Re: EIS+verb EIS
Don Wilkins (dwilkins@ucr.campus.mci.net)
Fri, 07 Nov 1997 08:40:44 -0800
At 02:42 AM 11/7/97 EST, Paul S. Dixon wrote:
>B-Greekers:
>
>Does anybody know the significance, if any, of the EIS+verb EIS
>construction, you know, like in EISHLQEN EIS?
>
>I researched it a little. Found it (the EIS+verb EIS construction)
>occurs 812 times in the Greek NT (according to my LOGOS search program).
>Have not been able to find anything in the grammars about it and would
>appreciate any help.
>
>Also, checked out EISHLQEN EIS versus HLQEN EIS. The first occurs 18
>times. The latter 16 times.
>
Paul, IMO there is little if any significance to this construction, at least
in the realm of whether the prepositional idea is emphasized. In general it
is considered good Greek style to "repeat" the preposition with the object
if the preposition retains its physical sense within the compound verb (this
appears to be true of all similar prepositions and compounds, not just EIS).
The Greeks seem not to view this as redundant, and in fact one soon gets
quite accustomed to it. In effect, it helps to clarify the relationship of a
given object to the verb. However, it is not always used (as your research
shows).
Don Wilkins