Talk:Terminus post quem
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Encyclopedia or dictionary?
This article seems to be a dictionary definition with examples. Whatever encyclopedic content there actually is probably belongs in Relative dating, so I have added a merge tag. --macrakis (talk) 17:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. Relative dating is different because it doesn't deal with numerical dates at all, just tries to find roughly the relationship between events or eras e.g. in geology. The use of termini however usually involves locating the event in relation to others whose dates we do know. This page isn't (and shouldn't be) merely a gloss of what the Latin means but an explanation of an important technique used in studies of the past (e.g. archaeology, ancient history, linguistics etc.). Therefore it meets the notability criteria. 92.13.122.209 (talk) 13:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
While the page strikes me mainly as definitional, it is the more useful in that it seems to be the sole web resource for the terminology (heh) that doesn't confuse terminus post quem with terminus a quo, and ... ante quem with ad quem. This reassignment of the semantic content, much like that of "beg the question" as a synonym for "invite the question", is an interesting phenomenon and deserving of an entry on its own (what to call it?). It's a service to let it stand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Continental Ops (talk • contribs) 18:20, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Non and a quo/ad quem purported non-equivalence
Regarding the revision [1].
If we were to accept the given definitions, namely that the non expression were used to emphasize the writer's explicit non-assertion of the terminus being that of an event that had in fact occurred, then it would follow that the title of a paper “Ein neuer Terminus ante quem non für das Ableben des Erzbischofs Eustathios von Thessalonike” (Byzantinische Zeitschrift 54 (1):86-87 (1961)) implied that, according to the paper's author view, Eustathius of Thessalonica had not necessarily died (and, by implication, either might have never lived or were still living), or that Baldwin's statement “There is a terminus post quem non, namely the reference [in Vitr. Arch. -ed.](8.3.17) to Cottius' kingdom in the Alps” (Latomus 49: 425-434) might somehow convey author's doubt (or, at the very least, were to absolve him from implying the truth of the fact) that Vitruvius did really refer to the kingdom of Cottius. Either of these readings would be obviously nonsensical.
It is not easy to find a textbook reference that explicitly equate the post/ante non to respective ante/post (or, correspondingly, a quo/ad quem) expressions, as normally only one of the two or three is mentioned. In fact, the referenced Grant, Gorin & Fleming mentions (p. 97 in my 3rd ed., 2008) only “Terminus post quem (TPQ): the earliest possible date for an archaeological deposit,” but neither the non phrases nor the a/ad quo/quem.
The best one I could google up (ahh, be blessed the googleity of Wikipedia and all its clones!) is Stephen R. Reimer's course notes where he explicitly equates a quo with ante quem non:
"Terminus a quo": "the terminal point from which"; equivalent to "terminus ante quem non," the starting point, the earliest possible date in a range of dates (of a manuscript's production, for instance)
This looks very much like