[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
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----- 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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