In November, we (Rachel and Michael Aubrey) presented the most recent piece of the ongoing research on Greek prepositions at SBL 2025 in Boston. Our paper was titled: Force Dynamics, Image Schemas, and Constructional Polysemy in Prepositions: ἐπί and κατά in Postclassical Greek.

Today we are making our notes and slides available from our SBL paper for your reading pleasure. Below are the details of our presentation, our slides, and then the abstract.

• Presentation Title: Force Dynamics, Image Schemas, and Constructional Polysemy in Prepositions: ἐπί and κατά in Postclassical Greek
• Presenter(s): Rachel Aubrey, Michael Aubrey
• Presentation Date: 2025-11-23
• Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
• Meeting Name: 2025 Annual Meeting
• Meeting Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Abstract: Language relies on certain conceptual categories to structure and organize meaning. In previous presentations and research, we have explored preposition analysis regarding such conceptual concepts, including viewpoint (R & M. Aubrey 2022a), the perspectival nature of language and the dynamicity of image schemata (R. Aubrey 2022), mental spaces, conceptual blends, and metaphoric extensions (M. Aubrey 2022; R & M. Aubrey 2022b), and schematic structure as it gives rise to construction meaning (R & M. Aubrey 2023; M & R. Aubrey. 2022). One, thus far unexplored, category fundamental to human cognition is force dynamics. As a semantic category, force dynamics is well-studied in cognitive linguistics and yet its application to the biblical languages is limited. Force dynamics refers to how entities interact with respect to forces, counterforces, and causal relations (de Mulder 2021; Lichtenberg, 2018; Talmy 1988; 2000). Prepositions are commonly implicated in the semantics of force dynamics by nature of their function of locating a trajector entity relative to a landmark entity (Beliën 2002; Gärdenfors 2015; 2020). The manner in which these two entities interact, whether in terms of motion, static location, and other arrangements, may be naturally motivated by force dynamics as a result of our embodied experiences.

In this presentation, building on (R & M. Aubrey forthcoming), we examine how the human experience of the force of gravity, and efforts to counteract it, structure the meaning of Greek prepositions in the physical realm and how force-dynamic patterns motivate usage in more abstract, psychosocial domains. The prepositions κατά and ἐπί are commonly considered two of the more difficult prepositions for students to learn. Particularly, they are used in a wide variety of contexts with English glosses that seem to proliferate without apparent rhyme or reason. We suggest that force dynamics (the manner in which opposing forces between agonist and antagonist interact and come into contact) are the unexplored, but essential element by which the diversity of these two prepositions may be accounted for in a cognitively plausible manner.

Bibliography

Aubrey, Michael G. 2022. “Reconsidering the Abstract Senses of περί.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL. Denver, CO, 20 November.

Aubrey, Michael; and Rachel Aubrey. 2022. “The conceptualization of agency in non-prototypical passive constructions.” In William A. Ross and Steven E Runge (eds.), Postclassical Greek prepositions and conceptual metaphor: Cognitive semantic analysis and biblical interpretation, 209-240. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 

Aubrey, Rachel E. 2022. “Exploring Perspective in Preposition Analysis.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL. Denver, CO, 20 November.

Aubrey, Rachel; and Michael Aubrey. forthcoming. Greek prepositions in the New Testament: A semantic description 2nd Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Aubrey, Rachel E., and Michael G. Aubrey. 2023. “Constructions and the Source-Path-Goal Schema” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL. San Antonio, TX, 18 November.

Aubrey, Rachel E., and Michael G. Aubrey. 2022a. “Perspective and viewpoint in prepositions” Cognitive Linguistics Workshop at the Annual Meeting of the SBL. Denver, CO, 20 November.

Aubrey, Rachel E., and Michael Aubrey. 2022b. “Spatial profiling: ἐκ, ἀπό, and their entailments in Koine Greek” In William A. Ross and Steven E Runge (eds.), Postclassical Greek prepositions and conceptual metaphor: Cognitive semantic analysis and biblical interpretation, 67-84. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Beliën, Maaike. 2002. “Force Dynamics in Static Prepositions: Dutch Aan, Op, and Tegen.” Hubert Cuyckens and Günter Radden (eds.), Perspectives on Prepositions, Berlin, Boston: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 195-210. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110924787.195.

de Mulder, Walter. “Force dynamics.” Xu Wen and John R. Taylor (eds.), The Routledge handbook of cognitive linguistics, 228–241. New York: Routledge.

Gärdenfors, Peter. 2015. “The geometry of preposition meanings.” Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 10.1: 2.

Gärdenfors, Peter. 2020. “Comparing force prepositions with spatial prepositions.” Любословие 20: 92–107.

Lichtenberg, B. R. 2018. “Force dynamicity in language: A comparison of a selection of force theoretic frameworks.” LingUU Journal 2(2), 56–64.

Talmy, Leonard. 1988. “Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition.” Cognitive Science, 12, 49-100.

Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics Volume 1: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics Volume 1: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.