# לרגל



## hadronic

*Moderator note: this discussion is split off from this thread. *



amikama said:


> לרגל הולדת


 
What does רגל mean here ?


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> What does *ל*רגל mean here ?


In honor of, for, for the purpose of. See for example Genesis 33:14.


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## OsehAlyah

hadronic said:


> What does רגל mean here ?


 That's funny as this was the first word I looked up as well in Morfix. As origumi pointed out, lamed is not a preposition here לרגל is actually the entire word.


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## hadronic

OsehAlyah said:


> As origumi pointed out, lamed is not a preposition here לרגל is actually the entire word.


 
No, lamed here is still a preposition. ל-רגל is in fact a prepositional locution, just like "in front (of)" in English (the "of" part in English being rendered by a smikhut in Hebrew).


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## OsehAlyah

hadronic said:


> No, lamed here is still a preposition. ל-רגל is in fact a prepositional locution, just like "in front (of)" in English (the "of" part in English being rendered by a smikhut in Hebrew).


Well you clearly know Hebrew far better than me, so I feel awkward contradicting you, so instead I'll ask a question. Are you sure that ל here is a preposition? The reason I ask is because normally if you separate the preposition from the word, the *meaning* the two convey is similar to the meaning of when they were a single word. Whereas here this is not the case at all.  לרגל has a distinct/unique meaning from ל-רגל. The English example that to me is more appropriate here is a word like (independent) where if you were to separate the in and dependent you would not get the same meaning as when they were one word. In fact you would get no meaning, in this case. This is, of course, based on what little I know so I'm looking forward to further clarification of this.


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## hadronic

First off, רגל, as a root, has numerous meanings, ranging from _foot_ to _rule _and_ calomniate._
Second, the לרגל locution is precisely ranked under רֶגֶל in my dictionaries.
Third, "independant" is not that appropriate an example : _in-_ here is not a preposition but a suffix, and this suffix has two clearly distinct meanings, namely, "inside" and "not". In the case of "independant", it's "not dependant". 

Maybe we could compare this to _"in order to"_ in English. _Order_ has many many meanings (like rank, command...), but even if _"in order to"_ roughly means something like _"in the purpose of"_, _order_ has barely the meaning of _purpose_ when standing alone.


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## OsehAlyah

Hmmm, I don't think I'm expressing myself clearly, or maybe we are just having a miscommunication. I definitely should have left the whole English example thing out of the previous post. Sorry about that.

The main point, and the only point, I'm trying to make is:
1. The word לרגל translates to "in honor of, for, for the  purpose of"
2. The word רגל has no meanings similar to these on its own, thereby making the possibility of ל being a preposition rather questionable or at the very least puzzling. To me at least.

Neither _foot, _nor_ rule, _nor_ calumniate_ nor any other meanings of the word רגל seems to be even close to the meaning of _honor_ or _purpose_.This is what made me think that the לרגל is a completely and wholly separate and independent word from the word רגל and hence ל is not a preposition but a part of a word.


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## hadronic

Maybe, but do you think that "_order_" has anything to do with "_purpose_" (as in _"in order to") _?

By the way, you could say the same about לפי שעה _"for the time being", _that is merely ל + פה _pe_ "mouth", or ליד _leyad _, מיד _miyad, _בעין _be'ayn, _כעין _ke'ayn_, על אף _al af_.... 
Examples are numerous.


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## OsehAlyah

hadronic said:


> Maybe, but do you think that "_order_" has anything to do with "_purpose_" (as in _"in order to") _?


 Sorry not sure what you are after with this example. But will agree with you and say No.


hadronic said:


> By the way, you could say the same about לפי שעה _"for the time being", _that is merely ל + פה _pe_ "mouth", or ליד _leyad _, מיד _miyad, _בעין _be'ayn, _כעין _ke'ayn_, על אף _al af_....
> Examples are numerous.


These numerous examples demonstrate the opposite of the relationship between רגל  and לרגל . That is to say that if the words were separated from the first letter, the meaning would be very similar.


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## hadronic

OsehAlyah said:


> Sorry not sure what you are after with this example. .


 
You're saying that לרגל is one whole preposition just because the meaning of it doesn't boil down to ל + רגל. What I'm saying is : That's not because רגל gets a somewhat unusual meaning here, that we have to take לרגל as an indivisable whole, and reject the underneath analysis as ל + רגל.

That's where I draw the parallele with English : it's not because "in order to" has nothing to do with "order", that we have to think of it as a brand new preposition with no connection at all with the word "order". We just have to assume that "order" gets here a specific meaning in that particular prepositional expression.

What's more, Hebrew is confusing for that matter because the ל is being stuck to the main word, so it looks like an independant word.

 My point is : this, happens to all languages. Not only Hebrew, not only English. It would be a phantasy to think that you could room all words in predefined given boxes, and let it live. Languages are not like that.



OsehAlyah said:


> These numerous examples demonstrate the opposite of the relationship between רגל and לרגל . That is to say that if the words were separated from the first letter, the meaning would be very similar.


 
No ! All those examples demonstrate exactly the same !
על אף doesn't mean "on the nose" (well, it could....), but "in spite of".
מיד doesn't mean "from the hand", but "immediately".
בעין doesn't mean "at the eye", but "actually", "in fact".
לפי doesn't mean "to the mouth", but "after", "according to"...


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## OsehAlyah

OK I think I see what you are saying. I admittedly do not have as good an understanding of the Hebrew Grammar as you do. And what you are saying is that according to the grammar rules  is still a preposition. I'll accept that, regardless of the peculiarity of this specific case.
On a related note, I wouldn't mind seeing a list of books you are using to learn the Hebrew from. Either as a PM or a reply to this thread.

TIA


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