Ezra la Roi | Ghent University (original) (raw)

Papers by Ezra la Roi

Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 2024

Though the Atticist lexica have often been seen as 'codifying' a prestige variety, there have bee... more Though the Atticist lexica have often been seen as 'codifying' a prestige variety, there have been very few studies of the specific ways in which Atticist lexica linguistically establish and accord overt prestige, i.e. a higher perceived social status of language use as recognized explicitly within a community. Therefore, we demonstrate that impersonal deontic modal expressions (forms of δεῖ and χρή) are used by the Atticist lexicographers in three ways to record usage norms with overt prestige: (1) report norms with overt prestige (incl. via negative association with social groups), (2) construct norms with overt prestige, and (3) negotiate norms with overt prestige. Our findings attest to a significant diversity within Atticist lexicography with regard to overt prestige: Aelius Dionysius and Pausanias (based on the limited material) seem to almost exclusively report norms, whereas Phrynichus reports, constructs and negotiates norms, and the Antiatticist exclusively (re)negotiates norms.

Journal of Greek Linguistics, 2024

In this paper, I trace the impact of insubordination and semi-insubordination on the history of G... more In this paper, I trace the impact of insubordination and semi-insubordination on the history of Greek, focusing on its impact on the modal system used to express speech acts. Starting from the cross-linguistic connections of insubordinate and semi-insubordinate ἵνα and να constructions with those found in other languages, I show that ἵνα only had subordinate usages in Classical Greek (including in dyadic syntactic contexts), but developed insubordinate usages for directive and wish speech acts in Post-Classical Greek. In Medieval Greek, insubordinate να spreads pragmatically to other speech acts, e.g. to exclamatives, interrogatives and various assertives (e.g. counterfactual apodoses or double negative declaratives). In Modern Greek, insubordinate να has obtained novel usages in interrogative speech acts too and gained paradigmatic strength as it competes with the imperative and the future. Semi-insubordinate patterns are first developed in Medieval Greek (with ἴσως νὰ + main verb) but spread formally and functionally to other parts of the modal system, expressing epistemic possibility, probability, counterfactuality and avertives.

Indogermanische Forschungen, 2024

In this article, I argue that the counterfactual function of the optative was inherited from Prot... more In this article, I argue that the counterfactual function of the optative was inherited from Proto-Indo-European and that its past-referring counterfactual function (e.g. in Vedic Sanskrit, Archaic Greek, and Gothic) seems to be the oldest preserved function of the optative in early Indo-European languages. In these and in languages where the optative underwent mood syncretism with other moods such as the subjunctive (e.g. Latin or Old English), the inherited counterfactual function extended its temporal reference to the non-past, following the life cycle of counterfactual markers. Over time, this mood, syncretized or not, lost its counterfactual function in most Indo-European descendants and was replaced by different mood formations at various speeds (typically by a past indicative or a past-like ‘conditional’ mood). First, I provide a functional history of the optative in Ancient Greek, from (1) past counterfactual to (2a) non-past counterfactual, and from there into (3a) non-past ‘hypothetical’ usage and from (1) past counterfactual into (2b) past habitual and (3b) past generic. Next, I internally reconstruct the developmental paths of the optative and its counterfactual replacements across Indo-European languages, concluding with a tentative diachronic typology of counterfactual mood strategies.

Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics, 2024

This article provides a research review of habituals in Ancient Greek (both for the Archaic and t... more This article provides a research review of habituals in Ancient Greek (both for the Archaic and the Classical period). First of all, the differences between habituality, iterativity and genericity are explained. Secondly, the linguistic strategies to express habituals are exemplified. Third and finally, I discuss some important open questions about the domain of habituality in Ancient Greek.

Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics, 2024

In this article I summarize the state-of-the-art with regards to counterfactuals in Post-Classica... more In this article I summarize the state-of-the-art with regards to counterfactuals in Post-Classical Greek. First, I define counterfactuals, detail how they are commonly developed and distributed across syntactic and pragmatic environments. Subsequently, I discuss the historical developments of counterfactuals described in existing literature.

Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics, 2024

This article summarizes the latest research on counterfactuals in Archaic and Classical Greek. Af... more This article summarizes the latest research on counterfactuals in Archaic and Classical Greek. After defining counterfactuality, I detail the diachronic origins as well as the syntactic and pragmatic distribution of counterfactuals. The article closes with a discussion of the main developments in the domain of counterfactuality.

Building Modality with Syntax. Focus on Ancient Greek, 2023

Ancient Greek has been said to have a form of morphosyntactic symmetry called mood attraction or ... more Ancient Greek has been said to have a form of morphosyntactic symmetry called mood attraction or mood assimilation where a subordinate clause was formally assimilated to the same mood as the matrix clause (i.e. an optative, indicative or subjunctive with certain temporal reference limitations). As counterproposal, this article uses a corpus study of Archaic (8th-5th century BCE) and Classical Greek (6th-4th century BCE) to demonstrate that this aspect of modal syntax is in fact pragmatically conditioned. Subordinate clauses in counterfactual mood attraction do not need the expected modal particle (an / ke(n)) because they obtain their counterfactuality via transfer of counterfactual implicature from the matrix clause. This transfer resembles how counterfactual matrix clauses receive counterfactual implicature from preceding counterfactual conditionals, because (i) transfer only takes place with temporally iconic subordinate clauses with a causal connection, (ii) the negative or positive polarity of the matrix clause is also transferred, and (iii) both the counterfactual optative (in Archaic) and indicative (in Archaic and Classical Greek) can be found in the matrix and subordinate clause, even asymmetrically in Archaic Greek. Furthermore, non-counterfactual mood symmetry with the optative or subjunctive is also pragmatically conditioned, as choosing a symmetrical mood in the subordinate clause has both a pragmatic and semantic motivation, just as when it is asymmetrically marked by mood in the so-called oblique optative.

Classical Philology, 2024

Grammars of ancient Greek usually mention past modal verbs in the imperfect (e.g., ἔδει or ἐχρῆν)... more Grammars of ancient Greek usually mention past modal verbs in the imperfect (e.g., ἔδει or ἐχρῆν) as an exception to general “rules” of tense, aspect, and temporal reference in ancient Greek. Though formally a past imperfect, they do not always refer to the real past, but also to, for example, the counterfactual past “he should have helped [but has not]” or present “you should be silent [but are not].” In this article, I provide one of the first comprehensive corpus studies of these modal verbs as a group (rather than a particular verb) and show how their synchronic variation actually reflects their diachronic developments in the counterfactual life cycle. I also explain how certain past modal verbs (viz. ἔδει and ἐχρῆν) develop post-counterfactual usages that refer to the non-past and why the modal particle is found with modal verbs as well as non-modal verbs.

Verbs of Thought and Speech. Pragmaticalization paths across languages. A. Pardal (ed.). John Benjamins, 2025

Conversation Analysis and Classics. Talk-in-Interaction in Greek and Latin Literature, R. Verano Liaño (ed.), Brill, 2025

Building Modality with Syntax. Focus on Ancient Greek, C. Denizot & L. Tronci (eds.). De Gruyter, 2023

Listy Filologicke 3-4, 263-306, 2022

This article argues for a typology of conditionals in Ancient Greek based on pragmatic rather tha... more This article argues for a typology of conditionals in Ancient Greek based on pragmatic rather than formal (e.g. mood) or semantic (e.g. temporal reference) criteria. It does so by proposing a novel pragmatic typology of conditionals with past tenses for Archaic and Classical Greek based on a corpus analysis of 973 conditionals. I distinguish 6 different pragmatic usages which generalize over mood and temporal variations: predictive, direct inferential, indirect inferential, illocutionary, metalinguistic and generic. They are distinguished by the pragmatic relationship between conditional and matrix clause and its direction, the illocutionary force of the matrix clause (e.g. declarative vs assertoric (rhetorical) question (wh-, yes-no, open)) and types of implicature (e.g. contradictory vs counterfactual). Despite some correlations with the pragmatic types such as order of p and q, pragmatic types cover multiple possible world distinctions based on formal marking such as mood or temporal reference; for example past tenses are used counterfactually but have different pragmatic usages, e.g. predictive, direct and indirect inferential or illocutionary, and temporal references, e.g. past and present. The diachrony of these conditionals also cuts across the pragmatic types, since direct inferential conditionals are a starting point for the replacement of the counterfactual optative by the counterfactual indicative (la Roi 2022c), and generic conditionals with a past tense start to replace the so-called ‘iterative’ optative in Classical Greek and replace it in Postclassical Greek (la Roi 2022d). The paper concludes with suggestions for applying this typology to conditionals in Ancient Greek in general.

Journal of Historical Linguistics, 2024

Polarity reversal has recently been argued to be the defining characteristic of counterfactuality... more Polarity reversal has recently been argued to be the defining characteristic of counterfactuality. Ancient Greek had a diverse set of constructions which bring about polarity reversal that is not the direct result of a negation marker nor do they all express a counterfactual meaning. It is the aim of this paper to detail the major differences between these constructions synchronically and especially diachronically, focusing on counterfactual mood forms, counterfactual modal verbs, avertives (almost+past (im)perfective), non-counterfactual rhetorical questions and non-standard wishes. As a historically varied constructional group, these constructions bring about polarity reversal in different ways with different implicatures (e.g., counterfactual, contradictory, undesirable), but they most importantly differ in their diachronic conventionalization of polarity reversal. Whereas counterfactuals conventionalize their polarity reversal in various ways (e.g., changing temporal reference, counterfactual implicature transfer), non-counterfactual polarity reversal constructions create polarity reversal as a synchronic implicature through pragmatic means (e.g., a rhetorical question identifying a contradictory presupposition in the common ground or a non-standard wish evaluating an undesirable outcome to the speaker).

Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 2022

Research on the modal particles in Ancient Greek has mostly focused on speculations on their preh... more Research on the modal particles in Ancient Greek has mostly focused on speculations on their prehistory based on Homeric Greek or generalizing about their synchronic distributions (esp. in Classical Greek). Instead, this article details the diachronic spread of the modal particles in different modal constructions from Archaic to Classical Greek. It highlights those cases where its obligatory presence resulted in a different modal meaning (e.g. counterfactual and habitual usages) and critically discusses those cases of optional presence in Archaic and Classical Greek that prescriptivist grammarians have discouraged (e.g. with the future indicative and potential optative). Focusing on innovations allows us to (re)construct a chronology of the modal particles and their diachronic role in the Ancient Greek mood system, e.g. the replacement of the counterfactual optative by the indicative and its subsequent syntactic spread, and the creation of the past habitual and generic indicative replacing the habitual and generic optative (commonly dubbed 'iterative'). Finally, it is suggested that a similar diachronic approach which distinguishes between obligatory and optional presence could clarify the distribution of the modal particles in more complex areas such as Homeric Greek or the Ancient Greek dialects.

Indogermanische Forschungen, 2022

Based on a corpus study of 2074 occurrences in Archaic (424) and Classical (1650) Greek, I offer ... more Based on a corpus study of 2074 occurrences in Archaic (424) and Classical (1650) Greek, I offer a unified explanation for the temporal reference extensions of counterfactual mood forms in declarative, interrogative, wish and de-activated illocutions (i.e. subordinate clauses). I propose a diachronic trajectory (life cycle) for counterfactual mood forms from past to present and future reference. Extensions are constrained diachronically by grammatical aspect (e.g. imperfect facilitating extensions to present reference more than the aorist or pluperfect), and actionality of the state of affairs in clausal context (atelic states of affairs enabling temporal extensions), as well as synchronically by illocutionary usage, collocations with temporal adverbs and common ground knowledge (i.e. temporal location known or not). This trajectory explains the replacements of the inherited counterfactual optative by the counterfactual indicative, because their life cycles are interlocked: in Archaic Greek the counterfactual optative had already extended from its original past to present and future reference and is losing its counterfactuality, whereas the counterfactual indicative referred only to the past and sometimes the present. In Classical Greek, temporal extensions of the counterfactual indicative are continued across different aspects, clause types and illocutions at different rates of change and the counterfactual optative is filtered out of the system.

Journal of Latin Linguistics, 2022

This paper analyzes subordinate clauses which have gained both syntactic and discursive independe... more This paper analyzes subordinate clauses which have gained both syntactic and discursive independence through insubordination, the diachronic conventionalization of main clause usage. First, I introduce the notion of insubordination and discuss its application to a corpus language such as Latin from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. Second, cases of insubordination from Archaic and Classical Latin are critically evaluated on the basis of evidence from different grammars and corpus research, yielding insubordinate directives (commands and requests with ut(ei) + subjunctive), insubordinate wishes (with ut, utinam and si + subjunctive) and assertives (with quasi + subjunctive). Special attention is paid to the pragmatic and syntactic characteristics of these insubordinate constructions such as (i) syntactic versus pragmatic independence from the linguistic common ground, (ii) main clause syntactic complexity, and (iii) the role of discourse particles of adversativity (at, sed) and positive polarity (quidem).

Folia Linguistica Historica, 2023

To complement existing synchronic typological studies of the marking strategies of (past) habitua... more To complement existing synchronic typological studies of the marking strategies of (past) habituality, this paper details the diachronic paths leading to and from past habitual constructions. The rich corpus evidence from the diachrony of Ancient Greek demonstrates at least four source constructions: (1) past counterfactual mood (in optative and indicative), (2) futures in the past, (3) iteratives (with -sk) and (4) lexical sources with semantic affinity to habituality (volition, habit, love). It is argued that the former two acquire habitual meaning through an invited inference of epistemic certainty of the statement by the speaker: what certainly would have happened in the knowable past is implied to be characteristic of the past. The past forms with the so-called iterative -sk (3) suffix follow the cross-linguistically frequent evolution of pluractional constructions through a form of semantic bleaching: past iterative > frequentative > habitual > habitual imperfective. Lexical sources (4) first acquire habitual meaning in the present after which only the more heavily grammaticalized ones receive past habitual usage through semantic bleaching and generalization of usage (as reflected by host class expansions). The paper is concluded with a diachronic map of these paths into habituality and the paths leading from past habituality into other domains such as genericity.

Emerita : Revista de Lingüística y Filología Clásica, 2022

The interjections εἶἑν and εἶεν are generally said to mark some form of acceptation and be unrela... more The interjections εἶἑν and εἶεν are generally said to mark some form of acceptation and be unrelated to the third person plural wish optative εἶεν. This paper argues that both the interjection εἶἑν and εἶεν are fossilized wish optatives of the third person plural. Instead of acceptation, they are used in conversation and monologues to signal that continuing in the way of the previous turn / act is dispreferred by the speaker in completing the higher communicative goal of the sequence/ move (i. e. let that be that; be that as it may; anyway). First a contrastive analysis is offered of εἶἑν and εἶεν in Classical Greek conversation and monologue using concepts from Conversation Analysis. Second, the evolution of this wish optative into a secondary interjection is sketched. Finally, the textual transmission is discussed of εἶἑν, εἶεν and other interjections in both Classical and Post-Classical Greek.

Journal of Greek linguistics 22.2, 2022

While ancient metalinguistic resources such as lexica and scholia are increasingly studied in the... more While ancient metalinguistic resources such as lexica and scholia are increasingly studied in the field of ancient scholarship (Montanari 2020), they are investigated less within the historical sociolinguistics of Ancient Greek. Analysing the Atticist lexica by Phrynichus, Moeris and Aelius Dionysius, this article illustrates the historically persistent connection between social perception of and diachronic change within Ancient Greek. Although the historical relevance of Atticist prescriptivism has been observed, the evidence that these social evaluations provide for Post-Classical Greek language change is rarely assessed systematically (except for objectionable ideological reasons). I demonstrate that the Atticist lexica display metalinguistic awareness of the major morphosyntactic changes characterizing Post-Classical Greek (pace Lee 2013:286): paradigmatic (e.g. analogical levelling in verbal system of endings, voice and augment), category changes, category renewal (e.g. dual, pronouns, periphrasis), syntactic change (category expansion of ἔμελλον and τυγχάνω) and case changes (e.g. from case to prepositions).

Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 2024

Journal of Greek Linguistics, 2024

Indogermanische Forschungen, 2024

Encyclopedia of Greek Language and Linguistics, 2024

Building Modality with Syntax. Focus on Ancient Greek, 2023

Classical Philology, 2024

Verbs of Thought and Speech. Pragmaticalization paths across languages. A. Pardal (ed.). John Benjamins, 2025

Conversation Analysis and Classics. Talk-in-Interaction in Greek and Latin Literature, R. Verano Liaño (ed.), Brill, 2025

Building Modality with Syntax. Focus on Ancient Greek, C. Denizot & L. Tronci (eds.). De Gruyter, 2023

Listy Filologicke 3-4, 263-306, 2022

Journal of Historical Linguistics, 2024

Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 2022

Indogermanische Forschungen, 2022

Journal of Latin Linguistics, 2022

Folia Linguistica Historica, 2023

Emerita : Revista de Lingüística y Filología Clásica, 2022

Journal of Greek linguistics 22.2, 2022

Talk at the XII Seminarios de Investigación en Filología Clásica at the Autónoma University, Madr... more Talk at the XII Seminarios de Investigación en Filología Clásica at the Autónoma University, Madrid, Spain. 18th of December 2017.

This Dutch talk (at the Katwijk conference for Greek and Latin linguists) discusses some findings... more This Dutch talk (at the Katwijk conference for Greek and Latin linguists) discusses some findings from our comparison of the Greek genitive absolute and Latin ablative absolute. These findings are more exhaustively treated in the forthcoming article, of which I represent the abstract below

Compared to Greek genitive absolutes, Latin ablative absolutes are of two types. The first have agents that are non-coreferential with the subject of the main clause. The second have agents that are coreferential with the subject of the main clause. The first type strongly resemble Greek genitive absolutes because of their high frequency of animate subject complements and the similar way in which they articulate referential coherence. The second type, which always contains a perfect passive participle, from a comparative perspective can be seen as a paradigmatic filler, which is a Latin alternative to an anterior active participle. Their subject complements are less frequently animate and in the word order (iconically) placed close to the subject of the main clause that is also the agent of the ablative absolute. However, paradigmatic differences have only minor consequences for the preferred sentence position of the absolute constructions and their internal complexity.
Greek and Latin linguistics ‒ discourse pragmatics ‒ referential coherence ‒ iconicity ‒ genitive absolute ‒ ablative absolute

Paper at the International Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics (ICAGL 2018), Helsinki, Finlan... more Paper at the International Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics (ICAGL 2018), Helsinki, Finland. 31st of August 2018.

Linguistlist, 2022

A review of Thomas (Talmy) Givón's latest book on the life cycle of adpositions. The review of th... more A review of Thomas (Talmy) Givón's latest book on the life cycle of adpositions. The review of the book discusses adpositions, preverbs, prefixes and their (cross-linguistic) diachronic relationship. Givón places a particular emphasis on the data from Homeric Greek which he discusses at length. He also provides a new theory of the 'augment' which I critically discuss.

PhD thesis Ghent University, 2023

As much as we would like to think so, our decisions are not only based on factual knowledge but a... more As much as we would like to think so, our decisions are not only based on factual knowledge but also on counterfactual knowledge. What would, should or could (have) happen(ed) but did or does not materialize is a relevant dimension for us along which we judge the world, as did those before us. In this dissertation-by-publication, I provide the first comprehensive study of the linguistic means that Ancient Greek (VIII – IV BCE) had to express counterfactual events. As in English (e.g. you w/should have called the police), counterfactuals in Ancient Greek are complex linguistic packages that combine markers of tense (e.g. past tense), aspect (e.g. the aorist, imperfect, or pluperfect) and modality (e.g. optative mood, indicative mood, or different types of modal verbs) to express a range of related counterfactual meanings. To truly unpack the large variety of meanings, their combinations and the developments of counterfactual expressions in a corpus language such as Ancient Greek, I propose that we need to combine methods from the field of pragmatics (to understand the communicative effects of counterfactual expressions in Ancient Greek), historical linguistics (to explain their changes in form and meaning from Archaic to Classical Greek), and linguistic typology (to know the place of Ancient Greek counterfactual expressions in the inventory of counterfactual expressions that we find in languages across the world). By doing so, I am able to (i) provide a complete inventory of the usages of counterfactual constructions and their morphosyntactic and pragmatic variation, (ii) detail their developmental pathways (e.g. in changing their temporal reference, mood or combinatory properties), and (iii) disentangle the differences between counterfactual constructions and those attested cross-linguistically (e.g. the creation of temporal reference through aspectual means) as well as their similarity (e.g. constructions developing from past counterfactuality into past habituality and so-called insubordinate counterfactuals, main clause constructions in disguise as subordinate clauses such as English If only I were rich).

Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 2024