Discourse Particles in LSJ

This chapter contrasts the Liddell and Scott (LSJ) account of the particle γε‎ with an approach that takes advantage of some of the conceptual tools of twenty-first century semantics and pragmatics. It begins by discussing the question of why describing the meaning of discourse particles is so challenging. From here, it homes in on the particle γε‎, ‘one of the subtlest and most elusive particles’, according to Denniston (1954). After critically reviewing its article in LSJ, it presents the results of a fresh examination of the particle in two Platonic dialogues, Meno and Cratylus, focusing on the most salient aspects of its meaning, especially phenomena that LSJ does not mention. It argues that γε‎ is characterized by two semantic properties: scalar interpretation and non-at issue semantics.

The Ancient, the Medieval, and the Modern in a Greek-English Lexicon, or How To Get Your Daily ‘Bread’ in Greek Any Day Through the Ages

Liddell and Scott (LSJ) has always been entitled A Greek-English Lexicon, from the first (1843) through to the ninth edition (1940). Clearly no need was felt to add Ancient to the title, even though LSJ is not and never was intended to be a comprehensive lexicon of the Greek language in its entire history. This chapter asks whether the scope of Ancient should be extended to include later stages, particularly the Medieval and the Modern, given the remarkable continuity of the Greek language stressed by Chantraine and others. With the availability of the online LSJ this is an option which should be seriously considered, although the editorial problems of a continuously updated online version may seem forbidding.β‎

The Greek of the New Testament

This chapter presents the story of the treatment of the Greek of the New Testament in the Lexicon alongside a critical assessment of that treatment. It examines the internal evidence of a selection of entries for words attested in the New Testament as well as the external evidence from discussions of the Lexicon (including, for the present purpose, the various Prefaces). The chapter focuses on the development from the eighth edition of Liddell and Scott (LS8) to LSJ. LSJ marked something of a new beginning, not only in its coverage but also in its approach both to the New Testament’s vocabulary and to its Greek in general. By contrast, LS7 was in effect reprinted as LS8, the last edition from Liddell himself.

Dictionaries as Translations

Any reading of a Greek text is an act of translation. However, it is heavily mediated by those previous dialogues represented by the tools of scholarship, which may be regarded as a kind of secondary speech community for a language no longer spoken. Foremost among these tools for an Anglophone scholar has been Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. The conversation in which one engages in consulting its glosses is at the very least three-way, involving not only ancient Greek and one’s own ‘mother tongue’, but also the English of Liddell and Scott. This chapter seeks to bring into sharper focus the vocabulary of the first edition’s glosses—a task rendered urgent not only by the passage of time but also by the fact that the editors had an axe to grind in selecting it.

Βάπτω‎

Words in the corpus of texts making up Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) have links to headwords in several dictionaries. TLG released a digitized version of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ) in 2011; since then, Cunliffe’s Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect has been added as well as Powell’s Lexicon to Herodotus, and Trapp’s Lexikon zur Byzantinischen Gräzität (LBG). The Lexicographical Resources page also provides links to the site of Diccionario griego-español (DGE), and to dictionaries of medieval and modern Greek, enabling study of the continuing history of words. This chapter compares entries for βάπτω‎ from LSJ, The Revised Supplement and DGE.

Literary Lexicography

Poetic language in the Western traditions subsumes two distinct categories of usage: elevation (whereby usage conforms to a conventional ‘high style’) and heightening (whereby meaning is enriched, often by mechanisms of defamiliarization). How should a historical dictionary of a dead language deal with literary, especially poetic, language? This chapter attempts to clarify the issues and sets out some principles for ‘literary lexicography’, with special reference to Liddell and Scott (LSJ) and ancient Greek poetry, and to Greek usage in the early and classical periods. The issues dealt with apply equally to Liddell and Scott and the Revised Supplement; for the most part the discussion will subsume both.

LSJ and the Diachronic Taxonomy of the Greek Vocabulary

This chapter presents a survey of Greek terms for living beings. The Greek vocabulary is recorded for over a three thousand year time-span, and through reconstruction of the immediate ancestor of Greek, Proto-Indo-European, it is possible to go back further still. Examination of the different classificatory terms in Greek, with their ancestry, thus allows us to test some of the hypotheses proposed by linguistic ethnobotanists. One such hypothesis concerns the effect on the terms for animals made by the development from a hunter-gatherer to a sedentary, agricultural lifestyle: Brown (2000) claims that taxonomies ‘of hunter gatherers tend to only have only one level, consisting entirely of generic classes’, and that over time ‘folk taxonomies have tended to expand up and down, adding more inclusive life-form and less inclusive specific classes to pre-existing generic categories’. The chapter sketches out the sort of contribution Greek can make to such debates.

Between Cunning and Chaos

This chapter explores the tension running through the nine editions by focusing on the development of one particular entry, that for μῆτις‎. This term is best known from the 1974 book by Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, Les ruses de l’intelligence: la métis des Grecs, still widely regarded as authoritative The ambiguity inherent in ruses—also present in the English title ‘cunning intelligence’—stands in contrast to LSJ’s broader definition as, firstly, ‘wisdom, skill, craft’, and, secondly, ‘counsel, plan, undertaking’. The chapter therefore sets out to explore both the intratextual tensions within the various editions of Liddell and Scott as well as the outward tensions between the Lexicon and contemporary scholarship.

Greek Dialects in the Lexicon

This chapter considers the treatment of dialect forms in Liddell and Scott (LSJ), and the origins of LSJ’s practice. It shows that although Aeolic and Doric forms of words sometimes get their own LSJ entries, the main or most informative entry is for a non-Aeolic or non-Doric form wherever the observed data made this possible. At first sight, the obvious conclusion is that some non-Aeolic and non-Doric dialect, such as Attic, functions as the basic dialect for LSJ. On closer inspection, however, it turns out that the Lexicon is not built on a principle of treating any one variety of Greek as ‘basic’. Instead LSJ operates with the notion of a normal or default form: a form judged to be available for use in the widest range of Greek texts. By designating a form as the ‘common form’ or choosing it as the basic dictionary entry, LSJ make a judgement about the wide availability of the form in principle, not about its actual attestation.

A Canonical Author

This chapter presents a case study of the Lexicon’s treatment of a single author, Hesiod. Early Greek poetry in general, and that of Hesiod in particular, presents certain difficulties for the historical approach which do not arise for texts of later periods. The main body of the chapter is divided into three sections, treating different respects in which Liddell and Scott (LSJ), and the historical principle it adopts, may seem problematic for the modern reader of Hesiod. The first section considers the ways in which LSJ conflicts with current beliefs concerning the text and dating of Hesiod. The second outlines some respects in which the historical principle may be inadequate for dealing with early Greek hexameter in general, given more recent scholarship on the nature and semantics of formulaic verse. The third treats more idiosyncratic features of Hesiod’s poetry that are particularly noteworthy for the lexicographer. Throughout, the main focus is on the Theogony and the Works and Days.