Thanks for picking up on that Carl. I find that a bit subtle in this particular sentence because of the preceding phrase, but I should have peaked in the lexicon. It just looked so right!cwconrad wrote:Lest there be any confusion, I think it should be noted here that καθαίρειν is not a verb compounded from κατά and αἴρειν; rather it is a denominative verb derived from the root of the adjective κάθαρος; the iota in -αιρ- is a matter of vocalic metathesis of iota over the rho (καθάριω --⟩ καθαίρω. Note that the verb is augmented syllabically: ἐκάθαιρον, ἐκάθηρα).
No doubt that's true. It's also true that many users of the language, and especially the illiterate, children and L2 speakers, operate in the "fuzzy zone" to varying degrees of "fuzziness". And, of course, we modern students of the language know something about "fuzziness".Jonathan Robie wrote:Native speakers of a language have internalized the rules of the language needed to understand it. They don't usually think in terms of metalanguage and derivations and rules, but they do know the language.
In this particular sentence, and being a bit lazy, I assumed the κατά qualified αἴρειν to give the sense of selective removal of deadwood. Perfectly logical (I thought) and perfectly wrong.
