Digital databases for the study of verb argument realization in diachrony (original) (raw)

The aim of our study is to show how two new and complementary digital databases for Ancient Greek syntax work. In order to do so, we run a case study on the change in second argument realization (see Levin 1993; Levin and Rappaport Hovav 2005) of three Ancient Greek verbs in diachrony. The first database is focused on Homeric verbs based on the Homeric texts lemmatized and morpho-syntactically annotated within the Perseus Project (, which includes all argument realizations attested in Homer for each verb. The second one is the REGLA (Rección y complementación del griego antiguo y del latín) Ancient Greek and Latin database (Torrego et al. 2007), a work in progress based on a selection of Classical authors which contains the argument realizations and the semantic classification of some of the most frequent Ancient Greek and Latin verbs. The two databases are the product of two different methodologies. The Homeric database is the result of the semi-automatic extraction of argument realizations; it explores and exploits the information present at the morpho-syntactic layer of annotation, and contains a list of all verbs attested in Homer with the correspondent list of arguments and their realization. The Classical authors database, differently, is not based on a morpho-syntactically pre-annotated corpus; it collects all occurrences of some of the most frequent verbs of the Greek classical literature in a selection of some classical authors. For each verb all attested argument realizations are given and an attempt for a semantic classification is provided. In addition, in this database one can find semantic information about the arguments and a final argument structure template will be available for each verb when the work will be completed. Our paper aims to show how, in spite of the differences, it is possible to use these two databases in a complementary way in order to study the verb argument structure and realization in Ancient Greek in diachrony. We will focus, in particular, on second argument case marking in Homer and its change in diachrony: we will analyze three semantically different verbs (ágamai ‘admire, be jealous’, antiboléō ‘meet, be present’ and methiḗmi ‘dismiss, let go’) which show in Homer case alternation for the second argument, respectively Acc(usative)/Dat(ive), Gen(itive)/Dat(ive) and Acc(usative)/Gen(itive). Starting from these case alternations attested in Homer, we study the syntactic behavior of these verbs in the post-Homeric Greek (6th, 5th and 4th century BC) using the second database. Thus, we explore the syntactic productivity in diachrony (Barđdal 2008). References: BARĐDAL, J., 2008. Productivity. Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. LEVIN, B., 1993. English verb classes and alternation. A preliminary investigation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. LEVIN, B. AND M. RAPPAPORT HOVAV, 2005. Argument realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Perseus Digital Library. Ed. Gregory R. Crane. Tufts University. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (accessed APRIL 17, 2012) TORREGO, M.E., J.M. BAÑOS, C. CABRILLANA AND J.V. MÉNDEZ DOSUNA, 2007. Praedicativa II: esquemas de complementación verbal en griego antiguo y en latín. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.