A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language

In this Companion, an eminent team of international scholars present a comprehensive account of the Ancient Greek language from its Indo–European origins to its transition into Modern Greek. A series of original chapters come together as an authoritative overview of the language from a variety of historical, geographical, sociolinguistic, and literary perspectives. The volume includes discussions on the survival and transmission of Ancient Greek and the materials on which original texts from antiquity have been preserved. In addition, a set of chapters is devoted to discussions of typology, including aspects such as phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. This wide–ranging collection will be valued by classicists and linguists alike.

List of Figures viii List of Tables ix Notes on Contributors xii Symbols Used xviii Abbreviations of Ancient Authors and Works xix Abbreviations of Modern Sources xxviii Linguistic and Other Abbreviations xxxv 1 Introduction 1 Egbert J. Bakker PART I The Sources 9 2 Mycenaean Texts: The Linear B Tablets 11 Silvia Ferrara 3 Phoinikēia Grammata: An Alphabet for the Greek Language 25 Roger D. Woodard 4 Inscriptions 47 Rudolf Wachter 5 Papyri 62 Arthur Verhoogt 6 The Manuscript Tradition 69 Niels Gaul PART II The Language 83 7 Phonology 85 Philomen Probert 8 Morphology and Word Formation 104 Michael Weiss 9 Semantics and Vocabulary 120 Michael Clarke 10 Syntax 134 Evert van Emde Boas and Luuk Huitink 11 Pragmatics: Speech and Text 151 Egbert J. Bakker PART III Greek in Time and Space: Historical and Geographical Connections 169 12 Greek and Proto–Indo–European 171 Jeremy Rau 13 Mycenaean Greek 189 Rupert Thompson 14 Greek Dialects in the Archaic and Classical Ages 200 Stephen Colvin 15 Greek and the Languages of Asia Minor to the Classical Period 213 Shane Hawkins 16 Linguistic Diversity in Asia Minor during the Empire: Koine and Non–Greek Languages 228 Claude Brixhe 17 Greek in Egypt 253 Sofía Torallas Tovar 18 Jewish and Christian Greek 267 Coulter H. George 19 Greek and Latin Bilingualism 281 Bruno Rochette PART IV Greek in Context 295 20 Register Variation 297 Andreas Willi 21 Female Speech 311 Thorsten Fögen 22 Forms of Address and Markers of Status 327 Eleanor Dickey 23 Technical Languages: Science and Medicine 338 Francesca Schironi PART V Greek as Literature 355 24 Inherited Poetics 357 Joshua T. Katz 25 Language and Meter 370 Gregory Nagy 26 Literary Dialects 388 Olga Tribulato 27 The Greek of Epic 401 Olav Hackstein 28 The Language of Greek Lyric Poetry 424 Michael Silk 29 The Greek of Athenian Tragedy 441 Richard Rutherford 30 Kunstprosa: Philosophy, History, Oratory 455 Victor Bers 31 The Literary Heritage as Language: Atticism and the Second Sophistic 468 Lawrence Kim PART VI The Study of Greek 483 32 Greek Philosophers on Language 485 Casper C. de Jonge and Johannes M. van Ophuijsen 33 The Birth of Grammar in Greece 499 Andreas U. Schmidhauser 34 Language as a System in Ancient Rhetoric and Grammar 512 James I. Porter PART VII Beyond Antiquity 525 35 Byzantine Literature and the Classical Past 527 Staffan Wahlgren 36 Medieval and Early Modern Greek 539 David Holton and Io Manolessou 37 Modern Greek 564 Peter Mackridge Bibliography 588 Index 639

Egbert J. Bakker is Professor of Classics at Yale University. He is the author of Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse (1997) and Pointing at the Past: From Formula to Performance in Homeric Poetics (2005) and the co–editor with A. Kahane of Written Voices, Spoken Signs: Tradition, Performance, and Epic Text (1997). He has published widely on various aspects of the Greek language, in particular, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and speaking versus writing.

"The work is wonderfully clear, informative, and engaging. Students and scholars will enjoy consulting it. Highly recommended. Upper–division undergraduates through faculty." ( Choice , 1 May 2011) "It has become customary for reviews of handbooks to express misgivings toward the genre and its ever–increasing presence. But whatever one might think of companion volumes, this is a useful book. It boasts a wide range of generally high–quality essays by a parade of eminent scholars. Perhaps its most praiseworthy feature is the clarity and accessibility of many of its contributions, which makes them ideal starting points for the non–specialist." ( Bryn Mawr Classical Review , 7 May 2011) "One doesn′t have to be a student of Greek to enjoy this informative compendium." ( Book News Inc, November 2010)