Partitive constructions with ἐκ and ἀπό fall into two general types: entity partitives and set partitives.
Types of ἐκ and ἀπό constructions: Partitive
Typology, perfects, telicity, and definiteness
Dahl (1985, 138; 2000, 9-10) describes to a hierarchy of usage for perfects across languages. The hierarchy lays out how a perfect is used in terms of its progress along the path of grammaticalization to being a simple past perfective form. An indefinite* time-point in the past < A time-point located by an overtly marked temporal... Continue Reading →
There is a lot of significant work on Ancient Greek that came out in the 19th century. Some of it was by native Greek speakers. The challenge is that during that period, the politics of language in Greece was a source of constant debate and argument. Many times the ancient language was used as a... Continue Reading →
ἐκ vs. ἀπό: The history
Notes for the Greek Preposition Workshop, on June 30th through July 1st. Already by the first century CE, ἐκ & ἀπό have experience two thousand years of history and they have already experience a bit of linguistic change. Both words can be traced to Proto-Indo-European, ἐκ from *h1ǵʰ-s 'out' and ἀπό from *h2epo 'from' (Beekes 2010). Their... Continue Reading →
The myth of the synchronic-diachronic dichotomy
The overarching dialectic treated in this work is framed in terms of the familiar ‘synchronic-diachronic’ opposition indicative of 20th century linguistic dualism. Taken as a strict dichotomy, synchrony and diachrony are, ipso facto, irreconcilable. If we distance ourselves from the old essentialist presuppositions and approach the actual unfolding of language use and linguistic cognition in... Continue Reading →
The historical context of theological lexicons and James Barr
This excerpt is from my chapter, "Linguistic issues in Biblical Greek," in Lexham Methods: Linguistics & Exegsis. It's published digitally, but it will be appearing in print later this fall. Obviously, it's worth owning it in both formats! This a portion from the section on semantics: The nineteenth century represents the era in which lexical semantics began... Continue Reading →
Could it be Semitic influence?
Watson: "Holmes, could it have been Semitic influence?" Sherlock: "No." Watson: "Why not?" Sherlock: Because it's never Semitic influence." This might be the first meme on this website. Happy day. Click below to follow us via e-mail or RSS or even Facebook (ugh, Facebook).
ἘΚ and ἈΠΌ in the Early Roman Koine.
Both contributors to this blog (yes, there actually is more than one --- Mike and Rachel Aubrey) are contributing to the Greek Prepositions Workshop at Tyndale House, Cambridge this coming summer. We're co-authoring two papers. We will be doing an examination of the semantics of ἐκ and ἀπό, the emphasis on how their usage has... Continue Reading →
I recently got an e-mail notification that Robert Beekes'* (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek has received quite a dramatic price drop on its Logos.com prepublication page (link). Going from over $500 downs down to a much more comfortable $105. This price change on the part of Logos.com moves their pricing from that of the hardcover edition's $550 (Amzon for... Continue Reading →
