[B-Greek] Redundant Words?
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Sat Dec 19 17:05:03 EST 2009
--- Mark Spitsbergen wrote:
<The redundant use of LEGWN in Luke 7:39
"EIPEN EN hEAUTW LEGWN"
I normally think of the redundant use of LEGWN as "he told them
saying" ex: Luke 12:16 but here and also in Luke 20:2 is it
functioning as a grammatical marker of sorts?>
Hi, Mark,
LEGWN of course is a semitism found throughout the
LXX (e.g. Deut 1:9) but like many semitisms something
similar is found already in Homer. τον δʼαπαμειβομενος
προσεφη TON D'APAMEIBOMOS PROSEFH
("answering, he said to him", Iliad 1:130) is
really no different from τον δʼ ημειβετʼ TON D' HMEIBET'
("he answered him") (Iliad 1:121) except for the
meter. I could give many other
examples where verbs of saying are repeated for
metrical reasons. I think this "redundancy" entered
into the language to the extent that even a non-
Semitic Greek would find nothing redundant or
emphatic about an extra participle like LEGWN.
Mark L
FWSFOROS
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