[B-Greek] Redundant Words?
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sat Dec 19 19:07:37 EST 2009
If this usage appears in other Greek works going back to Homer, why is it then a "Semitism"? It seems we are getting a bit too free in identifying things as Semitisms.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org; Mark Spitsbergen <awakesd at mac.com>
Sent: Sat, December 19, 2009 3:05:03 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Redundant Words?
--- 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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