Concord of Gender and Number

Stephen C. Carlson scarlson at mindspring.com
Sat Aug 22 00:19:04 EDT 1998


At 09:58 AM 8/21/98 -0700, clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
>I think it was this expectation that led to the scribal
>"correction" to MEIZWN, the scribes not understanding how MEIZON was being
>used. 

I think it might be due to homophony.  In scriptoria, manuscripts were copied
by having a lector slowly read the text to a number of scribes taking the
dictation.  As the length distinction between W and O slowly vanished, it
would seem that a scribe might occasionally substitute MEIZWN for MEIZON
particularly if the context favored the former.

Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35



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