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The interpretation of the participle κατηρτισμενα in Romans 9:22 has been the subject of controversy among biblical commentators for centuries. The form of the participle allows for three options: direct middle (‘fitted themselves for destruction’), divine passive (‘fitted [by God] for destruction’), and stative adjectival passive (‘fitted for destruction’). The middle is inconsistent with Paul's use of perfect participles. The following contours favor the stative adjectival interpretation: Paul consistently uses the perfect passive adjectivally; the participle is in the second predicate position; and the purpose for the passive is to deflect the emphasis from the agent to the patient. The evidence suggests that theologically significant passages can be interpreted without theological bias and that interpretation can be validated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the main objective is to continue the study of the most important means of grammatical assimilation of anglicisms in present-day Spanish, starting from a colloquial language corpus-based data. Therefore, in this second paper we shall examine the devices of plural formation of anglicisms belonging to noun class, by focusing on the disagreement between norm and usage in current Spanish. We will also analyze both the poor grammatical assimilation of English adjectives (quantitatively scarce but a good sign of the strong influence of Angloamerican mentality in modern Spanish society) together with the adjectivation of nouns, and the assimilation of verbs by means of verbal endings of the first conjugation in Spanish. Finally, we will draw up a balance of the distribution of anglicisms in word classes, a topic with regard to which it is worth mentioning the relatively high percentage of adjectives and interjections in spite of dealing with a cultural borrowing situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the distributional restrictions of elatives in negative contexts. First, I will show that elatives can appear in a negative sentence if they are not within the scope of negation. Second, I will study the behaviour of these modifiers in other negative environments. In order to describe the distribution of elatives, I will adopt the characterisation of negative environments put forward by Ladusaw (1979) and van der Wouden (1997), among others, who distinguish between downward entailing contexts, anti additive contexts and antimorphic contexts. I will show that elatives do not have a uniform behaviour as regards their distribution in negative environments. In this sense, it is possible to distinguish three classes of extreme degree modifiers. The first class cannot appear in downward entailing contexts; the second class is sensitive to the focus of negation; and the third class is compatible with all the negative environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attributive adjective in Spanish may appear before or after the noun. This article suggests that Spanish uses the position of the attributive adjective to indicate focus - or to avoid it. The postposition of an adjective indicates focus, whereas the preposition of the adjective does not. This hypothesis predicts various empiric facts, for instance that some adjectives prefer one position to the other and that some adjectives acquire a different meaning according to their position. The article attempts to demonstrate the probability of this hypothesis through an analysis of various empiric materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a discussion of English diction, regarding why it is preferable to use the phrase "different from" rather than "different than." Partly the reason has to do with logic and adjectives in the positive and comparative degrees, and in addition most modern style and usage guides call for it.