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Abstract
This chapter examines the usage of the dual in the corpus of Aristophanes and aims to determine firstly that the usage of the dual is a genuine product of Aristophanes’ text, rather than a later addition from Atticist or Byzantine scribes. It then analyses the usage of the dual within the plays, quantitatively analysing possible influencing factors before determining the importance of animacy as a driving factor.
Abstract
The chapter discusses the earliest evidence for the “speaking Attic” (
Abstract
The presence of Xenophon in the paideia of the Imperial age has been well established. The works of Dio of Prusa and Arrian have already showed the success of Xenophon’s literature in this period. However, if, according to the Suda, he deserved to be called “Attic bee”, reservations about the Attic purity of Xenophon’s language have been expressed since ancient times, namely in Atticist lexicography. Nevertheless, the fact that a severe Atticist like the orator Ælius Aristides often chose to imitate Xenophon, suggests that this classical author must have been considered as a pure Attic model. Certainly, the Atticism of Aristide is not just linguistic as it shows the presence of a wider archaism. His Leuctran Speeches and his Panathenaicus reuse many expressions and themes that come from Xenophon’s different works.
This chapter presents some cases of linguistic and literary reception of Xenophon in the works of Aristides, which can provide new evidence for the debate on Xenophon’s “controversial” inclusion in the Attic canon.
Abstract
While the concepts of ‘standard’ and ‘Koine’ have become central in current discussions of language variation and change in the Classical and especially Post-classical periods, they are surrounded by confusion. In this contribution, I propose to supplement a Koine/standard-based approach by focusing on linguistic norms: while linguistic norms have received some attention in current scholarly work, the different methods to retrieve them have not been explicitly compared, and they have not been based on a firm theoretical understanding of the concept of ‘norm’. On the basis of a new norm typology, I show that the different methods that can be used to retrieve linguistic norms do not overlap: they retrieve different types of norms. Rather than preferring one approach over the other, I suggest that future research may invest in a combined approach.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the metalanguage used in the Atticist lexica and the types of linguistic labels that the lexicographers used to describe the language of Menander. In particular, I focus on the label
Abstract
The inflection of personal names in the New Testament (NT) is argued to be the product of a complex interaction of several factors operating at various linguistic levels including phonology, socio-linguistics and discourse. Phonologically, Hebrew/Aramaic names terminating in vowels or guttural consonants are for the most part inflected in the NT, although not always according to recognised patterns for Greek nouns. By contrast, names terminating in a non-guttural consonant with historical or Biblical (i.e. Old Greek, OG) status are not inflected in the NT. I take this as evidence: a) of allegiance to the Old Greek naming tradition on the part of the writers of the NT, with the implication of anchoring the discourse in the Biblical Greek world; and b) as an indication of the identity of the primary audience of the NT books as a whole, viz. i) they spoke Greek, ii) they were familiar with historical/Biblical figures from the OG, and iii) they were expecting these figures to be referred to by their OG names. Names of contemporaries ending in a non-guttural consonant may either be inflected or not. This is argued to suggest cultural alignment on a more personal and individual basis, viz. an anchoring of their identity either in the Greco-Roman world, or the Biblical world of their ancestors. Finally, I argue that variation in inflection for a given name can be used as a literary device to anchor the identities of the participants in the narrative/discourse.
Abstract
In postclassical Greek documents, writing adscripts (iotas written after ⟨
Abstract
This chapter studies the role of Atticism as a linguistic and cultural identity paradigm, particularly in the cases of non-native speakers of Greek. Specifically, I discuss the evolution of Classical Attic and Atticism to Imperial Attic and from being a linguistic phenomenon to its modulation into a sociocultural measure of being and belonging at the time of the High Roman Empire. The first section focuses on the definitions of Hellenism as a linguistic and cultural marker. Then, I discuss hellenizein and attikizein through the writings of Greek lexicographers and grammarians to show that Atticism transformed from being one of the dialects to a position of preeminence and the litmus test of Imperial Greek identity. The following section centralizes the innovative use of Atticism by non-native speakers of Greek, its role in their sense of identity, and the cultural eclecticism prevalent at the time against the backdrop of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Lucian. Finally, I make a case for creative imitation that encourages novel Imperial linguistic and cultural models anchored in long-standing traditions but also accommodating the more diverse citizenry.
Abstract
This chapter assesses the linguistic and stylistic features of 2 Macc., a Septuagint book that has attracted attention since Late Antiquity for its peculiar language. Recent studies (Doran, 2012; Le Moigne, 2012; Shaw, 2016) have appropriately emphasized its multifaceted style, inferring a date of composition in the first century BCE or slightly later (Domazakis, 2018).
Considering the number of theories about 2 Macc.’s chronology and its Jewish-Hellenistic context, it is worth asking again whether and how this book, usually labeled Asianic (Gil, 1958), can be placed within the dispute about the ancient origins of grammatical Atticism. Three prominent features of the text will be briefly examined: phonetics, morphology, and, most importantly, lexicon. Indeed, 2 Macc., which summarizes the historical work of Jason of Cyrene, contains a lexical inventory rich in poetic language that is not otherwise attested in the Septuagint.
The overall impression is that the author, while observing various standards (e.g., Greek literary prose, high Koine, Hellenistic rhetorical devices), pursues