Biblical Hebrew Forum

[decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)]

yes, bryan, that's what i was after. i was wondering if i was the only one
who saw the archaic dialect aspect there.

however, because ani/anoki can vary within a passage/dialect, there is
always the possibility of uniformity... so intradialect options reduce
pretty much to emphasis (anoki), syntax (there are generalizations here
IMHO), or sociolinguistics (revell's preferred option); stylistics maybe
too.

so it's an empirical and open question, in any given case; possible
scenarios:

(1) variation in this phrase reflects diachronic shift anoki > ani
(2) different books/dialects may reflect the same usage as elsewhere
(3) ani/anoki variation yes, but still differences in usage between books

perhaps the null hypothesis ought to be something like (2), and the burden
would be on those who want to argue for dialect/usage differences. would
you agree about uniformity across the bible as the null hypothesis?

sholom,
V
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Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/
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Xue dao lao, huo dao lao, hai you sanfen xue bu dao.
Zhu ni xuexi yukuai!