Ancient Greek has at its disposal a complex system of negatives (n-words and negators) that can combine in different ways. Drawing on Xenophon's works, I will show various patterns reflecting the combinations of negatives (negator and n-words) in Ancient Greek sentences; due to its relatively free word order, the place of negative elements may vary considerably. I pay special attention to n-words and negative spread, which is markedly developed in Ancient Greek, and examine the differences between non-strict negative concord languages (like Italian and Spanish) and specific non-strict negative concord languages (like Ancient Greek), arguing for scalar properties of negation.
negative concord; Xenophon; Ancient Greek; specific non-strict negative concord language; negative spread; combinations of negatives; negative polarity items
This study was supported by the Charles University project Progres Q10, Language in the shiftings of time, space, and culture.
[1] Basile, N., & Radici Colace, P. (2001). Sintassi storica del greco antico (2. ed.). Bari: Levante editori.
[2] Crespo, E. et al. (2003). Sintaxis del griego clásico. Madrid: Gredos.
[3] Chatzopoulou, K. (2019). Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek. New York: OUP.
[4] Denizot, C. (2011). Des différentes manières de dire "jamais" en grec ancient: L'emploi de pote ou de po:pote. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, CVI, 183–220.
[5] Denizot, C. (2012). La double négation et le tour οὐδεὶς οὐκ ἦλθεν. Revue de Philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes, 86(2), 65–90.
[6] Denizot, C. (2013). Deux coordinations négatives en grec ancien: différences sémantiques et pragmatiques entre oute et oude. In J. François, P. Larrivée, D. Legallois, & F. Neveu (Eds.), La linguistique de la contradiction (pp. 33–51). Bruxelles: Peter Lang.
[7] Giannakidou, A. (2006). N-words and negative concord. In M. Everaert et al. (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to Syntax (Vol. III, chap. 45; pp. 327–391). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
[8] Giannakidou, A. (2011). Negative and positive polarity items. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning (Vol. II; pp. 1660–1712). Berlin: De Gruyter.
[11] Herburger, E. (2001).
The negative concord puzzle revisited. Natural language Semantics, 9, 289–333. |
DOI 10.1023/A:1014205526722
[12] Horrocks, G. (2014).
Ouk Ísmen Oudén: Negative Concord and Negative Polarity in the History of Greek. Journal of Greek Linguistics, 14, 43–83. |
DOI 10.1163/15699846-01401003
[13] Humbert, J. (1972). Syntaxe grecque. Paris: Klincksieck.
[14] Kühner, R., & Gerth, B. (1904). Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache (Vol. II, 2). Hannover – Leipzig: Hahnsche Buchhandlung.
[15] Laka, I. 1990. Negation in Syntax: On the Nature of Functional Categories and Projections. Ph.D. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[16] Lambert, F. (2012). Oude en grec ancien, du pareil au même. Linguarum varietas, no 1, 99–109.
[18] Montanari, F. et al. (2015). The Brill dictionary of ancient Greek. Leiden: Brill.
[19] Moorhouse, A. C. (1959). Studies in the Greek Negatives. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
[20] Muchnová, D. (in prep.). Negative spread in Ancient Greek.
[21] Muchnová, D. (2016). Negation in Ancient Greek: a typological approach. Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 21(2), 195–212.
[22] Penka, D., & Zeijlstra, H. (2010).
Negation and polarity: an introduction. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 28, 771–786. |
DOI 10.1007/s11049-010-9114-0
[25] Schwyzer, E., & Debrunner, A. (1950). Griechische Grammatik, II: Syntax und syntaktische Stilistik. München: C. H. Beck.
[26] Smyth, H. W. (1984). Greek grammar (revised by G. M. Messing). Harvard: University Press.
[27]
TLG (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae). A Digital Library of Greek Literature. University of California [available from
http://www.tlg.uci.edu/].
[28] Willis, D. et al. (2013). Indefinites: Basic concepts. In D. Willis et al. (Eds.), The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean (Vol. I; pp. 27–35). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[29] Willmott, J. (2013). Negation in the history of Greek. In D. Willis et al. (Eds.), The History of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean (Vol. I; pp. 299–340). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[30] Zeijlstra, H. (2004). Sentential negation and negative concord. Utrecht: LOT/ACLC.