The development of U+03B5U+1F51U+03C1U+03AFU+03C3U+03BAU+03C9 U+2018findU+2019 as evidence towards a diachronic solution of the matching-problem in Ancient Greek complementation

Subtitle:The development of epsilon nu rho Iota sigma kappa omega 'find' as evidence towards a diachronic solution of the matching-problem in ancient Greek complementation

This paper traces the semantic and constructional development of the complement-taking verb U+03B5U+1F51U+03C1U+03AFU+03C3U+03BAU+03C9 U+2018findU+2019 from Homeric Greek to Post-Classical Greek. First, the paper details the semantic development of U+03B5U+1F51U+03C1U+03AFU+03C3U+03BAU+03C9 using characteristics such as predicate type, semantic role of the subject and factivity. Subsequently, explanations are offered for the constructional development of U+03B5U+1F51U+03C1U+03AFU+03C3U+03BAU+03C9, using insights from grammaticalization research such as reanalysis and analogy. In contrast to previous studies on Ancient Greek complementation which support the idea of a systematic Classical Greek opposition of factive participial versus non-factive infinitival complementation, this paper shows how bridging contexts of mental judgment U+03B5U+1F51U+03C1U+03AFU+03C3U+03BAU+03C9 with a participial complement do not follow this opposition as they are non-factive and changed their meaning (with reanalysis) before changing their complementation structure (through analogy). Also, by extending our view to the individual history of other cognitive predicates (U+1F10U+03C0U+1F77U+03C3U+03C4U+03B1U+03BCU+03B1U+03B9, U+03B3U+03B9U+03B3U+03BDU+1F7DU+03C3U+03BAU+03C9 and U+03BFU+1F36U+03B4U+03B1) the author shows that other cognitive predicates undergo similar developments from factive+object to factive+ ACP to non-factive+ACI, although their individual histories are still in need of a systematic diachronic account. Thus, complementation patterns per period could be analysed in a more fine-grained way by analysing complementation patterns bottom-up from the semantic and constructional evolutions of individual predicates. Also, the findings from this paper provide evidence towards a diachronic solution of the so-called matching-problem: diachronically related semantic and constructional stages strongly motivate the choice of a specific complementation structure but absolute factivity oppositions in Classical Greek complementation are rather strong tendencies.

Publication year:2020

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