Pragmatic Function and Meaning of Ancient Greek Particles

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The research project is focused on the multiple functions and meanings of particles in ancient Greek literary works selected from epic, melic and dramatic poetry as well as from historiographical prose. Particles are complex and problematic linguistic features, because they typically do not contribute to the propositional content of the sentences containing them and they serve more than one communicative function. Yet, they are quite numerous, and, most of all, they are largely employed in several ancient Indo-European languages, particularly in ancient Greek. A systematic account of the ancient Greek ones in the light of contemporary views on particles in modern languages, from disciplines such as Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis is still missing. This project aims to start filling the gap in that direction, by assembling a monograph that explores meanings and uses of particles in landmark texts of archaic and early classical Greek literature. The choice of the corpus is meant to capture features that may either be similar or differ across different genres, on the one hand, and features comparable to those of other old Indo-European particles, on the other hand. The discourse analysis-based reading aims at highlighting recurring as well as distinctive features, and will contribute to a better understanding of the overall meaning of the texts.