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Consider the Lilies: Prolepsis and the Development of Complementation


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Article

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Authors

Fraser, Bruce L 

Abstract

In the paper, an examination is made of prolepsis in ancient Greek, concentrating on its grammatical and prosodic structure. The feature is analyzed not as a stylistic curiosity, but as a syntactically anacoluthic construction, which demonstrates a transitional phase in the development of finite subordination, when an expansion in the transitivity of reporting verbs was taking place. The proleptic element is interpreted as a 'building block' in the inter-clausal link, functioning syntactically in both clauses. The study is structural rather than historical, but a developmental sequence is inferred from the features of proleptic and other accusative constructions observed in Homeric and classical texts.

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Keywords

historical linguistics, Ancient Greek literature, complementation, prolepsis, clause structure, prosody, anacoluthon

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Journal ISSN

0017-1298

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Publisher

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH

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