Phraseological Units Derived from פָנִים / FACĬES in the Genesis «Romanceamientos» (a Qualitative Approach)

Abstract

The use of fixed expressions with somatic elements is one of the characteristics that has drawn the most attention of scholars of biblical Latin. Taking into consideration that many of these locutions are copies from the Hebrew, this paper studies the importance that the medieval translations of the Hebrew Bible and the Vulgate had for the creation and development of these adverbial schemes formed by one, or even two, initial prepositions plus a noun that functions as the nucleus. On this occasion, the book of Genesis is analyzed in depth, and special attention is paid to fixed expressions and free combinations derived from the nouns פנָיִם / FACĬES. Their discursive functions and the main patterns of morphosyntactic change are analyzed, with special emphasis on the semantic differences that they manifest in the transition from Hebrew to Spanish. To carry out this study, the Medieval Bible corpus has been used: a diachronic corpus that allows to consult concurrently all the medieval biblical versions in Spanish that have been preserved to this day.