5. Archaic Inscriptions before 650 BC A collection of the earliest inscriptions down to 650 BC is conveniently found in Powell 1991:119–186. [1] In this chapter I review the linguistic evidence they contribute and confirm that it agrees with the chronology established above. I will only comment on features that are relevant to my inquiry and will largely pass in silence over the ones that are unproblematic. Read more
6. Early Homeric Scholarship and Editions In this section I wish to examine two arguments for an early, sixth-century written fixation of the Homeric poems. One has an Athenian emphasis, as we might expect from the evolutionary model. This model posits a definitive textual stage for the Iliad and the Odyssey, centralized in Athens, from the middle of the sixth century to the middle of the fourth,… Read more
I.7 Particle index ἀλλά as priming act in Her. 8.108.4 IV.5 §63 marking dispreferred responses in A., S., E., and Ar. III.4 §54 reflecting explicitly subjective discourse in A., S., E., and Ar. III.2 §§64-68 ἄρα accessing the discourse memory in Hom. II.4 §§38-41, §§50-53; II.5 §§51-62 distribution in A., S., E., and Ar. III.2 §96 marking epistemic stance in… Read more
Index Locorum Aelius Herodianus General Prosody 515-520: I.2§78n164. Aeschylus Agamemnon 10: III.2§52n121, 14: III.2§53n124, 32: III.2§52n121, 76: III.2§54n130, 105: III.2§52n121, 122: III.2§24n46, 134: III.2§52n122, 154: III.2§52n122, 192: III.2§24n46, 205: III.2§24n46, 214: III.2§52n122, 218: III.2§24n46, 222: III.2§54n130, 228: III.2§24n46, 248: III.2§24n46, 254: III.2§54n130, 259: III.2§52n121, 264: III.4§29n56, 267: III.2§53n124, 268: III.4§46n108, 268: III.5§44n80, 269: III.2§85n201, 269: III.4§42n95, 270: III.4§48n114, 271: III.2§56n134, 274: III.4§35n70, 275-281: III.3§91t22, 276: III.2§85n201, 278: IV.2§104n166, 278: III.4§35n70,… Read more
II.1 Introduction §1. Homer and Pindar [1] represent the earliest and most important poetic genres of Archaic and Classical Greece: epic and lyric. Similar to drama, epic and lyric performance was social, interactive, and often ritual. There was a rhythm to Homeric epic and a melody to Pindaric song that is lost to us, which can at best be approximated with the aid of meter. Read more
II.2 Discourse acts: The domain of particle analysis §1. The present chapter builds on the discussion of discourse segmentation set out in IV.3, so to facilitate understanding I briefly summarize the ideas set out there, where the reader may find a fuller discussion and references. In ancient philosophy and rhetoric, language was described in terms of períodoi, kôla, and kómmata. All three terms are hard to define, and our understanding… Read more
II.3 Moves: Particles at discourse transitions §1. The present chapter builds directly on chapter II.2 and presupposes knowledge of its main points; our understanding of discourse acts is summarized in II.2.1.2. Greek particles reflect the production of discourse in cognitively manageable units – discourse acts – which are the building blocks of epic and lyric compositions. The analysis in II.2 reveals how a performer or author produces his work in… Read more
II.4 Discourse Memory: The negotiation of shared knowledge §1. In the present chapter I discuss language that refers to the level of interaction not overtly, but through indirect means. This language is not self-referential, but rather marks the relation of the performer to the content in a manner that reveals his expectations about the knowledge of the audience. We are concerned here with the dimension of shared experience, shared knowledge,… Read more
II.5 Particles and Anaphoric Reference: A discourse perspective on particles with third-person pronouns §1. In ancient Greek, pronouns and particles have a special relationship: the two are often found together and intrinsically connected. They are not only frequently adjacent, but they work together to guide the discourse, and may even form a single unit. II.2 demonstrates how the Homeric and Pindaric performers produce their discourse piecemeal, each piece adding a… Read more
I.3 Approaches to particles and discourse markers Annemieke Drummen 3.1 Introduction §1. I.2 offers an overview of the scholarship on Greek particles up to the beginning of the Renaissance. The first authors in this period who paid considerable attention to the description of Greek words were Budaeus (Budé) in his Commentarii Linguae Graecae from 1529, and Stephanus (Estienne) in his 1572 Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Devarius, a Greek scholar working in… Read more
