Publication Announcement: Force Dynamics, Image Schemas, and Constructional Polysemy

We are pleased to announce that our article, “Force Dynamics, Image Schemas, and Constructional Polysemy in the Prepositions ἐπί and κατά in Postclassical Greek,” has been published in the Journal of Translation. Aubrey & Aubrey (2026) Force Dynamics, Image Schemas, and Constructional Polysemy in the Prepositions ἐπί and κατά in Postclassical GreekDownload Series: Journal of Translation Volume Issue: 22(1) DOI: Author(s): Aubrey, Rachel E. and Michael G. Aubrey Issue Date: 2026 Field: Linguistics; Translation Pages: 53–88 Entry Number: 111043 Abstract: Greek prepositions ἐπί and κατά are among the most semantically complex in the Koine lexicon, generating English glosses that offer little coherent explanation for their diversity.

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Forthcoming: Greek Prepositions in the New Testament: A Semantic Description

We are excited to see that our forthcoming book, Greek Prepositions in the New Testament: A Semantic Description, is officially listed: Baker Publishing Group Amazon Logos Bible Software We are in the midst of the laborious process of reviewing galleys right now, but hope to see proofs in the coming months. Originally, the hope had been that the book would be available this fall in time for conferences, but we took some extra time this past January to add visual figures and image schemas for each preposition article with the hope of improving its usefulness for students.

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Force Dynamics and the prepositions ἐπί & κατά

In November 2025 Rachel and Mike Aubrey presented on the ongoing work on Greek prepositions at the Cognitive Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation Section of the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Boston. The video above is a recorded version of that presentation. If you would also like to follow along with the slides, you can find them here: Aubrey & Aubrey (2025) Force Dynamics, Image Schemas, and Constructional Polysemy in the Prepositions ἐπί and κατά in Postclassical Greek PresentationDownload The written version of the presentation has just been accepted for publication in the Journal of Translation (JOT).

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SBL2025 Prepositions, Constructions & Force Dynamics

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,…

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SBL2025 Prepositions, Constructions & Force Dynamics

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.

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Book: The Life Cycles of Counterfactuals in the History of Greek

Ezra la Roi's work on various domains of modality (conditionals, insubordination, counterfactuals, and more) in Ancient Greek has been pretty prolific over the past number of years and it is exciting to see his new monograph, The Life Cycles of Counterfactuals in the History of Greek published this past year (2025)—not the least because I am also currently reading Leonard Talmy's (2021) …

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Relevance Theory is not Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive Linguistics has grown in popularity in biblical studies. There's much to praise about that. Biblical interpretation requires attention first and foremost to grammar. Basil of Caesarea writes, ούδεμίαν άδιερεύνητον. . . χρήναι καταλιμπάνειν φωνήν, τῶν ὅσαι περὶ Θεοῦ ("not one utterance of all that concerns God should be left unexamined"). It would be a mistake for biblical scholars to ignore the scientific study of language.

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Force dynamics and Greek prepositions

This picture is relevant. We promise. Have you ever stopped to consider how we use prepositions in language? Sometimes prepositions play unexpected roles. The English preposition on, for example, helps you talk about “putting a book on a shelf” or “hanging a picture on the wall”, and that despite the fact that shelves are horizontal and walls are vertical. The word “on” can do a lot more:

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Verbal Aspect Theory and the Prohibitions in the Greek New Testament

I'm way behind on using this website to record and document ongoing publications that interface Greek and linguistics. This post is part of my renewed efforts for correct that. This morning in the mail I received a copy of Douglas Huffman's Verbal Aspect Theory and the Prohibitions in the Greek New Testament, volume 16 in the Studies in Biblical Greek series published by Peter Lang.

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Bluesky

verbingnouns.bsky.social

Edith Claflin, the Greek linguist you’ve never heard of

Over the past year, I’ve been off-and-on reading Julia Falk’s Women, Language and Linguistics: Three American Stories from the First Half of the Twentieth Century. It’s a superb b…

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Academic Forum: The Source-Path-Goal Schema in Bible Translation

We, Rachel and Michael Aubrey, are giving an academic forum at Dallas International University on Thursday, July 31⋅12:30 – 1:20pm CDT. Title: Greek & Hebrew Prepositions and the Source-Path-Goal Schema in Bible Translation Abstract: What do constructions like "from strength to strength", "from glory to glory", or "from faith to faith" mean? Come explore their cognitive basis. The SOURCE-PATH-GOAL (SPG) image schema constitutes a common meaning structure across languages that is grounded in our shared embodied human experience (Lakoff 1987, Hampe and Grady 2005).

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Prepositions and Perpetual Virginity: Matthew 1:25

Because I aim to win friends and influence people, I have just published a completely uncontroversial article on Matthew 1:25 and the issue of Mary's perpetual virginity. It's freely available here. This paper is basically an accident: I was studying a change in LXX Genesis 8:7 where the translator (against the MT) inserted the word until, changed the verb, and then placed it under negation to produce an actualization inference that the raven eventually returned to Noah.

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Prepositions and Perpetual Virginity: Matthew 1:25

Because I aim to win friends and influence people, I have just published an uncontroversial article on the grammar of Matthew 1:25 and the issue of Mary's perpetual virginity. It's freely available here. Many thanks to the editors and peer reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. This paper is basically an accident: I found a plus in LXX Gen. 8…

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MA Degree in Biblical Languages and Linguistics

Dallas International University (DIU) has announced their new masters degree program that combines the biblical languages and linguistics in one place: MA in Biblical Languages and Linguistics.

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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.

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Carl Conrad passed away 2/20/25

Jonathan Robie contacted me this morning to let me know that yesterday Carl Conrad passed away. There won't be a memorial service, but if you have an memories or tributes to Carl, there is a forum thread at B-Greek dedicated to his memory. I encourage you to share any impact he had on your Greek education there. Tributes to Carl Conrad…

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