Category Archive: Linguistics

Greek prepositions as conventional patterns

When we talk about the semantics of prepositional phrases, we are talking about a specific kind of conventionalized pattern. Conventional patterns are arbitrary in the sense that they are not predictable from one language to another. But in another way, they are nevertheless motivated (Sweetser 1990). There is a reason they occur as they do. Basic cognitive processes influence how different prepositions extend from spatial meanings to more abstract ones.

Constructions and the Source-Path-Goal Schema

Last year, we shared our SBL paper from the Cognitive Linguistics session, “Constructions and the Source-Path-Goal Schema”. ventually, we realized that it was more practical to just upload the video as a whole. We only realized that we never shared the full video until today when a friend expressed appreciation to us for our paper. So without further ado, Constructions and the Source—Path—Goal Schema in its totality:

A brief note on antelope, gazelle, & deer

Nearly all major English translations in Acts 9:36 completely fail to communicate what the author of Acts is trying to do here: tell his readers that the name ‘Tabitha’ is a Aramaic word (טַבְיְתָא) that means ‘gazelle’. Luke’s audiences doesn’t want to know that two names correspond in an unknown way. Luke’s audience wants to know the meaning of Tabitha…

The preposition περί and cultural category structures

There are plenty of abstract uses of the preposition περί—the most comment is TOPIC with verbs of thought and communication. But with many other non-communication situations, the preposition περί often functions to express category structures. It’s spatial sense “Location Around” still provides the motivating image schema (CENTER-PERIPHERY), but reconstrued metaphorically as a point in conceptual space that affects actions or circumstances in its proximity around it.

“Greek Prohibitions” in The Greek Verb Revisited

I recently realized that I never uploaded the pdf from my chapter, “Greek Prohibitions,” in The Greek Verb Revisited anywhere online. My conference slides have been available online for quite some time: Greek Prohibitions Conference Slides, but not the final chapter. That situation has now been rectified and I’ve included the book’s front matter for easier citations, should anyone so choose to do so.