The variation and change of the complex architecture of verbal periphrases in ancient Greek have long baffled scientists from different perspectives and research methods. Even the fundamental question of the classification of these periphrases and the problem of hierarchizing the defining criteria for them have been largely debated and to date remain unresolved. One of the main issues that are crucial to the understanding of verbal periphrases in ancient Greek, in either synchrony or diachrony, is the interaction between structural principles and sociolinguistic factors, including contact phenomena. This volume provides us with an innovative model for periphrastic constructions that comprises these various domains in a unitary and coherent account. εἶναι periphrases and the related participial constructions in post-classical Greek are the subject of this research, which has a focus on biblical Greek; nonetheless, the theoretical and typological achievements of this study have a broad scope, so much so that they can contribute fundamentally to the understanding of periphrases involving different verbs, not only in ancient Greek, but also in other, even different languages. This book offers new insights into a question at the center of the scientific debate and is of interest for scholars from various disciplines and fields of research, from historical to typological linguistics, from philology to history of religions, and even to oriental studies, as it also contains a brilliant analysis of the interference of Hebrew and Aramaic (including Syriac) with ancient Greek and an insightful explanation of the functions and the distribution of the Semitic participle. The strengths of this book are numerous, as it clearly reconstructs fundamental pieces of a complex picture and provides an accurate and deep explanation of the various factors involved in it, as well as of their interaction, variation, and change. I will mention only some of the merits and the important outcomes of this study, which will give an idea of its deep perspective and detailed analyses. By combining theoretical and typological tools with socio-historical approach, this book unravels the principles underlying the variability of periphrastic constructions in biblical Greek, on both formal and functional grounds, by clearly disentangling structural factors from Semitic interference and lucidly accounting for the interplay between oral and written dimensions. This study gains a keen understanding of the complex relationship between periphrasticity and grammaticalization, by exploiting the perspective of the interface between morphosyntactic and semantic categories. An accurate and thorough investigation into the morphological, syntactic, and semantic features of εἶναι periphrases and participial constructions, using qualitative and quantitative methods, allows the Author to discover a series of systematic correlations between the temporal, aspectual, and actional categories crucially involved in the examined constructions, as well as between periphrasticity and transitivity. The book also contains a sharp explanation of the relationship between these categories, which are fruitfully analyzed by considering their multifactorial and graded nature. This book originally combines in-depth reflections on the most advanced theoretical achievements and typological observations with a rigorous linguistic and philological investigation into a remarkably large corpus, which comprises both literary and non-literary texts. The accurate and clearly organized Appendix, which includes all the examined occurrences and their translations, constitutes a privileged tool for any further research in this field. The results of this study provide a clear, coherent, and unifying account for the identification, classification, and understanding of εἶναι periphrases and participial constructions in biblical Greek, by including all their possible combinations. Moreover, they offer a fundamental contribution to clarifying crucial questions relating to the participle category, as well as to the curious case of the verb “to be”, which remains one of the still unsolved puzzles of linguistic science. In conclusion, this book not only constitutes an important piece of knowledge in historical linguistics, as it contributes significantly to the understanding of the principles and patterns of language variation and change, but also contains clear answers to a series of philological questions and provides new evidence on theoretical and typological issues that have a pivotal role in language sciences.
Preface to E. Nardi, The ‘εἶναι + participle’ periphrasis and related participial constructions in biblical Greek
DOMENICA ROMAGNO
2025-01-01
Abstract
The variation and change of the complex architecture of verbal periphrases in ancient Greek have long baffled scientists from different perspectives and research methods. Even the fundamental question of the classification of these periphrases and the problem of hierarchizing the defining criteria for them have been largely debated and to date remain unresolved. One of the main issues that are crucial to the understanding of verbal periphrases in ancient Greek, in either synchrony or diachrony, is the interaction between structural principles and sociolinguistic factors, including contact phenomena. This volume provides us with an innovative model for periphrastic constructions that comprises these various domains in a unitary and coherent account. εἶναι periphrases and the related participial constructions in post-classical Greek are the subject of this research, which has a focus on biblical Greek; nonetheless, the theoretical and typological achievements of this study have a broad scope, so much so that they can contribute fundamentally to the understanding of periphrases involving different verbs, not only in ancient Greek, but also in other, even different languages. This book offers new insights into a question at the center of the scientific debate and is of interest for scholars from various disciplines and fields of research, from historical to typological linguistics, from philology to history of religions, and even to oriental studies, as it also contains a brilliant analysis of the interference of Hebrew and Aramaic (including Syriac) with ancient Greek and an insightful explanation of the functions and the distribution of the Semitic participle. The strengths of this book are numerous, as it clearly reconstructs fundamental pieces of a complex picture and provides an accurate and deep explanation of the various factors involved in it, as well as of their interaction, variation, and change. I will mention only some of the merits and the important outcomes of this study, which will give an idea of its deep perspective and detailed analyses. By combining theoretical and typological tools with socio-historical approach, this book unravels the principles underlying the variability of periphrastic constructions in biblical Greek, on both formal and functional grounds, by clearly disentangling structural factors from Semitic interference and lucidly accounting for the interplay between oral and written dimensions. This study gains a keen understanding of the complex relationship between periphrasticity and grammaticalization, by exploiting the perspective of the interface between morphosyntactic and semantic categories. An accurate and thorough investigation into the morphological, syntactic, and semantic features of εἶναι periphrases and participial constructions, using qualitative and quantitative methods, allows the Author to discover a series of systematic correlations between the temporal, aspectual, and actional categories crucially involved in the examined constructions, as well as between periphrasticity and transitivity. The book also contains a sharp explanation of the relationship between these categories, which are fruitfully analyzed by considering their multifactorial and graded nature. This book originally combines in-depth reflections on the most advanced theoretical achievements and typological observations with a rigorous linguistic and philological investigation into a remarkably large corpus, which comprises both literary and non-literary texts. The accurate and clearly organized Appendix, which includes all the examined occurrences and their translations, constitutes a privileged tool for any further research in this field. The results of this study provide a clear, coherent, and unifying account for the identification, classification, and understanding of εἶναι periphrases and participial constructions in biblical Greek, by including all their possible combinations. Moreover, they offer a fundamental contribution to clarifying crucial questions relating to the participle category, as well as to the curious case of the verb “to be”, which remains one of the still unsolved puzzles of linguistic science. In conclusion, this book not only constitutes an important piece of knowledge in historical linguistics, as it contributes significantly to the understanding of the principles and patterns of language variation and change, but also contains clear answers to a series of philological questions and provides new evidence on theoretical and typological issues that have a pivotal role in language sciences.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
