Chapter published in:

Pragmatic Approaches to Latin and Ancient Greek
Edited by Camille Denizot and Olga Spevak
[Studies in Language Companion Series 190] 2017
► pp. 273–301

Chapter 13. Ancient Greek adversative particles in contrast

Rutger J. Allan | University of Amsterdam/Free University

Ancient Greek is a language which abounds in discourse particles showing a wide range of functions. This paper aims at analyzing the semantic differences between the most frequent adversative particles in Greek: allá, kaítoi, méntoi and mé:n. Drawing on a number of functionally and cognitively-oriented theoretical approaches to pragmatics, I will argue that these particles can best be analyzed as polysemous networks of semantic extensions resulting from the semanticization of contextually evoked pragmatic inferences. I will also argue that the semantic distinction between the various adversative particles can be insightfully described in terms of discourse-pragmatic notions such as common ground, topos, discourse act and move.

Keywords: polysemy, usage-based approach, Ancient Greek, adversative markers, discourse act, move, topos, common ground, Functional Discourse Grammar, cognitive linguistics

Published online: 01 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.190.13all

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