Carmack/Skousen: "Virtually none of the grammatical variants listed in section 4-archaic grammar are archaic."

[Lem]

In writing up my previous posts, I began to notice some additional issues. Here is one example.

From textual variants part 5 published in 2014 by Skousen, note this definition of "consigned":

d. The critical text will accept the use of consigned here in Helaman 7:9 with its unexpected archaic meaning.

Summary: Accept in Helaman 7:9 the use of consigned with its apparent meaning of ‘resigned’ or ‘reluctantly agreed’; https://www.google.com/search?ei=w6e9X- ... CAw&uact=5

But skousen says this in a 2018 discussion that "assigned" is now the Early Modern English definition of "consigned":

In The Nature of the Original Language (NOL), I list 39 words with archaic meanings and 25 archaic phrases, for a total of 64 language items, that disappeared from English before the mid-1700s and do not occur in the King James Bible. Besides the ones already mentioned, here are some of the other striking ones discussed in NOL:Archaic Word Uses ....

Consigned ‘assigned’ 
“I am consigned that these are my days” (Helaman 7:9) 

https://byustudies.BYU.edu/content/lang ... ook-Mormon

I can't find why or when "consigned" came to mean "assigned" instead of "resigned," but in both cases, it is assumed, with no support I can find, to be another example of archaic and/or obsolete language.

And now, in the preprint updates posted in fall 2020, it has been admitted that "consigned" is not really archaic:

two items (call of, consigned that) remain archaic, but now as phrases, and they are therefore shifted to section 3-archaic phrases;

...The Book of Mormon usage, however, appears to be quite unique since it is a case of consigned taking a that-S clause as its complement. We have therefore revised this item to read as an archaic phrase, consigned that, and shifted it to the list of archaic phrases.

https://interpreterfoundation.org/blog- ... of-Mormon/

So now, the word consigned is admitted to not be archaic. However, ONLY because it is followed by a "that", it will now be listed as an archaic phrase, even though defining it as "assigned that" renders the entire sentence nonsensical, nor are there any Early Modern English examples given of archaic use of the phrase "consigned that" as they define it. It's defined as archaic only because it is followed by a "that." The far simpler explanation, that Smith meant to use the ordinary phrase "resigned that," is ignored in favor of this convoluted mess.

Come on, Carmack and Skousen! This is starting to look like a keystone cops episode.

[Lem]

In the above post, I said calling the phrase "consigned that" archaic, with a meaning of "assigned that" rendered the Book of Mormon verse in question nonsensical. To explain what I meant, start with the verse itself:

Helaman 7:9

But behold I am consigned that these are my days and that my soul shall be filled with sorrow because of this the wickedness of my brethren

Substituting in the Early Modern English meaning Carmack and Skousen give the phrase:

Helaman 7:9

But behold I am <assigned that> these are my days and that my soul shall be filled with sorrow because of this the wickedness of my brethren

Notice the "and" after days, it implies a second part to the "assigned that" meaning. Separating them out:

Helaman 7:9

But behold I am <assigned that> these are my days AND [I am <assigned that>] my soul shall be filled with sorrow because of this the wickedness of my brethren

Compare the two phrases in blue to the 1825 (non-Early Modern English) example C & S used to show how 'consigned' can mean 'assigned':

1825, Rebecca Edridge,

The Highest Castle and the Lowest Cave

the cloister to which I am consigned for ever, would be more dreary and more gloomy than it is at present.

https://interpreterfoundation.org/wp-co ... file=false

Concluding from this that the "consigned" in Helaman 7:9 means "assigned," and then further to conclude "consigned that" is an archaic phrase ONLY because apparently no one else using modern English added a "that" after "consigned" to mean "assigned that" makes no sense.

[Chap]

Compare the two phrases in blue to the 1825 (non-Early Modern English) example C & S used to show how 'consigned' can mean 'assigned':
1825, Rebecca Edridge,

The Highest Castle and the Lowest Cave

the cloister to which I am consigned for ever, would be more dreary and more gloomy than it is at present.

https://interpreterfoundation.org/wp-co ... file=false
Concluding from this that the "consigned" in Helaman 7:9 means "assigned," and then further to conclude "consigned that" is an archaic phrase ONLY because apparently no one else using modern English added a "that" after "consigned" to mean "assigned that" makes no sense.

As a frequent reader of modern and early modern and at time pre-modern English prose, I't like to say that the choice of the Edridge example to show that "consigned" can mean "assigned" strikes a very false note to me. Comparing:

A: "I have been consigned to a cloister"

and

B: "I have been assigned to a cloister"

I would say that the senses for me are markedly different. (A) suggests to me that "I have been dumped in this cloister like a piece of luggage left at a rail stations that will never be collected and taken away. I wish I could escape, but I can't." (B) on the other hand is what a police detective might say, meaning "I've been sent to this cloister in the guise of a visiting monk, to see if this is the base for meth production in this area. Wonder where I shall be assigned next?".

And a check of the full entries and usage examples in the Oxford English Dictionary does suggest that similar distinctions go back quite a long way.

[Physics Guy]

I have the same sense of the difference between “assign” and “consign”, and find the substitution of “assigned” for “consigned” in this passage to be no help at all in salvaging a sensible sentence out of the mess Smith made by not saying “resigned”. As Lem noted, “assigned that” makes even less sense here than “consigned that”.

Maybe I’m just unaware of all the historical meaning shifts among “—signed“ verbs in English but it almost seems as though Skousen is weak on the nuances himself. The fact that one can imagine this of a professor today shows how much more plausible it is than any weird archaism that Smith simply made a mistake.

Mistakes like saying “consigned” when you mean “resigned” are common in speech but rare in printed books because editors, bless their inky hearts, tend to catch them. This adds a whole new issue for poor Skousen and Carmack. A word or phrase may often fall out of use in printed texts but persist as a common verbal mistake.

And now I’m imagining a mashup of Breaking Bad and The Name of the Rose.

I am the one who rings the bell.

See, it pitches itself.

[Lem]

To sum up the effects of the revisions to Skousen and Carman's work, consider that vol 3, parts 3 and 4, or the recently published "Nature of the Original Language," a.k.a. "NOL," contained about 80 alleged archaisms, according to an Interpreter interview with Skousen:

...As I studied these cases (and later with the help of Stanford Carmack), I began to identify example after example in the original text of archaic vocabulary, phrases, grammar, expressions, and syntax. Our findings are all listed in the first part of The Nature of the Original Language;

... ARCHAIC VOCABULARY
39 lexical items with meanings no longer in use

...ARCHAIC PHRASES
25 phrases no longer in use

...ARCHAIC GRAMMAR
13 grammatical forms no longer in use

...ARCHAIC EXPRESSIONS
3 expressions no longer in use

https://interpreterfoundation.org/a-critical-text/

From the same link, Skousen sums up their work published in NOL:

... in 2014 Stanford Carmack began to assist me in this research by concentrating on the syntax (the sentence structure) of the Book of Mormon.

Our basic finding in The Nature of the Original Language is that the meanings of the words in the English translation of the Book of Mormon date from the 1530s up through the 1730s, at least a hundred years before Joseph Smith dictated the text of the book to his scribes.

Unfortunately, half of their support for this finding has been revoked. According to the pre-prints discussed in this thread and in Tom's thread, so far the recent revisions indicate that:

>14 of the 39 vocabulary items have been shown to be NOT archaic;
>14 of the 25 phrases have been shown to be not archaic;
>12 of the 13 grammar items have been shown to be not archaic.

Skousen and Carmack have significantly revised their assessment of the archaic nature of the Book of Mormon text, and have withdrawn, so far, 40 of their 80 assertions of archaism in the Book of Mormon text, as published in volume 3, parts 3 and 4.

In light of this recent news, Carmack's assertion on MD&D two days ago about his archaism research seems a little disingenuous.

champatsch

Posted Tuesday at 03:50 PM

On 11/23/2020 at 7:52 PM, Robert J Anderson said:
"How do you respond to these two points? First, how have you eliminated the possibility that Joseph Smith spoke in a manner that resembled Early Modern English more than the spoken english of today or of his time? It seems written language is more formal and more likely to follow the current rules, whereas, spoken english is lazier and more apt to be more archaic. Also, I heard that Appalachian dialects more resemble elizabethian english than anything else. Is that true and could that affect your theory? Second, how can you discount that Joseph Smith just might have been trying to sound olde worldly as that was what his book was, a history of ancients? He certainly could have used the 1611 Bible and riffed from there."

Carmack:
The Book of Mormon has sustained archaism in many different syntactic domains, and it has dozens of instances of nonbiblical archaism in its lexical usage.

Pseudobiblical texts do not have this sustained archaism. They are far behind the Book of Mormon in terms of archaism. They might look as archaic as the Book of Mormon on the surface, but once they're analyzed comparatively, many substantial differences become apparent.

In the personal relative pronoun system, the evidence shows that the Book of Mormon's pattern wasn't Joseph Smith's own unexceptional modern pattern, which we see in his early writings. His spoken language would've been similar to his written language in this case since relative pronoun usage is mostly nonconsciously produced. To be sure, there could have been some differences between dictating and writing, but not the dramatic differences that we see between the patterns, with personal which being heavily dominant in the dictation language. And the dictation pattern wasn't a pseudobiblical pattern or more broadly a pseudo-archaic pattern. So it wasn't a biblically imitative pattern, and it was different from the King James pattern. It is, however, found in some early modern authors. The verb complementation pattern is similar to this, with its own peculiarities.

We don't want to say that Joseph Smith "certainly could have used the King James Bible and riffed from there"; pseudo-archaic texts give strong counterevidence to such a view.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/73 ... 1210002188

[bolding added.]

[Gadianton]

But behold I am <assigned that> these are my days AND [I am <assigned that>] my soul shall be filled with sorrow

Yep -- no way. But, "consigned to eternal damnation" shows up Bible-related searches, even if the KJV (i didn't look very hard) doesn't have a dead hit. Any archaism or usage accidentally the same as the archaism found in Bible-related literature and could have shown up in materials or in sermons, is the likely source. Meaning: 75% likely it came from Bible-related literature 23% likely it was sheer accident 1.9% likely it came from another bizarre transmission channel and 0% likely that it came from the ghost committee.

[Tom]

The revisions to Nature of the Original Language will apparently appear in part 8 of volume 3 of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. However, Dr. Skousen previously noted that Part 8 "will outline the history of the modern critical text project of the Book of Mormon, including the FARMS critical text project (from 1984-86) and the current project (beginning in 1988)." Does that mean that there will be a part 9 of volume 3 or will part 8 include revisions to NOL and the history of the modern critical text project? Why not issue a second edition of NOL?

What is Dr. Skousen's current status at BYU? He is not listed on the BYU linguistics faculty page.

[Lem]

The revisions to Nature of the Original Language will apparently appear in part 8 of volume 3 of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. However, Dr. Skousen previously noted that Part 8 "will outline the history of the modern critical text project of the Book of Mormon, including the FARMS critical text project (from 1984-86) and the current project (beginning in 1988)." Does that mean that there will be a part 9 of volume 3 or will part 8 include revisions to NOL and the history of the modern critical text project? Why not issue a second edition of NOL?

What is Dr. Skousen's current status at BYU? He is not listed on the BYU linguistics faculty page.

I think I recall him saying in an interview this year that he didn't teach any more, but I would think that he would still be listed as emeritus.

[Lem]

Carmack also commented earlier this month on MDDB:

champatsch
Posted November 12
On 11/11/2020 at 11:01 AM, stemelbow said:
"What do we do when these all but disappear as candidates? Say Joseph did write the Book of Mormon after all? "

It's at a point where easier ones to track have been determined to be persistent, sometimes against the OED.

It's now more difficult to show persistence in about 50 instances.

Textual chain of usage for vocabulary that was apparently in obsolescence needs to be established.

The OED will need to be shown to be inaccurate in quite a few of these cases, sometimes strikingly inaccurate.
https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/73 ... 1210000814

I'm not sure Carmack understands how telling this statement of his is:

It's at a point where easier ones to track have been determined to be persistent....

[Lem]

An email from Skousen about this topic was posted on SeN:

Stan and I are doing what we promised we would do in the introduction to The Nature of the Original Language [of the Book of Mormon], namely, to reconsider our findings as the databases got better (especially our access to the texts in ECCO). Here’s the quote from page 10 of NOL:


“In some cases, it has been difficult to decide which category to place a write-up in, especially when the databases are still not as developed as we would wish. Over time, further advances in the size and variety of the databases may lead us to change the categorization for some of these write-ups.”


So SOME of the items we thought were archaic (prior to 1740) are NOT, and we have identified these by citing examples. There is no reason to hide these findings. It should be pointed out that in the last of our four revised parts that [yes, repeat the subordinate conjunction that] many of these expressions were already identified as occurring in the 1700s and early 1800s, up to Joseph Smith’s time. Those examples that we gave explicit citations to in NOL are listed here in part 4 with arrows (there are 9 of them). They were put in that section 7 (Archaic Expressions) to show that they were also archaic. So here is a summary of the shifts in our thinking:


Section 1, Archaic Vocabulary: 26 remain archaic, 10 persist into the 1700s or later, 4 are re-created words, and 1 is biblical usage

Section 3, Archaic Phrases: 14 remain archaic, 14 persist into the 1700s or later, and 1 is biblical usage

Section 4, Archaic Grammar: 2 remain archaic, 12 persist into the 1700s or later (2 were identified with citations in NOL), and 1 is biblical usage

Section 7, Archaic Expressions: 7 remain archaic, 27 persist into the 1700s or later (9 were identified with citations in NOL), and 3 are influenced by biblical usage


One should notice that the shorter the example (individual word meanings and short phrases) the greater the odds that our initial analysis was correct. Grammatical items typically involve singular or plural usage, with syntax playing a role, and the same for expressions.


So the archaic hypothesis still holds, with nearly 50 examples restricted to archaic usage (Early Modern English, 1540s to the 1740s). The databases are out there for others to check. The critics of the archaic hypothesis should still be worried.


With best wishes, Royal

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ality.html

I had estimated above that 50% of their archaisms were overturned, but according to Skousen's most recent analysis, which includes a fourth section, SIXTY PERCENT of their archaisms are now overturned.

The critics of the archaic hypothesis should still be worried.

Well, no. That's not how statistical analysis works. Given the number of incredibly weak arguments supporting remaining archaisms, it's not looking good.