The Noun Phrase in Ancient Greek: A Functional Analysis of the Order and Articulation of NP Constituents in Herodotus (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology, 15) 9004177221, 9789004177222
On the basis of a functional analysis of the order and articulation of noun phrase constituents in Herodotus, this book
135 20 3MB
English Pages 322 [337] Year 2009
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Chapter One. Introduction
1.1. The outline of the study
1.2. Method and data
Part I Word Order
Chapter Two. Introduction to word order
2.1. Word order in the noun phrase
2.2. Possible explanations for word order variation in the NP
2.2.1. Style
2.2.2. Syntax
2.2.3. Semantics
2.2.4. Pragmatics
2.2.5. Conclusion
2.3. Theoretical framework
2.3.1. Rijkhoff's NP model
2.3.2. Terminology used
Chapter Three. Word order in single-modifier NPs
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Prenominalmodifiers
3.2.1. Contrast
3.2.2. Saliency
3.3. Postnominalmodifiers
3.3.1. Exceptional cases
3.4. Clause vs. NP
3.5. A few particularmodifiers
3.5.1. Adjectives
3.5.2. Postpositive possessives
3.5.3. Demonstratives
3.5.4. Relative clauses
3.6. The position of dependent constituents
3.7. Conclusion
Chapter Four. Word order inmultiple-modifier NPs
4.1. Introduction: an overview of the literature on the order of modifiers
4.2. Word order inmultiple-modifier NPs
4.2.1. Two criticisms of Rijkhoff's NP model
4.2.2. Word order in Greekmultiple-modifier NPs
4.2.2.1. Multiple prenominalmodifiers
4.2.2.2. Multiple postnominalmodifiers
4.2.2.3. Pre- and postnominalmodifiers
4.2.3. Concluding remarks
4.3. Coordination and juxtaposition
4.4. Conclusion
Part II Articulation
Chapter Five. The use of the article
5.1. Introduction
5.2. The state of research
5.2.1. The Greek article
5.2.2. Definiteness in general
5.3. The use of the article in referential NPs
5.3.1. The general rule
5.3.2. Five refinements of the general rule
5.3.3. The combination of article and demonstrative
5.4. The use of the article in non-referential NPs
5.4.1. Predicate NPs
5.4.2. Other non-referential NPs
5.5. The use of the article in generic NPs
5.5.1. Singular generic NPs
5.5.2. Plural generic NPs
5.6. Conclusion
Chapter Six. The articulation of NP constituents
6.1. The articulation ofmodifiers
6.1.1. Introduction
6.1.1.1. Articularmodifiers: existing views
6.1.1.2. Articular modifiers: an alternative solution
6.1.2. Reference specification
6.1.3. Referent characterisation
6.1.3.1. Referent characterisation in general
6.1.3.2. Referent characterisation by adjectives, numerals and participles
6.1.3.3. Conclusion
6.1.4. A few particularmodifiers
6.1.4.1. Demonstratives
6.1.4.2. Possessives
6.1.4.3. Relative clauses
6.2. The articulation of the noun
6.2.1. The aNaX vs. the NaX pattern
6.2.2. The rules for the articulation of the noun
6.3. Summary and conclusion
Chapter Seven. Overview
7.1. The XN and NX pattern
7.2. The aXN, aNaX and NaX pattern
7.3. The XaN and aNX pattern
7.4. Multiplemodifiers
Index of linguistic terms
References
Index locorum
General index
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The Noun Phrase in Ancient Greek
Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology Editorial Board
Albert Rijksbaron Irene J.F. de Jong Caroline Kroon
VOLUME 15
The Noun Phrase in Ancient Greek A Functional Analysis of the Order and Articulation of NP Constituents in Herodotus
By
Stéphanie J. Bakker
LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009
This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Detailed Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available on the Internet at http://catalog.loc.gov
ISSN 1380-6068 ISBN 978 90 04 17722 2 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Chapter One. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The outline of the study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Method and data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1 2 2
part i word order Chapter Two. Introduction to word order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Word order in the noun phrase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Possible explanations for word order variation in the NP . . . . . . . ... Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Pragmatics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Theoretical framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Rijkhoff ’s NP model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Terminology used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9 9 10 10 13 16 19 21 22 24 28
Chapter Three. Word order in single-modifier NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Prenominal modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Saliency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Postnominal modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Exceptional cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Clause vs. NP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. A few particular modifiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Postpositive possessives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Demonstratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
33 33 38 38 41 52 60 66 71 71 73 76
vi
contents
... Relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 .. The position of dependent constituents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 .. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Chapter Four. Word order in multiple-modifier NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Introduction: an overview of the literature on the order of modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Word order in multiple-modifier NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Two criticisms of Rijkhoff ’s NP model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Word order in Greek multiple-modifier NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Multiple prenominal modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Multiple postnominal modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Pre- and postnominal modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Coordination and juxtaposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
93 93 98 98 104 109 113 120 125 129 141
part ii articulation Chapter Five. The use of the article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The state of research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... The Greek article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Definiteness in general . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The use of the article in referential NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... The general rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Five refinements of the general rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... The combination of article and demonstrative . . . . . . . . . . . .. The use of the article in non-referential NPs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Predicate NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Other non-referential NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The use of the article in generic NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Singular generic NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Plural generic NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
145 145 146 146 152 162 162 172 182 189 190 197 199 199 206 211
Chapter Six. The articulation of NP constituents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 .. The articulation of modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 ... Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
contents
vii
.... Articular modifiers: existing views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Articular modifiers: an alternative solution . . . . . ... Reference specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Referent characterisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Referent characterisation in general . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Referent characterisation by adjectives, numerals and participles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... A few particular modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Demonstratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Possessives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The articulation of the noun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... The aNaX vs. the NaX pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... The rules for the articulation of the noun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Summary and conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
216 224 231 242 243
Chapter Seven. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The XN and NX pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The aXN, aNaX and NaX pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. The XaN and aNX pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Multiple modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
287 287 288 290 292
Index of linguistic terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index locorum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
295 301 313 319
249 259 261 261 264 267 269 271 283 285
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is a revised edition of my doctoral thesis defended at the University of Groningen in the spring of . The research for this thesis was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). That the research proposal I sent to NWO finally resulted in this present book, I owe to many people, whom I would like to thank here. First of all, my supervisor, Gerry Wakker, without whom my dissertation project could probably never have started and certainly would never have finished succesfully. I am deeply indebted to her for her encouragement and advice, which was always gentle and kind, in every phase of my research. This book also greatly benefited from the critical remarks and valuable suggestions provided by the members of the Reading Committee of the PhD-defence: Geoffrey Horrocks, Albert Rijksbaron and Ineke Sluiter. The stimulating reactions of and inspiring discussions with many other colleagues, both linguists and classicists, from Groningen, Leiden and abroad, were also very helpful. Among them, I would like to thank Helma Dik, Evelien Keizer, Frans Plank, Jan Rijkhoff, David Sansone, JanWouter Zwart and the members of the OIKOS research group on Greek and Latin linguistics in particular. I am also very grateful to the anonymous reviewer for the very detailed review report that prevented many errors and contained detailed comments and suggestions. A special word of thanks is due to Susannah Herman, who struggled through the pre-final version of this book to correct my English. Of course, all remaining mistakes are mine. Finally, and especially, I wish to thank Erik Jan and our little Huub for being the most supporting and loving men in the world. Stéphanie Bakker Leiden, January
ABBREVIATIONS
a A Adv D dem GEN N num NP pos prt PP PTC rel SoA X
article adjective adverb dependent demonstrative genitive noun numeral noun phrase possessive particle prepositional phrase participle relative clause state of affairs any modifier
Abbreviations to refer to Greek authors follow LSJ.
chapter one INTRODUCTION
This book is about the noun phrase (NP) in Ancient Greek. It aims to provide a functional analysis of the factors that determine the structure of the NP, viz. the ordering and articulation of its constituents. In contrast to most modern European languages, in which the ordering of NP elements is rather fixed, the structure of the NP in Ancient Greek is extremely flexible in that the various constituents may occur in almost every possible order and that each constituent may or may not be preceded by an article. As a result of this flexibility, the number of possible NP patterns is enormous. Although one would expect that the existence of so many possibilities would raise questions about the use and function of the various options, the structure of the Ancient Greek NP has received very little attention. Apart from the descriptions in the standard grammars, which generally consist of an overview of the various possibilities without much attention for the differences in use, the discussion of the structure of the Greek NP is limited to a few studies on the difference between pre- and postnominal adjectives or demonstratives and to some remarks on the articulation of its constituents in general literature on what is often called ‘double definiteness’. There is no systematic analysis of the structure of the Ancient Greek NP. This study attempts to fill this gap. On the basis of a careful analysis of the structure of the NPs in a particular corpus (see section .), I will try to answer the question as to which arguments lead a native speaker of Ancient Greek in his choice to select one of the various possible NP patterns. The answer to this question will not only increase our knowledge of the (Ancient Greek) NP, but will—I hope—also result in a better interpretation of Ancient Greek texts. Since the interest of this book is the structure of the NP, other issues— such as the meaning or function of NP modifiers, the difference between various constructions with a similar meaning (e.g. the difference between a possessive construction with a possessive pronoun ‘ μς πατ ρ’ and a construction with a genitive of a personal pronoun ‘ πατ ρ μου’), or the relation between the complexity of the NP and the availability of the referent—although each contributing to our knowledge of the
chapter one
form and function of the NP, will only be dealt with if and insofar these issues are relevant for the understanding of the structure of the NP.
.. The outline of the study This study of the structure of the Ancient Greek NP consists of two parts. The central theme of the first part is word order variation in the NP. This part generalises over definite and indefinite NPs, or rather, articular and non-articular NP constituents, as the factors that determine the order of the NP constituents are (as I will argue) insensitive to their articulation. After an introductory chapter on word order in the NP, which gives an overview of the various aspects used to explain word order variation in the Ancient Greek NP and which presents the theoretical framework of my research, the Chapters and discuss word order in NPs with only one and with multiple modifiers respectively. Insight in the factors that determine the order of the NP constituents is, however, not sufficient for a complete understanding of the structure of the Ancient Greek NP. Since two NPs with exactly the same ordering may differ in the presence or absence of the article, the position of this article and the number of articles expressed (e.g. XN vs. aXN, aXN vs. XaN and aXXN vs. aXaXN),1 the second part of this study analyses the articulation of the NP constituents. As there is no coherent and systematic description of the use and function of the Greek article that answers modern linguistic insights, Chapter starts with a very basic discussion of the circumstances in which an Ancient Greek NP is marked with a definite article. Chapter , finally, analyses the factors that determine which constituents of a definite NP are articular. The book ends with an overview of the various possible NP patterns and a short description of the circumstances under which they are used.
.. Method and data Research into the Ancient Greek language automatically implies a corpus-linguistic approach. Corpus-linguistics has the disadvantage that
1
For an explanation of the abbreviations, see the list of abbreviations at page XI.
introduction
you cannot limit the parameters that influence the data to the one in which you are interested; the advantage, on the other hand, is that all data are embedded in an explicit and well-defined context. Even within corpus-linguistics, one can try to keep constant as many variables as possible. For this reason, I decided to analyse data from one author only to exclude possible stylistic and diachronic differences.2 My choice for Herodotus was made because this prose3 text with various text types contains a lot of description, which is a necessary condition for finding NPs with multiple modifiers.4 These advantages counterbalance the fact that Herodotus wrote in the Ionic dialect,5 so that there might be differences with authors who wrote in the Attic dialect.6 2 For the influence of style on word order variation, see Chapter , section ... Several grammars suggest a diachronic difference in the use of the aNaA and NaA pattern (cf. also Brunel and Biraud ). 3 The choice for a prose text was inspired by fear that rhythm might influence the order of the constituents in the NP. By now, however, H. Dik’s (: –) study of the position of the attributive adjective in Sophocles proves that there is also no correlation in poetry between word shape and position of the constituents of the NP. The influence of rhythm on the position of adjectives in prose was already reluctantly denied by Bergson, who on the basis of his data had to admit that ‘die Sprachkünstler der klassischen Prosa ihre Sätze so zu bauen und die Worte so zu wählen wussten, dass die gedanklich beste Wortfolge fast ausnahmslos auch die bevorzugte äussere Form ergab’ (Bergson : ). 4 Because speakers do not give more information than is strictly necessary (cf. Grice : ), extensive noun phrases tend to be used only if the speaker wants to inform the addressee about an entity he was not yet familiar with and/or if there is a contrast between several very similar entities. Descriptive contexts thus seem the most likely candidates for finding multiple-modifier NPs. For the relation between the complexity of an NP and the accessibility (and topicality) of the referent, see among many others Ariel (), Fox (a+b), Gundel et al. () and Lichtenberk (). 5 Although I do not want to exclude possible dialectal differences beforehand, I do not agree with the conclusion Devine and Stephens (: ) draw on the basis of the statistical differences between Thucydides and Herodotus that the more frequent postposition of adjectives in Herodotus is a syntactic feature of the Ionic dialect. I fail to see why ‘the pragmatic parameter cannot vary for the same adjective in the same genre’ (Devine and Stephens : ). Like H. Dik (: note ), I would argue that the more frequent postposition of qualifying adjectives in Herodotus is due to a different usage of NPs with qualifying adjectives. As Dik argues, Herodotus contains a lot of description for the sake of description, while Thucydides is much more argumentative. In an argumentative text, an adjective like πολς is obviously more likely to become pragmatically marked than in a description. 6 Although dialectal differences cannot be excluded, I would be surprised if the very closely related dialects (C.D. Buck () considers Attic and Ionic to be one dialect group; R. Woodard (: ) describes them as ‘sisters’) differ in more respects than the well-known phonological features. My expectation that dialectal differences play no major role was confirmed by the (unpublished) papers written by the participants of a
chapter one
I included all definite and indefinite NPs with one or more modifiers from the corpus of Herodotus in the analysis, irrespective of their semantic and syntactic properties. Yet, since it is impossible to decide whether a modifier is pre- or postnominal in NPs without an overt head, only NPs with an overtly expressed noun were taken into consideration. NPs with substantivised infinitives, participles, adjectives etc. as well as NPs with proper names, names of countries, seas etc. as their heads were also excluded; the former because these substantivised heads permit other kinds of modifiers than common nouns, the latter because the combination of a proper name with its modifier (like ‘Red Bull’ and ‘the Black Sea’) may have become a fixed expression no longer obeying normal noun phrase formation rules. Finally, because this book studies word order variation within the NP, it only discusses the position of modifiers that form an integral part of the NP. Therefore, constituents with a predicating function as well as appositional modifiers have been left out of consideration. Since predicative elements also agree in case, number and gender with the noun, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether we are dealing with an attributive modifier or with a predicating constituent, especially in the case of participles. In example (), for instance, it is unclear whether the participle modifies the noun (‘men who flee’) or has predicative value (‘men when they flee’) and should therefore be analysed at the level of the clause: ()
μες δ (ερημα γρ ερ καμεν μας τε ατο ς κα τ ν Ελλ!δα, νφος τοσο$το %ν&ρ'πων %νωσ!μενοι) μ δι'κωμεν νδρας φε γοντας.
Therefore I say to you (as it is to a fortunate chance that we owe ourselves and Hellas, and have driven away so mighty a band of enemies), let us not pursue men who flee/men when fleeing. (Hdt. ..)7
seminar I gave in and , which show that the use of word order patterns in the NP in Herodotus is comparable to that in the Attic prose texts of Xenophon and Plato, despite major statistical differences. 7 The Greek examples in this book are taken from the Oxford Classical Text editions, the translations from the Greek-English Loeb editions. In a number of cases, however, the translations have been adapted. For those readers who have no or only very little knowledge of Ancient Greek, I have added a literal translation of the NP in question, if necessary. Without doubt, transcriptions and glosses would have been much more helpful for these readers, but in my opinion the addition of a transcription and gloss for every example, or even every NP, was unfeasible because of the large number and complexity of the examples.
introduction
Although the opposite can also be maintained, it was decided only to exclude unambiguously predicative elements. The same stance was taken with respect to appositional modifiers, which also are not easily recognisable, because my source is a written text that has come down to us without punctuation marks. The reason for my unwillingness to assume a loose connection between the noun and modifier a priori is that in the past postnominal elements have been considered an apposition or afterthought too easily (see Chapter , section ...). Therefore, I only excluded clear appositional examples like example () and (): ()
( . . . ) παρεν& κην ποιεσκετο τ νδε, *ς Ερ'πη περικαλλ ς χ'ρη κα δνδρεα παντοα φρει τ μερα ( . . . ). ( . . . ) he kept adding that Europe was an extremely beautiful land and bore all kinds of orchard trees (lit. trees all kind the cultivated) ( . . .). (Hdt. ..)
()
( . . . ) %ππεμπε ς Δελφο ς κα τ!δε -λλα .μα τοσι/ κρητρας δ ο μεγεϊ μεγλους, χρ σεον κα ργ ρεον, τ0ν μ1ν χρσεος 2κειτο π δεξι σι4ντι ς τν νη4ν, δ1 %ργρεος π’ %ριστερ!/ (. . .) he (= Kroisos) sent them to Delphi, with other gifts besides: namely, two very large bowls, one of gold and one of silver (lit. bowls two large, gold and silver). The golden bowl stood to the right, the silver to the left of the temple entrance. (Hdt. ..)
In example (), τ 5μερα must be an apposition, since the adjective παντοα cannot occur in definite NPs. In example (), the number of the adjectives χρσεον κα %ργρεον (singular) makes clear that they must be an apposition to the plural κρητ6ρας δο μεγ!&εϊ μεγ!λους. The fact that this book studies word order within the NP also implies that hyperbaton is left out of consideration.8 The order of the various constituents of the NP is studied irrespective of whether and, if so, how many constituents of the level of the sentence intervene. This limitation is based on the idea that one should first try to understand what determines the order of the NP constituents itself, before addressing much more complex matters like (dis)continuity.
8 Hyperbaton in Ancient Greek is the subject of numerous studies, of which Devine and Stephens () is the most recent one. They provide an extensive bibliography on both hyperbaton in Greek and discontinuous NPs in general.
part i WORD ORDER
chapter two INTRODUCTION TO WORD ORDER
.. Word order in the noun phrase Although almost every page of an Ancient Greek text contains several NPs with one or more modifiers, the order of the constituents of these NPs has received very little attention. Probably, this is due to the fact that—irrespective of the order of the constituents in Greek—the order of the constituents in a translation is rather set. Since a modern reader of the examples () and () is not forced to think about the word order within the highlighted NPs, he will easily fail to notice that they differ in their ordering, let alone that he will wonder why the red cloak in example (), introduced by πορφρεον ε8μα (AN), is referred to later by τ ε8μα τ πορφρεον (NA), or why the lying colossus in example () is said to be π4δες πντε κα 9βδομ κοντα (NA) high, while the two huge statues of Egyptian stone are said to be ε;κοσι ποδ0ν (AN) high: ()
πε