Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics

[MAubrey]

This goes in the category of absolutely (likely, anyway) excellent reference works that nobody can afford, but everybody should have.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics (EAGLL) brings together the latest research from across a range of disciplines contributing to our knowledge of Ancient Greek. The EAGLL offers a systematic and comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the history and study of Ancient Greek, comprising detailed descriptions of the language from Proto-Greek to koine. It addresses linguistic aspects from several perspectives, including history, structure, individual singularities, biographical references, schools of thought, technical meta-language, sociolinguistic issues, dialects, didactics, translation practices, generic issues, Greek in relation to other languages, etc., and on all levels of analysis including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, semantics, stylistics, etc. It also includes all the necessary background information regarding the roots of Greek in Indo-European. As and when, excursions may be made to later stages of the language, e.g. Byzantine or even later. The focus, however, will predominantly be Ancient Greek. With well over 500 entries on all aspects of Ancient Greek, this new encyclopedia is the authoritative reference work for students and researchers of Ancient Greek, general linguistics, Indo-European languages, and Biblical literature.

It'll be available in July at the very low price of $1100.

And here's a PDF preview: http://www.brill.com/sites/default/file ... review.pdf

http://www.brill.com/encyclopedia-ancie ... inguistics

[Jonathan Robie]

What's the business model for a book that costs $1100? Are university and seminary libraries their main target? What price is too much for even these libraries?

How does a normal human being get access to such a book? Interlibrary loan?

[MAubrey]

What's the business model for a book that costs $1100? Are university and seminary libraries their main target? What price is too much for even these libraries?

How does a normal human being get access to such a book? Interlibrary loan?

I doubt Brill is thinking of seminaries. High level research universities are a more likely target. The University of British Columbia will have a copy in the stacks by the end of the year, I'm certain. They're selling the set to schools with really impressive endowments. Note, also, that the digital version is even more expensive--a permanent license to the digital edition is $1650 (or $265 a year).

On the other hand, a project of this magnitude would have been extremely expensive and they're fully aware that they're not going to sell many copies. To some extent, it is a matter of economies of scale.

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

And here's a PDF preview: http://www.brill.com/sites/default/file ... review.pdf

Offtopic: interesting quote from page 3 under "Active" for cwconrad:

The act. voice can be viewed
as the unmarked member in a privative oppo-
sition (Garcia Gual 1970:11–12, 29–32, Ruipérez
1988, Duhoux 2000:114, Allan 2003:19–30), i.e., the
act. form is neutral with respect to the semantic
feature of subject-afffectedness: it does not signal
the absence of subject-afffectedness.

[Stephen Carlson]

Offtopic: interesting quote from page 3 under "Active" for cwconrad:

Well, that article was written by Rutger Allan.

[James Spinti]

Jonathan,

There are two main models in academic publishing: the library model, and the trade model. Brill—and most other European publishers—follow the academic model. What that means, in plain English, is short print runs with break-even set at about 50-100 copies. That translates into high SRP, i.e., $1000 books. Or $200 monographs.

There is no doubt that the thing was expensive to produce, but I wonder how much of the actual work was done by Brill. They probably required the submitters and editors to do most of the heavy lifting, thereby saving themselves a good bit.

When I worked for Eisenbrauns, we did the Morphologies of Asia and Africa (ed. Alan S. Kaye) and priced it at $199.00. We did the editing in-house at significant expense. That book will probably never make any money, but sometimes you do things because they need to be done : )

That's not the attitude of every publisher, however...

James

[cwconrad]

And here's a PDF preview: http://www.brill.com/sites/default/file ... review.pdf

Offtopic: interesting quote from page 3 under "Active" for cwconrad:

The act. voice can be viewed
as the unmarked member in a privative oppo-
sition (Garcia Gual 1970:11–12, 29–32, Ruipérez
1988, Duhoux 2000:114, Allan 2003:19–30), i.e., the
act. form is neutral with respect to the semantic
feature of subject-afffectedness: it does not signal
the absence of subject-afffectedness.

Gotcha! That's exactly what you wanted me to plagiarize, isn't it? It utters all the magical incantations!

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

Gotcha! That's exactly what you wanted me to plagiarize, isn't it? It utters all the magical incantations!

Of course. It would be easier to just quote and add a bibliography, but then you would have to add a new element to bibliography entry, namely "price". That would impress and convince any reader.

[Stirling Bartholomew]

How does a normal human being get access to such a book? Interlibrary loan?

I suspect that ILL will not work since this sort of book will be lib reference only, not circulating.
This of course depends on the library. But I can't see this going out under arm of an undergraduate walking back to the dorm in the rain.

[Stephen Carlson]

Individual authors of the articles for this encyclopedia are beginning post their articles on academia.edu.

For example, Maria Napoli has posted her article on the aorist here: https://www.academia.edu/8861515/Aorist