Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Mah nishmah, Yigal,

I was just about to send off a note to you pointing to Revell's work 
when I saw David's post.

Revell explains the choice between ani and anoki pragmatically.  ani for 
 "immediate" situations where social distance and formality are either 
uncalled for or abandoned, and anoki to express "distance," that is, 
when a speaker takes care to express formality, restraint, timelessness.

I think the explanation works, but then again, I am sort of partial 
toward "pragmatics."  I think Vince DeCaen has researched an 
alternative, semantically driven explanation in Samuel-Kings, but I 
don't know if he ever published.

Shalom,
Bryan

Yigal Levin wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> Does anyone think that there is a semantic or any other difference is use or 
> meaning between "anu" and "anaxnu"? Or, for that matter, between "ani" and 
> "anokhi"? Are they used in different genres, are they preferred by different 
> literary sources?
>
> What do y'all think?
>
> Yigal Levin 

--
B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
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