@article{8613132,
  abstract     = {Much attention has been paid to {\textquoteleft}deictic shifts{\textquoteright} or shifts in perspective in Ancient Greek literary texts: studies have drawn attention, for example, to switches from indirect to direct speech, causing a particular narrative effect. In this article, I show that similar phenomena can be found in documentary texts. Contracts in particular display unexpected shifts from the first to the third person or vice versa. Rather than constituting a narrative technique, I argue that such shifts should be related to the existence of two major types of stylization, called the {\textquoteleft}objective{\textquoteright} and the {\textquoteleft}subjective{\textquoteright} style, which are associated with the third and the first person respectively. In objectively styled contracts, subjective intrusions may occur as a result of the scribe temporarily assuming himself to be the deictic center, whereas in subjectively styled contracts objective intrusions may occur as a result of the contracting parties dictating to the scribe, and the scribe not modifying the personal references. There are also a couple of texts which display more extensive deictic alter-nations, which suggests that generic confusion between the two major types of stylization may have played a role. This study is based on all contracts contained within so-called {\textquoteleft}archives{\textquoteright} and focuses on the Roman period, a time during which both types of stylization were common. },
  author       = {Bentein, Klaas},
  issn         = {0031-7985 },
  journal      = {PHILOLOGUS},
  language     = {eng},
  title        = {Deictic shifting in Greek contractual writing},
  url          = {https://research.flw.ugent.be/nl/projects/everyday-writing-graeco-roman-and-late-antique-egypt-i-\%E2\%80\%93-viii-ad-socio-semiotic-study},
  year         = {2019},
}