Amar Leih, and the End of the Brayta

When preparing tomorrow’s daf for my Daf Yomi shiur, I saw the following strange text. From Bava Kamma 23b to 24a:

(1) וְרַבִּי מֵאִיר, מַאי טַעְמָא? דְּתַנְיָא, אָמַר רַבִּי מֵאִיר:

The Gemara asks: And what is the reason for the opinion of Rabbi Meir, who does not determine the forewarned status of an ox by the number of days on which the animal gored but simply by the number of times? As it is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Meir said:

(2) רִיחֵק נְגִיחוֹתָיו – חַיָּיב; קֵירַב נְגִיחוֹתָיו לֹא כׇּל שֶׁכֵּן?!

(3) אֲמַרוּ לֵיהּ: זָבָה תּוֹכִיחַ, שֶׁרִיחֲקָה רְאִיּוֹתֶיהָ – טְמֵאָה, קֵירְבָה רְאִיּוֹתֶיהָ – טְהוֹרָה!

When the ox performs its gorings at intervals, its owner is liable; if it performs its gorings successively, is it not all the more so that its owner is liable?

They said to Rabbi Meir: The halakha with regard to a woman who experiences a discharge of uterine blood after her menstrual period [zava] will prove that your a fortiori inference is invalid: If her sightings occur at intervals, i.e., if she sees a flow of uterine blood on three consecutive days, she becomes ritually impure; while if her sightings were consecutive, for example if all three occurred on the same day, she remains pure.

(4) אָמַר לָהֶן, הֲרֵי הוּא אוֹמֵר: ״וְזֹאת תִּהְיֶה טֻמְאָתוֹ בְּזוֹבוֹ״ – תָּלָה הַכָּתוּב אֶת הַזָּב בִּרְאִיּוֹת, וְאֶת הַזָּבָה בְּיָמִים.

Rabbi Meir said to them: The case of the zava does not disprove my opinion, because the verse states in reference to the parallel halakha of a man who experiences a gonorrhea-like discharge [zav]: “And this shall be his ritual impurity when he has a discharge” (Leviticus 15:3). The word “this” emphasizes that in this matter the halakha requires following the instructions of the verse precisely as they were recorded, and in this case the verse associates the impurity of the zav with the number of sightings of discharges the man observed, and it associates the impurity of the zava with the number of days during which she experienced sightings of blood, as it says: “Many days” (Leviticus 15:25). By contrast, with regard to the goring ox, the a fortiori inference remains in place.

What jumped out at me was the phrase אֲמַרוּ לֵיהּ, “they said to him (Rabbi Meir)”. The problem is that this is in Aramaic, which we would not find in a brayta. So, if it is indeed authentic, the quote of the brayta — דְּתַנְיָא — ends at the close of (2), and the rest is the gemara itself responding of what they would say to Rabbi Meir and his proof. Yet, it doesn’t really sound like the brayta has ended.

I didn’t see anyone fixing this text.

But yes, checking Hachi Garsinan, only the printings have ליה in Aramaic.

However, all the manuscripts have לו in Hebrew, which is the correct reading.

An example from Vatican 116: