scholarly journals Dative by Genitive Replacement in the Greek Language of the Papyri: A Diachronic Account of Case Semantics

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Vera Stolk
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Verbal Form ◽  
Semantic Extension ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Genitive Case

Semantic analysis of the prenominal first person singular genitive pronoun (μου) in the Greek of the documentary papyri shows that the pronoun is typically found in the position between a verbal form and an alienable possessum which functions as the patient of the predicate. When the event expressed by the predicate is patient-affecting, the possessor is indirectly also affected. Hence the semantic role of this affected alienable possessor might be interpreted as a benefactive or malefactive in genitive possession constructions. By semantic extension the meaning of the genitive case in this position is extended into goal-oriented roles, such as addressee and recipient, which are commonly denoted by the dative case in Ancient Greek. The semantic similarity of the genitive and dative cases in these constructions might have provided the basis for the merger of the cases in the Greek language.

scholarly journals The value of the national language of science (part no. 1)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-208
Author(s):  
Oleg A. Donskikh
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
National Language ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Languages ◽  
Fully Functioning ◽  
Science Part

The article examines the history of the formation of several languages of science – Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic and Latin - relating to the material of four languages and corresponding cultures. Several considerations are given in favor of the need to preserve the national languages of science. The stages of formation of languages of science in the system of culture are traced. There are two types of languages that are used by scientific communities: 1) languages that are rooted in the national culture and remain firmly linked with the natural language community; 2) languages that are reserved for performing a certain function, while in parallel, national languages are fully functioning in society. The first type includes the Greek and Arabic, the scientific languages of the second type are Sanskrit and Latin. The key role of the humanitarian, in particular poetic, philological and philosophical culture for the formation of the language of science is shown. Based on the material of the Ancient Greek language, the stages of its development over several centuries are traced, which resulted in such linguistic tools that allowed not only to use abstract conceptual concepts, but also to organize the vocabulary hierarchically, and this as a result allowed to form any needed generic chains. The importance of the appearance of impersonal texts that comes with collections of written documents alienated from a particular teacher is emphasized.

scholarly journals Peculiarities of Ancient Greek Proverbs with Dendronym Component

2018 ◽  
pp. 152-172
Author(s):  
Lazer-Pan’kiv O. V. Lazer-Pan’kiv O. V.
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Apple Tree ◽  
Olive Tree ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Pear Tree ◽  
Pine Tree ◽  
Mulberry Tree

The article represents the results of ancient Greek proverbs’ with dendronym component peculiarities research (with tree species name, name of a part or a fruit of a tree and their derivates). On the basis of their linguocultural and semantic analysis the characteristics of their inner form were described. On this ground an assertion was made that dendronym FIG TREE has the greatest potential for proverb forming in ancient Greek language. The existence of different lexemes in ancient Greek language for certain types and parts of this tree designation attests the wide extent of this tree and its parts usage in everyday life of Hellenes. The proverbs containing dendronym OAK are also quite numerous, while dendronyms APPLE TREE, OLIVE TREE, MYRTLE TREE, LAUREL, MULBERRY TREE, PINE TREE, MASTIK TREE, THORN TREE, POMEGRANATE TREE, CORK TREE and PEAR TREE are used much less often. Such quantitative asymmetry is caused by the peculiarities of their everyday usage by Hellenes. The largest group consists of FU, in which the specific name of the tree (and not part of the tree or fruit) is used. The study of inner form of ancient Greek FU with the dendronym component allowed to determine the cognitive mechanisms of the secondary meaning formation. 62 % FU are formed on the basis of metaphorization (on models “specific → abstract”, “plant → human”, “plant → object”, “object → object”). An equally large group consists of proverbs with a dendronym component, based on metaftonimy, a complex cognitive mechanism of metaphor and metonymy combination (the type “metonymy within metaphor” is much more productive than the type “metaphor within metonymy”). The least numerous are FU formed on the basis of metonymy. The analysis of semantics of ancient Greek FU with the dendronym component made it possible to distinguish the following types of FU motivational basis: the physical characteristics of trees, their parts and fruits, associated with the experience of their practical usage; the practice of using trees, their parts and fruits in various rituals and customs; a historical event in which a certain tree or its part was involved; characteristics of tree parts and fruits concerning their consumption as food; the mention of trees in myths and legends.

Byzantium and the West

2020 ◽  
pp. 552-566
Author(s):  
Marianne Pade
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The West

This chapter examines the Humanists and their interest in Greek language from the mid-fourteenth century until the mid-fifteenth. It focuses on key Humanist figures who advanced the study of Ancient Greek in the West, discussing Petrarch’s engagement with Plutarch and Homer, as well as Coluccio Salutati and his appointment of Chrysoloras to teach Greek in Florence. The author also examines the work of Chrysoloras’ students, Leonardo Bruni and Guarino Veronese, and the role of Latin translators in arousing interest in Greek works.

Pour un traitement unitaire de l’assignation du datif en français

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fayssal Tayalati ◽  
Marleen Van Peteghem
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Role ◽  
External Argument ◽  
Semantic Roles ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Dative Case

The aim of this paper is to propose a unified account of dative assignment for both verbs and adjectives in French. We will show that both types of predicates assign dative case to their second internal argument, provided that this argument is situated in a higher position in the thematic hierarchy than the first internal argument. This hypothesis, which considers the dative in French as a structural rather than a semantic case, can easily account for all three-argument verbs, for most two-argument verbs and even for adjunct datives. As for the adjectival predicates, we will show that only ergative adjectives, whose first argument is an internal argument, can assign dative to their second internal argument. The few exceptions to this hypothesis can be explained by the fact that, although the dative is not a semantic case, it is associated with certain semantic roles, given that its semantic role is situated in the thematic hierarchy between the role of the external argument and the role of the first internal argument.

scholarly journals A multifactorial analysis of differential agent marking in Herodotus

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-57
Author(s):  
David Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Multifactorial Analysis ◽  
Grammatical Aspect ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Passive agents in ancient Greek exhibit a well-known alternation between dative case and prepositional phrase. It has long been recognized that grammatical aspect plays a crucial role in this alternation: dative agents preponderate among aspectually perfect predicates, prepositional phrase agents elsewhere. Although the importance of grammatical aspect is undeniable, it is not the only factor that determines the realization of passive agents. The identification of other factors has proven challenging, however, not least because previous researchers have lacked methods for assessing the relative importance of the determinants that influence the realization of agent phrases. In this paper, I use Bayesian mixed-effects logistic regression to provide a multifactorial account of differential agent marking in Herodotus, according to which the realization of passive agent phrases is conditioned by the relationship between semantic role and referential prominence (Haspelmath 2021). Dative agents are favored in clauses where semantic role and referential prominence are aligned (i.e., the agent is referentially prominent or the patient is referentially non-prominent). By contrast, prepositional phrase agents are more likely when semantic role and referential prominence are at odds (i.e., the patient is referentially prominent or the agent is referentially non-prominent).

scholarly journals Discourse Marker Dico in the 16th Century Italian Language

2019 ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
Lyubov Zholudeva
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Italian Language ◽  
Verbal Form ◽  
Successful Communication ◽  
Formal Level ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
The One

The article is devoted to the functional and semantic analysis of the form dico in the 16 th-century Italian language, the main aim being to show how it gradually begins to function as a discourse marker. The study is performed on the basis of texts belonging to different genres (mainly comedies and treatises in the dialogue form) where certain peculiarities of spoken language are imitated. We come to the conclusion that the invariant pragmatic meaning of this unit is "second attempt to establish successful communication". We also claim that the promotion of dico to the role of a discourse marker is the result of the secondary metaphorization of dire. We point out to the parallelism between the metaphoric uses of dire, namely, the epistemic one ("to say" = "to claim, to consider") and the volitional one ("to say" = "to order, to command"), on the one hand, and the use of dico in its two main functions, on the other hand. The functions in question are a) adducing a comment to the previous statement, and b) urging the addressee to act in a certain way. In both cases one can speak of a partial desemantization of dico and its metaphorization that allows it to function as a pragmatic signal rather than a regular verbal form. On the formal level it is manifested by the absence of complements, syntactic freedom of dico and its tendency to occupy a certain position within a sentence depending exclusively on its pragmatic (and not grammatical-syntactic) function.

The mapping of space onto the domain of benefaction and some unpredicted trends in semantic change

Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Luraghi
Keyword(s):  
Frequent Pattern ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Spatial Concept ◽  
Semantic Extension ◽  
Complex Patterns

AbstractMorphemes that encode the semantic role of Beneficiary display complex patterns of polysemy. Such patterns have arisen through diachronic processes which are for the most part still unexplored. In the paper I discuss common assumptions about the directionality of semantic extension and about expected and unexpected polysemies. I show that, next to the often mentioned polysemy of Beneficiary, Recipient, Purpose and Direction, another frequent pattern includes Beneficiary, Purpose and Cause. Morphemes that exhibit such polysemy have original spatial meanings which include Location or Path, but not Direction. Notably, such original spatial meanings have been dropped in the course of semantic developments described in the paper. After discussing some well-attested diachronic developments, I show that, at least in the languages of Europe, markers of Beneficiary, Purpose, and Cause underwent an unpredicted semantic extension that led them to also indicate Direction. Such extension provides evidence for a rare development that has led a concrete spatial concept to be denoted by a morpheme that had an abstract meaning.

scholarly journals Lingua e letteratura (neo)greca a Ca’ Foscari: 1868-2018

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caterina Carpinato
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
The Political ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

The essay aims to outline the history of the teaching of Modern Greek at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: it started with its foundation in 1868, with Costantino Triantafillis, and was interrupted for more than a century from 1890. This paper also deals with the history of the discipline from 1868 until today, with an eye on the connection with the political and cultural life of the country and on the relationship with other disciplines (such as Ancient Greek language and literature and Byzantine civilization). After an interval of a century classes of Modern Greek started up again at Ca’ Foscari in 1994-95 thanks to the teaching of Lucia Marcheselli Loukas. Since 1998 the teaching has been revived with a tenured professor and, in the last twenty years, it has trained graduate students and young scholars who today play a cultural and linguistic role of mediation between Italy and Greece.

Plato on the Grammar of Perceiving

1976 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. F. Burnyeat
Keyword(s):  
Sense Organ ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Genitive Case

The question contrasts two ways of expressing the role of the sense organ in perception. In one the expression referring to the sense organ is put into the dative case (let us call this the ‘with’ idiom); the other is a construction with the preposition δiá (‘through’) governing the genitive case of the word for the sense organ (let us call this the ‘through’ idiom).

scholarly journals The Development of εὑρίσκω ‘find’ as Evidence towards a Diachronic Solution of the Matching-Problem in Ancient Greek Complementation

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Ezra La Roi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Role ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Matching Problem ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Predicate Type

This paper traces the semantic and constructional development of the complement-taking verb εὑρίσκω ‘find’ from Homeric Greek to Post-Classical Greek. First, the paper details the semantic development of εὑρίσκω using characteristics such as predicate type, semantic role of the subject and factivity. Subsequently, explanations are offered for the constructional development of εὑρίσκω, using insights from grammaticalization research such as reanalysis and analogy. In contrast to previous studies on Ancient Greek complementation which support the idea of a systematic Classical Greek opposition of factive participial versus non-factive infinitival complementation, this paper shows how bridging contexts of mental judgment εὑρίσκω with a participial complement do not follow this opposition as they are non-factive and changed their meaning (with reanalysis) before changing their complementation structure (through analogy). Also, by extending our view to the individual history of other cognitive predicates (ἐπίσταμαι, γιγνώσκω and οἶδα) the author showsthat other cognitive predicates undergo similar developments from factive+object to factive+ ACP to non-factive+ACI, although their individual histories are still in need of a systematic diachronic account. Thus, complementation patterns per period could be analysed in a more fine-grained way by analysing complementation patterns bottom-up from the semantic and constructional evolutions of individual predicates. Also, the findings from this paper provide evidence towards a diachronic solution of the so-called matching-problem: diachronically related semantic and constructional stages strongly motivate the choice of a specific complementation structure but absolute factivity oppositions in Classical Greek complementation are rather strong tendencies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document