New Approaches to Greek Particles: Proceedings of the Colloquium Held in Amsterdam, January 4-6, 1996, to Honour C.J. Ruijgh on the Occasion of His Retirement 9050630979, 9789050630979

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AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY EDI TORS

A L B E R T RIJKSBA RON I R E N E J.F. DE JON G

HARM P IN K S TE R

V OL UME SEVEN

P R E VI O U SL Y PUBL ISH ED

1. A. Rijksbaron, G r a m m a tic a l O b s e r v a tio n s o n E u r i p i d e s ' B a c c h a e . 1991. 2. R. Risselada, I m p e r a tiv e s a n d o t h e r D ir e c tiv e E x p r e s s io n s in L a tin . A S t u d y in th e P r a g m a tic s o f a D e a d L a n g u a g e . 1993. 3. G. Wakker, C o n d itio n s a n d C o n d itio n a ls . A n i n v e s t i g a t i o n o f A n c i e n t G r e e k . 1994. 4. C. Kroon, D i s c o u r s e P a r t i c l e s in L a tin . A S tu d y o f nam, enim, autem, vero a n d at. 1995. 5. H. Dik, W o r d O r d e r in A n c i e n t G r e e k . A P r a g m a tic A c c o u n t o f W o r d O r d e r V a r ia tio n i n H e r o d o tu s . 1995. 6 . J.E. v.d. Veen. T h e S i g n i f i c a n t a n d th e I n s ig n ific a n t. F i v e S tu d ie s in H e r o d o t u s ’ V ie w o f H i s t o r y . 1996.

NEW APPROACHES TO GREEK PARTICLES P R O C E E D I N G S OF THE C O L L O Q U I U M H EL D IN A M S TE RD A M , JA N U A R Y 4-6, 1996, T O HONOUR C.J. RUIJGH ON THE OC CA SI O N O F HIS R E T I R E M E N T

EDITED BY

ALBERT RIJKSBARON

J .C - GIEBEN. PU B LISHER AMSTERDAM 1997

No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by prim, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in The Netherlands / ISBN 90 5063 097 9

PREFACE

On December I, 1995 Kees Ruijgh retired from the University of Amsterdam, after a long and fruitful career devoted to the study of Greek, first as a junior researcher and teacher, and from 1969 as professor of Greek linguistics. During his career, a great variety of subjects attracted his scholarly attention, for which the reader may be referred to the ‘Avant-propos’ of Ruijgh’s S c r i p t a M i n o r a /, and to the ‘Biblio­ graphie complète’ printed in S c r i p t a M i n o r a I I . Among these subjects, the Greek particles take a place of honour. We need only mention here his monumental A u to u r d e τ ε é p i q u e of 1971, which, besides many other things, is an in-depth study of τε and related particles. So when the Department of Classical Philology started organiz­ ing a colloquium in his honour and was looking for a general theme for this meeting, it seemed to us that the particles were a particularly suitable subject, the more so because they have been rather neglected since the publication of Denniston’s T h e G r e e k P a r t i c l e s , a verdict which does not apply to, say, verbal aspect, to name only one other suitable subject. The colloquium took place in Amsterdam on January, 4-6 1996, and brought together some fourteen speakers, representing five different European countries and several academic generations. Two lectures presented at the colloquium are absent from the present book, since—much to their regret—Frangoise Létoublon (Grenoble) and Michael Meier-Briigger (Hamburg/Berlin), due to other obligations, were not able to send in a worked-out version of their lecture. it is our pleasure to thank a number of institutions and persons for their support. Financially, the colloquium was made possible by grants from the Faculty of Arts and the Institute of Mediterranean Studies of the University of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam University Association, the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Publisher, J.C. Gieben. Organizing the colloquium would have been far more diffi­ cult without the untiring efforts of Ruijgh’s former student, Hotze Mulder. The Introduction has much benefited from the criticism by Irene de Jong and Rodie Risselada. It will be generally agreed that Kees Ruijgh, to use one of his own favourite phrases, ‘a bien mérité de la linguistique grecque’. We hope that the collection of articles assembled in the present book will be up to his merits.

Amsterdam, November 1997

Albert Rijksbaron

CO N TEN TS

Preface........................................................................................................................... v ALBERT RUKSBARON

Introduction................................................................................................................... 1 YVESDUHOUX

Grec écrit et grec parlé. Une étude contrastive des particules aux Ve-IVe siècles......15 Anna Morpurgo Davies Particles in Greek Epigraphical Texts. The Case of Arcadian....................................49 Louis Basset Άλλ' έξόλοισθ’ αύτω κοαξ. Réexamen des emplois de άλλα à la lumière de l’énonciation dans les G r e n o u i l l e s d’Aristophane.....................................................75 S.R . SLINGS

Adversative Relators Between PUSH and POP........................................................ 101 BERNARD JACQUINOD

Sur le rôle pragmatique de καίτοι............................................................................ 131 A. MARIA VAN ERP TAALMAN KlP η γάρ in Questions.................................................................................................... 151 C .M .J. SICKING

Particles in Questions in Plato..................................................................................157 IRENE J.F . DE JONG

Γάρ Introducing Embedded Narratives....................................................................175 ALBERT RUKSBARON

Adverb or Connector? The Case of κ α ι... δέ..........................................................187 G erry W akker Emphasis and Affirmation. Some Aspects of μην in Tragedy.................................209 INEKE SLUITER

Parapleromatic Lucubrations....................................................................................233 P aul Wathelet Les particules κε(ν) et αν dans les formules de l’épopée homérique..................... 247 F .M .J WAANDERS

Particulars of Some Proto-Indo-European Particles................................................269 Indices...................................................................................................................... 275

INTRO DUC TIO N

A l b e r t R ijk s b a r o n Universiteit van Amsterdam

‘articles, particles, prepositions, auxiliaries ... act as policemen and direct each of the other words to its proper place in the brain o f the hearer so as to facilitate orderly understanding’—Otto Jcspcrscn

In the early 19th century, the city of London was the first city to have public gas­ lighting. As a result, one school of historians claims, it took a considerable time before it got electric light. This process is regarded as a prime example of the work­ ings of the so-called ‘Law of the Retarding Lead’. In 1934 Denniston’s epoch-making T h e G r e e k P a r t i c l e s appeared.1 It was especially after the publication of the second edition, in 1954, which contained an invaluable i n d e x l o c o r u m (due to his wife), that ‘Denniston’ became one of the indispensable tools of the Greek scholar. I submit that most, nay all, Greek scholars, if they were allowed to take just ten professional books to the proverbial deserted island, would include Denniston, together with Kiihner-Gerth and Liddell-ScottJones. The book was so good, in fact, and so much ahead of what was done for other languages, that it acquired the position of London’s gas-lighting: in Greek linguistics Denniston’s monograph simply became th e standard reference book, and for a long time there must have been a widespread feeling that improving upon his treatment was not feasible and a waste of time. At least, this can be gathered from the omnipresence of his name in commentaries, often in the form of simple references, and from the surprisingly small number of detailed particle studies published after 1934 up to the seventies.1 2 The excellence of T h e G r e e k P a r t i c l e s resides mainly in the choice and the dis­ cussion of the examples. In fact, on encountering a particle which arrests our atten1 Incidentally, it is worth noticing that in 1950 a book by C.D. Anderson appeared, entitled ‘The Elementary Particles of Physics’. Some twenty years earlier the outlines of this new branch of physics had become visible, but in 1950 apparently both ‘elementary’ and ‘physics’ still had to be added to make clear what kind of particles the book was about. I shall resist the temptation of ascribing this fact to the publication, also in the thirties, of Denniston’s Panicles, but there can be no doubt that in the thirties and forties the word ‘particle’ primarily still had a linguistic sense. Nowadays ‘particle’ simply stands for ‘elementary particle’, as appears e.g. from a publication like Megascience: Particle Physics, published in 1995. (Not that the presence of ‘Megascience’ would have induced us to believe that the particles of language were concerned.) 2 Ruijgh’s Autour de τε épique, published in 1971, was the first major monograph on Greek particles since ‘Denniston’.

ALBERT RIJKSBARON

tion, we all tend, I think, to look up in the index whether Denniston discusses that particular instance, and feel satisfied when he does, the more so because he usually provides us with a sensible and sensitive remark. And fortunately he discusses an incredible number of instances; as he himself puts it: ‘The reader should be enabled to b a th e in examples’ (Preface to the first edition, p. vi; italics Denniston). While the ‘fast food’ use of Denniston undoubtedly accelerates our reading-pace, things are less simple when it comes to finding the precise meaning and the syntactic function of a given particle, especially in particle combinations. On this count. T h e G r e e k P a r t i c l e s is all too often disappointing and inadequate. A typical illustration of this inadequacy is a statement like the following: O n the other hand, Bäumlein, Kühner, and others deny that γάρ in άλλά γάρ is ever causal, and interpret it everywhere as “adverbial”.’ (p. 100). Apparently for Denniston ‘causal’ and ‘adverbial’ exclude each other. Strange though this opinion may seem, it is in line with Denniston’s use of ‘adverbial’ in his Introduction; on p. xxxix he tells us that he uses ‘adverbial’ notably for ‘particles of emphasis and nuance, since they are in most cases naturally translated by adverbs...’ And because, for him, γάρ is not a particle of ‘emphasis and nuance’, it cannot be an adverb in the combination άλλά γάρ. In the last resort, it remains unclear what is the status of γάρ in this combination. Similar problems con­ cerning the syntactic status of particles are involved in a number of other combina­ tions, e.g. και (...) γάρ and και (...) δέ. This, in tum, is presumably connected with the fact that Denniston discusses such combinations in an in itself consistent, but nevertheless rather peculiar way; thus, all combinations of καί are discussed under the other particle involved (και (...) γάρ under γάρ, καί (...) δέ under δέ, etc.). Probably as a result, Denniston never investigates s y s t e m a t i c a l l y the function of καί (and thus that of the other particle) in these combinations. That Denniston sometimes must have felt quite helpless, when confronted with syntactic problems, is apparent from a note on page xliii: ‘The line between connectives and non-connectives cannot be rigidly drawn. Thus ούν in Homer, although it has n o t y e t developed a connective function, shows in μέν οΰν a t e n d e n c y to develop one. γε, and in a more marked degree μέν γε, mitigate to s o m e e x t e n t the harshness of an asyndeton : while γοΰν in the ‘part-proof’ usage is a l m o s t a full connective, μέν, again, o c c a s i o n a l l y a p p e a r s to have a