La distribución de participio concertado y subordinada adverbial en la lengua literaria griega del s. V a. C.

Abstract

This paper aims at finding out the rule(s) that determine(s) the distribution of adverbial subordinate clauses and connected circumstantial participles in the Attic literary language of the V century B.C. For this purpose, the relevant instances of both constructions in Soph. O. T., Thuc. II 1-60 and Pseudo-Xenophon Ath.Pol. are systematically considered. The main conclusion is that a purely mechanical rule governs the choice between both constructions: the circumstantial participle is used when its governing substantive fulfills any given function in the main sentence; on the contrary, the adverbial subordinate clause is limited to the contexts in which its subject cannot be in agreement with any other element of the leading sentence. A number of grammatical conditions specified through the article explain most of the examples in which the general rule does not apply.