Going nominal : the Ancient Greek articular infinitive between syntax and context
- Author
- Klaas Bentein (UGent)
- Organization
- Project
-
- EVWRIT (Everyday Writing in Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt (I - VIII AD). A Socio-Semiotic Study of Communicative Variation)
- Abstract
- In this contribution, I consider the (prepositional) articular infinitive from the complementary perspectives of ‘syntax’ and ‘context’, on the basis of a corpus of documentary papyri. Syntactically speaking, the construction has been said to become increasingly nominal in the Post-classical period; using syntactic criteria drawn from typological studies, I argue that the articular infinitive retains its verbal character in the papyri, and is thus best considered ‘verbo-nominal’ instead. There are, in fact, signs of a reanalysis of the constituent parts of the construction (article, preposition and infinitive), giving it an increasingly verbal profile. In the second part of the contribution, I connect these syntactic observations to the contextual usage of the articular infinitive, arguing that it is beneficial to consider the use of the construction from the perspectives of ‘sentence context’, ‘discourse context’, and ‘social context’. Rather than being used exclusively as a grammatical avoidance strategy – that is, to avoid complex participial agreement patterns – such a threefold consideration reveals the semiotic potential of the construction.
- Keywords
- subordination, complementation, ancient greek, grammatical metaphor, articular infinitive
Downloads
-
(...).pdf
- full text (Author's original)
- |
- UGent only
- |
- |
- 18.75 MB
Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-01J26R0CN9BJMBRE2H1BESJ0K1
- MLA
- Bentein, Klaas. “Going Nominal : The Ancient Greek Articular Infinitive between Syntax and Context.” Subordination and Insubordination in Post-Classical Greek : From Syntax to Context, edited by Klaas Bentein et al., vol. 6, De Gruyter, 2025, pp. 1–41.
- APA
- Bentein, K. (2025). Going nominal : the Ancient Greek articular infinitive between syntax and context. In K. Bentein, E. Cattafi, & E. la Roi (Eds.), Subordination and insubordination in Post-Classical Greek : from syntax to context (Vol. 6, pp. 1–41). Berlin: De Gruyter.
- Chicago author-date
- Bentein, Klaas. 2025. “Going Nominal : The Ancient Greek Articular Infinitive between Syntax and Context.” In Subordination and Insubordination in Post-Classical Greek : From Syntax to Context, edited by Klaas Bentein, Eleonora Cattafi, and Ezra la Roi, 6:1–41. Berlin: De Gruyter.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Bentein, Klaas. 2025. “Going Nominal : The Ancient Greek Articular Infinitive between Syntax and Context.” In Subordination and Insubordination in Post-Classical Greek : From Syntax to Context, ed by. Klaas Bentein, Eleonora Cattafi, and Ezra la Roi, 6:1–41. Berlin: De Gruyter.
- Vancouver
- 1.Bentein K. Going nominal : the Ancient Greek articular infinitive between syntax and context. In: Bentein K, Cattafi E, la Roi E, editors. Subordination and insubordination in Post-Classical Greek : from syntax to context. Berlin: De Gruyter; 2025. p. 1–41.
- IEEE
- [1]K. Bentein, “Going nominal : the Ancient Greek articular infinitive between syntax and context,” in Subordination and insubordination in Post-Classical Greek : from syntax to context, vol. 6, K. Bentein, E. Cattafi, and E. la Roi, Eds. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025, pp. 1–41.
@incollection{01J26R0CN9BJMBRE2H1BESJ0K1,
abstract = {{In this contribution, I consider the (prepositional) articular infinitive from the complementary perspectives of ‘syntax’ and ‘context’, on the basis of a corpus of documentary papyri. Syntactically speaking, the construction has been said to become increasingly nominal in the Post-classical period; using syntactic criteria drawn from typological studies, I argue that the articular infinitive retains its verbal character in the papyri, and is thus best considered ‘verbo-nominal’ instead. There are, in fact, signs of a reanalysis of the constituent parts of the construction (article, preposition and infinitive), giving it an increasingly verbal profile. In the second part of the contribution, I connect these syntactic observations to the contextual usage of the articular infinitive, arguing that it is beneficial to consider the use of the construction from the perspectives of ‘sentence context’, ‘discourse context’, and ‘social context’. Rather than being used exclusively as a grammatical avoidance strategy – that is, to avoid complex participial agreement patterns – such a threefold consideration reveals the semiotic potential of the construction.}},
author = {{Bentein, Klaas}},
booktitle = {{Subordination and insubordination in Post-Classical Greek : from syntax to context}},
editor = {{Bentein, Klaas and Cattafi, Eleonora and la Roi, Ezra}},
isbn = {{9783111179124}},
issn = {{2940-6374}},
keywords = {{subordination,complementation,ancient greek,grammatical metaphor,articular infinitive}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{1--41}},
publisher = {{De Gruyter}},
series = {{Trends in Classics – Greek and Latin Linguistics}},
title = {{Going nominal : the Ancient Greek articular infinitive between syntax and context}},
volume = {{6}},
year = {{2025}},
}