The International Colloquia on Ancient Greek Linguistics (ICAGL), initiated in 1983, each have a central theme but are open to all areas of Greek linguistics; after merging in 2015 with another series of international conferences on Ancient Greek linguistics, they have become the regular venue for all scholars working in the field, without any restriction of approach. This means that a wide variety of topics and approaches are addressed, reflecting the current discussions in the discipline. This volume brings together contributions presented at the ninth ICAGL (Helsinki 2018). The central theme was language contact and the consideration of original documents. The organisers and editors, themselves actively involved in this perspective, emphasise this dimension. However, this does not reflect the majority of the contributions: sixteen contributions out of twenty-six (not twenty-nine as stated in the introduction) deal with Greek linguistics in general.
All the articles are in English, except two (in German and French). From an editorial point of view, the volume is provided with useful indexes (of ancient sources, names, places, subjects and words). The proceedings were published quickly (also online: http://scientiarum.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/139-Commentationes-Humanarum-Litterarum.pdf). However, a list of works cited for the brief introduction is lacking, as are the abstracts of all the chapters (with one exception). Few readers will read the book from cover to cover, but the overall structure is neither very clear nor consistent: Part 1 is dedicated to ‘Greek in Contact’, Part 2 to ‘Discourse Analysis’ (surprisingly distinguished from pragmatics), Part 3 to ‘Morphology and Syntax’, Part 4 to ‘Modality, Semantics, and Pragmatics’ (three categories that cannot belong to the same level). Since a detailed discussion of each article is precluded here for lack of space, I will not consider them systematically in the order in which they occur in the volume in order to underline the links between them.
The thematic focus of the volume, language contact between ancient Greek and other languages, is tackled by eight contributions. P. Dardano examines the ‘accusative of respect’ (the type ὃ δὲ φρένα τέρπετ’ ἀκούων): she describes its characteristics and shows that the same ones hold for Hittite data, allowing her to conclude that ‘in Homeric Greek [it] is a syntactic feature, which is significantly influenced by contacts within the Anatolian linguistic area’ (p. 25). Contact with Anatolian is also central to F. Dedè's article. Greek adverbs in -ινδα are rare and denote games (e.g. κρυπτίνδα ‘hide and seek’). Dedè proposes a convincing scenario involving contact with Lydian names of games, facilitated by the existence of Greek adverbs in -ίνδην. Moving to Egypt and the Zenon Archive, T. Evans questions the view that ‘Egyptian’ Greek was always substandard. A comparison with the everyday writing of the place and time is thus needed, a difficult task that is still open to further research. In a detailed paper, ‘Phrasal Verbs in a Corpus of Post-Classical Greek Letters from Egypt’, V. Fendel examines whether the syntactic structure known as ‘tmesis’ in Homeric Greek (i.e. the combination of a base verb and a second element) existed in post-classical Greek. After a precise analysis (the catalogue of instances on pp. 85–9 is particularly useful) Fendel concludes: ‘some may be instances of bilingual interference from Coptic, and some may be lexical expressions in their own right’ (p. 83). Dealing also with syntax, L. Tronci discusses syntactic structures of the type καὶ ἐγένετο, which are clause-opening formulae in New Testament Greek and known to be calqued on Biblical Hebrew. She shows convincingly that the calque was made possible by the syntax of γίνομαι in NT Greek, where it can be used to focus on a newly introduced event.
All these articles explore how language contact explains certain phenomena in ancient Greek; in the case of contact, however, the influence can work in both directions. C. Katsikadeli and V. Slepoy study Greek loanwords in the earliest rabbinic commentary on the Book of Genesis: they give a survey of the relevant types of borrowings and draw up a programme for further research. Using a text from the same period (early fifth century ce), D. Kölligan studies Greek loanwords in classical Armenian, which allows him to state more precisely the varieties of Greek that Armenian borrowed from (with a possible role of Iranian and Syriac as intermediate languages). Focusing on the analysis of two bilingual funerary epigrams from the third century ce, E. Merisio discusses curse formulae in Neo-Phrygian and the interaction with Greek.
Four contributions pertain mainly to morphology. In a short paper R. Ginevra proposes an etymology for ποταμός, involving Greek Τηθῡ́ς (‘mother of all rivers’) and Proto-Indo-European *kṷeth2- (‘foam, seethe’) in the reconstruction. Dealing with verbal morphology, L. Melazzo studies the variation between the reduplicated and non-reduplicated forms κλύθι-/τε vs κέκλυθι/-τε and claims that the reduplicated forms in Homer are markers of ‘pluriactionality’ for a multiplicity of events (on a similar idea, see D. Kölligan, ‘Κέκλυθι/-τε’, Glotta 94 [2018], 203–12). In a rich paper A. Revuelta Puigdollers shows the relevance of preverbation outside the morphological domain: preverbed verbs in μετα- fall into two groups that are of a different semantic nature (‘change place’ and ‘possess partially’) and are also associated with different constructions. A wide field is opened up by the conclusion: ‘the lexical information about preverbs … can be formalized and transferred from the lexical component of the language to its grammar’ (p. 380). In a convincing article J. de la Villa renews the traditional understanding of the derivation of verbal nouns in -σις: not all verbs can be used as a derivational basis (there are clear restrictions); and the suffix does have a meaning, basically ‘action’.
Only three contributions in the volume focus on syntax. In a paper written in German S. Agliardi explores whether metrics allowed possible exchanges between plural and dual forms in Hesiod and determines that the use of dual is far from free in these texts. G. Bucci analyses absolute uses of nominatives where a vocative is expected and vocatives according to a division between phatic and expressive functions (strangely enough, the use of the article in one of these structures and what it implies for the interpretation is not mentioned). E. Ruiz Yamuza explores the uses of non-subordinated ὥστε clauses in the light of the notion of ‘insubordination’ developed for typological studies. Her study shows that this use of ὥστε is more frequent and diverse than is usually acknowledged.
In the semantic domain, three contributions deal with unaugmented Homeric forms (i.e. remnants of the Indo-European injunctive). F. De Decker illustrates an idea developed in previous studies, i.e. that by using augmented forms the speakers ‘do not only relate [the event], but also state it as a fact and reaffirm its value’ (p. 464), with new passages. Many scholars will find the brief description of the state of the art (pp. 449–56) useful. S. Rodeghiero argues that the augment in Homeric narration specifies the reference time. From a different perspective, A. Bartolotta and D. Kölligan study how epistemic modality is expressed in relation to unaugmented aorists and imperfects, which are underspecified with respect to modality, in counterfactual constructions. The idea is promising, but the conclusion is supported by a very small number of passages.
Two other articles deal with the intrication of tense, aspect and modality, in the case of optatives. Studying the counterfactual use of optatives in Homer, R. Taylor argues that the optative ‘is a means of balancing the difficulties of making present counterfactuals’ (p. 529). Whether the examples quoted are a sample of a wider corpus or the only relevant examples to support this interesting claim is not clear from the discussion. Building on Homeric data, A. Lillo suggests a new interpretation of the oblique optative and questions the fact that the mood is best explained in terms of consecutio modorum. In Homer the oblique optative is not used mainly in object-clauses but in other clauses with an inferential meaning. If this situation accounts for the origin of the oblique optative, an epistemic meaning (assumed by the consecutio modorum) would only be secondary.
Five articles can be grouped under the heading of pragmatics. In a short article exploring the distance between a verb and its object, A. Pardal Padín looks at the metrical analysis of verse texts, showing a strong tendency to keep the verb and the object in the same intonational unit, with differences according to the case marking.
Another important topic for Greek pragmatics is particles, which have been intensively studied for decades without scholars reaching full agreement. For δή, which is particularly elusive, R.J. Allan proposes a solution that builds on several of his earlier studies. Two well-accepted but different approaches see δή as a particle that (a) emphasises or draws attention to what is said, (b) indicates that what is said is presumed to be evident to the addressee. On the basis of a corpus study of Thucydides’ work, Allan argues that the notion of common ground (i.e. background information that is presupposed by the interlocutors), coming from the philosophy of language, can explain these two main meanings. On a rather similar corpus, R. Martínez focuses on the alleged backgrounding or subordinating function of γάρ: this meaning is relevant only in narrative text sequences, where it is highly context-dependent, and exhibits differences depending on whether it is used in a parenthesis or not.
The linguistic expression of interaction between interlocutors is at the core of the pragmatic approach. In an exploratory paper written in French, F. Lambert gives a survey of the different agreement strategies in Platonic dialogues. S. Rodríguez Piedrabuena explores Euripidean suppliant scenes: building on a typology of politeness strategies she sketches the linguistic characterisation of the different characters involved. The discussion leads to a consideration of overpoliteness and its use with impolite intention. In the last paper of the volume M. Zinzi studies the illocutionary force of the formulae uttered in a special case of defixiones (‘prayers for justice’). The pragmatic account of non-literary texts where speech acts are constitutive of the genre is particularly welcome.
An overall evaluation of this kind of volume is almost impossible: there is a wide variety of topics and approaches, and some papers are more original and cogently argued than others. These proceedings constitute a useful collection of papers reflecting some current trends in ancient Greek linguistics.
