Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

First of all, who said that pleonasm is a bad thing. In some literary
traditions, repeating an idea for emphasis using different words is a sign
of the author's literary ability.

Second, nuance is often something that is very hard to define, and to a
large extent depends on the conventions developed by the speakers of a
language. Since our corpus of biblical Hebrew is so limited, there may be
some things that we just will never really understand.

Yigal Levin  

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of fred burlingame
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 10:31 PM
To: B-Hebrew
Subject: [b-hebrew] guess work

in deuteronomy 1:12, the two words signifying "load" or "burden" appear to
have the same basic meaning.

likewise, deuteronomy 1:13, the three words signifying "intelligence,"
"knowledge," or "wisdom" appear to enjoy a very similar base meaning.

how is it possible to know which nuanced direction each of the words shifts
(north, south, east or west from base meaning) in this instance; ... and in
order to avoid the conclusion of pleonasm?

regards,

fred burlingame
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