Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <vadim_lv AT center-tv.net>]

> >The fact that very few instances of lmo may possibly relate to singular
is easily understandable, since smihut form evolved into preposition, and
its semantics expanded.
>
> Possible, but unlikely in my opinion.

In your example of panim, lifney tzohoraim is wider than "face." A word,
which is an object itself, evidently has narrower sense than the same word
only referring to the object. The latter has, so to say, wider degree of
freedom.

Vadim Cherny