Re: PTD was the most-respected of the AUE regulars ...

On Fri, 26 Jul 2024 17:29:10 +0000, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2024-07-26, Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>

On Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:41:13 -0700, HenHanna <HenHanna@devnull.tb>

      The instance I remember most was when he (PTD) opined that Most
Chinese words consisted of 2 Chinese characters.

>
It's not wrong just because PTD said it.  Over on Language Log, the
eminent sinologist Victor Mair also keeps pointing out that the
Chinese thinking that a Chinese character/syllable equals a word
is just not true and that most of the Chinese lexicon is made from
a combinations of two morphemes and rendered in two characters.

Mair contributed a chapter to Daniels and Bright, so he was probably
the source for PTD's knowledge of that.

In his own field he had some useful information, but outside his field
he could be very dogmatic about things that he simply got wrong.

>
But what _is_ PTD's area of actual expertise?  Writing systems, I
guess, supported by the fact that he co-edited a book on the topic?

He's also written a book on writing systems.
https://www.amazon.com/Exploration-Writing-Peter-T-Daniels/
As you probably noticed, his guest post on Language Log on writing
systems was well received.

Semitic languages, maybe--or am I already misled by my own total
ignorance there?

He knows a lot more than I do about all of the Semitic languages
except Hebrew, but on the other hand he wrote
'Hebrew does not have subordinating conjunctions. It uses parataxis, not
hypotaxis. KJV tried to translate literally, word by word, so "and" was
used
wherever wa-(and allomorphs) appeared.'
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.usage.english/c/MZ7qGDVppiU/m/4h_E2sqqBAAJ
The subject was the King James Bible, but it was still misleading
not to say that modern Hebrew has several subordinating conjunctions
and uses them often.  (Note how effectively that could lead to an
argument.  "That doesn't apply at all to modern Hebrew."  "The
subject is obviously Biblical Hebrew."  "But...")
More to the point, the statement is not true even of Biblical Hebrew.
It has /fewer/ subordinating conjunctions than modern European
languages and uses hypotaxis /less/, but it does use hypotaxis.  For
instance
'asher or she- 'that, which, what': "I am that I am"
ki 'that, because, when': "And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified
it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created
and made.'  (The "which" there is 'asher again.)
k- 'like, as': "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul
after thee, O God."
l-ma`an 'so that': "Therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may
live."
The statement that the KJV used "and" whenever "wa-" appeared is
very close to true, I believe.  However "Therefore" in "Therefore
choose life" is u-, an allomorph of wa-, as PTD put it.  (I just noticed
that.)
--
Jerry Friedman