obviously not a cricket ball moving in a curve. Did he mean he slept around? The speaker doesn't intend by his words to indicate that the subject moved in a particular way, but to communicate playing, dying, sleeping round. Give a context and the full significance becomes clear and the ambiguity vanishes. However it is obvious that for you the 'action' behind the word is something like a Platonic form of the word, so we are not likely to agree (is there any that we have to, as long as we understand where we are coming from and not talking at cross purposes?). We can probably agree that the simple action of 'moving through an arc' (and the related 'pivot about an axis') does indeed historically connect the various uses and that they may well be connected in the mind of the speaker by it (if he thought about it). Perhaps that's even true of to swing in a sexual sense, or to swing from one opinion to another, though there's no actual swinging movement (they are, I suppose, metaphors in origin). But a Hebrew speaker of the third century BC might have said the same about יעד לו את האשה versus יעד את העם באהל. (I say third century as the LXX gives us the significance of Ex 21:8 at that point in time). > 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? Haven't you read _my_ argument, Karl? You'll note I put this in as an aside, but I'm not writing wholly in response to your position but more broadly: the tendency of language towards disambiguation in context isn't dependent on etymology but on the fact that two words are homophones (or homographs in written language). Anyway, speakers are not usually aware of the etymology of words and they often create their own semantic links between etymologically unrelated but phonetically similar words, as I tried to show a week or so back with Arabic malHama (= both Heb. מלחמה and 'butchers shop'). It's due to this tendency to disambiguation in context that verbs based on originally differing roots typically use different binyanim in Hebrew (e.g. נלחם vs piel לחם) John Leake ---------------------------------- ان صاحب حياة هانئة لا يدونها انما يحياها He who has a comfortable life doesn't write about it - he lives it ---------------------------------- On 7 May 2013, at 02:15, K Randolph <[email protected]> wrote: > John: > > On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 4:00 PM, John Leake <[email protected]> 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.
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