UMR 7320 : Bases, Corpus, Langage

titre: When phonology outranks syntax: postponed relative pronouns in Pindar
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand
article: Glossa: a journal of general linguistics (2021-..), 2023, 8 (1), pp.1-41. ⟨10.16995/glossa.9842⟩
annee_publi: 2023
resume: In ancient Greek, relative pronouns are, as a rule, subject to wh-movement and obligatorily surface at the left edge of the relative clause. However, the archaic poet Pindar sometimes allows material belonging to the relative clause to appear in front of the relative pronoun, which is then postponed within its clause. In this paper, I survey all relative clauses in the surviving texts by Pindar and study the possible differences in semantics and syntax between relative clauses with initial and postponed relative pronouns, which turn out to be indistinguishable in both respects. I suggest that postponed relative pronouns do move syntactically to the Spec of their relative clause but are then optionally treated as postpositive words and surface in second position in the relative clause. Phonological arguments, based on the distributional properties of postpositive words and on the metrical makeup of Pindar’s texts, are put forward to show how postponed relative pronouns select a host at the left edge of the relative clause and incorporate phonologically to it. The informational status of relative pronouns as ratified (given) topics triggers their phonological demoting, which turns them into postpositive words, a regular process in ancient Greek. Approaching the position of relative pronouns as a conflict between syntactic and (informationally driven) phonological alignment explains why Pindar’s strategy for relativization remained rare in ancient Greek and eventually disappeared: It took one specific poetic genre to allow phonology to outrank syntax.
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titre: Postponed Relative Pronouns in Pindar
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand
article: International Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguitics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Jun 2022, Madrid, Spain
annee_publi: 2022
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titre: Wh-interrogatives in ancient Greek
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand, Richard Faure
article: Studia Linguistica, 2022, 76 (3), pp.735-771. ⟨10.1111/stul.12194⟩
annee_publi: 2022
resume: This article explores the problem of information structure in ancient Greek direct constituent questions from the perspective of wh-placement. It begins with the observation that wh-items are intrinsically focused and that typologically, wh-placement is predictable based on the focusing properties in some languages, such as Indonesian (in situ strategy) and Basque or Hungarian (focus position strategy), but not in others, such as English (specific wh-position strategy). Ancient Greek has multiple ways to express narrow focusing, e.g., in situ or in a preverbal devoted position. Puzzlingly, with respect to whPs, the former way is only marginally attested and there is no good evidence for the latter way. Instead, based on syntactic and prosodic tests, we show that ancient Greek offers a third strategy, in which a high position in the structure is available. Nevertheless, when this result is recast in the framework of Phase Theory, the tests of wh-duplication and stranding indicate that whPs must go through all three positions, receiving their argument function in situ, checking their focus feature preverbally and verifying their wh-feature in the high position. The specificity of 'why' questions is addressed along the way.
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titre: Enjambement et description chez Homère
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand
article: Claire Lefeuvre; Daniel Petit. Onomatôn Histôr, mélanges offerts à Charles de Lamberterie, 106, pp.163-182, 2020, Collection Linguistique de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 9789042941311
annee_publi: 2020
resume: Runover adjectives are found to be a means by which the Homeric poet introduces a description in the course of the narrative.
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titre: Enjambement of Narrow Focus + Verb in Homeric Greek
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand, Cassandra Freiberg
article: New Ways of Analyzing Ancient Greek 1, Götz Keydana; Stavros Skopeteas; Vassilios Spyropoulos, Dec 2019, Göttingen, Germany
annee_publi: 2019
resume: The aim of this talk is to present preliminary results of our investigation into the prosodic, syntactic and information-structural properties of those combinations of Narrow Focus and Verb in Homeric Greek where the Narrow Focus is placed at the end of one verse while the Verb follows at the beginning of the next, cf. (1). These instances constitute a subtype of integral or necessary enjambement (Kirk 1966, Higbie 1990). (1)τὸν δ’ ἕτερον ξίφεϊ μεγάλῳ [κληῗδα παρ’ ὦμον]Narrow Focus [πλῆξ’]Verb, ἀπὸ δ’ αὐχένος ὦμον ἐέργαθεν ἠδ’ ἀπὸ νώτου. (Hom. Il. 5.146–147) Their existence is especially intriguing as there are otherwise reasons to believe that the prosodic links between Narrow Focus + Verb are tighter than with any other information-structural configuration, since, as a rule, they have to be continuous (Matić 2003: 619–625, Bertrand 2010: 351–356): Compared to other pairs of constituents, the sequence Narrow Focus + Verb exhibits a higher rate of non-caesural breaks and lower rates of caesurae and line-ends; there are also significantly more liaison phenomena (elision, resyllabification, latent segments, onset gemination, epic correption). Prosodic breaks between Narrow Focus and Verb arguably constitute boundaries between phonological phrases (φ-phrases) at the most (cf. Foley’s [1990: 81–82] hierarchy of verse-internal prosodic breaks). However, Homeric hexameter verse ideally corresponds to exactly one clause in syntax, i.e. also one basic information-structural domain, as well as one intonational phrase (ι-phrase) in phonology (Devine & Stephens 1994: 400, but cf. Allan 2009, Bakker 1997: 50, 147f.). A line end separating Narrow Focus from Verb may thus imply a promotion of the break to the status of ι-phrase boundary. Starting from this hypothesis, we examined all 87 instances of Narrow Focus + Verb in enjambement that can be retrieved from Bertrand’s reference corpus on Homeric information structure, which consists of Iliad books 5, 22 and Odyssey books 1, 9, 20 (Bertrand 2010). We compared them to the same number of instances of Narrow Focus + Verb that were (a) placed within the same metrical colon, (b) separated by a caesura of Fränkel’s (1926) type C, (c) separated by a caesura of type B. Our results suggest that both information-structural factors as well as reasons of cognitive or prosodic processing may lead to an increase in prosodic boundary strength: Separation by a caesura of type B or verse end is more likely with contrastive foci as in (2). Additionally, enjambement is favoured by cases where one of the elements is informationally heavier, such as presentative clauses like (3). Likelihood of enjambement however also increases together with the syntactic complexity as well as the number of morae of the Narrow Focus constituent. Interestingly, the presence of a negation within the clause seems to favour enjambement too, cf. again (2). – The example instances illustrate that the actual occurrence of enjambement can be put down to a single driving factor in some cases, but requires a multifactorial explanation in others. (2)Κύκλωψ, οὐκ ἄρ’ ἔμελλες [ἀνάλκιδος ἀνδρὸς ἑταίρους]NFoc [ἔδμεναι]V ἐν σπῆϊ γλαφυρῷ κρατερῆφι βίηφι. (Hom. Od. 9.475–476) (3)ἣ μὲν γάρ θ’ ὕδατι λιαρῷ ῥέει, ἀμφὶ δὲ [καπνὸς]NFoc [γίγνεται]V ἐξ αὐτῆς ὡς εἰ πυρὸς αἰθομένοιο· (Hom. Il. 22.149–150) References ALLAN, R. J., 2009, “Orale elementen in de Homerische grammatica: Intonatie-eenheid en enjambement”, Lampas, 42, p. 136–151. BAKKER, E. J., 1997, Poetry in speech: orality and Homeric discourse. Ithaca & London, Cornell University Press. BERTRAND, N., 2010, L’ordre des mots chez Homère: structure informationnelle, localisation et progression du récit. PhD Dissertation. Paris, Université Paris 4 Sorbonne. DEVINE, A. M. & L. D. STEPHENS, 1994, The prosody of Greek speech. New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press. FOLEY, J. M., 1990, Traditional oral epic: the Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croatian return song. Berkeley, Los Angeles & Oxford, University of California Press. FRÄNKEL, H. F., 1926, “Der kallimachische und der homerische Hexameter”, NAWG, 1926, p. 197–229. HIGBIE, C., 1990, Measure and music: enjambement and sentence structure in the Iliad. Oxford, Clarendon Press. KIRK, G. S., 1966, “Studies in some technical aspects of Homeric style”, YClS, 20, p. 73–152. MATIĆ, D., 2003, “Topic, focus, and discourse structure: Ancient Greek word order”, StudLang, 27, p. 573–633.
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titre: Le rôle de l'adjectif καλός dans les descriptions homériques
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand
article: Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes , 2019, 91 (2), ⟨10.3917/phil.912.0007⟩
annee_publi: 2019
resume: Cet article étudie les emplois de l’adjectif καλός en rejet qui permet au narrateur homérique d’introduire un certain nombre de descriptions. Je montre que cet emploi n’est pas intégré à un système formulaire, mais qu’il permet, par le procédé de la référentialité traditionnelle, d’indiquer le statut particulier de l’objet décrit. Celui-ci est fréquemment un symbole (σῆμα) de son possesseur ou un objet d’une grande importance symbolique dans le récit, et la fonction de καλός est de le marquer comme tel. De plus, lorsque καλός introduit la description d’un objet apparemment anodin, il peut servir à marquer des tournants dans le récit ou à en souligner la structure.
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titre: Καὶ τί ἂν εἰπεῖν τις ἔχοι; Expression(s) of Focus in questions in Demosthenes
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand, Richard Faure
article: International Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics, Aug 2018, Helsinki, Finland
annee_publi: 2018
resume: It is now firmly established that the word order in Ancient Greek (AG) expresses information structure (Bertrand 2010; Dik 1995; Matić 2003). Specifically, two focus positions have been identified in declarative clauses: one immediately before the verb (1), and one at the end of the clause, when the communicative context licences a narrow reading of the focus domain consisting of the verb followed by other focal elements (2). (1)Non-ratified topics — Focus — Verb — Ratified topics — Other presupposed elements (2)Non-ratified topics — [ Verb — Ratified topics — Focus elements ]Focus domain However cross-linguistically, the word order in interrogative clauses is often different from the canonical declarative word order, e.g. subjects are postverbal in English. So, what about the word order in AG questions? Since WH-words are narrow focus constituents (Lambrecht and Michaelis 1998; Rochemont 1986), they are expected to be located in one of the two focus positions: Final (in situ) or preverbal. An exhaustive survey of the constituent questions in Demosthenes’ political speeches shows that both strategies are used (3–4): (3)In situ: ταῦταδ’ἐστὶτί ; (9.39) NRTop CONJVerbWHFoc (4)Preverbal: ἀλλὰΘετταλίαπῶςἔχει;(9.26) CONJNRTopWHFocVerb Nevertheless, we claim that a different analysis of those examples is preferable. First, there are instances where the WH-word is separated from the verb by one or more constituents. Some of them can be explained away, since they fall into a class of postpositive elements, i.e. constituents that form a unit with their prosodic host: clitics, parenthetics, vocatives, or even Ratified Topic (RTop) expressions, which have been shown to be postpositive too (Bertrand 2009) (5). (5)ἂν δ’ ἐκεῖνα Φίλιππος λάβῃ,τίςαὐτὸνκωλύσει δεῦρο βαδίζειν;(1.25)WHFocRTopVerb However, we also found elements between the WH-word and the verb which cannot be postpositive: non-ratified topics (6) or contrastive (potentially focal) expressions (7). (6)ἢπότεροιτοὺς ἱππέαςπροὔδοσαν […]; (9.56) CONJWHFocNRTopVerb (7)ποῖ γὰρ αὐτὸςτρέψεταιμετὰ ταῦτα;(14.31) WHFocCONJFocR?VerbAdverbial Second, the position of clitics in many instances (about one quarter of the corpus) shows that in WH-interrogatives, the WH-word constitutes an independent prosodic domain (Goldstein 2015: 200–14) (8). (8)(τί)φ (ἐποίησεν =ἄν)φ;(31.09) Last, the WH-constituent is sometimes split (9): (9)τίν'ἂνοὗτοςἀξίαν τῶν πεπραγμένωνὑπόσχοιδίκην;(54.22) WHFocPTCTopRFocRVerbTopR We argue that there is a dedicated slot at the beginning of the clause for WH-constituents (WHFoc), and that the WH-word rises stepwise to the left periphery: It first stops in the preverbal focus position before moving up to the WH-focus position. Instances like (9) would then be a case of stranding, with parts of the constituent being left at every step: δίκην in its original position, ἀξίαν τῶν πεπραγμένων in FocR, and τίν' in WHFoc. Accordingly, cases like (4) where the WH-word is apparently in the preverbal focus position are amenable to such an analysis, since everything that precedes the WH-word can be viewed as extraclausal (circumstancials, themes, etc.). Even in seemingly unproblematic examples, the position of clitics results from such stranding, as in (10) where εἰπεῖν is stranded in the FocR position. (10)(καὶ=τί =ἂν )φ (εἰπεῖν=τιςἔχοι; )φ (3.29) CONJWHFocPTCFocRPROVerb Bertrand, Nicolas (2009), 'Les pronoms postpositifs dans l’ordre des mots en grec: Domaines syntaxiques, domaines pragmatiques', Lalies. Actes des sections de linguistique et de littérature [d’Aussois], 29, 227–252. — (2010), L’ordre des mots chez Homère: Structure informationnelle, localisation et progression du récit, Unpublished PhD dissertation (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01702387) Dik, Helma J. M. (1995), Word order in ancient Greek: A pragmatic account of word order variation in Herodotus, (Amsterdam studies in classical philology; Amsterdam: J.-C. Gieben). Goldstein, David M. (2015), Classical Greek Syntax: Wackernagel's Law in Herodotus (Brill's Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics; Leiden: E. J. Brill). Lambrecht, Knud and Michaelis, Laura A. (1998), 'Sentence accent in information questions: default and projection', Linguistics and Philosophy, 21 (5), 477–544. Matić, Dejan (2003), 'Topic, focus, and discourse structure: Ancient Greek word order', Studies in Language, 27 (3), 573–633. Rochemont, Michael S (1986), Focus in Generative Grammar (Studies in Generative Linguistic Analysis, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company).
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titre: Discontinuous and expletive topic expressions in Homeric Greek
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand
article: Felicia Logozzo; Paolo Poccetti. Ancient Greek linguistics : new approaches, insights, perspectives, De Gruyter, pp.399-410, 2017, 978-3-11-055175-4. ⟨10.1515/9783110551754-411⟩
annee_publi: 2017
resume: Some Homeric utterances contain both a demonstrative pronoun at the beginning and a coreferent NP at the end. In most cases, the pronoun is analyzed as a non-ratified topic expression and the NP as a ratified topic expression: the former is used to reestablish the referent as a topic of the new utterance, whereas the latter clarifies the identity of the referent, which is already ratified as a topic at this point of the utterance. Each phrase is located in its dedicated slot in the Ancient Greek word order template: the non-ratified topic expression at the beginning of the clause and ratified topic expression immediately after the verb, hence the discontinuity. This discontinuous topic construction is not to be confused with another similar one, in which the NP is a presentative focus expression; in the latter construction, the initial anaphoric pronoun may be an expletive topic expression.
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titre: Le pronom anaphorique ὅγε chez Homère
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand
article: Francesca Dell'Oro; Odile Lagacherie. Πολυφόρβῃ Γαίῃ. Mélanges de littérature et linguistique offerts à Françoise Létoublon, 18, ELLUG, pp.275-291, 2015, Gaia
annee_publi: 2015
resume: Je démontre d’abord l’existence d’un pronom anaphorique ὅγε en grec homérique, qui n’est pas la simple association de ὅ + γε, avant d’en étudier la fonction particulière en m’appuyant sur une étude statistique exhaustive de ses emplois : avec ὅγε, le locuteur opère une anaphore exclusive, c’est-à-dire qu’il indique qu’il n’y a qu’un seul référent (ou groupe de référents) auquel le pronom renvoie. Les emplois de ὅγε pour indiquer l’identité, reprendre un fil narratif interrompu, introduire une description, etc., découlent de cette fonction particulière.
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titre: On tmesis, word order, and noun incorporation in Homeric Greek
auteur: Nicolas Bertrand
article: Annamaria Bartolotta. The Greek verb Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics. Proceedings of the 8th International Meeting on Greek Linguistics, Agrigento, October 1–3, 2009 , 128, Peeters, 2014, Bibliothèque des des Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain, 978-90-429-2722-3
annee_publi: 2014
resume: Negatives, adverbs, and preverbial particles (P-words) can be located in two positions in the AG clause: either at the beginning of the clause, or immediately before the verb, in which case they form with the verb itself a verbal complex. These positions of the P-word correspond to two kinds of tmeses, external and internal. Structural and typological arguments are adduced to show that a NP can be incorporated into the verbal complex in internal tmesis: semantically, many of these constructions are used to express institutionalized activities; besides, internal tmesis is often a strategy to background a participant and mark it as part of the presupposition.
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