About the expression of effort and approximation: Analysis of μόγις and μόλις in Ancient Greek
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/emerita.2017.01.1538Keywords:
μόγις, μόλις, manner adverbs, approximative adverbs, focus adverbs, downtoners, discourse analysis, Ancient Greek syntaxAbstract
In Ancient Greek, μόγις y μόλις generally express the effort an agent takes to display the verbal action. Besides this use as manner adverbs, μόγις and μόλις show also a use, although much less frequently, as approximative adverbs. This paper, which analyses The Illiad and The Odyssey, the complete tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the plays by Aristophanes and Plutarch’s Lives, focuses on the determination of the semantic and pragmatic factors that have triggered the development of μόγις and μόλις into approximative adverbs. It aims also at describing the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features of both adverbs in their use as approximative expressions. Finally, it will analyze the possible functional differences between both adverbs.
Downloads
References
Anscombre, J. C. y Ducrot, O. 1994: La argumentación en la lengua, Madrid.
Bally, Ch. 1942: «Syntaxe de la modalité explicite», CFS 2, pp. 3-13.
Beekes, R. 2010: Etymological Dictionary of Creek, Leiden-Boston.
Bertocchi, A. 1996: «Some semantic and pragmatic properties of paene », en Bammesberger, A. y Heberlein, F. (eds.), Akten des VIII. Internationalen Kolloquiums zur lateinischen Linguistik, Heidelberg, pp. 457-472.
Brown, P. y Levinson, S. C. 1978: Politeness. Some universals in Language usage, Cambridge.
Bybee, J. y Fleischman, S. 1995: Modality in Grammar and Discourse, Ámsterdam. https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.32
Chantraine, P. 19992: Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, París.
Conti, L. 2014: «El espectro funcional de οὕτω(ς) en los poemas homéricos», Emerita 82, pp. 25-49. https://doi.org/10.3989/emerita.2014.02.1231
Conti, L. 2015: «Zu den Fokus Adverbien bei Homer: Analyse von ἔτι?», Historische Sprachforschung 127, pp. 208-227.
Crespo, E. 2015: «Adverbios de foco en griego clásico», en Vela, J., Fraile, J. F. y Sánchez, C. (eds.), Studia Classica Caesaraugustana: vigencia y presencia del mundo clásico hoy: XXV años de Estudios Clásicos en la Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, pp. 207-234.
Eelen, G. 2001: A Critique of Politeness Theories, Mánchester.
García-Medall, J. 1993: «Sobre casi y otros aproximativos», Dicenda. Cuadernos de Filologia Hispánica 11, pp. 153-70.
Hitzeman, J. 1992: «The selectional properties and entailments of almost», CLS 28, pp. 225-238.
Horn, L. R. 2011: «Almost forever», en Yuasa, E. et alli (eds.), Pragmatics and Autolexical Grammar, Ámsterdam - Filadelfia, pp. 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.176.01hor
Kennedy, Ch. y McNally, L. 2005: «Scale structure and the semantic typology of gradable predicates», Language 81, pp. 345-381. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2005.0071
Koktova, E. 1986: Sentence adverbials in a functional description, Ámsterdam. https://doi.org/10.1075/pb.vii.2
König, E. 1991: The Meaning of Focus Particles: A Comparative Perspective, Londres. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203212288
Krifka, M. 2007: «Approximative Interpretations of Number Words: A Case of Strategic Communication», en Bouma, G. et alii (eds.), Cognitive foundations of interpretation, Ámsterdam, pp. 111-126.
Lakoff, G. 1973: «Hedges: A Study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy con cepts», Journal of Philosophical Logic 2, pp. 458-508. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00262952
Liddell, H. y Scott, R. 19409: Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford.
Martínez Vázquez, R. 2014: «El uso conjuntivo y focalizador de ὁμοίως en la prosa griega clásica y postclásica», Revista española de lingüística 44, pp. 65-82. Martínez Vázquez, R. y Ruiz Yamuza, E. en prensa: «Word order, adverbs scope and focus: on the position of modality, evaluative and focus adverbs in ancien Greek», en Poccetti, P. (ed.), Proceedings of the Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics, Rome 2015.
Nouwen, R. 2006: «Remarks on the Polar Orientation of almost », en van de Weijer, J. y Los, B. (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands, Ámsterdam-Filadelfia, pp. 162-173.
Portolés, J. 2009: «Alternativas convocadas por partículas discursivas», Español Actual 29, pp. 47-68.
Quirk, R. et alii 1985: A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Londres - Nueva York.
RAE (Real Academia Española) 2010: Nueva gramática de la lengua española, Sintaxis II, Madrid.
Redondo, E. 2015: «Adverbios de foco y marcadores discursivos: σχεδόν en la novela griega antigua», Minerva 28, pp. 163-183.
Redondo, E. 2016: «Focos aproximativos con ὀλίγος / μικρός (estudio en el corpus de la novela griega antigua», en M. García, M. J. y Redondo, E. (eds.), Nuevas interpretaciones del mundo antiguo. Estudios ofrecidos al profesor José Luis Melena, Vitoria, pp. 287-306.
Redondo, E. en prensa: «Deffective approximative adverbs in Late Greek», en Poccetti, P. (ed.), Proceedings of the Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics, Rome 2015.
Rooth, M. 1992: «A theory of focus interpretation», Natural Language Semantics 1, pp. 75-116. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02342617
Ruiz Yamuza, E. 2011: «Aproximación a las estrategias de mitigación en Plutarco: el uso de adverbios de modalidad», en Candau, J. M., González, F., Chávez, A. (eds.), Plutarco transmisor, Actas del X Simposio Internacional de la Sociedad Española de Plutarquistas, Sevilla, pp. 505-521.
Sauerland, U. y Stateva, P. 2011: «Two Types of Vagueness», en Égré, P. y Klined inst, N. (eds.), Vagueness and Language Use, Nueva York, pp. 121-145. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230299313_6
Sevi, A. 1998: A semantics for almost and barely, tesis doctoral inédita, Universidad de Tel Aviv.
Sudhoff, S. 2010: Focus Particles in German, Filadelfia. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.151
Vendler, Z. 1967: «Causal relations», Journal of Philosophy 64, 704-713. https://doi.org/10.2307/2023854
Wierzbicka, A. 1986: «Precision in Vagueness: The Semantics of English Approximatives», Journal of Pragmatics 10, pp. 597-613. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(86)90016-0
Zaroukian, E. 2011: «Divergent Approximators», en Reich, I., Horch, E. y Pauly, D. (eds.), Sinn und Bedeutung, Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Semantik, Sarrebruck, pp. 677-690.
Ziegeler, D. 2000: «What almost can reveal about counterfactual inferences», Journal of Pragmatics 32, pp. 1743-1776. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00119-8
Ziegeler, D. 2010: «Running the gauntlet on the approximatives debate: A response to recent challenges», Journal of Pragmatics 42, pp. 681-704. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.07.008
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the print and online versions of this journal are the property of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.
All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You may read here the basic information and the legal text of the licence. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 licence must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the final version of the work produced by the publisher, is not allowed.
