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Martin Buber's Semantic Puzzle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John Dale
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in Language, Paisley College of Technology

Extract

My aim is to examine Buber's language, especially in I and Thou, with a view to discovering how to interpret his extraordinary mode of expression; and by doing so, demonstrate that it can be at least partially explained, and related to language-forms with which we are more familiar.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

page 254 note 1 It should, of course, be clear that the phenomena I am discussing are not affected by the translation from the original to a cognate language. The nominalising feature I am dealing with at this point could certainly be masked in the translation, but the translators would have had to be very free. In fact, both R. Gregor Smith and Maurice Friedman have been quite faithful to Buber's syntax and style. To a great extent, indeed, the very singularity has constrained the translators.

page 260 note 1 How Buber understands, or the understanding that is entailed by, the nature of this mode of faithfulness is obviously of critical importance. But though hinted at in the concluding section, a discussion of the subject is beyond the scope of this paper.