Dénotation et connotation dans la langue des scholies

Abstract

The scholia add a second or secondary (grammatical; philological) text to the main (literary) text. They sometimes also add a meaning which might be considered (by modern philologists) as superfluous, irrelevant, or even unnecessary. The ancient commentators actually choose what they want to comment upon and how they want to do so. They mostly see the anterior texts from the point of view of their own synchrony and understanding. Scholia certainly don't reflect any denotative objectivity, which would just unfold the true and unique (if possible) meaning. The grammarians comment what their minds or their languages lead them to comment upon. Therefore the philological result looks like a mixture of objectivity and subjectivity. When a Greek grammarian of the Alexandrian era comments upon a Greek text of a previous time, in which ways is the Greek language put into a changing perspective? Does the technical language of the scholiasts provide the commented texts with more connotation or more denotation? How do the synchrony (of the commentary) and the diachrony (of the texts commented upon) meet, and what kind of meaning is then expressed or made available?