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Part of
Pragmatic Approaches to Latin and Ancient Greek
Edited by Camille Denizot and Olga Spevak
[Studies in Language Companion Series 190] 2017
► pp. 257–272

Chapter 12
A unitary account of the meaning of kaí

| Autonomous University of Madrid. Pastor Foundation for Classical Studies

In this article I argue that classical Greek kaí (translated as ‘and’, ‘also, too, even’ and ‘actually’) expresses a nearly unitary meaning and that several features in its environment enable the correct selection of one of its values. Basically, kaí is (i) a coordinator when it links two explicit units that perform the same syntactic function and are equally asserted, (ii) an additive focus adverb when one of the linked units is explicit and its alternative does not perform the same syntactic function or is tacit and presupposed, and (iii) an adverb of emphasis when the alternative to the modified unit is absent or difficult for the addressee to retrieve.

Keywords: Greek kaí , coordinator, focal adverb, emphasis, particle
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Purpose
  • 3.A tentative unified account of the meaning of kaí in Classical Greek
  • 4.Coordinator (‘and’)
    • 4.1Non-corresponsive coordinator
    • 4.2Corresponsive coordinator
    • 4.3 Equative coordinator
    • 4.4Coordinator with a sense of climax: ‘and particularly’
  • 5.Adverb of addition (‘also, too, even’)
    • 5.1Adverb of neutral addition: ‘also’
    • 5.2Linking adverb accompanying a coordinator: ‘also’
    • 5.3Adverb of unexpected addition: ‘even’
    • 5.4Adverb adding the content of a clause to another
  • 6.Adverb of emphasis
  • 7. Kaí at sentence beginning
  • 8.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.190.12cre
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