The rise of ‘subordination features’ in the history of Greek and their decline
The ‘Indirect Speech Traits Cycle’
This study is a contribution based on Greek material to a field of inquiry that deals with the diachronic development of formal syntactic devices and their interrelationship with the dichotomy between main and subordinate clauses in Indo-European (Kiparsky 1995, Lühr 2008). First, we focus on some devices signaling indirect speech that emerged in Pre-Classical and Classical Greek, such as the development of a system of complementizers (hóti ‘that.COMP’, hōs ‘that.COMP’) and some characteristic usages of moods (the optative of indirect speech). In Post-Classical Greek, this system of traits that had been employed to code indirect speech collapsed, as evidenced by the disappearance of hōs ‘that.COMP’ and the optative of indirect speech as well as the high frequency of pleonastic hóti ‘that.COMP’. Later in the history of Greek a new subordination system arises. We interpret these developments in the light of contemporary syntactic theory (Emonds 2004, 2012), and try to formulate a hypothesis regarding the cycle-like regularities and recurrent patterns that are followed by (clusters of) traits, that is, the “Indirect Speech Traits Cycle”.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Kavčič, Jerneja
2020.
The past-oriented aorist infinitive in Post-Classical literary texts: A parallel with the use of the aorist injunctive in Vedic Sanskrit?.
Glotta 96:1
► pp. 82 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Kavčič, Jerneja
2023.
Avtentičnost in jezikovni stik na zapisih iz Vzhodne puščave (O. Claud. 1.141 in 142).
Keria: Studia Latina et Graeca 25:2
► pp. 157 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Bentein, Klaas
2018.
The decline of infinitival complementation in Ancient Greek.
Glotta 94:1
► pp. 82 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.