Variatio vs quasi sinonimia: il caso di hovani/stower in Demonstratio 71 di Ireneo di Lione

The author explains the alternation of stower and hovani in Irenaeus' Demonstratio 71 on the base of the semantic di erence of these two words in ancient Armenian. The analysis of their occurrences in a large body of texts shows that they cannot be considered simply as synonyms, but rather as near-synonyms. When used in a metaphorical sense, they are in complementary distribution, but they do not often overlap even in their literal meaning. Thus their use in Irenaeus' text seems to have been influenced by the translator's linguistic competence. The study of similar cases can help outline the translator's linguistic habits.