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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">Dear friends,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">I'm working on a Hebrew construction which means 'between X and Y', but its original shape (which survives to this day) is more interesting:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">Bein X</span></i><sub><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">locative</span></sub><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">
u-vein</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">*<i> Y</i><sub>locative</sub><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">Among/within/between X and-among/within/between Y<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">*<i>vein</i> is a phonetic variant of
<i>bein<span lang="HE" dir="RTL"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">I think its syntactic and semantic analysis is:
<i>Bein </i>(<i>X u-vein Y</i>) = Between (X and-between Y), where the 2<sup>nd</sup>
<i>bein </i>token is a mere duplicate of the first one, rather than [('Between' X) 'and' ('between' Y)].
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">I suspect the reduplication is there to block an interpretation of 'X and Y' as a
<b>single</b> region combining both places, since <i>bein</i> could at the time (biblical Hebrew) be interpreted as 'among/within', rather than as 'between 2 specific landmarks' (e.g.,
<i>bein harim </i>'among hills'). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">Note that while this repeated preposition case bears some resemblance to choosing:
<i>I gave a book to Mary and <b>to</b> John</i> instead of <i>I gave a book to Mary and John</i> in that the speaker wishes to block an interpretation of John and Mary as a single unit, it is also different, because each of Mary and John (separately) fall under
the scope of 'gave a book to' – I gave a book to Mary, and I gave a book to John (2 events). This is NOT the case with the Hebrew construction, where the 'between' sense of
<i>bein</i> requires both complements, referring to the space between them. Cf. ??
<i>Between</i> <i>X and between Y</i> doesn't make sense (if the second <i>between</i> is not taken as a mere duplicate).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">Can people point me to literature on similar constructions, where one of the prepositions or conjunctions is "superfluous"? The closest I can think of is:
<i>Either X or Y</i>, but even here there's a higher conjunctive counterpart 'Possibly X and possibly Y', which we know is indeed the source of quite a few
<i>or </i>constructions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">Thanks,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A">Mira (Ariel)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#44546A"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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