Andreas Willi

The Language of Old Comedy

Among the literary genres of classical antiquity, Attic Old Comedy is perhaps the one in which language plays the most important role. This chapter concentrates on general topics such as the generic background and methodological considerations, Old Comedys basic grammar, dialect variation, and stylistic variation. The staging of characters who speak a dialect other than Attic is one of the best-known cases of linguistic variation in Old Comedy. The technique corresponds to the wish for dramatic realism. Hearing a foreign dialect on stage is funny, but it would be wrong to think that the primary function of dialect passages is to deride the non-Athenian.Keywords: Attic Old Comedy; linguistic variation; non-Athenian

Origins of the Greek verb

Situated at the crossroads of comparative philology, classics and general historical linguistics, this study is the first ever attempt to outline in full the developments which led from the remotest recoverable stages of the Indo-European proto-language to the complex verbal system encountered in Homer and other early Greek texts. By combining the methods of comparative and internal reconstruction with a careful examination of large collections of primary data and insights gained from the study of language change and linguistic typology, Andreas Willi uncovers the deeper reasons behind many surface irregularities and offers a new understanding of how categories such as aspect, tense and voice interact. Drawing upon evidence from all major branches of Indo-European, and providing exhaustive critical coverage of scholarly debate on the most controversial issues, this book will be an essential reference tool for anyone seeking orientation in this burgeoning but increasingly fragmented area of linguistic research.

Register Variation and Tense/Aspect/Mood Categories in Ancient Greek: Problems and Perspectives

Among the grammatical features whose preferential use in Ancient Greek is at least partly determined by considerations of linguistic register, we also find a number of phenomena relating to the categories of tense, aspect, and mood. However, these are not always easy to pin down, both because register variation may intersect with diachronic and/or regional variation and because they rarely manifest themselves as absolute rules. After exploring the methodological issues thus arising, the present article argues that a comprehensive understanding of linguistic change can nevertheless be reached only when patterns of distribution across registers are studied as carefully as patterns of dialectal and chronological distribution. A case in point is the development of the Greek perfect in classical times: the spread of the so-called ‘resultative perfect’ was clearly promoted by some registers more than by others.

The Oscan Perfect in ‐TT‐

Oscan secondary verbs form their perfect with a suffix -tt- , whose origin has been much debated. After a critical review of earlier suggestions, which have assumed either a reanalysis within a specific model paradigm or some periphrastic source, a new periphrastic theory is presented. According to this proposal, the perfect in -tt- is to be traced back to the past perfective variant of a progressive periphrasis involving a present participle + auxiliary stand (for be). Such a combination not only provides a phonologically satisfactory starting point for the attested Oscan forms, but it also enjoys typological support from comparable progressive periphrases both in the Sabellic (Osco-Umbrian) subgroup of Italic and in the closely related history of Latin/Romance.

Towards a Grammar of Narrative Voice: From Homeric Pragmatics to Hellenistic Stylistics

At least since the publication of de Jong’s seminal study on narrators and focalizers in Homeric epic on the one hand, and the first signs of interest in the énonciation of lyric texts on the other,1 narratological approaches to Ancient Greek literature have often highlighted the complex nature of narrative voices in a wide variety of genres. In this context the potential relevance of linguistic observations has been duly noted here or there, but so far we do not have anything that could be described as a ‘grammar of narrative voice’ in Ancient Greek. The present contribution cannot of course fill this gap. All it intends to do is, firstly, to draw attention to the gap, and thus to serve as a reminder not to forget both possibilities and constraints of the signifiantwhen we are trying to decode the signifié, and, secondly, to illustratewith one particular example that there is really something to be gained, even for those whose heartbeat does not normally quicken at the mention of the word ‘linguistics’. The topic to be focusedupon, the so-called ‘historical present’, is one that has been much debated in recent times by scholars interested in narrative ‘modes’ and the tense-aspect choices informing these modes.2 Quite naturally, therefore, much of what will be said below is indebted to other scholars. However, the relevance of these earlier studies to the history of narrative ‘voicing’ has not, it seems, been fully appreciated so far.

Further Thoughts on the Syntax of Il . 5.265-269

In response to a recent article by P. Probert on the same passage, it is argued that we need not assume that Il. 5.265-269 obliquely refers to an otherwise unknown ‘stud farm’ of Zeus if we want to maintain that the phenomenon of attractio relativi is only attested in post-Homeric times. The relative pronoun ἧς on which Probert’s reading is based should rather be understood as representing either a ‘descriptive’ genitive or, even more likely, an early instance of the genitive of price.

Ares the Ripper

Abstract In response to a recent derivation of the Greek theonym Ἄρης from a root *h₂reh₁‑, the present paper highlights some problems arising from this theory, notably the need to postulate an inversion of (the effects of) Stang’s Law in order to account for the well-attested Aeolic name variant Ἄρευς. These difficulties disappear if the theonym is taken to instantiate Stang’s Law itself and if an original root-noun nom. *h₂reu̯‑s and corresponding acc. *h₂reu̯‑m > *h₂rēm are posited, involving the root attested in Lat. ruere, Ved. rav‑, etc. Independent support for this view comes from the Old Latin Carmen Arvale, where the Roman war god Mars is addressed with the phrase ne uelue rue(m). The hitherto obscure acc. rue(m) surfacing here must be related to the Homeric acc. ἀρήν ‘destruction’ and reflect an analogical transformation of Proto-Italic acc. *(h₂)rēm. More speculatively, it is asked if the root *h₂reu̯(H)‑ thus identified could not ultimately also be connected with *h₂erh₃‑ ‘to plough’, via Schwebeablaut and some phonological and morphological effects of building PIE u̯‑presents and u̯‑presents.

nósos and "hósíe": etymological and sociocultural observations on the concept of disease and divine (dis)favour in ancient Greece

After a brief discussion of earlier etymological theories, this article proposes a new analysis of the Greek noun ??s?? �disease� as a possessive compound *n-osw-os �not having *(h1)osu�, the second constituent of which is cognate with Hitt. assu �well-being�; just like the latter, Greek ??s?? are characteristically sent or removed by divinities. Moreover, the reconstruction of an abstract noun *(h1)osu �well-being (resulting from divine favour)� can serve as the etymological basis for the somewhat obscure Greek notion of ?s??, which refers to the state of something that is endowed with such *(h1)osu; in fact, phraseological parallelisms between texts from various parts of the Greek world as well as ancient Anatolia point to a common conceptual framework behind all these words.

Poétique au seuil de l'alexandrinisme : l'idylle 16 de Théocrite

L�idylle 16 de Theocrite est souvent consideree comme eloge ou poeme solliciteur adresse a Hieron II de Syracuse. Cependant, l�existence d�un double titre, Charites ou Hieron, suggere qu�une telle lecture n�atteint pas au caractere fondamental du poeme. L�analyse de la fonction des charites a l�interieur du texte et la comparaison avec la poesie d�eloges avant Theocrite revelent plutot que l�idylle essaie de definir le role social du poete dans la societe grecque (et sicilienne) post-classique. A la difference de ses contemporains a Alexandrie, Theocrite ne defend pas le concept de « l�art pour l�art », mais, en utilisant les memes strategies d�allusion, il justifie des idees plus traditionnelles quant a la fonction du poete et de la poesie. Par l�adoption de cette position mediatrice, l�idylle 16 represente un maillon important dans le developpement de la poesie grecque entre l�âge classique et l�hellenisme.