Verbal Periphrasis in Ancient Greek

Abstract

Abstract This book deals with the use and development of ‘periphrastic’ constructions in Ancient Greek (VIII bc–VIII ad), focusing on constructions with the verbs ‘to be’ (εἰμί) and ‘to have’ (ἔχω), as in ἦν διδάσκων ‘he was teaching’ or ἔχω θαυμάσας ‘I have wondered’. While Ancient Greek is commonly considered a ‘synthetic’ language, already at the earliest stages we find traces of such multi-word periphrastic constructions, comparable to those occurring in the Modern European languages. The book consists of five chapters. The first two chapters are theoretically oriented. In the first chapter, a number of theoretical concepts are introduced, such as the motivation for periphrasis, genre and register, aspect, and grammaticalization (theory). In the second chapter, the concepts of ‘verbal’ and ‘adjectival’ periphrasis are discussed, as well as their interrelationship. It is argued that in both cases, prototype-theory can offer an innovative perspective. In the second part of the book, the diachrony of periphrastic constructions with εἰμί and ἔχω is investigated from a qualitative and a quantitative point of view. This is done with respect to three functional domains: those of perfect aspect (§3), imperfective aspect (§4), and perfective aspect (§5). It is argued that ‘transitivity’ plays a key role to our understanding of the development of periphrastic constructions: not only are the constructions themselves acquiring an increasingly transitive profile, but also periphrasis more generally.

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