89 research outputs found
Open questions in ancient Greek phonology: some new evidence from enclitics
No full textRoussou and Probert (2023: 235–297) put forward some new discoveries bearing on the accentuation of sequences of consecutive ancient Greek enclitics, and a new descriptive claim as to the way in which host words plus sequences of consecutive enclitics were accented. This chapter takes some first steps towards a new account of Greek metrical phonology from which the proposed descriptive facts would follow, and argues that doing so helps us with three open questions in ancient Greek phonology: (a) What phonological principles underly the placement of the Greek word accent, including the restrictions known as the “law of limitation”? (b) Did ancient Greek have “resonant diphthongs”? (c) Is the law of limitation sensitive to the weight of the word-final syllable, or the length of its vowel
Early Greek relative clauses /
No full text"Early Greek Relative Clauses contributes to an old debate currently enjoying a revival: should we expect languages spoken a few thousand years ago, such as Proto-Indo-European, to be less well-equipped than modern languages when it comes to subordinate clauses? Early Greek relative clauses provide a test case for this problem. Early Greek uses several kinds of relative clause, but all these are usually thought to come from one, or at most two, prehistoric types. In a new look at the evidence, this book finds that a rich variety of relative clause types has been in place for a considerable time. The reconstruction of prehistoric linguistic stages requires detailed work on the individual languages descending from them. A substantial part of the book is therefore devoted to a new look at the relative clause systems found in a wide variety of early Greek texts. It emerges that the same basic system is in use across all these texts. Different kinds of relative clause predominate in different kinds of text, however, because relative clause syntax and semantics interact with the needs of different kinds of text. Considering material as diverse as the Homeric poems, laws inscribed in stone on the island of Crete, and the philosophical prose of Heraclitus, the discussion remains clear and straightforward as Probert considers the uses and histories of different relative clause types." --Provided by publisher."Early Greek Relative Clauses contributes to an old debate currently enjoying a revival: should we expect languages spoken a few thousand years ago, such as Proto-Indo-European, to be less well-equipped than modern languages when it comes to subordinate clauses? Early Greek relative clauses provide a test case for this problem. Early Greek uses several kinds of relative clause, but all these are usually thought to come from one, or at most two, prehistoric types. In a new look at the evidence, this book finds that a rich variety of relative clause types has been in place for a considerable time. The reconstruction of prehistoric linguistic stages requires detailed work on the individual languages descending from them. A substantial part of the book is therefore devoted to a new look at the relative clause systems found in a wide variety of early Greek texts. It emerges that the same basic system is in use across all these texts. Different kinds of relative clause predominate in different kinds of text, however, because relative clause syntax and semantics interact with the needs of different kinds of text. Considering material as diverse as the Homeric poems, laws inscribed in stone on the island of Crete, and the philosophical prose of Heraclitus, the discussion remains clear and straightforward as Probert considers the uses and histories of different relative clause types." --Provided by publisher.Includes bibliographical references (pages 449-476), glossary, and indexes
Pseudo-Arcadius' Epitome of Herodian's Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας; with a critical edition and notes on Books 1-8
Get PDFThis thesis is a new edition of the Preface and Books 1-8 of Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome of Herodian’s Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας. It includes an introduction, critical apparatus, apparatus of parallel passages and notes on the text, and is intended as a contribution to modern Herodianic studies.Most of our knowledge of Greek accentuation is due to Herodian’s lost Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας. The main sources for this work, an epitome misattributed to Arcadius and another by John Philoponus, do not have modern critical editions. Lentz’s only collected edition of Herodian’s works (1867-70) is difficult to work with, because Lentz attempts to reconstruct Herodian’s work rather than to lay out the surviving evidence.The new critical edition of Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome is a response to the need for new and separate editions of the sources for the Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας. A new edition of this text is important because the previous two editions (Barker 1820, Schmidt 1860) have many weaknesses; neither editor examined all the surviving manuscripts, and they did not read the manuscripts themselves but used copies made by other people.My new examination of all the surviving manuscripts, excepting some very late and uncontroversially derivative manuscripts, comes to a new conclusion about their interrelations. The two manuscripts which I am the first to employ turn out to be the only non-derivative manuscripts, and therefore by far the most important. They enable us to improve the text significantly.My introduction includes a substantial new evaluation of the interpolated or doubtful sections in the epitome, whose study is impeded by confusion as to their date and relationships to other works. It also discusses the authorship of this epitome, and its grammatical terminology and concepts.Another innovation is the apparatus of parallel passages. The collection of other texts that have derived material from Herodian shows the extent of Herodian’s influence on later grammatical texts. The parallel passages, as witnesses to Herodian’s text in some form, often enable us to correct the text of Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome.A further contribution of my thesis consists of the commentary, which discusses corrupt passages, features of the text that have never been explained before, and places where specific details of the epitomator’s methods can be identified. The commentary also provides argumentation supporting decisions taken in editing the text, and other helpful information for the understanding of the text
Multilingualism and language choice in the imperial Roman army
Get PDFThis thesis is a sociolinguistic study of language choice in the Roman army, focused on the period between the first and the third centuries AD. Its main aims are to revisit our understanding of language choice in military administration, and to identify patterns of language choice in communication between soldiers and their associates. These themes are approached through a tripartite framework inspired by discourse analysis, which includes the concepts of audience, identity, and practicality. The case studies examined in the thesis show that Latin was not the only language of military administration, but played a vital role in written contexts where the army acted in its institutional function. This âinstitutionalâ use of Latin is reflected at the interpersonal level, where it enabled soldiers and their associates to express belonging to the military experience. Latin and other languages appear also as lingue franche and as markers of different types of identities, often connected with questions of prestige. Overall, this thesis enables us to refine our understanding of the reasons that prompted soldiers and their associates to use one language instead of another when a choice was available, and to renew our appreciation for cross-linguistic communication in Roman military environments. </p
Verborum ordo – ordo verborum: the placement of the dependent genitive in Classical Latin
Get PDFIn this thesis I examine the placement of the dependent genitive relative to its head noun in Classical Latin prose. The corpus is drawn from the works of four first-century B.C. authors: Caesar, Cicero, Sallust and Varro. The thesis itself is split into two main sections, a qualitative analysis and a quantitative analysis.The qualitative analysis discusses a number of factors that may influence genitive position, drawn from literature on the subject as well as my pilot studies. These factors are information structure, the genitive’s grammatical function, discontinuity, lexical category, animacy, prepositions governing the head noun, reported speech, idioms, lexical items, and grammatical number of the genitive. This analysis examines individual instances of genitive position in context, providing examples and counter-examples of the ordering patterns found with each potential factor.The qualitative analysis suggests that a number of these factors have an effect on genitive position, particularly information structure. These results are tested by the quantitative analysis. By performing a multivariate statistical analysis using the programme GoldVarb, the combined effects of multiple factors are determined and the statistically significant factors ranked in order of importance and strength of effect. The statistics show that information structure is the most important of the factors. Other significant influences are the presence of prepositions, the function of the genitive and its lexical category.By combining the two types of analysis, qualitative and quantitative, this thesis shows in detail how the factors combine to influence word order, which of them are independent, which interact, which are important and which have little to no effect at all, resulting in a better understanding of the data and the way that the contextual factors work together to produce the variant orders of the dependent genitive
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