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
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.