Dative for Accusative Case Interchange in Epistolary Formulas in Greek Papyrus Letters (original) (raw)
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This paper explores the evidence for dative case syncretism with personal pronouns in post-Classical Greek based on documentary papyri (300BCE–800CE). Three alternative encodings are examined for the animate goal of transfer verbs: the prepositions pr os and eis (with accusative) and the bare accusative case. It is shown that the dative case and the preposition pr os are in complementary distribution dependent on the animacy of the object and the conceptualization of the event. The preposition eis is only used for animate goals in the specialized meaning 'on account of'. The bare accusative case is occasionally found as a replacement for the dative case, but not in the same constructions as those in which the prepositions are attested. Therefore, based on the encoding of the animate goal in Greek papyrus letters, there is no reason to assume that a change in the use of these prepositions led to the merger of dative and accusative cases.
Dative and genitive case interchange in Greek papyri from Roman-Byzantine Egypt
Examples of case interchange in Greek papyri are often used to illustrate the start of dative case syncretism in Greek (Humbert 1930; Browning 1983; Horrocks 2010). On the other hand, case interchange can be caused by Egyptian scribes having difficulties with the Greek case system (Clarysse 1993; Vierros 2012). In this article, I combine quantitative analysis of the dative and genitive case interchanges in Greek documentary papyri with a qualitative examination of the social and linguistic contexts of the interchanges. This shows that whereas the usage of the dative instead of the genitive pronoun as adnominal possessor may be explained by indirect bilingual interference and scribal confusion, the replacement of the dative by the genitive as a third argument of a verb may have been caused by interference from the Greek spoken language in the writing of less educated scribes.
1. Main claims We describe two systems of dative and genitive case in two different stages of Greek: (i) Classical Greek (CG): two cases (dative and genitive) in two environments (transitives and ditransitives). (ii) Standard Modern Greek (SMG): one case (genitive) in one environment (ditransitives). The standard approach to genitive/dative as inherent/lexical case can neither express the difference between the two systems nor the transition from the one to the other in a principled manner. The proposal that there are two modes of dative and genitive case assignment in the verbal domain (Baker & Vinokurova 2010; Baker 2015) can:-CG: lexical/prepositional dative and genitive.-SMG: dependent genitive in the sense of Marantz (1991). Sensitive to the presence of a lower argument in the VP.-The transition from CG to SMG is a transition from a lexical/prepositional system to a dependent case system. We discuss a consequence of our proposal concerning the (un-)availability of dative/ genitive passivization in the two patterns. We describe how the transition from CG to SMG happened. We address the issues of (i) parametric variation regarding the case of IOs, (ii) the relationship between morphological case and Agree and (iii) the domain for dependent accusative in SMG-type languages lacking differential object marking.
Semantic analysis of the prenominal first person singular genitive pronoun (μου) in the Greek of the documentary papyri shows that the pronoun is typically found in the position between a verbal form and an alienable possessum which functions as the patient of the predicate. When the event expressed by the predicate is patient-affecting, the possessor is indirectly also affected. Hence the semantic role of this affected alienable possessor might be interpreted as a benefactive or malefactive in genitive possession constructions. By semantic extension the meaning of the genitive case in this position is extended into goal-oriented roles, such as addressee and recipient, which are commonly denoted by the dative case in Ancient Greek.The semantic similarity of the genitive and dative cases in these constructions might have provided the basis for the merger of the cases in the Greek language.
Syntax (A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, ch. 10)
2010
On the level of noun phrases, we see that certain principles of agreement are observed: the modifier τῷ Λεοντίνῳ agrees in case, number, and gender and with its head Γοργίᾳ. The same rules show that ταύτην τὴν ἐπιϑυμίαν should be taken as a single word group. Note that in the former example, the head and modifier are not adjacent in the sentence: in a heavily inflected language like Greek, the connections between words in a sentence are often made clear by agreement, so that word order is free to serve purposes different from purely syntactic ones (mainly, as we shall see, pragmatic ones).
Two modes of dative and genitive case assignment: Evidence from two stages of Greek
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
In this paper, we compare the properties of dative and genitive objects in Classical vs. Modern Greek. Based on the difference in behavior of dative/genitive objects of ditransitives and monadic transitives in the two periods of Greek which correlates with a range of systematic alternations in the case realization of Modern Greek IO arguments depending on the presence and category (DP vs. PP) of lower theme arguments, we argue that there are two distinct modes of dative and genitive objective case assignment: they are either prepositional or dependent (structural) cases, as also proposed by Baker and Vinokurova (2010), and Baker (2015) on the basis of cross-linguistic evidence. If we adopt this proposal a number of important implications follow both for the syntax of Modern Greek genitive indirect objects and for the understanding of the change from Classical to Standard Modern Greek which must be seen as a development from a grammatical system where dative and genitive were lexical...
Dative arguments and abstract Case in Greek
This thesis investigates the syntax of so-called ‘dative’ arguments in Greek and the role of their abstract Case feature in their licensing, from a generative/minimalist perspective. The main claim of the thesis is that dative arguments of all types originate low, i.e. within the maximal projection of the root, in accordance with universal linking principles, and that all apparent variation regarding their surface realisation and their A-/A’- behaviour can be parameterised in terms of their Case feature and the way it is valued. The secondary claims/premises on which the main claim depends are: (a) a distinction between syntactically inactive and active inherent Case features, which are both possible for dative argument DPs, with purely structural Case being a third possibility cross-linguistically attested; (b) the assumption that minimality effects in phi-Agree must be relativised to Case features; (c) a movement analysis of dative shift (in the spirit of Larson 1988 with no mechanism of theme demotion); (d) a novel view of applicatives as elements that simply attract dative arguments to their specifier for Case-related reasons, rather than introducing/selecting them. On this view, applicatives are last resort elements and their possible heights of attachment are derivable from the event structure of the predicate. This theory of Appl attachment, coupled with a thematic hierarchy that distinguishes goals from non-goals (and experiencers) with respect to their base position derives the full typology of dative arguments. In support of these assumptions, this thesis draws on evidence from person restrictions in transitive contexts with datives and beyond (Chapter 2), which seem to be best accounted for if the argument affected by the restriction is treated as a (defective) intervener between the dative and an applicative head; the interference of (different types of) datives themselves with agreement relations in various configurations, in Greek as well as cross-linguistically (Chapter 3); the A-/A’-properties of dative arguments of all types in Greek and Romance and novel diagnostics for unpronounced copies with syntactic or interpretive effects (Chapter 4); the diachronic and cross-dialectal behaviour of dative arguments in Greek (Chapter 5), which confirms some empirical correlations that necessitate the assumptions listed above, most notably the generalisation that both (i) the strong Person Case Constraint, and (ii) minimality effects in Agree across datives imply the availability of active Case on indirect object DPs, which is minimally manifested by the existence of the dative-shifted/double-object construction.
Double accusative constructions and ditransitives in Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek features a number of syntactically and semantically different double accusative constructions. In part, they occur with ditransitive maleficiary verbs. Most of these verbs allow for construction variation in connection with different types of R-arguments (maleficiary in neutral alignment vs. beneficiaries in indirect alignment). Based on behavioral properties of the constructions discussed, we show that some other verbs share the behavior of maleficiary ditransitives, notably verbs of asking, requesting and ordering. We argue that both addressees of such verbs and part of maleficiaries can be conceptualized as sources, thus providing a link between them. Causative verbs that take double accusative constructions do not share behavioral properties of maleficiary verbs with neutral alignment, due to the connection of causativity with verbal voice.