GREEK WORD
ORDER
BY
K. J. DOVER
Professor of Greek in the University of St Andrews
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1960~CONTENTS
Preface
Bibliography
I THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
(i) Indeterminacy
(ii) Types of determinant
(ii) Material
Il LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DETERMINANTS
Gi) Postpositives and prepositives
(ii) Types of clause
(iii) Preferential words
Il SYNTACTICAL DETERMINANTS
(i) General principles
(ii) Preferential words
(iii) Ordinary words
IV LOGICAL DETERMINANTS
(A) General principles
G@) Emphasis
(ii) Logical categories
(B) Concomitants
(i) Treatment of concomitants as postpositives
(ii) Concomitant groups
(iti) Treatment of concomitants as prepositives
(iv) Preferential treatment of concomitants
(c) Nuclei
Series
(ii) Formulae
Vv STYLE
Index of passages
Page v
ix
10
I2
12
19
20
25
25
26
28
32
32
32
34
41
4
46
48
49
53
53
56BIBLIOGRAPHY
The abbreviations of periodicals are those of L’ Année Philologique.
Bibliographies of Greek word order are given by Schwyzer (Gram-
matik), Schwenter in W & S vii (1923), pp. 179 ff., 1X (1924), pp. 194f.,
N.F. 1 (1938), pp. 160ff., and Maurer, ibid. 1x (1924), pp. 195f. These
include references to works of the early and middle nineteenth century.
Some modern work is briefly mentioned by Schwyzer in JAW cc (1924),
pp. 138ff., and Risch, G/ xxxv (1956), pp. 33 ff. There is a good biblio-
graphy of general linguistic works in Sandmann (see below). The articles
of Firbas (see below) contain many references to work on individual
modern languages, including work in and on Slavonic languages.
The works listed in the following bibliography are referred to in my
footnotes (i) by the author’s name only, if the author appears only once in
the bibliography, (ii) by the author’s name and an abbreviation of the
title, if the author is represented by more than one work.
I mark * those works which seem to me to be of exceptional value to
the student of Greek word order.
Ammann, H. ‘Die Stellungstypen des lateinischen attributiven Adjecti-
vum und ihre Bedeutung fiir die Psychologie der Wortstellung auf
Grund von Ciceros Briefen an Atticus’, JF xx1x (1911/12), pp. 1 ff.
*Vom doppelten Sinn’, SHAW (ph.-hist.) 1920, no. 12.
* Untersuchungen zur homerischen Wortfolge und Satzstruktur, 1,
Freiburg i. B., 1922.
‘Untersuchungen, etc’, 11, JF xL11 (1924), pp. 149ff., 300ff.
—— ‘Wortstellung und Stilentwickelung’, G/ x11 (1923), pp. 107 ff.
BacHHaMMER, F. Die Spaltung eng verbundenen Worter bei Thukydides,
Diss. Erlangen, 1921.
Barse.enet, D. De la phrase d verbe ‘étre’ dans Pionien d’Hérodote,
Paris, 1913.
“Sur la place de yivoyen dans la phrase d’Hérodote’, MSZ xix
(1914), pp. 105 ff.
Bantu, P. ‘Zur Psychologie der gebundenen und der freien Wortstel-
lung’, Philosophische Studien xxix (=Festschrift Wilhelm Wunde),
pp. 22 ff.
Bewacuet, O. ‘Beziehungen zwischen Umfang und Reihefolge von
Satzgliedern’, JF xxv (1909), pp. 110 ff.
— ‘Zur Stellung des Verbs im Germanischen und Indogermanischen’,
ZVS 1.1 (1929), pp. 276 ff.
Bercaicne, A. ‘Essai sur la construction grammaticale’, MSL m1 (18-
78), pp- 1 ff, 124ff., 169 ff. [Left incomplete by author’s death.]
Bisuop, C. E. ‘The Greek Verbal in -TEO’, m, AJPA xx (1899),
pp. 241 ff.
*x BIBLIOGRAPHY
Buocu, A. ‘Uber die Entwicklung der Ausdrucksfihigkeit in den
Sprachen des Altertums’, MH 1 (1944), pp. 234 ff.
BLoomFIELp, M. ‘On the variable position of the verb in oldest Sanskrit’,
IF xxx1 (1912/13), pp. 156 ff.
Boupt, H. De liberiore linguae graecae et latinae collocatione verborum
capita selecta, Diss. Géttingen, 1884.
*Botincer, D, L. ‘Linear Modification’, PMZA ixvu (1952), pp.
1117 ff.
Brucmann, K. Kurze vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen
Sprachen, Leipzig, 1904.
“Verschiedenheiten der Satzgestaltung nach Massgabe der seelischen
Grundfunktionen in den indogermanischen Sprachen’, BSG (ph.-
hist.) Lxx (1918), no. 6.
Cuantratng, P. ‘Les recherches sur l’ordre des mots en grec’, AFC v
(2952), pp. 71.
Detsriics, B. Die altindische Wortfolge (= Syntaktische Forschungen 11),
Halle, 1878.
Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen 11, Strassburg,
1900.
*Germanische Syntax 1: Zur Stellung des Verbums’, 4SG (ph.-
hist.) xxvim (1911), Nr. 7.
Denniston, J. D. Greek Prose Style, Oxford, 1952.
—— The Greek Particles, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1954.
Dirrmar, A. Syntaktische Grundfragen, Grimma, 1911.
Exseinc, H. L. ‘Some Statistics on the Order of Words in Greek’,
Studies in Honor of Basil L. Gildersleeve (Baltimore, 1902), pp. 229 ff.
Entwist.e, W. J. Aspects of Language, London, 1953.
Frraas, J. ‘Thoughts on the Communicative Function of the Verb in
English, German and Czech’, Bmo Studies in English 1 (1959),
pp. 39 ff.
* ‘Some Thoughts on the Function of Word Order in Old English
and Modern English’, Zvidini Otisk x Casopisu, Sbornik Praci Filos.
Fak. Brn. Univ., 19§7, pp. 72.
—— ‘On the problem of Non-Thematic Subjects in Contemporary
English’, ZvléStnf otisk: Casopis pro moderni filologii, xxx1x,
pp. 22ff., 166ff. [In Czech, with English summary.]
Fiscuer, P. ‘Zur Stellung des Verbums im Griechischen’, G/ x11 (1924),
pp. 1ff., 189 ff.
FRaENKEL, Epuarp. Jktus und Accent im lateinischen Sprechvers, Berlin,
1928.
* ‘Kolon und Satz: Beobachtungen zur Gliederung des antiken
Satzes’, NGG (ph.-hist.) 1932, pp. 197ff., 1933, pp. 319 ff.
*Frisk, H. Studien zur griechischen Wortstellung, Géteborg, 1933.
VON DER GaBELENTZ, G. ‘Ideen zu einer vergleichenden Syntax’, ZVPs
V1 (1869), pp. 376.BIBLIOGRAPHY xi
VON DER GABELENTZ, G. ‘Weiteres zur vergleichenden Syntax’, ZV-Ps
vimt (1875), pp. 129ff.,300ff
—— Die Sprachwissenschaft, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1901.
Garpiner, A. H. Speech and Language, Oxford, 1932.
*Goopktt, T. D. ‘The Order of Words in Greek’, TAPAA xx1 (1890),
pp. 5.
Harcuer, Anna G. ‘Syntax and the Sentence’, Word xu (1956),
pp. 224 ff.
Haupt, Moritz. Opuscula 11, Leipzig, 1876.
Havers, W. ‘Zur “Spaltung” des Genetivs im Griechischen’, JF xxx1
(1912/13), pp. 230ff.
—— Handbuch der erkldrenden Syntax, Heidelberg, 1931.
Hermann, E. ‘Gab es im Indogermanischen Nebensitze?’, KZ xxximt
(1894), pp- 481 ff.
Hirr, H. Indogermanische Grammatik vu, Heidelberg, 1937.
Hotwerpa, A. E. J. Specimen literarum continens disputationem de
dispositione verborum in lingua graeca, in lingua latina, et apud Plutarchum,
Utrecht, 1878.
Jacossonn, H. ‘Tagen baren Léneborger Kind’, ZVS tv (1927),
Pp. roof.
—— ‘Zum homerischen dotepov trpétepov’, ZVS ivi (1929), pp. 1 ff.
Kamer, G. Stil und Text der todrtela "A@nvatav des Aristoteles,
Berlin, 1893.
Kent, R. G. Old Persian, 2nd ed., New Haven, 1953.
*Kiecxers, E. Die Stellung des Verbs im Griechischen und in den ver-
wandten Sprachen, Strassburg, 1911.
—— ‘Die Stellung der Verba des Sagens in Schaltesatzeh im Griechischen
und in den verwandten Sprachen’, JF xxx (1912), pp. 145
—— ‘Zur oratio recta in den indogermanischen Sprachen’, 1, JF xxxv
(1915), pp. 1f.; 1, JF xxxvi (1916), pp. 1 ff.
Krausz, W. ‘Die Entwicklung einer alten elliptischen Konstruktion in
den indogermanischen Sprachen’, ZVS xu (1924), pp. 223 ff.
-Kinner, R. Ausfithrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache: Zweiter
Teil: Satzlehre, revised by GERTH, B., 2 vols., Hanover and Leipzig,
1898-1904.
Leo, F. ‘Bemerkungen iiber Plautinische Wortstellung und Wort-
gtuppen’, NGG (ph.-hist.) 1895, pp. 415 ff.
Leumann, M. and Hormann, J. B. Lareinische Grammatik, Munich,
1928.
*Linpuamer, Luise. Zur Wortstellung im Griechischen, Diss. Munich,
1908,
*Lorpre, A. Die Wortstellung im griechischen Sprechsatz, Diss. Freiburg
i, d. Schw., 1940.
McDonatp, W. H. ‘Linguistic Examination of an Epigraphic Formula’,
AJA 11x (1955), pp. 151 ff.xi BIBLIOGRAPHY
Macponett, A. A. Vedic Grammar, Oxford, 1916.
Marouzeau, J. L’ordre des mots dans la phrase latine, 3 vols., Paris,
1922~49.
L’ ordre des mots en latin, Paris, 1953.
Meiuet, A. Introduction d I’étude comparative des langues indo-euro-
péennes, 7th ed., Paris, 1934.
Muster, K. ‘Der syntaktische Gebrauch des Genetivs in den kretischen
Dialektinschriften’, ZF xv111 (1905/6), pp. 133 ff.
Mupen, A. W. The Limitations of the Predicative Position in Greek, Diss.
Baltimore, 1900.
Moiuer, R. ‘De attributo titulorum s. V Atticorum observationes
quaedam’, Ph LXIV (1905), pp. 554 ff.
Newrsass, R. Sprache und Stil der Iamata von Epidauros, = Ph Supplbd.
XXVII (1935), NO. 4.
Pantazes, M. Td Si1acagpntixoy tis fAANVIKi}s yAdoons, ’APnve x1
(1899), pp. 443 f.
Paut, H. Principien der Sprachgeschichte, 2nd ed., Halle, 1886,
Pirrman, R. S. ‘Nuclear Structures in Modern Linguistics’, Language
XXIV (1948), pp. 2874.
Porzic, W. Review of Ammann, Untersuchungen 1, IF xutv (1927),
pp. 94ff.
Posteate, J. P, ‘Flaws in Classical Research’, PBA 1907-8, pp. 161 ff.
Rapermacuer, L. ‘Griechischer Sprachgebrauch vu—xiv’, PA Lx
(1904), pp. 1 ff.
*Rass, H. J. Der Satzanbau: Untersuchung ber eine eigentimliche
Wortstellung im griechischen und im lateinischen, Diss. Gdttingen, 1950.
[Typescript]
*Ricuter, Euisz. ‘Grundlinien der Wortstellungslehre’, ZRPA x1
(1920), pp. 9 ff
Roserts, W. Ruys. ‘A Point of Greek and Latin Word Order’, CR
XXVI (1912), pp. 177 ff.
*SanpMann, M. Subject and Predicate, Edinburgh, 1954.
Scnicx, Caria. ‘La lingua delle iscrizioni’, RF N.S. xxx (1955),
pp. 361 ff.
Scuéne, H. ‘Verschrinkung von Redegliedern im wiedererzahlten
Dialog’, RAM xiv (1899), pp. 633 ff.
‘Verschiedenes’, RAM Lxxint (1920-4), pp. 137 ff.
‘Eine umstrittene Wortstellung des griechischen’, H 1x (1925),
pp. 144 ff.
Scuutze, W. ‘Eine eigentiimliche Wortstellung’, ZVS uv (1927),
pp. 301 ff.
Scuwyzer, E. Griechische Grammatik (completed by Dzsrunnr, A.),
Munich, 1940.
Spice, F. Vergleichende Grammatik der altérdnischen Sprachen, Leipzig,
1882.
*,BIBLIOGRAPHY xiii
Sprrzer, L. ‘Nachtrag zu Singen und Sagen’, ZVS u1v (1927), p. 311.
*Tuomson, G. ‘The Postponement of Interrogatives in Attic Drama’,
CQ xxx (1939), pp. 147ff.
Tuums, A. ‘Experimentelle Psychologie und Sprachwissenschaft’,
GRMS 1m (1911), pp. 1ff., 65 ff.
Vauten, J. ‘Ober zwei Briefe des Alciphron’, SPAW 1908, pp. 990ff.
Venpryes, J. Le longage, revised ed., Paris, 1950.
*pe Varies, J. Untersuchungen iber die Sperrung von Substantiv und
Attribut in der Sprache der attischen Redner, Diss. Freiburg i. B., 1938.
*WacxzrnacrL, J. ‘Uber ein Gesetz der indogermanischen Wort-
stellung’, JF 1 (1892), pp. 333. (= Kleine Schriften 1, Gottingen, 1953,
pp 1ff.).
—— Uber einige antike Anredeformen, Gottingen, 1912.
—— ‘Zur Wortfolge, besonders bei den Zahlwértern’, Festschrift
Gustav Binz, Basle, 1935, pp. 33 ff. (=KZ Schr. 1, pp. 236ff.).
—— ‘Eine Wortstellungsregel des Panini und Wincklers Aleph-Beth
Regel’, JF ivi (1938), pp. 161 ff. (= Ki. Schr. 1, pp. 4344f.).
‘Indogermanische Dichtersprache’, Ph xcv (1942), pp. 1 ff.
*Wert, H. De Pordre des mots dans les langues anciennes comparées aux
langues modernes, 31d ed., Paris, 1879.
Wiuetm, A. ‘Neue Beitrige zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde’, v1,
SAWW cxxxxi11 (1921), no. 3.
—— ‘Zur Syntax des griechischen’, NGG (ph.-hist.) N.F. ur (1938),
pp. 118 ff.
Wonpt, W. Vilkerpsychologie I. Die Sprache, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1900.+ CHAPTER I
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
(i) INDETERMINACY
The problem of Greek word order is so seldom discussed in this
country that it is still possible to treat it as a fresh problem. In this
respect it differs from all other problems of comparable magnitude
in the study of the Greek language. Of the work so far published on
Greek word order, much is cautious and limited in scope, confining
itself to the minute analysis of a small number of particular pheno-
mena. Work which aims more ambitiously at a high level of
generalisation has borne little fruit. Sometimes this is because the
‘rules’ which it offers prove inadequate, or break down, as soon as
one tries to apply them to a page of Greek in a text opened at ran-
dom.' Sometimes the rules admit neither of proof nor of disproof,
because the arguments on which they rest are circular.? More often,
an objective general statement of the facts appears, to the seeker
after rules, inconclusive in the extreme; it amounts to saying
‘xyz and xzy occur, but, on the other hand, yxz, yzx, zxy, and
zyx also occur.’ General accounts of word order of the kind
which we find in Schwyzer’s grammar would have delighted Sextus
Empiricus.
It may be argued that if attempts to establish general rules have
ended in doubt and confusion, that is the fault not of the enquirers
after the truth but of the truth itself, Greek word order being ‘free’,
‘arbitrary’ or ‘indeterminate’. I do not suggest that such a view
is unscholarly or disreputable. It speaks, after all, with the voice of
experience and can draw upon a superabundance of evidence. We
find an Attic boundary-stone which proclaims itself (/G, 7, 877)
[40]86 46[p]os; we find another, of the same date, which says (ibid.
878) Ad[pos] 4083. The beginning of chapter 8 of the Hippocratic
* Thumb, p. 2, has no difficulty in disposing, by this test, of Kiihner’s
general rule (11, p. 595), but the rule which he substitutes (‘ middle’ position of
the verb) can be disposed of with equal ease.
2 See especially ch. rv, a (i) below (p. 32). Similar criticisms of circularity
may be brought against, e.g., Ammann’sattempt (WSt) to represent differences
of Greek order by stylistic differences in translation and Richter’s treatment
(p. 24) of ‘Rhythmuslinien’,
1 DG2 GREEK WORD ORDER
work De Carne is 1d 5t trap &8e Euvéotn; the next chapter begins
6 8 ont Euvéotn Se.
Discouraging as such examples may be, we should regard them as
opening the question, not as closing it. They suffice to show that
there must be some degree of indeterminacy in Greek word order;
that is to say, it must sometimes be determined by processes in the
mind of the composer, rational or irrational, which we cannot
necessarily expect to recover. On the other hand, there are very
many utterances in Greek which conform to one or other of a
limited number of patterns." Take, for example, a complete utterance
consisting of the three words tévra av typayev. Mathematically,
there are six possible ways of arranging three unlike objects; but
out of the six possibilities in this utterance, the majority can be
discarded:
G) &v mévta typayev, (ii) av Eypaye trdvta. No competent
student would write either of these; and any competent student
should be able to say why, namely that &v never begins a sentence.
(iti) 2ypowe Trévt’ &v. Nor, I hope, would a student write this;
but I should be surprised if he could say why, except to say (truly)
that if we search for an example, in Classical Greek prose, of verb
-+1r&vta-+4v arranged, as a complete utterance, in this order, our
search will be long. All of us, teachers and students alike, constantly
avoid abnormal formulations without knowing why, and there is
nothing strange in that; the process is comparable with the familiar
experience of carrying out a manual operation rightly when we do
not attend to it too closely and wrongly when we do.
(iv) tra&vr’ Bypaev &v. This is described by Demetrius, Eloc.
256, as a Kaxdpevov deviation from tra&vta av éypayev, but some-
thing which one might say or write in order to achieve Sewdtns;
he mentions it with tapeyéveto obyi=ot Tapeytveto.
(v) Eypowev &v travra and (vi) 1év7’ dv éyponyev. On these two
alternatives it is enough for the moment to remark that it is (vi),
not (v), which Demetrius treats as the norm from which wévT’
Eyponpev &v is a deviation, and (vi) which we should be more likely
to write in a prose composition; reasons for this will be given later.
If it is objected that an example containing a word like év is not a
fair example, it is legitimate to answer: what is a word ‘like &v’, and
which words are ‘like &v’? And where does the boundary lie
* Cf. Vendryes, p, 167.THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 3
between the comparative rigidity of wavr" dv Eypowev and the total
laxity of Spos S800 / S500 Spos?
The purpose of this book is to discover the nature of the principles
which would justify us in calling wévt’ &v fypoyev ‘normal’ or
‘right’ in order.
Gi) TYPES OF DETERMINANT .
The respects in which two utterances may be similar or dissimilar
are clearly very numerous. If two utterances are syntactically
identical, but differ in order, this does not prove that the determi-
nants of their different orders are unknowable; it proves only that
syntactical identity does not suffice to determine identity of order;
and our task becomes the exploration of all the respects in which the
two utterances are dissimilar, in the hope of finding there the vital
difference which determined their difference of order.
Let us now take a very simple Greek utterance, the words with
which Hippocrates excitedly awakens Socrates at the beginning of
Plato’s Protagoras (3108): Mpatayépas f\xer.? Let us discard any
beliefs which we may previously have entertained on the determi-
nation of word order, and ask in complete innocence: Why, in this
particular utterance, does the word Tparroryépos precede the word
fixer? We cannot know a priori what kind of answer we shall get, if
we ever get one; we must be prepared for an answer in any of the
following categories:
Gi) In phonological terms, e.g. ‘the longer word precedes the
shorter’, or ‘a word beginning with a consonant precedes a word
beginning with a vowel’.
(ii) In morphological terms, e.g. ‘nouns precede verbs, irrespec-
tive of their syntactical interrelation’.
(iii) In syntactical terms, e.g. ‘ the subject precedes the predicate’.
(iv) In semantic terms, e.g. ‘words denoting motion come at the
end’.
(v) In lexical terms, e.g. ‘fixer is one of n words which always
come at the end’.
(vi) In logical terms, e.g. ‘Hippocrates knows that Socrates will
guess that someone has come, but he won’t know who; so he utters
* This example is discussed by Goodell, pp. 30f., and Denniston, Prose,
p. 44f.
? Cf. Jacobsohn (ctr. Spitzer) and Wackernagel, W’stregel.4 GREEK WORD ORDER
first the word which is least expected by his hearer’. Here and
subsequently I use the word ‘logical’ in a highly general sense, as an
adjective corresponding to the noun ‘thought’.?
(vii) In emotive terms, e.g. ‘the word TTpctorydpas comes first
because it is the focus of the speaker’s emotion’.
(viii) In social or ceremonial terms, e.g. ‘Protagoras is older than
the speaker’ or ‘fxe1 is a tabu word in the speaker’s family’.?
(ix) In terms involving the individual history of the speaker, e.g.
‘the last time he said, or wrote, or thought “Protagoras has
arrived” it was in the form Tpwtaydpas Ket, and the present
example is determined by habit’.
(x) In stylistic or aesthetic terms, e.g. ‘the last time he thought
or said or wrote “ Protagoras has arrived”, it was in the form 7jKet
TIparterydpos, and he likes variety of formulation’.
T should not like to think that these ten categories are an exhaustive
list;3 but they are something to go on with. The customary pro-
cedure in an enquiry of this kind is:
@) To select one of these categories for exploration.
Gi) To formulate, within that category, hypothetical rules of the
highest level of generality compatible with their being mutually
exclusive.
(iti) To make a selection of texts which is random from the point
of view of the rules to be tested but not necessarily random from
the point of view of history, dialect or genre.
(iv) To compile statistics of the observance and non-observance
of the rules.
(v) On the basis of these statistics, to distinguish between
‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ order.
(vi) To discover the determinants of abnormality; that is to say,
to discover conditions which are present in all the abnormal
* Goodell, pp. 14ff., uses ‘rhetorical’ in something like this sense.
* I exaggerate here, but cf. Wackernagel, Wf. pp. 47f., for respects in
which word order may reflect social conditions and changes in order changes
in conditions.
3 One must also consider e.g. ‘mimetic’ order, in which words denoting
sudden noise or movement precede the words denoting its cause or source
(Ammann, Unt. 1, p. 15, Dopp. p. 23; Havers, Hdb. p. 146), and ‘excitant’
order, in which the words which are essential to the hearer’s understanding of
the whole situation communicated are postponed in order to create tension
(Lindhamer, p. 71; de Vries, pp. 87ff.).THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 5
instances but absent from all the normal, or, if present in some
normal instances, are counteracted there by certain other conditions
which are absent from the normal. The process of counteraction
may, of course, be complex, so that we eventually find ourselves
formulating rules which constitute exceptions to an exception to an
exception to an exception to an exception to the general rule.
This procedure is not only customary,' but in some form or other
inevitable. Yet the difficulties and dangers inherent in it arenumerous
and remarkable.
(i) Statistics may or may not give a clear picture; we cannot know
until we have them. If, for example, we are testing the syntactical
tule ‘the subject precedes the predicate’, and we find that the
ratio of SP to PS is 10:1, we can embark with some confidence
on the next stage of the enquiry, the discovery of the deter-
minants of abnormality. On the other hand, if the ratio is 2:1 or
lower, it is unlikely that we have discovered a primary determinant
of order and more likely that we are on the track of a secondary
phenomenon.
Gi) It is easy, but wrong, to equate ‘statistically normal’ with
‘natural’ and ‘statistically abnormal’ with ‘distorted’, ‘inverted’,
etc. If, for example, we were investigating a language in which the
order SP was invariable in statements and the order PS invariable
in questions, it would be misleading to formulate the rule in terms
such as: ‘SP is normal, but this normal order is reversed in ques-
tions’. Statements are more numerous than questions, but that is
not a fact of a kind with which we are concerned; we should content
ourselves with the pair of discoveries that (2) statement determines
the order SP, (5) interrogation determines the order PS.
(iii) It is also easy, but equally wrong, to define the determinants
of abnormality positively and to leave those of normal order
negatively defined. Suppose, for example, that there is a language
in which the order PS is statistically abnormal and in all instances of
PS the predicate is the focus of the speaker’s emotion. It is mis-
leading, in such a case, to say that the predicate precedes when it is
* The distinction between ‘habitual’, ‘traditional’, ‘usual’, ‘banal’, or
‘natural’ order on the one hand and ‘occasional’ or ‘rhetorical’ order on the
other is fundamental in Brugmann, Vl. p. 677, Delbriick, Vgl. pp. 38, 110ff.,
Aktind. p. 13, Schwyzer, Gr. 1, p. 691, Leumann, p. 610, Kieckers, St. Vos.
pp. 2ff.; cf. Chantraine, pp. 71f., Vendryes, p. 168.6 GREEK WORD ORDER
emotionally emphasised but omit to say that the subject also pre-
cedes when it is emotionally emphasised. It would be more useful
to say that (2) the element which is the focus of emotion precedes,
and (4) a syntactical determinant operates when emotion is absent.
(Perhaps here, as in other aspects of linguistics, there is room for
‘zero grade’ as a positive concept.) We might also find in some
language that normal and abnormal orders are equally positive
manifestations of a single general principle.
(iv) No scholar, I suppose, thinks that he needs to be warned
against regarding the order of his native language as ‘natural’, but
the danger is more complex and more insidious than is commonly
realised. The concepts ‘nature’ and ‘instinct’ die hard in linguistics.
Tf in our browsing in linguistic literature we encounter an illustra-
tion of word order drawn from a North American Indian language,
we think it fantastic; but because most of us who know Greek at all
began to learn it as children, and became accustomed to it gradually,
we fail to see that the fundamental differences in order between
Plato’s language and ours are at least as great as that between
Sitting Bull’s and ours.t One consequence of this failure is our
tendency to regard as ‘natural’ such elements as are common to
Greek and English order; we therefore seek explanations of the
differences, but do not trouble to explain what is familiar; theses are
written about Kal é&yAak S&6o1 &rrowe (//. 1, 23)? but not about
gépoov 1” Strepelon’ Etrowa (ibid. 13).3 The fallacy is not wholly
irrational in origin. Since Greek and English are the result of
differentiation from much more obviously related originals, and
since there exist language-families in which all the members of the
family follow the same principles of word order, it might be sup-
posed that we can find a Greek norm of order which will also be an
Indo-European order and will be manifested also in English, French
and German. We might find this; but we have no right whatsoever
to expect that we shall find it. Indeed, when we reflect that the
™ Cf. especially the phenomena discussed by Vahlen, p. 1002, Schéne,
Umstr., Wilhelm, Synt. Postgate, p. 166, appreciates the magnitude of the
difference, but in describing it somewhat exaggerates the rational and intel-
lectual aspects of Greek order.
* On ‘Spaltung’, ‘Sperrung’, and ‘Hyperbaton’ see Bachhammer, Havers,
Spalt., Lindhamer, de Vries, Rass, Kithner, 11, pp. 6ooff., Fraenkel, Jktus,
pp. 162ff.
3 Cf. the pertinent criticisms made by Loepfe, p. 10.THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 7
few thousand contemporary languages on which we have some
information and the handful which we can trace back into the
past represent only a tiny portion of the whole field of human
language, and that within that portion the variety of structure
which we can find is almost as great as the variety which we can
imagine, we may well conclude that we have no right to expect
anything.
Before we make our initial choice from the list of ten categories,
let us remind ourselves of some important facts by a glance at
the practice of modern spoken English. If we were asked by
a foreigner for a general rule of word order in English, we should
say, I suppose: The subject precedes the predicate. On second
thoughts, we should add: That is, in a statement the subject must
precede the predicate; any utterance in which part of the predi-
cate, in the form of an auxiliary verb, precedes the subject is a
question.
We shall have more than second thoughts, but let us consider for
a moment the nature of our statement so far as it has gone. Our
immediate classification of English sentences is in syntactical terms,
according to whether the subject precedes the predicate or the
predicate the subject. Yet the determinants of these alternative
orders are not themselves syntactical; they are logical. Even then,
the rule is not absolute; for there are questions which in respect of
order are indistinguishable from statements, e.g., ‘You haven’t
done it?’, and the classification of the logical conditions which
determine order in questions is subtle and difficult.
Furthermore, our statement that the subject precedes the predicate
in indicative statements is not entirely true. Consider, for example,
‘Here comes a policeman’, “There goes a bus’, ‘Never have I heard
such nonsense’, or ‘He would not do it, nor would I expect him to’.
The importance of these exceptions lies in the fact that they are not
instances of subordinate syntactical rules concerning negatives or
demonstratives or adverbs or conjunctions; they are instances of the
occurrence of specified words in specified patterns, and their usage
can be communicated to a foreigner only by exhaustive lists and
examples.
This reminds us that we cannot expect to find that the determi-
nants of order in any language are all of one type. Determinants
* Cf. Brugmann, Vschd. pp. 1 ff.8 GREEK WORD ORDER
of several different types may, as it were, pull a given utterance in
different directions, and the order in which it is eventually formu-
lated will represent the victory of one type of determinant over the
others."
The co-existence of determinants of different types is one of the
fundamental facts of language. If I construct a sentence containing
a subject and a verb which I have never used before—because, let us
say, someone has just invented them—my unthinking grasp of a
highly general and abstract syntactical rule will ensure that I put
the subject before the verb. But this application of a rule to an
unfamiliar content does not weaken my adherence to certain familiar
patterns which are in conflict with the rule, such as ‘nor would
I expect him to’. Historically speaking, over a long enough
period the balance of power between determinants demonstrably
shifts ;? but it would be a very unusual language in which all the
utterances of a given individual speaker were wholly and ex-
haustively determined by mutually exclusive rules belonging all to
the same type.
‘With these considerations in mind, let us turn back to our Greek
example, Mpctoydpos fixel, and make our first choice of a type of
determinant for further exploration. It is clear that not all the ten
types listed afford an equal purchase. The phonological type offers
no firm purchase at all; rhythmically, the word Tpwtoydpos is
choriambic; accentually, it is paroxytone with a short penultimate
vowel; it begins with a consonant, and ends with one; its vowels
are all back-vowels. The number of ways in which Mparteyépas can
be seen to differ phonologically from fei is very large, and the
possible phonological reasons for the order Tpatorydpas fKe are
accordingly so numerous that no obvious starting-point of enquiry
suggests itself. Similarly, if the determinant of the order is habit, or
ceremonial, or aesthetic variation, it will not normally be discover-
able. When the author is dead, there are limits to the inferences we
can draw from what he has left us in writing.
The fact that some types of answer are hard to obtain does not
mean that these answers are wrong; it means only that we shall be
* Schwyzer, Gr. 11, p. 690. Firbas, Comm. pp. 39f., WO, p. 73 speaks of
‘hierarchies of principles’ and illustrates the growth of the domination of
syntactical principles of order in English.
? Bloomfield, pp. 156f.THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 9
unwise to attempt such an answer until we have first explored the
possibilities of easier types. The possibility of an answer in lexical
or semantic terms depends in the first instance on observation and
thereafter on statistical compilation or negative observation. The
process reveals that there are many words in Greek which never
begin a sentence, and others which never end one. In addition, there
are some which are disproportionately common at the beginning of
a sentence, These data are useful, but they do not help us with
Tlpoxtacyépers FiKet.
An answer in morphological or syntactical terms stands at the
opposite extreme to the phonological. Morphological and syntac-
tical categories in Greek are few, and the possible alternative rules
of order in terms of these categories are correspondingly few. Also,
there is seldom room for disagreement on whether a given word is
noun or verb, subject or object or predicate.’ The a priori advantage
of a morphological or syntactical answer is strengthened by the fact
that in very many languages the determinants of order are syntac-
tical? and may be thought to be strengthened by ancient theory. The
order subject—verb is described by Demetrius Eloc. 199 as ‘natural’
(A puoiKi t&Eis), and noun—-verb by Dionysius Comp. Verb. 5 as
Ti pUoel érdpevov. But any inclination which the statistician may
feel to welcome the ancient critics as allies may falter when he
considers their reasons. Demetrius, speaking specifically of narra-
tive, says that the subject-matter (16 tepl o¥) of a sentence should
be stated first, and 6 totré tomw second, which is not quite the same
as saying that the syntactical subject precedes the syntactical predi-
cate. He continues: ‘but, of course, the order can be reversed... .
Ido not unconditionally approve the former order and condemn the
latter; I am merely setting forth 1d quoikdv elBos tis TéGecs.”
Demetrius’s conception of ‘nature’ is not necessarily based on
linguistic usage, as we may see from Dionysius. Dionysius thinks
it natural that nouns should precede verbs because nouns denote
substance (ovc{x) whereas verbs denote accident (ouuPefnkds) and
substance is ‘by nature’ prior to accident. He once believed, he
says, that in order to write well we should follow nature and put
nouns before verbs; but he realised later that this a priori philoso-
* The problem of Greek order in general has usually been discussed in
syntactical terms, e.g. by Chantraine, Frisk, Kithner and Schwyzer.
? Barth, pp. 22ff.Io GREEK WORD ORDER
phical view of the relation between substance and accident was
irrelevant to good writing. He deserves credit for his observation, _.-
and gratitude for the honesty with which he reveals the divergence
of interest between metaphysics and linguistics. When we come to
examine syntactical statistics, we shall do so without philosophical
allies.
(iii) MATERIAL
It is proposed in the next three chapters to identify types of determi-
nant in Greek word order; it is therefore necessary to define ‘Greek’
for this limited purpose.
Clearly our enquiry must be into early Greek; the study of word
order in the Gospels or Plutarch is interesting and worth-while, but
no one will want to turn first to them for an answer to a question
about the structure of the Greek language so long as the material of
earlier centuries is available.t Equally clearly, our attention must be
concentrated on prose rather than poetry. In poetry rhythm is
among the determinants of form;* and where the determinants
of form generally are more numerous, the isolation of the deter-
minants of word order in particular is likely to be more difficult.
This consideration is responsible also for my comparative neglect
of that large portion of fourth-century prose in which rhyth-
mical and phonetic preoccupations are demonstrably at work
among the forces determining the form in which authors express
themselves.
I have therefore paid special attention to Herodotus and docu-
mentary inscriptions, I am aware that Herodotus was an artist, the
power and beauty of whose work are manifest onevery page; yet there
are two important respects in which his language is ‘natural’. He
does not try, as Thucydides constantly tries, to say too much in too
few words; nor does he wrestle clumsily with language in the manner
of the so-called ‘Old Oligarch’. Secondly, the rhythmical and
* The statistics in Frisk, pp. 16ff., show important differences in syntactical
order between Hellenistic and Classical Greek; we may perhaps come to the
conclusion that the major difference is the emergence in Hellenistic Greek of
syntactical determinants which are irrelevant to Classical Greek.
? Porzig, p. 97, says that the exigencies of metre do not create new patterns
of order but only determine the author’s choice between existing alternatives.
Tam not sure that this distinction does not beg the question; cf. Wackernagel,
Dich. pp. 6f.; Bloomfield, pp. 157, 165; Spiegel, p. 514.THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM Il
phonetic considerations conspicuous in the fourth century are not in
evidence in Herodotus.?_,
As for inscriptions, it must be admitted that Greek documentary
inscriptions exhibit, at certain times and places, positive charac-
teristics of their own, and that we cannot assume without qualifica-
tion that their language is ‘basic’ or ‘natural’ Greek. Nevertheless,
these characteristics are few and easily identifiable; the establish-
ment of formulae, even at Athens, was remarkably late; and there
are several other considerations which make inscriptions of prime
importance to the student of word order. First, the manuscripts and
papyri of a prose literary text reveal just enough differences in
respect of order to make us reluctant to rely too heavily on the
authenticity of the order in any one passage, whereas an inscription
may be presumed to be only one stage removed from an autograph,
and slips of the chisel are likely to be rarer than slips of the pen.?
Secondly, the composition of documentary inscriptions is moti-
vated by a desire to communicate clearly and not to invite admira-
tion as a work of art.3 I have therefore chosen several of my
documentary examples from places which were not centres of cul-
tural and literary development. I cannot swear that the decrees of
the Ozolian Locrians do not betray the hand of a mute inglorious
Gorgias, but I may be allowed to doubt that and to believe that in
early documents from the Peloponnese, the North-West and Crete
the influence of Kunstprosa is minimal. There is some value in
applying to word order, and to all problems in the history of the
Greek language, a principle which was applied on a famous occasion
to a matter of higher importance: mpd@tov tv Tats TéAEon grTHCCpEV
Trotév ti éomiv.
1 Herodotus’s language undeniably shows some characteristics which we
associate with spoken rather than with written composition (cf. Pohlenz,
Herodot (Leipzig, 1937), pp. 209f.), and this makes analysis of the logical
relations between the elements of a Herodotean utterance easier and more
profitable (cf. Loepfe, p. 59).
* Striking and characteristic patterns of order in literature are always in
danger of over-systematic emendation, from which inscriptions are com-
paratively safe (Schéne, Umser. pp. 145 ff.).
3 Schick, pp. 362f.CHAPTER II
LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DETERMINANTS
(i) POSTPOSITIVES AND PREPOSITIVES
Most Greek words are ‘mobile’ (symbol ), in the sense that any
one of them may be found at the beginning of a clause, at its end, or
in the middle. There are, however, two important categories of
limited mobility. These are:
(1) Postpositives (symbol g). These words never, or only in
certain specifiable circumstances, occur at the beginning of a clause.
Some of them are unconditionally g, ie. may not in any circum-
stances begin a clause. They are:
(@ The particles &per ($a), a8, yp, ys, Bal, 8, Sine, Onv, uy,
pty (uav), ov (dv), ep, Te.
Gi) The word to1, which may be regarded either as a pronoun
or as a particle, according to dialect.
Gii) The pronouns pe, Hou (ev), Hol, LIV (viv), oge.
(iv) The modal particle év and its synonyms ke and Ka.
Certain others may conveniently be treated as unconditionally ¢,
since the circumstances in which they may begin a clause are
extremely restricted and the instances very few:
(v) 8h.
(vi) The pronouns of and og.
(vii) The oblique cases of atrés in the anaphoric sense. In the
sense ‘self’ they are /; but although this semantic difference might
be expected to cause trouble, I know of no instance of initial atrr-dv,
etc. which requires to be translated as anaphoric and forbids the
translation ‘self’.
The status of other q is less sharply defined:
(viii) The rule that the indefinite pronouns, adjectives and
adverbs Tis, 1109s, etc. are g is true on the whole, but to some extent
artificially protected by conventions of accent and translation.
Presented with tis évS0v; as a complete utterance, we should write
an acute accent on tis and translate ‘who is in?’ even when ‘is
someone in?’ might seem more appropriate to the context."
*Ts A. 4g. 1344 siya ths TANyt dirtel Konpleos otrracpévos; really
a question?LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DETERMINANTS 13
(ix) The pronouns oe, cou, coi, when initial, are by convention
accented and are translated-as emphatic. When medial or final, they
are written as enclitic if the context permits their translation as
unemphatic but accented if it requires them to be translated as
emphatic. The statement ‘unemphatic oe, cov, coi are enclitic and
postpositive’ thus incurs the danger of circularity inherent in the
concept ‘emphasis’.
(x) Similar difficulties beset the classification of viv/viv, the
oblique cases of ogeis, the present tense of pdvon, and the oblique
cases of tueis and Wueis, though the two last lack the complication of
accentual conventions. .
(xi) The verb elven cannot be classed as ¢ without many qualifica-
tions and reservations, not all of which admit of a satisfactory
classification. elven as copula tends, in most authors, to be treated as q;
when it is first word in a clause, we import into its translation nuances
which the context does not always demand and sometimes scarcely
justifies, I use the symbol MM for elven in its copulative sense.
In generalising about g it is the unconditional g, categories
(iH vii), which I have in mind, and it is the use of these words
especially which my examples are designed to illustrate.
The definition of g as words which never begin a clause necessi-
tates a modification of our definition of ‘clause’. One such modifica
tion is discussed below. The other is that vocatives, oaths and
parentheses, although often marked off by commas in modern texts,
are often immediately followed by ¢, e.g. Ar. Pax 137 GAN’ & pen”
&v por orttaov SrmAdv eer; Pl. Prm. 1378 tis ov, elteiv, yor écrro-
xpiveiten; This amounts to saying that in respect of g vocatives, etc.
do not affect the order.*
(II) Prepositives (symbol p).? These words never, or only in
certain specifiable circumstances, end a clause. They are:
G) dAdG, crdp (air&p), f, 7, Kel, OBE (UNBE), otrre (et) elre.
ii) u\=‘lest’.
(iii) Relatives, including the indeclinables et, érrel, Iva, ¢ etc,
(iv) 6=‘the’. In other senses 4 is not p.
* Wackernagel, Gesetz, pp. 391f.; Kieckers, V7. Sag. p. 150. The most
remarkable postponement of gis ina v./. at Ar. Mu. 398f. Kol Tréds, & wdpe ov
Kai Kpovicov Sgcov Kal PexkectAnve, eftrep B&AAst Tous EridpKous, Sf[T” ovxXl
Lipeov’ Everproev; (f\t" V: és codd, plerique: més Sit’ contra metrum
Ral.). See also p. 15 n. 1, p. 16 n. 3.
? Ammann, Unt. 1, p. 12.14 GREEK WORD ORDER
(v) Prepositions. In this category considerable historical changes
and differences between genres are observable, but in prose generally ..
all the prepositions are p except sometimes rept; &veu, Evexc, xcpiv,
opis, etc., reasonably classified as ‘improper’ prepositions, do not
come under consideration here.
The simple negative is not easy to classify. It has obvious p
characteristics; it might be argued that expressions such as ef 5 pr} or
ade piv dv yévorto, exeiveos 8° of are just as elliptic as e.g. otx of8’
6trou, and therefore do not tell against its inclusion among p. Since,
however, it may constitute a complete utterance by itself, and since
the types of clause in which it may appear last are numerous, I do
not treat it as p.
The three types of minimal complete utterance are |||, ||p/||
and ||Mq||. By definition, ||p |, |I¢||, ||44p || and |7/4 || are impos-
sible. When two M and one g constitute a complete utterance, the
two arrangements which are theoretically possible are || Mg M\| and
||44 .Mq||; with two M and two q, there are three possible orders,
\\Mog AA, Mg 2Mg\\ and |Mf Mgq||s with three M and two g, six
possible orders; and so on. Yet these alternatives are not equally
used. Greek has a strongly marked preference for || Mg(q...)
M (M...), accumulating ¢ after the first 14.‘ This is an observable
historical fact which could never have been deduced from the
definitions of M, p and g. In this pattern word-groups which we, as
speakers of modern European languages, would regard as indis-
soluble are disrupted, e.g. Callinus, fr. 1, 20 doTrep yap wiv TrUpyov
tv dqGoApoioww dpdaiv, Ar. Nu. 257 dotrep pe Tov "APdpave’ Sires
bh Quote, DGE, 412, 3 (Olympia, VI 3.c.) & 5€ Ka fpétpa &
Sapoola teAla elé SixdSdo0, Hdt. vi, 63, 2 &v S€ ol Adooovi xodvep. . .
4 yor att tikra. Similarly, words which, as we should say, ‘go
together in sense’ are widely separated,? e.g. Lys. 1, 17 Tatité& pou
mavra els thy yveouny eloner; in particular, g which ‘belong’ in
patticipial and infinitive clauses are commonly associated with the
words to which those clauses are subordinate, e.g. Hom. JI. xx1, 347
xadper 5 piv Goris eeipy (a rare type), Hdt. 1, 30, 4 Kal op: elBe
Grraat Téxva éxyevoueva, D. |, 18 exéAevod por attov vourras uiobdd-
gacfai. Hence a sentence such as Pl. Euthyphro 6a pioei tls pe
* Wackernagel, Gesetz; Schwyzer, Gr. 1, p. 692; Leumann, pp. 611 ff.;
Delbritck, Altind. pp. 47£., 59.
* Cf. Brugmann, Vgi. pp. 681ff.; Delbriick, Vgi. pp. 4off.LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DETERMINANTS 1g
#€apaprévelv is to be treated as only an apparent example, not a real
example, of a q (ue) beginning a clause."
Generally speaking, the earlier the Greek, the more closely does
M+M+q>MqM approximate to a rule. It is not, however, a
question of certain metrically convenient patterns establishing
themselves in the dactylic hexameter and influencing the subsequent
development of the language. The phenomenon occurs in other
Indo-European languages, especially in Indo-Iranian, eg. Old
Persian, XPa (Xerxes, Persepolis) 15 uta-maiy tya pita akunaus
= kat pou 6m1 (6) trathp éroincey.?
The progressive tendency in post-Homeric Greek to distribute ¢
within the clause, instead of concentrating them after the leading M,
is a secondary phenomenon. One of its principal causes is a certain
development, independent of anything we have discussed so far, in
the treatment of p. Even in the earliest Greek there exists a tendency
to arrange an utterance consisting of M, p and q in the order pMq,
and this tendency is increasingly strengthened in historical times.
This, again, is an observable fact which could not have been deduced
from definitions. Its extreme development may be seen in the
evolution of ‘compound verbs’. By the end of the fifth century
prefix and verb were virtually indissoluble in the language of prose,
and were presumably already an accentual unit. This evolution may
be symbolised M,9+M,>M,g. Contemporaneously with the
coalescence of p and M, certain words underwent semantic changes
and declined from M-status to p-status. The demonstrative pronoun
6 in Homeric Greek may be symbolised MJ’, i.e. M destined to
become p (and, of course, already in process of change even in
Homer).
The coalescence of p and M is most clearly seen in cases of pMq
where g is a connecting particle, e.g. Hom. J. xxiv, 665 TH Sexérq
BE Ke Odrrroipev, Hdt. rx, 49, 3 cd ToU ToTapod yap ogi otk zEfiv
Sep poptectn, Ar. Nu. 1198 Strep of trpotévOan yap Soxoticl pot
trofelv. These three examples may be symbolised: Hom., pMqqg M;
* The MS. text of E. [4 1435 twatioal pe pt Kéxize, accepted by Wacker-
nagel, Geserz, p. 392, might be tolerable if the context permitted (as it does
not) the translation ‘stop abusing me’. Occasionally the inversion of Mf and q
normal in sentences of the type pnot ue tfapaptdvely is found where some
degree of pause immediately before q seems inescapable, e.g. Lys. x11, 10
Gpoorv. . .AaPdv 1d TaAavtév ps doe. Cf. p.13n.1 and p. 16n. 3.
3 Kent, pp. 96f.; Wackernagel, Gesetz, p. 404.16 GREEK WORD ORDER
Hdt., ppMgqg MM M M; At., ppMg Mg M. More commonly,
the pM complex may be disrupted by connecting particles, but not__.
by other g, e.g. Pl. Prt. 310¢ 6 yép Tot Tats ye & Lérrupos érréSpar,
where the pattern is pggMq pM M. This pattern is typical.
The placing of particles after the definite article or preposition is
so fundamental a characteristic of Greek, and we learn it so early in
our study of the language, that we do not reflect often enough how
curious a phenomenon it is. It is in fact the result of a compromise
between pattern and principle. On the one hand, there is the
increasing tendency to treat pM as an indissoluble unit; on the
other hand, there is a poetic language in which pg(g...) M is
unrestricted and the evolution M*>p only in its initial stages.
Symbolically, pg, Mg, where g, is a connecting particle and g, any
other g, is the joint product of pg(q...) M, M*q(q...) M, and
PMqq...)."
As we should expect, the treatment of p+M+g varies greatly
from one dialect to another and from one period to another.
Herodotus, for example, inserts a g pronoun between article and
noun or between preposition and noun; in Attic prose this is very
rare with yo, even rarer with gol, and unexampled with those cases
of avtév which are equivalent to uty, of, ogi. Kat por and GAA& por
with imperatives survive more strongly in Attic than any other kal
gM or ddAK gM where gis a pronoun. A literal translation of DGE,
412, 3 into Attic—To 8’ dv yrigicua Td Snudotov KUpiov Ein Sixdzov—
although not entirely unparalleled,? would be extremely unusual.
Thucydides commonly places anaphoric ovt- immediately after
connective xal; this is not favoured by fourth-century prose. On
the other hand, fourth-century writers arrange the words in certain
parentheses to yield M(q)(|)gM!... in preference to M(q)|_Mq...,
eg. D.1, 19 ‘ti otv;’ &v Tis ettrot, ‘oW ypdgeis ToT’ elvoa oTparrice~
miké;’, Pl. Euthd. 297¢ veworl, yor Soxeiv, KerromrenAeuKéri.3 The
deferment of connecting particles also provides evidence of the
formation of other types of complex unit. One common type con-
sists of a word repeated in polyptosis, or a pair of closely related
* Cf. Leo, p. 419.
? Eg. Th. vi, 64, 1 Tos yap dv ious. . tos Irrméas. . . Adare &v
usyéAa. For other types of pgM which are unevenly distributed among
dialects cf. Wackernagel, Anr, pp. 27 ff. (on tav Tis and al tis Ka) and Wilhelm,
Beitr. pp. 44f. (on t&v Tg ToArtOv).
3 Wackernagel, Gesetz, pp. 392, 397. Cf. p. 13m. 1, pe 15 nea.LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DETERMINANTS 17
words, e.g, A. Eu. 529 GAA’ AAG B’ Epopever. This accords with such
phenomena as Tope piAgs gfe and Urrtp atrrés arto." A numeral
and the word to which it refers are sometimes treated as indissoluble,”
e.g. SEG, x, 2 (Marathon, VI/V B.c.), 19 ff. Tpidxovta avEp[as 58]
Tov &ySva Emdpoaobal,
Complex units account for many clauses in which g are not placed
immediately after the leading M, but there is another phenomenon
of much wider significance. Contrast Hdt. 1, 10, 2 kal f) yuvth
trrop& uly efidvrx with 12, 1 Kod piv Exelvn eyxeip{Siov Soticn Korra-
kpUrrret. In 12, 1 the pattern pg... is normal; in 10, 2 we have
ppM MqM. Now the idea that Kal *| yuvt érop& constitute a
complex unit cannot be taken seriously; and the fact that in reading
the narrative slowly and clearly we would make a slight pause
between yuvi and érop% is highly relevant. The example suggests
that g are not necessarily placed after the leading p or M of what
would traditionally be defined as a ‘clause’, but may occupy a
similar position within one of the word-groups which constitute the
clause; a ‘word-group’ being recognisable by the pauses of the
voice which precede and follow it.3 This suggestion is supported by
very many passages, e.g. Th. vi, 9, 3 Kal pds pév Tous tpdrrous
Tous Uyetépous dobeviis dv ou & Adyos ein. The words kal...
Upetépous are not a ‘clause’, but they are a well-defined word-
group; doGevts begins the next group, which takes the familiar form
Mg pM Mt.
A word-group, defined in terms of natural pause, may be very
short,# as in Hdt. 1, 2, 1 tora pév 84 toa pds Iga ogi yevéobau (note
that ia pds oa are treated, as we should expect, as a complex unit),
Lys. 11, 2 Spoos 88 6 pev Adyos pot trep! Torrey, 6 8’ &ydov KTA. Indeed,
circumstances often arise in which we may wonder whether the first
word of a clause is to be followed by a slight pause or is simply
equivalent to p, e.g. Pl. Pre. 3338 otxotv év &v ein t ocoppoawvn Kal
t opla.
One effect of breaking up a clause into word-groups is to distri-
bute g; and one consequence of this distribution is that g are often to
* Cf. Haupt, pp. 184ff.; Schulze mentions the phenomenon in Lithuanian.
? Cf. Fraenkel, Zktus, pp. 120ff.
3 Fraenkel, Kolon, pp. 319ff.; de Vries, pp. 20f. See also p. 19 n. 1.
4 “Kurzkola’ in Fraenkel, Kolon, pp. 327, 343, al. Section (iii) below is
relevant.
2 DG18 GREEK WORD ORDER
be found in close proximity to the words with which, as we should
say, they ‘go’.' As speakers of modern English, we find PI. _.-
Euthyphro 9c totrrov pty dglnut oe and 15 £ viv yép otrevBw Trot
more ‘natural’ than toUtov pév 0” donut and viv yap trot oTrevBe.
We are therefore bound to consider the possibility that the funda-
mental reason for the distribution of g and the consequent departure
from the original tendency to collect g after the leading M of the
clause is not the fact that a clause can often be broken up into word-
groups but a desire to bring closer together words which ‘go
together’ in sense. We might suspect that we see the result of a
conflict between pattern and sense in those clauses in which q is
repeated, e.g. E. Md. 250f. cs tpls av Trap’ atria oTfivan GéAorp”
&yv paAAov # texeiv raf (pMg pM M Mq M pM M). & is the q
most commonly repeated,’ but others may be,3 e.g. X. Cyr. 1v, 5, 29
oxéyar St of évmi pot Tepl of olos dv trepl epé Errert& por uépoH
(Mq|||M Mg pM|\|.M M+ pM||\Mq M). This phenomenon is not
confined to Greek, but occurs also in Vedic Sanskrit, e.g. Reveda 1,
35, 11 tebhir no adya pathibhih sugebhi raksa ca no adhi ca brithi
=Tonrrais hes THuepov S8ois eUPdrrois os Zé Te Hyds Urvép Te (Hudv)
é&yépeve, where the pronoun no ( = I
Pl. 18 5 o- = 4
(xiii) réte Hat. 3 I o- = 2
Lys. 3 1 o—- = I
(xiv) ontrrés Hat. 15 6 =—- = 4
Lys. 15 2 = 8 5
. PL 21 30 4 26
(xv) 6 ontrtés Hdt. 3 to- = I
Lys. 4 20- 1 3
Pl. 4 I 2 3
(xvi) GAAos Hat. 6 4 3 °0- 3
Lys. 8 2 = I 2
Pi. 32.3 7 2LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC DETERMINANTS 23
| I rt mi vv
(xvii) Etepos Hd og
Lys. 4 2 2 I 5
Pi. _ I — I
(xviii) &ppétepor Hdt. 2 — -—- = 2
Lys. 4 - - - =
Pl. - - ro- =
(xix) TTOAUs, etc. Hdt. 6 —- -—- = 4
Lys. 26 7 2 1 8
Pl. 7 4 3 °- WW
(xx) TOAAGKis Hat. I - = - —-
Lys. 20- =| = =
Pl. 305 0°5>O0~€~«S I
(xxi) els Hdt. 3 05> > ~°25 3
, Lys. I 30- -
Pi. 3 300 2 I
Tt will be seen that there are differences between authors; the
otros group is overwhelmingly J/* in Lysias, much less so in
Herodotus and Plato. Greater differences are apparent in:
(xxii) 8c, T75e, GBe, toidcbe, toodabe.
(xadii) és and adverbs formed with the stem twovt-.
I ff W@W iVvVv
(xxii) 68e, etc. Hdt. 3 °- I 2
Lys. 3 0- - = I
Pl. Ir 2 2 2 23
(xxiii) Tré&s Hat. 7 20- 2 2
ly. 13 #4 —-— — 4
Pl, 20 4 4 — 10
Trev TOS Hdt. 2 0— —- = =
Lys. Io- = >= =
Pl. 4 - Io I
Of the instances of 55, etc. in column V, 16 out of 17 in Herodotus
and 11 out of 23 in Plato actually occur as the Jest word of a
clause.24 GREEK WORD ORDER
Semantically, 4* do not constitute a well-defined class. One
group has a purely demonstrative character,’ e.g. éxelvos, and a_
second group consists of logical connectives,? e.g. Syas. Others
have affinities with one or other of those two groups, as éy, au, etc.
have with the demonstratives or Tévtes with the logical connec-
tives. Others have affinities with both, e.g. obtws and viv;3 and
others again with neither, e.g. ToAUs.4
* Kieckers, Se. Vds. pp. 18ff., r10ff., 126f.; Or. R.1, p. 93 Kaibel, pp. 99f.;
Bergaigne, p. 176. For statistics of pronominal M* in relative sé., in terms of
Sand P, see Frisk, p. 39.
* Bloch, passim. 3 Ammann, Unt. 1, p. 42.
4 Ammann, Unt. 1, p. 16. I have not exhausted the list of M*; see Spiegel,
p. 514, Kieckers, Vb. Sag. pp. 145 ff., Or. R. 1, p. 9, Schéne, Vschr. on ‘say’,
and Bloch, pp. 243 ff., Kieckers, St. Vas. pp. s0ff., on ‘be’. See also ch. tv, 8
(iv) below..- CHAPTER III
SYNTACTICAL DETERMINANTS
(i) GENERAL PRINCIPLES
In Greek prose of the fifth and fourth centuries B.c. the subject (S)
tends to precede its verb (V); the relevant statistics can be broken
down to show, for example, that in main clauses in Xenophon, HG
the ratio SV’: VS is 4:0, in relative clauses in Lysias 9:0, in temporal
clauses in Herodotus 1-2, and so on. The ratio OV: VO shows
greater fluctuation, the extremes being 0-7 and 4:0, but in most types
of clause in most authors it exceeds 1:0."
These ratios seem to justify us prima facie in giving SV and OV
the status of syntactical rules, The problem is then to account for the
instances of VS and VO, and this problem we might expect to solve
by finding conditions which are present in all instances of VS or VO
but absent from those of SV and OV, or, if present in SV and OV,
are counteracted by other conditions absent from VS and VO...
and so on.” If we confined ourselves to purely linguistic conditions,
we might imagine that the differences of order between Lys. x1x, 50
Twovete...cos Arotivos Exo1 TéAavTa TeTtapéKovTa TAEio # Soc
adds pordyer and 51 é&ravteov éxnkodtwv ST TeTtapdKovta
téAavta Exo Aidtiwos or between Pl. Jon 5383 ti Bt St étav
“Ounpos Afyn ads. . “ExoprSn. . .8{Sco1 and 538c tI 58 Stav Ayn
“Ounpos ‘1 S& poAuBSalvy IkéAn KTA.’ are the product of the
differences between the ‘constructions’ of the contexts of the words
concerned, or that between Hdt. 11, 67, 1 ob yap fv of doqoAts
KayBuoew teteAcuTnKdtos paver tov Kipou uldv drodcAekévon
ovroxeip{n and 67, 2 & BE St udcyos TeAeuTI}OOVTOS Kay Bloew &be6d5
eBaciAeuce a difference between the perfect and aorist aspects. These
hypotheses do not in fact survive testing, and we are constantly
confronted with differences for the explanation of which we would
need to draw linguistic distinctions of increasing complexity and
increasingly obvious irrelevance, e.g. X. HG, 1, 2, 16 AAKiPi&Ens BE
* Relevant statistics (in terms of S, O and P=Predicate) are to be found in
Frisk, pp. 16ff.
? Delbriick, Germ. p. 10, calls the order SV ‘normal’ and VS ‘invertiert’,
Frisk, pp. 39, ad, ‘gerade Stellung’ and ‘Inversion’.26 GREEK WORD ORDER
8Slooxev Excov Tous Te tras Kal Td&v STrArTéSv elkoor Kad éxerrdv, ddv
Fipxe MévavBpos, An. 1, 7, 11 GAAOL 8 Foav Efaxiox {Aion frrreis, Ov |.
*Aptayétpons Aipxe, Th. 11, 30, 1 Kal’ Aotoxdy, fis Etiapyos trupévvel,
AaPdvtes. . .TpOcETToI\aavTo, 80, 6 Opéorten 5é x{Ato1, dv éBaotAcuev
*Avtloxos, yeTé Tapavatcov fuveotpatevovto. In short, the relation-
ships S-V and O-V are in the last resort no more stable in order
than the relationships illustrated in ch. 1 (i). Yet in recognising this
fact we must also account for the statistics. What exactly do they
prove?
Using throughout the classification of clauses explained in ch. 1 (ii),
T omit from all the statistics in this section all S—V relationships in
which V is elvoa, whether copulative or existential, or copulative
ylyveoGou.' I include in O the genitive or dative with verbs which
never or rarely take an external accusative, e.g. XpfjoGo1, ém@unpelv,
and the dative of the indirect object with verbs meaning ‘give’,
‘say’, etc., where no direct object is expressed. Where any of these
verbs do have an accusative object, I treat that as O. I exclude from
O the neuter accusative singular or plural of an adjective without
the article, e.g. kaxc ppoveiv, Sevdv Troieioban,
(ii) PREFERENTIAL WORDS
Tt is obvious that when S is an interrogative the ratio SV: VS will be
very high; so will OV’: VO when O is an interrogative.? We should
therefore expect in general that when S or O is M+, SV and OV will
be commoner than when S or O is M’. This expectation may be
tested statistically; I give below the figures for S=M* and O=M*.
By ‘S=M*’ I mean that S is either (i) wholly composed of M’, e.g.
yc 46, or (ii) contains M? and is wholly on one side of the verb or
the other, e.g. Tévde tov GvBpa dpé; cases such as tov dévBpa dpdd
tév6e are excluded from these statistics. ‘O=/M*’ is to be similarly
interpreted. I do not regard ovrrés by itself as ever constituting S or
O, and I admit ws by itself as constituting S or O only when it
requires the translation ‘everyone’ or ‘everything’ and forbids the
translation ‘all of them’, ‘all of us’, etc.
7 Ebeling’s statistics of the copula give a picture quite different from that
which is given by statistics of verbs other than the copula.
? Thomson analyses the logical circumstances in which interrogatives are
displaced from their normal leading position.SYNTACTICAL DETERMINANTS
SV
tya, etc.
6 cnrés
GAAS
Gupdtepor
TrOAUS
els
Torats
Ratios
Ht.
Lys.
Pi.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl.
Hat.
Lys.
Pl.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pi.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl.
Hdt.
Lys.
Lys.
Hat.
Lys.
Pl.
Hdt.
Pl.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl.
Total
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl
af
9
49
5
12
40
21
25
21
2
HM NON 0
|
wae enw ennn |
44
118
225
Pldatl il tle lb bil bla nn nw wha Slliwlng
BBw 5
SVIVS
44
315
3°93
3°58
OF VO
5 2
2 2
15 3
28 25
46 7
7° 19
I —
8 I
2 3
2 _
3 I
6 _—
4 —
I _
2 —
2 I
12 4
I _
4 —
I _
I _
19 —
7 I
I —
I —
45 27
88 Ss
Ir 31
244 6
OV:VO
1°67
828 GREEK WORD ORDER
As these figures accord closely with the general picture of M+
given in I (iii), so too the figures for 65¢ and was reflect the _.
differences between authors illustrated there:
SV VS OF FO
o5e Hdt. _ I I qI
Lys. I _ _— I
Pl. 7 2 8 2
Tres Hat. — 3 7 5
Lys. - - 11 I
Pl. 7 - 8 2
(iii) ORDINARY WORDS
Let us now see what happens when S and O are M°. I distinguish
between:
(a) | SV, in which no M of any kind precedes S$ in the
clause.
(6) nSV, in which S is preceded by a negative but by no
other M.
(c) -SV, in which S is preceded by at least one M other than a
negative.
So too nVS, -VS, | OV, etc. Clauses containing S, O and V will
appear twice in the tables, once for their S—V’ and again for their
O-F relationship. Thus e.g. Pl. La. 184 vow & Thy évavtiav. ..
Adéxns Nixie {eto is both -SV and -OV. I give separate figures for
seven of the eight types of clause defined in II (ii); a/inf- is so rare in
the texts analysed that I have omitted it.
mn. sb. pt.* pt. alpt. inf.* inf.
|Sh Hadt. 27° «15 «15 G4 3 > - WW
Lys. 15 12 5 6 —-— — WW
Pl. 9 15 3 40> 6 11
nSV Hdt. - -— T roS— I
Lys. I ro-— — se Se
Pl. I I Iro- > = I
SV Hdt. 5 305° ~°*2
Lys. 3 3 Io>- > 2
Pl. 3 2 2 2 = I[vs
aVS
[OV
nOV
|vO
nVO
-VO
SYNTACTICAL DETERMINANTS
Hdt.
Lys.
Pi.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pi.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pi.
Hdt.
Lys.
Pl.
Hat.
Lys.
Pi.
Hadt.
Lys.
Pl.
Hat.
Lys.
Pl.
Hdt.
Lys,
PL.
Cans
12
22
14
34
Il
17
2
15
4
10
il
|
oba wlan
OvwOD ANY WH
=
HeN
»
N=
The totals for the three texts are:
Hat.
Lys.
Pi.
SV
99
60
63
VS
68
12
22
pt.
*
12
pte
13
26
yw
10
35
17
Il
vow
vNw
OV
76
178
89
alpt. inf* a
2 =
_ I
ro
ro
I I
30
30
2 -—
— I
roo
ro
2 -
vO
127
57
79
14
39
22
4
NVN YAK
| wow
NAD30 GREEK WORD ORDER
The differences of ratio between the four principal types of clause
(omitting pt.*, a/pt., inf.* and a/inf. as inadequately represented) are: _
Hadt. Lys. Pl.
SV:VS OV:VO SV:VS OV:VO SV:VS OV:VO
mn. rig 059 4°75 4 2:6 1:07
sb, 1-97 0°53 16 6-75 18 158
pt 125 037 15 195 3 067
inf. 3°25 1:27 <0 281 65 1°32
It appears that there is a consistent preference for SV, and that
this preference is more marked in inf. than elsewhere. With that
exception, the most conspicuous feature of the tables is the
differences between authors.’ These differences, however, are not
consistent differences between dialects, periods and genres; authors
are not even always consistent with themselves. In Hdt. vim, 1-48,
Lys. x1x (De Aristophanis Bonis) and PI. Jon, the comparable totals
are:
SV VS Or vO
Hdt. 7 45 85 76
Lys. 38 24 61 55
Pl. 42 21 43 33
Comparing now the ratios SV: VS and OV: VO for all six texts, we
have:
ve SV:VS— OV:¥O
Hdt. mt 146 o6
Hdt. viii 1°86 12
Lys. x 50 312
Lys. x1x 1°58 Weir
Pl. Laches 2:86 113
Pl. Zon 20 1130
* Further data illustrating authors’ preferences in different types of clause
may be found in Behaghel, Sz. V3. p. 280, and in Frisk, pp. 28ff. Hermann,
pp. soof., points out that there are no structural characteristics of sb. which are
general JE. ‘Nachsitze’ (see p. 20 n. 1) which fulfil the requirements of my
argument by containing either S=M? and V or O=M? and V are too few in
the texts analysed to be distinguished from other mn. So far as they go, they
exhibit S V, VS, O V and VO.SYNTACTICAL DETERMINANTS 31
Plato is the most consistent. Lysias shows a very much greater
preference for SV and OV in x1 than in x1x. Herodotus in vit
agrees with Lysias and Plato in preferring OV, but differs greatly
from his own practice in 11.
It is clear that these statistics are very far indeed from estab-
lishing for ‘Classical Greek’ simpliciter anything worth calling a
syntactical rule of word order. Extended to a much greater variety
of authors and texts, they would no doubt give us an interesting
picture of the vagaries of individual preference—and thereby
suggest with increasing force that all patterns of order which are
describable in syntactical terms are secondary phenomena.CHAPTER IV
LOGICAL DETERMINANTS
A. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
(i) EMPHASIS
The fact that Greek utterances identical not merely in structure but
also in content may still differ in order, the variations in structural
preference between authors and between different portions of the
same author’s work, and the high proportion of ‘abnormality’ even
in authors whose preferences are consistent, suggest that some, at
least, of the determinants of order must be sought not inside the
utterance itself, but outside it, in its relation to its context.t In
modern spoken English such relations are expressed by modification
of the tone and volume of the voice, so that two utterances which in
writing are identical may be revealed in speech as standing in quite
different logical relations to their contexts.”
These relations in Greek have sometimes been discussed in terms
of ‘emphasis’, sometimes in terms of the distinction between
‘logical subject’ and ‘logical predicate’. For pedagogic purposes,
rough rules have been formulated in the terminology of emphasis,
e.g, ‘the emphatic positions in a Greek sentence are at the beginning
and the end’.3 Yet the term ‘emphasis’ is for a variety of reasons
unsatisfactory.
(a) ‘Emphatic’ is commonly used to describe both words
which are the focus of the speaker’s emotion and words which
are essential to the clarity of his argument.* Some passages of
* Cf. Loepfe, pp. 8, 130, Kaibel, p. 96, on the failure of purely grammatical
explanations.
2 Cf. Brugmann, Vschd. pp. 4f., 9ff., Richter, p. 28, on the variety of
function fulfilled by tone and volume of voice.
3 Denniston, Pr. St. p. 44, Delbriick, Vgl. Synt. pp. 110ff.
4 Firbas, Comm. p. 39, uses ‘emotive’ to denote all kinds of ‘emphasis’.
Yet the distinction is vital; clear explanation and the stimulation of emotion
are often incompatible; so are humour and explanation, for the humour of the
‘unexpected requires the speaker to create a misleading expectation, and this is
not a common or profitable didactic technique. Richter, p. 37, makes a
fundamental distinction between ‘geftihlerregende Rede’ and ‘berichtende
Rede’.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 33
Greek prose are designed to stimulate in the hearer pity, terror,
anger, scorn or pride;.the majority are not: they are designed
to make the hearer understand, and the only emotion which
sustains them is the determination to communicate intelligibly.
The difference in purpose and circumstances between language
which stimulates irrational emotion and the language of ex-
position is profound, but the term ‘emphasis’ obscures this
difference.
(6) Emphasis is necessarily a matter of degree. There are some
short utterances in which it is possible to designate one component
unhesitatingly as ‘emphatic’ and another as ‘unemphatic’; but
most Greek utterances are longer and more complex. Consider
for example Heraclitus, fr. 57: S18éoKoAos 5 TAcloTav ‘Hoiobos:
tottov yap eriotavtai TAsiote elSévon, Sotis Hugonv Kal eUppdvny
otk tyivoooxev: tov yap Ev. If we possessed the original context
of this fragment, we should probably be able to say which of
the words in the first clause is less emphatic than its neighbours;
but with that exception, I should find it very hard either to
allocate the remaining words between the categories ‘emphatic’
and ‘unemphatic’ or to arrange them on any scale of emphasis."
Objections of a similar kind may be brought against all analyses
of logical relationships; but we must seek, and may find, an
analysis which admits of more absolutes than the concept ‘emphasis’
does,
(c) To a remarkable extent, individuals may disagree about the
location of ‘emphasis’ in a given passage of Greek,? and an indivi-
dual may disagree with himself on different occasions.
(d) These three defects of analysis in terms of ‘emphasis’ com-
bine to lead us into a danger which is never far away in the study of
dead languages. We suspect that there is a certain semantic difference
between two alternative formulations; we find certain examples in
which the difference of formulation coincides with this semantic
difference; upon these examples we base a general rule; we then
* See p. 37. 1, p. 53 mT.
> Goodell, pp. 22ff., 27f., 38f., remarks on this danger. I find it impossible
to agree with Ebeling’s interpretation (pp. 236£.) of sentences which seem to
him to illustrate his general principle, and I find much room for similar dis-
agreement, both on principles and on their particular illustrations, with
Fischer, pp. 194ff., Holwerda, p. 45, Richter, pp. 33f., Schéne, Umstr.
pp. r71f., Meillet, pp. 365 f., Wundt, pp. 350, 368 n. 1.
3 DG34 GREEK WORD ORDER
translate all other examples of the alternative formulations in such
a way as to make them conform to the rule; and finally we treat our
translations as evidence for the validity of the rule."
(ii) LOGICAL CATEGORIES
Rules defined in terms of ‘logical subject’ and ‘logical predicate’
(or ‘psychological’ or ‘cognitional’ subject and predicate, or
‘determinand’ and ‘determinant’, or ‘thema’ and ‘rhema’)* escape
to a large extent the disadvantages of rules defined in terms of
emphasis. They avoid the risk of confusion between the rational and
the emotional, they leave little room for disagreement on analysis,
and still less room for disagreement on questions of degree.
The essential difference between ‘logical subject’ and ‘logical
predicate’ may be illustrated by taking some simple English utter-
ance such as ‘dogs bite’. Irrespective of context, the syntactical
relationship between the two elements of this utterance is constant;
‘dogs’ is always the syntactical subject and ‘bite’ is always the
syntactical predicate. If the context of this utterance is a discussion
of the habits of dogs, syntactical subject and logical subject coincide;
‘dogs’ denotes the subject-matter, 16 Trepi of, Td trroxelyevov. If, on
the other hand, the context is a discussion of creatures which bite,
the logical classification of the elements of the utterance is the
reverse of the syntactical; ‘bite’ becomes the logical subject, and
‘dogs’ the logical predicate. In English, the syntactical categories
determine the order of words, the logical categories the volume of
the voice.
* This criticism may, I think, be levelled against Barbelenet, Etre, pp. 63 ff.,
103f., and Ammann’s semantic classification (Wat. 11, pp. 300ff.) of examples
of atpety and éAetv in Homer.
* ‘Logical’: Weil, pp. 14 al., Holwerda, p. 24, Gardiner, p. 273, Sandmann,
pp. 101 ff.; ‘psychological’: Gabelentz, Weit. pp. 129, 335, Sprw. pp. 365, 370,
Paul, p. 236, Dittmar, p. 40; ‘cognitional’: Sandmann, pp. 142ff., 245 ff;
‘determin-’: Dittmar, pp. 37ff., Richter, p. 25; ‘rhema’ and ‘thema’: Loepfe,
p. 23. Firbas, Comm. p. 39, WO, p. 71, Non-Th. p. 171, distinguishes between
‘theme’ or ‘communicative basis’ and ‘rheme’ or ‘communicative nucleus’.
T do not imply that all these authors use all these terms synonymously; I cite
them simply as examples of distinctions which are in varying degrees analogous
to the grammarian’s distinction between subject and predicate, but must be
drawn in the light of the logical relation of an utterance to its context and are
not necessarily revealed by grammatical form.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 35
The difference between the logical categories can be described in
several different ways:_--
Gi) In the two contexts which I have postulated, the utterance
‘dogs bite’ is an answer to an implicit question;! in the first context,
‘what do dogs do?’, and in the second, ‘which animals bite?’ In
each case the utterance could be reduced to the logical predicate
alone; it would be laconic, but it would be intelligible; the logical
subject is the element which is common to question and answer.”
Gi) The logical subject is what one would leave out if one were
sending a telegram the logical predicate is what one would leave in.3
(iii) The logical subject is the element which is expected or pre-
dicted by the hearer; the logical predicate is the element which is
new, unexpected and unpredictable to him.4
To amplify now the concepts ‘dispensable’ and ‘predictable’:
(a) In speaking of a word in a given context as ‘dispensable’ I do
not mean necessarily that it could be omitted without any gram-
matical adjustment of what remains; thus in saying that émOupsis is
logically dispensable in Ar. Nu. 435 Tevfer Tolvuv dv tyelpers: ob yep
veyéAav Em@upeis I recognise that its omission would make the
change of peyéAwv to weydAa desirable.
(6) Words are not dispensable or predictable solely by virtue of
their relation to the verbal context; their relation to their material
context is also relevant.) In $/G3, 358 a Hidpov & Acivopéveos kal Tol
Zupoxdaior To: Al Tupdv’ dd Kuuos, the word ‘dedicated’ is
dispensed with because it can be understood from a combination of
the words themselves with the nature and location of the object
upon which they are inscribed.
(c) Whether or not dispensability and predictability are deter-
minants of order remains to be seen; but we can say for certain that
in any language whatsoever there are circumstances in which order
* Weil, p. 22, Gabelentz, Sprw. p. 366, Wundt, p. 349, Dittmar, p. 40,
Gardiner, pp. 273f., Hatcher, pp. 239 ff.
* Loepfe, p. 28.
3 Cf. Gabelentz, Sprw. p. 366, on exclamations,
* Goodell, pp. 30f., Richter, p. 13, Loepfe, p. 25, Bolinger, pp. 1118 ff.
5 That is to say, the whole situation of speaker and hearer, or of writer and
reader, must be taken into account, and not merely those aspects of the
situation which are put into words. This is stressed by Brugmann, Vschd.
pp. 13. Gabelentz, Sprw. p. 370, Richter, pp. 13, 15ff., de Vries, p. 23,
Loepfe, pp. 18, 35f., Gardiner, passim.
3236 GREEK WORD ORDER
determines predictability. In X. HG, 1, 2, 16 dv fipxe MévavSpos the
relative pronoun dv tells us nothing certain about the content of the _
clause which it introduces; Xenophon may, for all the hearer knows,
be about to say ‘of whom the majority had lost their shields’; we
cannot predict fpye from dv, and still less can we predict MévavSpos
from fipxe. On the other hand, in An. 1, 7, 11 &v ’Aptorytpons fipxe,
given the words dv *Aptaytpons, the following #ipxe has a high
degree of predictability, for after Sv and a man’s name the author is
more likely to be going on to say ‘led’ or ‘commanded’ than any-
thing else. Similarly in JG, 17, 865B [A]6pos [tené]vos *A[ptenst]&0s
*A[uapulalas, Spos does not tell us ‘boundary of what?’, nor does
tepévous tell us ‘sacred land of whom?’; hence the second word is
not predictable from the first, nor is the third predictable from the
first two. But in 865. Adpos “ApteulSos Teyévos *“Avapy[a]ios the
word tepévous is both predictable and dispensable, for ‘boundary of
Artemis’ can only be ‘boundary of the temple/sacred land of
Artemis’ ; compare the complete inscription Adpos Aids (1G, 17, 863),
in which ‘temple’ or ‘sacred land’ is understood.
(d) The criterion of dispensability in Greek is, or can be made, a
very strict one. We are entitled to say that a word in a given utter-
ance is dispensable if we can find, preferably, an identical utterance, -
or, failing that, a very-similar one, in the same author, or in the same
place and period, in which it is actually dispensed with. Thus we can
say that in ‘ Callias dedicated me to Athena’ the words ‘dedicated me’
are dispensable because we have actual examples of ‘Callias to Athena’.
(e) Dispensability and predictability are not always the same
thing. Compare with dv fpye MévavSpos the modern English
practice of writing the name of a man in brackets after the name of
a ship ora military formation. By convention, the name in brackets
is the name of the commander; hence in English the words ‘com-
manded by’ are dispensed with. In Greek this convention is not
used, so that in dv *Aptoryépons fipye the word fpye has a certain
degree of predictability but is not dispensable.
Cf) ‘A certain degree’ is an unavoidable qualification. A word
can never be wholly predictable from the preceding words; at the
best it can only be overwhelmingly likely, and more often it is
predictable only in the sense that it is the most likely of a small
number of feasible alternatives. Similarly, in speaking in paragraph
(d) of ‘identical. . .or. . .very similar’ utterances I tacitly admittedLOGICAL DETERMINANTS 37
that in one sense dispensability also may be a matter of degree.t
Nevertheless, dispensabjlity and predictability differ from ‘emphasis’
in that while admitting of degrees in a positive sense they admit of
absolutes in a negative sense. I do not know what would be meant
by calling a word ‘absolutely emphatic’; but in any context there
are words which are ‘absolutely indispensable’ or ‘absolutely un-
predictable’. So long, therefore, as certain characteristics can be
wholly absent from some of the elements with which we are dealing,
the risk of imprecision entailed in the fact that their presence in the
remainder is a matter of degree is an acceptable risk.
The starting-point of this discussion of dispensability and pre-
dictability was the traditional distinction between ‘logical subject”
and ‘logical predicate’. This traditional distinction is by no means
coincident with the distinction between the dispensable and the
indispensable or between the predictable and the unpredictable. The
position is rather that when we devise examples of the simplest kind
to illustrate the traditional distinction as sharply as we can these
examples draw our attention to other ways of describing the logical
relation between the components of an utterance and suggest the
possibility that these ways may be more fundamental in character,
and of a wider application, than the traditional terminology.
This possibility is realisable. In postulating two contexts for the
English utterance ‘dogs bite’ I chose two of the same type, in which
one element is ‘given’ by the situation or ‘inherited’ from what has
preceded. This, however, is not the only type of context. Suppose
that instead of the habits of dogs or the number of biting animals the
context were concerned with the means by which animals defend
themselves. In this context ‘dogs’ and ‘bite’ would receive in
modern English different intonations but the same volume of voice.
If we analyse this utterance in terms of dispensability and predict-
ability, the answer is short and clear: both elements are indispensable
and both are unpredictable. Yet it is customary to apply to this type
of utterance also the analysis into ‘logical subject’ and ‘logical
predicate’; and most people familiar with these terms, if they were
required to analyse ‘dogs bite’ in the context ‘how do animals
defend themselves?’, would say that ‘dogs’ is logical subject and
‘bite’ logical predicate. But would this analysis be meaningful?
* Cf. Firbas, Comm. p. 42, WO, pp. 71f., on degrees of ‘communicative
dynamism’; but see p. 53 n. 1 below. ‘38 GREEK WORD ORDER
In the type of utterance in which one element is ‘given’, the
speaker is saying something (the logical predicate) about something _..
else (the logical subject). There are other types of which something
similar is true; a list with a heading, or a scholion with a lemma, is an
utterance in which something (the list or the scholion) is ‘predi-
cated’ of a ‘theme’ (the heading or the lemma). Itis sometimes open
to us to conceive a simpler and less formal utterance in this way, and
to make our conception clear in our expression, e.g. ‘as for John,
they caught him’, or ‘the one that got away was John’, converting,
as it were, ‘they caught John’ into a heading ‘John’ and a minimal
list ‘they caught him’, or ‘John got away’ into a heading ‘the
following got away’ and a minimal list ‘John’. The relation between
theme and predicate has played a larger part in discussions of word
order than it deserves, for the statement ‘the theme precedes the
predicate’ is tautologous, and ‘the predicate precedes the theme’
self-contradictory. One can no more predicate something of a
theme not yet expressed than one can ‘contribute to’ a discussion
not yet proposed or begun. In the case of English utterances of the
types ‘as for x, y’ and ‘the one who x was y’ we have formal
linguistic grounds for saying that xis the theme. But where we have
only the order x, y to guide us, we cannot infer that the speaker
necessarily conceives x as theme; we can only say that y is not the
theme.' Most actual utterances have neither theme nor predicate.
Dionysius’s story about Plato’s attempts to find a pleasing arrange-
ment of R. 3274 KaréBnv xGds els Tepe pete Trcnncovos Tot
*Apiotevos is bien trouvé. No element in this sentence imposes itself
as the ‘theme’; and however determined we might be to analyse it
as saying something about something else, we could never find
cogent grounds for deciding whether it says something about
yesterday, or about Socrates going to Piraeus, or about Socrates
being with Glaucon.
It is arguable that attempts to analyse all utterances in terms of
theme and predicate rest simply on a logical muddle, to which
Aristotle’s metaphors and the ambiguities of the word ‘subject’ in
modern European languages have contributed significantly. Where
the order SP is a syntactical rule, when the theme of some utterance
conceived as theme and predicate happens to be the grammatical 5
¥ In the English examples the syntactical structure indicates to the hearer or
reader the speaker’s conception of the utterance; order by itself does not.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 39
the normal order satisfies the requirements of the relation between
theme and predicate, i.e..74P is expressed as SP. It is, however, an
obvious fallacy to argue from ‘ ZAP is sometimes expressed as SP”
to ‘xy always expresses 7AP’.*
To use the term ‘logical subject’ of the given element in an
utterance, of the theme in an utterance conceived by the speaker as
theme and predicate, and of the element which a student of the
language may choose to regard as a theme, defeats the original
purpose of making a distinction between syntactical and logical
categories; and it obscures the fundamental difference between
dispensable and indispensable elements by applying the same term
now to a dispensable element and now to an indispensable one.”
Pl. R. 3274 contains five elements no one of which is predictable and
no one of which is dispensable in the sense that if it were omitted it
could be understood from the context.3 If we are to retain the terms
‘logical subject’ and ‘logical predicate’ we must say that the utter-
ance consists simply of five logical predicates; which would be a
bizarre use of the word ‘predicate’. For these reasons the tradi-
tional terminology seems to me inappropriate to the description of
* The consequence of failure to disentangle different modes of classification
is reflected in, e.g., Goodell, p. 22, ‘the grammatical subject is likely to be the
logical subject’, or Gabelentz, Sprw. p. 369, ‘das Gehérte verhilt sich zu dem
weiter Erwarteten wie ein Subjekt zu seinem Pradikat’, or Kieckers, St. Vb.
pp. 132ff., who seems almost to equate ‘first element’, ‘theme’ and ‘logical
subject’.
* This is one of the two major defects (see also n. 3 below) of Loepfe’s
analysis, pp. 30, 51. He uses ‘Thema’ of the ‘given’ element, ‘Neues Thema’
of the element which is not ‘given’ but seems to him to have some affinity
with the ‘Thema’, Hence in Menander, Epitr. 149 ff. tedtaca1 tpayobous,
O18" Sm, Kal tatrra Koréyers mdvra. NnAga tive MeAlav 7” exeivous etipe
trpeoPurns dvijp attréAcs he classifies NnAéa. . .éxelvous as ‘Neues Thema’.
3 Paul, p. 236, discussing an utterance of which no element is ‘given’,
points out that each element could legitimately be regarded as ‘predicated’ of
all that has preceded. Gabelentz, Weit. pp. 136f., discusses a news item in
similar terms, but obscures the point by choosing to regard the first element as
‘psychological subject’, of which all the rest constitutes the ‘psychological
predicate’. The root of the trouble is the axiom (e.g. Ammann, Dopp. pp. 19f.,
Loepfe, p. 24) that the majority of utterances have one ‘rhema’ apiece.
Loepfe, pp. 37f., therefore introduces the term ‘Nachtrag’ and analyses
Pl. Lys. 2034 thus: Eropevépnv piv (Th.) &€ *AxoSnpelos (Th.) eveu
Auxelou (Rh.) Thy feo telyous (Ntr.) Um’ odrrd To telyos (Ntr.). Thereby he
throws away all the advantages which might have been gained by his other-
wise perceptive and original principles of analysis.40 GREEK WORD ORDER
the contents of an utterance in terms of their logical relations to their
context. I realise that one ought not lightly to impose a new_,.
terminology upon a subject already overburdened with termino-
logies; but this consideration is outweighed by the obvious disad-
vantages of using terms which have already been used in the same
connection in different senses.’ I propose, then, to treat a Greek
utterance as composed of elements of two logical types, ‘nuclei’
(symbol V) and ‘concomitants’ (symbol C). I call an element V
if it is indispensable to the sense of the utterance and cannot be
predicted from the preceding elements, and C in so far as it is
deficient in either of those qualities.”
To describe in terms of NV and C the utterances so far discussed:
in the context concerned with the behaviour of dogs, ‘dogs bite’ is
CN; in the context concerned with biting animals, it is VC; in the
context concerned with defensive habits of animals, it is WN; and
the opening sentence of the Republic is NN pN pN pN.
There is one further type of utterance which must be considered.
Imagine someone saying: ‘Keep clear of dogs; dogs bite.’ If this
utterance were written down, without the help of italics or under-
lining, any reader would interpret the second occurrence of ‘dogs’
as C. It could logically be replaced by ‘they’ (pronounced with
diminished voice) or, indeed, omitted without serious loss of
intelligibility. But the fact remains that when an utterance of this
kind is spoken both elements can receive equal volume of voice. In
other words, the speaker is treating ‘dogs bite’ as if the words
belonged to a context different in type from that to which they
actually belong. If I ask myself in what circumstances I would do
this, I can give a definite answer; I would do it when I had in mind
a contrast between dogs and other things; I should be implying
‘other things may not bite, but dogs do’. Implicit antithesis would
make me treat as Wa word which it was open to me to treat as C.
Now it is one thing to explain what one would have in mind if one
intoned and stressed in a certain way some words of one’s own
language; it is quite another thing to demonstrate what was in the
* Cf. Richter, p. 11, on the desirability of a new terminology even in 1920.
Sometimes the same term has been used in opposite senses; e.g. Ammann’s
“Satzbasis’ (Unt. 1, p. 13) is the opposite of Firbas’s ‘communicative basis’.
? *Nucleus’ is used by Firbas, see p. 34 n. 2 above. ‘Nucleus’, ‘satellite’
and ‘concomitant’ are used by Pittman, pp. 288f., with phonemic and
morphemic connotations.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 4I
mind of an ancient writer.’ If I formulate rules of order in terms of
Wand Cand then explain away every recalcitrant example by saying
that the writer must have chosen to treat C as NV, I am wasting time
on a grossly circular argument. Whether or not the situation is as
difficult as this can only be discovered by seeing whether there is
a ‘normal’ pattern of relationship between NV and C and how far the
abnormal instances can be defined and classified.
B. ConcoMITANTS .
(i) TREATMENT OF CONCOMITANTS AS POSTPOSITIVES
By definition, M and q are such that when an utterance is composed
of one of each they are arranged in the order Mg. We have seen that
inearly Greek the combination of two M with one or moreg tended to
be arranged in the order Mg(z) M. Can we tracea similar process in
logical terms, of such a kind that the combination of N with C takes
the form WV C,? and of two N with C the form N CN? Again, we have
seen the effect of a tendency in historical times to treat a clause as a
pair or series of word-groups and to distribute g among these groups.
Is there a parallel logical development resulting in the distribution
of C over a series of word-groups each of which begins with V3
The pair of documents which follow were inscribed at Tegea in
the fifth century B.c. (/G, v, ii, 159). (B) was intended to replace
and cancel (A), but fortunately (A) was not cancelled with such
vigour as to render it illegible.
(A) @)
§1. ZovOlar tS Orroyadd Zoudlar mapkadéxa 731 Oiraryats
Bixécrica pot TRETPOKETICN HVAT doyuPIS
* Brugmann, Vschd. pp. 4f., emphasises the essential difference between the
study of spoken and of dead languages.
2 Suggested (in different terminology) by Ammann, Unt. 1, pp. 20, 26£.,
Delbritck, Altind. pp. 51f
3 The argument from analogy is in itself of limited value. The fact that in
most Greek words the terminations give the spatio-temporal orientation of the
stem accords with the arrangement Mg, where g gives similar orientation of
M. Yet attempts to infer general ‘ Bestimmungsgesetze’ from the structure of
the word and to apply these to the structure of the sentence (e.g. Dittmar,
pp. 37ff., Goodell, pp. 21, 34, Hirt, p. 235, Gabelentz, Sprw. p. 373, Bergaigne,
Pp. 22ff., 125 ff.) do not do justice to the facts. .42 GREEK WORD ORDER
The words trapxa@rKa and dpyuplo are C, because they could have
been omitted and understood from the material context; the demon-
stration of this is provided by (A), 1, where the composer thought
it unnecessary to say that the money was a deposit or that it was in
coined silver. The logical pattern of (B), 1 is: WC pNiNNC; 1
take tTzetpoxérici uvat as a complex V of numeral type. Cf. JG, 1x,
i, 333.4 (Locris, V z.c.), 4ff. af x’ &8{K5(s) ovAd1, tTétopes Spoyuad
al 88 TAgov 5&’ duapav Exo1 Td aUAO, AEuISAlov SpAETS FoTI CUAGCA,
DGE, 412 (Olympia, VI B.c.), 1 at 5& Bevéor tv tlapdi, Bot Ko G6c501
kal Ko8épo1 TeAcicn. In the first provision of the Locrian document,
the composer did not think it necessary to say that ‘four drachmae’”
was a fine, given that the document is a law and laws are largely
concerned with the specification of penalties. Therefore épAéta in
the second provision and 048801 in the Olympian document may
be regarded as C; they exemplify respectively the logical patterns
NCpN and Ng CpN N+
The remainder of the Xuthias documents from Tegea is:
§ 2. af K’ attds Aixé, el pév Kec 368,
eveAtods. onrrds cveAto8S.
§3. al 88K’ drrobdval, ail BE Kor pe 368,
Tov Thkvov Euev, tol viol éveAda5 Tol yvEcio1,
brrel Ko trévte Fe tec AEBSveT1. Entel Ka EBdoovrr TrevTe FeTECt,
§3a. el 8E Kor pé 3501,
Tad Guyorrépes dveSa86 Tal yveota,
§3b. al BE xox pe 35vm1,
Tol vdbor éveAdo06.
§ 4. at BE Kor pe yeved Aeitréron, ef SE Kor pE voor zon,
tv EmBixcrov Eyev. Tol *5 Goro THébiKEs cveAda8d.
§s. el 5é x’ dvpidtyovm,
BSiayvopev 88 tds Teyettas tol Teyedron Sixyvovrd
K& Tov GeBpdv. K& Tov Gebpdv.
In (A), 2 dveAéa8eo is N; it is, in fact, a complete clause in itself. In
(B), 2, on the other hand, the W status of éveAgoOe is in peril; given
ovrrés, the sense of dveAéo6o becomes almost inevitable, and the
* T do not distinguish between NV, CN, where N, and N, are syntactically
interrelated (e.g. as S to O or as components of S) and the same arrangement
where N, and N, are co-ordinated (e.g. S, 7+5,). Cf. Havers, Spalt., Hab.
pp. 44f., Boldt, pp. 78ff., 103 ff. Rass, Krause, pp. 245 ff, Delbriick, Altind.
pp. 58f.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 43
word might therefore be regarded as dispensable because predictable.
The composer has chosen, by means of the order, to give C status
toa word not inevitably of that status. But in (B), 3-4 the composer
no longer has a choice; given éveAéo6e in (B), 2, dveAcso6co in (B), 3,
(B), 3a, (B), 3b and (B), 4 is necessarily C. When combined with a
single N, in 3b, it follows it; combined with two J, in 3 and 3a, it
is placed after the first N. In (B), 4 I take &ciota TréOiKes to be a
complex N, so that the pattern is ppNN C.
A more complicated and sophisticated document, the First Decree
of Callias (Athenian Tribute Lists, p 1) illustrates the same principles:
(Gx) err0BSva1 Tois Geois Ta Xpéycrra Ta SpEAS- NpN pN pN...||
(§3) Aoyiodabav S Aor AoyioTal. . . Nq pN...||
(§4) ouvayoyés 58 TSv AoyioTSv Nq pC pN N M!||
é Bont osrroxpérp ford.
(§5) érrobévrav Bi-1é xpsuorra Aor mpuréves... Mg pC pN...|
géréoovres Th Te Trivénict Kol Te ypon- Mpg ppl... .||
berteicn .
(§6) cerogaivévrdy 8 ta yeypoupéva hol te Ny pC pglV...||
Auepés.. .
In§4 t&v AoyioTév is C by virtue of of Aoyiotal in §3; in §5, Tx
Xprpora is C by virtue of §x and (by implication) §§ 2-4; in § 6, ta
yeypanuéve is C by virtue of the latter part of §5. The decree goes
on to provide for the creation of a new board of treasurers; it defines
their essential function, and then proceeds to details:
(§9) Tope 88 tév viv Tomdv Kod Tév Eriota- pop C ppN.. .:
cmrapiOpéodo86v Kal érrooticdobay ta NpN pC...||
XPEnOTA. ..
(§10) Kal rapadexado0Sv Aoi Tapioca hoi Aaxdv- pM pC pN ppN C||
Tes Tapa TSv viv d&pxdvTov
With érropitpnedotey Kal crootnodoteoy Ta Xpriporra in §g cf. &
Bopéns te kal $ yetpdov éot&or in the following passage of Herodotus
(i, 26, 2):
el 88 f oTdo1s fMoxto tev copécov papN N pN|\
kal Tod olpavol * ppN:i
TH] Lev viv 6 Bopéns Te kai 6 xeicov Eot&o1, pgNipNg ppN C\i44 GREEK WORD ORDER
tout uty Tod vétou Av t otdors Kal THs MgipN Mt pC pph'||
LecauBpins,
Tf} BE & vdTos viv EoTnKe, PapNiN C\|
‘Towrtn Bt 6 Bopéns, NgipN'||
al tattra obtws elye, pPNiN C|l
6 HAlos dv PNG
érreAcuvdyevos eK udcou Tot ovpavot NpN pN:
Ud TO XEIpdsvos Kal TOU Pops pPN ppN|
fie dv te Gveo THs Evpcotrns Nq pN pN\|
xorrécrep vGv Tis AiBins Zpxetan, PNipN C||
Siebidvra 8 &v piv Sic tr&ons Evipeotens Naqq pN N:
EATropcat N
troiteiv &y Tov “lotpov Nq pN\|
técrep viv épydczeton Tov NeTAov. PN CipN
Certain words in this passage are immediately identifiable as C:
kotGan, (fv) 4 otéors, and foTxKe, by virtue of the initial 4 ordors;
&pxeton because of fie dv, and épydzeton because of trove &v; and
elye on grounds of dispensability. One of the commonest brachy-
logies in Greek is the omission, in a relative clause, particularly with
rep, of a word intelligible from its occurrence in the preceding
clause; Herodotus here, as often, avoids brachylogy by expressing
words which could be left implicit. 6 Bopéns Te Kod 5 yeiev are a
pair of N co-ordinated; so are to véTou Kal THis uecouBpins. In the
former case the C is placed after the second N, in the latter case after
the first. Towards the end of the passage, viv and ris Aipims are V;
so are viv and tov NefAov; in the former case the C tpyeren is placed
after the second N, in the latter case the C pyagetan after the first N.
Tn this short passage we have four clear examples of C combined
with two NV. In two cases the W are co-ordinated; in the other two
cases they are not. Whether they are co-ordinated or not, the C may
be placed either after the first WV or after the second.
Platonic argument illustrates the same principles as legal docu-
ments and Herodotean exposition. In Laches, 194& Nicias expresses
. the view that courage is Sewésv Kal GappaAgov émotiun. After
dealing with a certain amount of obstreperousness from Laches,
Socrates embarks (196D) on an examination of Nicias’s hypothesis,
and begins with a formal statement of it: Thy év8pelav émothynv
* Thave provisionally treated £Atropen as NV, but see (iii) below.
2 See p. 42 n. 1 and v below.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 45
pis Seedy Te Kal Gapportov elven: pV N Mt Ng pN M?, In 198D
he turns the argument tathe discussion of tmorfjuen in general, and
in 1998 begins his conclusion ovKotv, dpiote, Kad t dvEpela Téav
Sevésv Emorhpn totlv Kal Gappadtov: N...ppN pN CM: pN. He
reminds Nicias what té Swe Kol te Gapporéa are; he reminds him
of the nature of &moriyn. Then: ob udvov dpa té&v Savev kal
Gapparscov 1 dvbpela Emorihyn tory: W Mg pW pN pN C M+. The
argument continues (199): ‘You have told us about a part of
courage; but we were asking what courage as a whole was. Now it
seems o¥ pdvov Savesv te Kal CappaAgov émotiypn i) dvbpela totiv’:
NNN qpNN pC M, My analysis here does not depend upon
subjective interpretation of ‘emphasis’, but upon the simple test of
dispensability. In 1998 ov pdvov &pa, KTA., given the preceding few
lines, | dvBpeter could not be omitted without causing confusion, but
&moripn éoriv could. In r99¢ the reverse is the case.
With the exception of elye in Herodotus’s ef tatrra otrress elye, all
the words which I have so far treated as C have been words ‘given’
by the verbal or material context. There is in addition a common
type of C (elye is an example) which is dispensable in so far as the
word-group which contains it could be rephrased to convey the
essential meaning without it. An easily applied test is to substitute
q or M*. Thus in Pl. Grg. 470D EvSaipcov ob oor Soxel elven 4
SPAi05; OtK olBa, & Madde, oF yép tra ouyytyova TH dvbpl, the
words 16 évBpi are pC because they could be replaced by the g
avré. Cf. xetron in two passages of Herodotus:
VII, 198, 2 (. . .GAAos TraTods) TH otvoucr Kettoa AUpos pV CN
= olvopd tot: Avpas pPNMN
=Té obvopa Aupas PNN
200, 2 (Kdpn Te EoTl) TH Obvopa “AveHAn Keira = pV NC
=rij owouat “AveriAn fori pN N Mt
=i} otwouct “AVOFAN pNN
In cases to which the test of substitution is inapplicable there is
room for much doubt and disagreement, according to one’s view of
the extent to which the sense conveyed by the omission of the
alleged C falls short of the ‘essential’ sense. For example in Pl.
Euthyphro, 24 ros tv Auxel xorroArmav Siorpipds évéaSe viv
Sicrrpifers there is antithesis between &v Auxelco and évé&5e and be-
tween KoroAitre and viv; these are certainly N, and Sicrrpipers is46 GREEK WORD ORDER
certainly C; but I may not. command agreement in suggesting that
BiorrpiPass is also C (res tv Auxeteo. . .SiartpiBés being replaceable by
1d Avxsiov), so that the logical structure of the whole utterance is
PPNINC|NiNC. Cf. D. xiv, 3 fuels 8 domrep tv068" elcoGerpev,
otra Bryony Kal Ewo=M(=M*) gipN C||M(=M*) CipN, in
which eldGeuev might plausibly be regarded as WV; it is its sub-
ordination to the strong antithesis évO&5e/ffco which gives it its
flavour of C.
The passages already analysed have shown the analogy between
Mi Mg and NN C, and I add one further example of the ‘distribu-
tion’ of C, Lys. 1, 15-16:
mrpootpyeral pol is TrpesBOnis bvEpestros qq NC|
Urrd yuvoukds UTroTreppbelon. . . PNN...||
oti BE (se. yuvit).. M=M*)q...|
TrpodeABotion: ot por Naqi
bys f EvOpeortos THis olklos THis euiis emm- pC pN pN |
“EvoiAnte’, épn,.... NC...
Here the C 1 &vOpcrros is placed after the leading word of the
second word-group of a sentence in the manner of e.g. the g pot in
D. xxt, 26 obvavrios Fxev dv elOis yor Adyos.
Gi) CONCOMITANT GROUPS
Naturally the C element in a clause may be more than a single word.
The simplest type of complex C, like the simplest of complex , is
a pair of words which together constitute a familiar expression and
are rarely separated, but a clause may also contain a succession of C
which all have similar logical relations to the preceding clause(s)
but are not united by any other common factor. Both types are
illustrated by §§ 10-12 of the First Decree of Callias:
(S10) ...xod ev oTeAd dverypagedvtév §=ppNNNN...||
wen Grrowrar. . .
(S11) Kal 1d Aortdy dvaypagdvrdv hor = ppNC pNC pC||
ciel ropion bs oTEAEV .
kad Adyou SiSévréy t3v te bvTév «= pN N pg C ppNC p||
xpewérév Kal tév trpocidvTéy
tols Geois. . :
”LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 47
(§12) Kod & Towatévalsy &s Tavativare pp pN pCC
TOA Adyov BiGdvrév...
In §12 & TMavatnvotev és Tovoéhveia is a complex V of familiar
type; Tov Adyov BiSdvreov is a comparable type of C. In§11 the V
are 7 Aormév and of atlel ; roqufoa and &5 orHAnv are both C by virtue
of what has preceded, but the C status of each of them is independent
of that of the other and of éverypapévrawv.
Three literary passages illustrate the treatment of C groups; they
are arranged in ascending order of magnitude:
(a) Euthyphro, 82
arpdfecks Tivos trépi Siexpepdpevor Noq N|
of pay BSixadoos parol ory Trempéx6on, NqiN Cq C||
of 8 GBikcos NgiN
Here paciv is strictly speaking M* in character, and the word-
group which I have analysed as N Cq C is therefore on the
borderline of the category ‘C group’; it admits of the analysis
NMC.
(6) Chrm. 164D .
Kod ouppépoyian TE av Acrgols dvadives pV ppN N pN N|j
7d Todo ypduyc.
Kol ydép totrro ofte yor Soxel Th poi Ng CpCC|p...
yedupa évoxsioter, as...
The word-group headed by the WV otros stands essentially in the
same relation to Toto as may be seen in the much simpler Hero-
dotean clause el totrra! otrreas elye. The first C of the group, Soxel,
is, like gaotv, a word of special status (see section (iii)).
(c) Hdt. 1, 1, 1
(...T& Te GAAa Kad 81’ Av altiny éroAguncav
AAA AoIn.)
Tlepotcov pév vuv ol Adyior Neqq pN:
Polvixas attious pal yevtobar tis Siarpopis «NCCC pC
Here again gai and yevéodan are words of special status, classifiable
as Mr‘, so that the word-group Qolvixas...diapopfis may be
analysed as N(=M?) C(=M) C(=M®) C(=M®) pC(=M), and is
clearly modelled upon Mi Mgq M.48 GREEK WORD ORDER
ii) TREATMENT OF CONCOMITANTS AS PREPOSITIVES _
The analogy between Mg M and N C N suggests the possibility of
a similar analogy between pM and CN. There are, I believe,
certain categories of word which are commonly treated as if they
were p. Consider, for example, Hdt. 11, 81, 2:
katrot Tupawou UBpiv petryovtas dvSpas PINNNC:
8s Styou dxoAdotou UPpiv trecely pNNCNG?)
tom obSapdds dvaoyetdv. ton N Nl
Whiat is the status of tom: here? Is it, as M', to be compared to
q immediately following a word-group which it is nowadays
customary to mark off by commas (ch. uy, (i), (D, p. 13)? Or
is it wrong to suppose that there is any kind of pause in the voice
after Tecelv? The latter question, at least, cannot be asked about
III, 82, 1:
dyol 88 r& pv fre Mey&Buzos Nq\pq ene V:
& 1d TAABos Exovrat PPN C||
Boxdet otk Speéds Aéfan. Boxér WV C||
Both ele and Soxée are obviously C in character, since they are
logically dispensable; yet both of them here are the first M of a
clause. Cf. also Hp. Carn. 4, 3:
ef Tis SEA01 Srrrév pq Bt N Ng pN pNy||
veupcaBedk re Karl KoAACBect karl TEAL 5,
‘ret pay 6a Tay Srrtéron, paNiN C||
Te BE veupcdBed Te Karl KOAACBEct pyNg pNINCC...\\
ou bkAst drrtGobat...
1 BE tridtarrov Kad Arttapov PIN pN:N C||
tégiota Strré&ron,
The passage exemplifies the same logical principles as that of
Herodotus on the path of the sun, with the single exception of
8A01; cf. ibid. 19, 6 ef BE TIs BoWAeTan Kad Toto éAfy Eon, «TA., where
PowAeten is as insignificant for the essential sense of the passage as
£01 in 4, 3.
Tt would therefore seem possible that words meaning ‘think’,
‘seem’, ‘want’, ‘be willing’, ‘say’, and ‘be’, when there is no
significant antithesis between thinking and saying, wishing andLOGICAL DETERMINANTS 49
doing, being and becoming, or appearance and reality, can be
treated as if they were a This is by no means the full story of the
behaviour of elven (see section (iv)), but it offers an explanation of
the very common type of clause voplzeov otreas dv Gpiora Trpa Eon, in
which g is placed not after the word meaning ‘thinking’, ‘knowing’,
‘hoping’, etc., but after the next M. It is noteworthy that these
words are dispensable in the sense that they could be replaced by os
with a participial construction or simply by an accusative and
infinitive construction.?
(iv) PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF CONCOMITANTS
Demonstrative words are often logically C, but they are exempt
from the treatment which I have described in sections (i) and (ii);
their role as M* may take precedence over their logical category.
Thus we find in the First Decree of Callias:
(G7) Teaulos 8 érroxvapevey Tourrov Tov NgNCpC...|l
(§8) Aotrron St toyievovrév ty dA... M7, CpN...||
otro1 in §8 is as dispensable, logically speaking, as tovrraw in§7, but
is nevertheless given precedence. This treatment of demonstrative
words is extended to words which are in explicit antithesis;3 the
nature of the extension may be seen in many passages of Herodotus’s
catalogue of Xerxes’ army, e.g.:
Vl, 62, 2-63
Kioioi 88. . .urtpngdpor foav. Nq...N Mil
Kiootoov 88 fipye ’Avdons. . . Cy NN...|
*Aoaupion &. . .tyyeiplia. . .elxov.. . Nq...N...C...|l
otro: BE td uty ‘EAAtvav exchtovro §=— MgipgN NN...||
Zpior...
fipxe 88 agecov "OTd&otms. Nqq N\|
* Firbas, Comm. pp. 45f.
* Fraenkel, Kolon, pp. 327ff., treats voulzov, thyotpevos, etc. in such
utterances as ‘Kurzkola’.
3 Demonstratives often imply antithesis, but their treatment as M* does
not depend on their antithetical element; cf. o¥ 58=M’q in cases where
antithesis is ruled out, e.g. Hdt. 11, 69, 3 Kod fv uty patuntot Exov dra,
véurze cecouTiyy Zuepbi Te Kipou ouvorxéeiv, Av SE yt Exoav, ob 88 7H udryoo
Tpépb.
4 Dego GREEK WORD ORDER
73-4 1
Opuryes 68 éyyorécre THis Maghayountis NgiWpNCC...||
oxeuty elyov...
of 88 Opuryes. . .éxaAéovro Bolyes. .. pyc... .NN...|l
*Apuévior Bt Kerr: rep Dpiryes toeatyato... NgipgNC...||
Torey cuvaporéowy fipye’Apréyuns... MeN NN...||
AvBol BE d&yxorecros Tis “EAAnviktis elyov Nei N pNC C||
ol BE AuSoi Mnloves exaAeOvro 78 én... pgCiN'C pN...||
From the point of view of dispensability, there is no difference
between the ¢ agecov in fipxe 5¢ apecov and the demonstratives oot
and Totrov in offtor. . .dxoAetvro and Totrraw. . .fipxe, but the writer
has chosen to use demonstratives in the two latter cases; he could have
chosen otherwise. Equally, thereis no logical difference between opeav
and Kisolav, or between of 88 Moves or of & AvSoi and the third
person plural termination of the verb; but the writer has chosen to cast
his account of the Persian contingents in the form of a list in which
each item is explicitly contrasted with what has preceded and what is
to follow. ‘Catalogue style’, in which the initial word of an item
may be a demonstrative or treated as a demonstrative, is the most
obvious type of extended explicit antithesis.’ A similar preferential
treatment of C appears in shorter antitheses, e.g. Hdt. 11, 22, 1:
Aeyel yep otB" xin obey, C=p?) q pN N|
goueon tov Nefhov Aéew dard trHKopevns — C(=p) pN N pN N|
Xt6v0s,
&s Abs? pty ex Aipins Sik udowov Alfiérranv, pCzipN pN N'||
&xBiBot 88 és Atyurtrrov. NqipN||
Related to antithesis is the preferential treatment of a word in
rejecting someone else’s argument, e.g. Hdt. 11, 20, 2-3:
tév t érépn piv Adyar ppNgq Ci
tous Ernolas évépous elvor altious PNN Mi CiC pC
TrAnBUelv Tov TroTeYOV. . .
* Th. v1, 43 is a good example of ‘catalogue’ style.
? It must, however, be observed that there is a logical affinity between fal,
in describing the course of a river, and the usage of fon discussed below
(p. 52); cf. Kieckers, Se. V2. pp. 58f.
3 This is on—or over—the boundary of emotive utterance; cf. the scornful
tepetition in Ar. Lys. 430 ff. ndtv expoyAsvere. . ti Sel poxAdiv; ob yap
HoyAGiv Sel, «TA.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 5r
TroAAdaas 8 érnoton piv otk dv Ervevooy, NqiCqi.Ng C\|
4 88 Nethos rootrrd Epydigeres, PAIN:N C\j
trpds & ef Ernoin ation Acav, NqipC CM ||
XpFlv Kad Tos dAAous TroTapOUs, C(=p) ppN C||
S001 Tolan Ernoina dvrio: béouc, ppCNC|\i
dpoless tréoyei Kal Koer& wroir& te NelAco. N CppN pN||
The degree of implicit antithesis involved in such an argument is
almost the furthest that we can trace the influence, via explicit anti-
thesis and ‘catalogue style’, of the preferential treatment of demon-
stratives. We are already passing into the sphere of influence of a
different phenomenon, the preferential treatment of words which
have some emotional force—among which I would class the Aé
ToAUs and tras, in which there is necessarily a degree of emotion
absent, for example, from &vioi and uépos.
A different category: of preferential C is indicated by the relation
between §1 and §2 of the First Decree of Callias:
(Gx) dwoBSven -rols Oeols ta xphuora... MpN pN...||
(§2) dtroBiSéven 88 dard tSv xpeudrav & CyppC|| ppN M*pCN||
ts dardSoctv tori tols Geols tpce-
groytver
The explanation of this phenomenon is as follows. It often happens
that in a compound word one element is N and the other element C;
this is true of ov8els, otxén, etc., e.g. in Hdt. 11, 119, 6:
évip uty &y yor EAAos yévorto, N4qqqiN C\|pN NI
el Saduoov 26201,
kal téxva GAAG, ef Tatra éroPéAom, PN Cipv N |i
Trorrpds 62 Kal untpds otxén usu godvreav =. Ng pNENg N|
aBeAgeds dv GAAos ovBevl temp yivorto. Ny CINCC||
It is true also of compound verbs, as in D. xx1, 32:
ay pay Tolvuy IBicymy Svat’ anrrdv OBpion. —pggV Mtgg No|l
TIS. ee
ypaphy UPpecos'. . .pevferon, NN...C||
dav 88 Ceopodtrny, Eripos orton Kodderrer§. PIN ||N M N\|
Bid 1; STi Tous vduOUs HEN PN \|ppN N
6 ToUTo Trotiv trpcouPpize1. pPNCN
* OPpews is not, I think, C, for ypopiv OPpews is balanced by Sixny
Koxnyoplas.
+52 GREEK WORD ORDER
—where mpoovBplzei is analysable into N mpoo- and C -vBplze.
A fortiori, a preposition in a complex of preposition with noun or -.-
pronoun may be N; and so it is in dard tév xpnudrev above.
But if a preposition or an element in a compound word may have
N status, so may a termination or any form which belongs to a
system of forms. For instance in D. xx1, 122 tls dyola ti Tovrou
ytyov’ 4 yévort’ &v trovnpia; the V element in yévorr’ dv is not the
stem yev- but the mood index with the g &v. Here, and in expres-
sions such as Eom Kod Loon, 8Sdxe1 Kal Soxel, etc., the meaning is
indicated in English (but not in all modern European languages) by
diminished volume of voice on the repetition of the verb stem and
augmented volume on the auxiliary, can, would, did, etc. English
‘emphasis’ may reliably be employed in translating passages such
as Hdt. 111, 64, 2 pode 88 dog uderny derodcorsKens ef Tov BeAgedv,
Gracie ZpépSiv- dcrroxAcoos Si Kal repinuectioas ti dréon
cuLgopi, cvabpdoke él tov frrov...xal of dvadpqoxovn trl
Tov Trrtrov TOU KOAEOU TOU Elpeos & wHKns drroreitrrer, étroKAauoars SE
virtually=dra, and dvatp@oxovn virtually=tv tovre, requiring
the translations ‘after he had wept...’ and ‘wAéle he was jumping
up...’, and exhibiting a certain affinity between this class of
preferential C and the preferential demonstratives.' The class, how-
ever, includes phenomena which are not demonstrative in character
and cannot be translated by English demonstratives. The verb
elven is sometimes used by Herodotus as a signal that an item of
general rather than historical information is being given, e.g. 1v, 158,
2Kal Tov KeAAICTOV TOY Ycopao Tver. . . ut) orev, . . .vuxTds Trapijyov.
fon 88 TH xcop~p Tolrrp obvoya “Ipaca, ctr. ibid, 182, 1 KOAcvds TE
dads ton Spots TH *Appcovicn Kal Gp, Kal &vOpcotroi rep! ovrrdv
olkdouar: Te BE xcopep Tore ofvor AtyiAé font. In both these
cases alike'the English-speaker would increase the volume of voice
on ‘name’ (‘the name of this place. . .”) and not on any word which
could be regarded as a translation of tot?
érroBibdven in the Decree of Callias belongs to this category. The
aorist infinitive érro8otven in § 1 prescribes the act; the imperfective
érro8i8dvor is the signal that a detail about the act is being pre-
scribed, and the next words érd Té&v ypnucrov, where dd is NV,
show that it is the source of the money which is being prescribed.
Cf. Firbas, Comm. p. 42 n. 25.
2 Bloch, pp. 243, Wackernagel, Dicht. pp. 18 ff.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 53
Cf. IG, 1, 16 (Athens, 3948.c.), 10ff. dydao[1 52 AGnvaricov pav] Tos
ospomydfs...Kal tds tiriréas, ’Epetpiteov 88 [ds otparenyds Kal]
thy Boat... .[... wal tds GAGs] dyads... duvdvar & Tov vouip[ov
Spxov éxorrépo]s Tv Tape aplorw orrols.
C. Nuciei
(i) SERIES
So far we ve have been concerned with the relation between W and C.
A less tractable problem is raised by clauses which contain two or
more VV. Where both W are M*, what determines their order? To
speak of an order of importance is unhelpful, since it is rarely
possible to form any opinion of the comparative importance of the
different N in the same clause."
Certain Attic boundary-inscriptions of late fifth-century date are
illuminating:
IG, 1, 897 Sep" ['EAsjuowidv [rp]ircrus TeA[e}ursa, Tlepaidy 5
Tprrrds Gpyerat.
Ibid. 899 [8]eGe" *Enra[k]péSv tprrris teAcutéi, Opiacidv 8
Gpxeran tprrrus.
SEG, x, 374 Jrfprevis *]eA)elurda, Taapparftev 8] dpxer[n
Tlorrris.
IG, 1, 898 [S]eGpe Mafijoviéy tprerus reAeurén, Gpyetor 58 Muppi-
vooly ‘tprrris. :
The first member of the antithesis is arranged uniformly in all
cases; the name of the trittys, followed by the word tprrtis, followed
by teAeuT%. The structure of the second member varies. The two V
in it are the name of the trittys and &pyeton, and these may occur in
either of their two possible orders. tprrrus is here C, and may be
attached to either NV, giving the two patterns WC N and NN C.
It thus appears that when two members of the same syntactical
structure and similar content are in antithesis, the second member
may or may not be arranged in the same order as the first. When it
* Firbas, Comm. p. 42 insists on the need to discover the relative importance
of all the elements of an utterance, and speaks (Non-Th. pp. 171f.) of a
‘transitional status’ between ‘rheme’ and ‘theme’. I do not feel able to do
more than point out, in a given example, which elements have some degree of
C status, and would prefer to leave all other questions of ‘importance’ alone.54 GREEK WORD ORDER
is not, the order of the antithetical pair as a whole is given the
technical term ‘chiasmus’, and may be symbolised (x,y) (y/ x’). The
fact that boundary-stones may be chiastic shows that chiasmus is
not necessarily a literary embellishment.’ Cf. JG, x1, v, 93 (Lulis,
V 3.c.), 14ff. é&rropalvev tiv olkinv eAciGepov Gordoon Tpdtov,
Errata 88 towtrot olkétny tuBdvra, DGE, 179 (Gortyn, V 3.c.),
off. peBé re 7s yuvannds Tov &vBpa drroSsGan pS" Emomévacn, yé5*
uly T& Tes porrpds.
Less conspicuous than chiasmus, but related to it, is the series of
the type (xy)+(x'y')+(y"x")+(y"x*) ..., in which the two mem-
bers of each pair are arranged in the same order, but each pair may
differ in order from the preceding pair. The following passage is
taken from one of the more artless speeches of the Demosthenic
corpus, [D.] xivu, 6f.:
iy 8 tye pty HEleooa trapaAcppdvelv,
Gedqnuos &8 trpotkarécate Tapasotva,
es otrrol pact,
7d 88 ody’ ovSels elSe Trapdv,.. .
tuaptupnoay 8” of udptupes otto
as EAOI TrapaBotiven Gedqnyos
kad TrpdkAnoiv TrpoKaAoITo,
Hono 8 of Bixaotal
éAnOF elvan Thy poptupiav,
garyetv 8° eye tov EAcyyov...,
Tras otk dveryKaléy toniv
TouTous Tous udpTupas TH wedi] WeHOpTUpNKived ;
In the first antithesis (Bye piv, KTA.) Gedpnuos 5é, TpotKaAsoaro and
strapaotver are placed in the second member in positions corre-
sponding to tye pv, tla and trapaAopBdverv in the first; in the
third member 1 8 ope corresponds to ty pév and Gedqnyos Sé
in position and in morphological category, though its syntactical
role is different. In the second antithesis (QuaptUpnoav 8, KTA.), the
verb @r\@noav 8é occupies the same position in the second member
as the verb guoprupnooy &é in the first, and the subject-noun of
Sixcotal the same as the subject-noun ol ukptupes otto. In the third
antithesis (6An@fj, KTA.) the predicates éAnéij elven and getryenv &E take
first place in their respective members.
* Schick, pp. 370f., Leumann, pp. 797f., Delbriick, Altind. pp. 6rf.LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 55
The fact that one cannot predict when a Greek will employ
chiasmus in antithesis is # particular case of a more general pheno-
menon: one cannot predict at what point, in a series of members of
similar or identical structure and content, the internal arrangement
of the members will be changed.
There is a large class of utterances which is not as a rule mentioned
in discussions of word order but is nevertheless highly relevant to
this matter of series; I mean lists, especially lists of payments. For
example, each item in the first Athenian Tribute-List conveys two
pieces of information: the name of the city which has paid, and the
écropyt, of the amount which it has paid. Throughout the list, the
name of the city is placed first and the amount second. In the next
list, however, the order is reversed, and it remains so in all the other
extant lists. The relevance of facts of this kind to the multinuclear
clause may appear from consideration of some passages (S/G3,
241) from the accounts of the commissioners in charge of the
reconstruction of the temple at Delphi in the fourth century. The
entries made in the first part of the accounts for 356 (SIG3, 241,
4ff.), under the rubric 5cxe & 1éM1s, are of'a pattern which is:normal
throughout this series of documents. The name of the recipient is
given first; then the goods or services for which the payment was
made; then the amount of the payment, e.g. Maslov loxeydou
pvds Séar. . .“AppoSicn xoAnel Seopdsy pvéts €6. In the latter part of
the accounts of 356, however, there is a list of entries in which the
order is changed, the goods or services being specified first and the
recipient second, e.g. poxevesperros XoupdAcd pds TETopas: BoAlou
elopopas Spaypal tpeis, ApioPéAiov: Tot Td poycveoe Alecv Topas
Geoyéva Bpayyed trévre, «tA. The rubric which introduces this
series is &rrd tovrrou évéAcoua. Yet the change in order can hardly
be related to the change in rubric, for the composer seems not to
have realised at first the grammatical consequences of the new
tubric; he wrote pvas tétopas in the accusative, as if under the
rubric Scone & TréAis, and only in the second item passed to the
appropriate nominative (a confusion which occurs elsewhere in this
series of documents). The abnormality of the order is in fact
matched by the abnormality of the circumstances in which these
payments were made. The document itself states: per& Tov Aoyiopsv,
Topedvtwv Téw BoureuTav, émérafav tol vooroiol. . .dpyupiov
Sdyev trot] re Eoya TH Ev KopivOcn. . .Kepcrapa tot FAaBov per&56 GREEK WORD ORDER
tov Aoyiaydv of Kopivbior vaotroiol Kai & Tixucdvios vas SexaroKred,
The explanation, I think, is this. The draft record of the expenditure __.
at Corinth was presumably made not by the man who drew up the
record of expenditure at Delphi, but by the Corinthian commis-
sioners. Their arrangement differed from that adopted by the recorder
of expenditure at Delphi; given a free choice whether to name the
recipient before the service or the service before the recipient, the
Delphian made one choice and the Corinthians made another. When
the Delphian came to incorporate the Corinthian draft record into the
final record, although the arrangement differed from his own, he did
not think it worth-while to alter it into conformity with his own.
The important aspects of this case are: first, that in utterances of
exactly similar nature and identical structure, the NV can be differently
arranged by different individuals; secondly, that one individual may
adhere so consistently to one of two or more alternative arrange-
ments that he gives it the status of a formula; and thirdly, that the
formulae adopted by different individuals are nevertheless equivalent
in the sense that an individual does not regard someone else’s
formula as incorrect.
Gi) FORMULAE
Utterances which contain a S~V’ or O-V relationship are no less
susceptible of conversion into formulae than those which do not.
Compare the formulae of the prescript of an Attic decree with the
equivalent formulae of Argive decrees:*
(1) Boke tH Bova Kod te Shep CArodg ESo€e teri
(2) 6 Selva Eypoppérreve yrogels Pwrds & Selva:
(3) 6 Selva Errecrtérer épptteve 6 Selva
(4) 6 Setver eltre Baek 6 Selvar
The two states differ radically and consistently. In (1), Athens says
‘decided by the Assembly’, Argos ‘by the Assembly decided’; in
(2}(4), Athens puts S before V, Argos V before S. Probably in
each state the three formulae (2), (3) and (4) influenced and sus-
tained each other; but in neither state did any of the three influence
the position of V in (1). I would infer from this that the fact that
Boke and typapyéreve are both V did not suffice to make the
1 SEG, xm, 239 and DGE, 838, 23 ff. are the oldest examples (respectively
eatly and mid fifth century B.c.) of the Argive formulae, which were still in
use in the second century B.c. (e.g. DGE, 99, 2ff.).LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 57
Athenian or the Argive regard Sof ti} Boul}, «tA. and 8 Seiva
typapudrreve as utterances of simjlar structure.
The interaction of formulae can be followed in greater detail in
the prescripts and subscripts of the Athenian Tribute-Lists. The
factor common to all, which I omit, is &ml tijs dpyiis (with or
without an ordinal numeral), to which § refers.’
ATL 2, 1 kat Aftév typouperreve?
351 Alt Aid[t}iuos typo udcreve]
Since it was common practice to identify a board by naming its
secretary—this identification, and not a desire to give interesting
information about what Leon and Diotimus were doing, is the
point of naming the secretary—# followed by a name makes
typouucreve predictable and therefore C. This interpretation is
supported by lists 4-8, where the secretary's demotic is added:
4,0 Affi....... Dis typappéteve Aat]Aipdarios
5,u Af .........0. typapy]écreu[e Ha}Acnev[s]
7,1 Ajé Mevér[ipo]s typalupérjeve Aou[trrpeds
8, 2f. AB Aiod[& éypopudccreve Monovi [Ses
The pattern WC NV reminds us of dedication formulae, in which
éviénxe is C. The situation in list 13 is very different:
13, rf. [Af XoA}miSeds MeArted[s eypoupdrreve Alo[p]uprvos
"Iapreus heAAEVOTOULas Ev Z4[Tupos] AevKovods ouvel ypoupécreve]
Here not only the secretary is named, but also the eponym of the
board and the co-secretary. The fact that others besides the secretary
are named automatically confers NV status on éypaypérreve because
it becomes antithetical; hence XoAxiSels MeArteds typappécreve is
NNN. 1am not arguing simply that ¢ypapypérreve must be inter-
preted as NV because of the change in order; for lists 20-3 reveal the
antithetical nature of £ypoppdrreve by chiasmus:
20, 1f. Ag Ofowidos ....... ] *Axop[ve}s eypoppdcreve
Aea[pevofrfoptas & ....].[.e eee eee & Kepoy]ésv
21, 1f. Ag Tipatdvilkos & Kepoyéov ’Emycpos [typoumdrreve
hedévorouilas Fv... . ulexos Xapiiguo XouTreraiov
22, 2ff. Adi] OAs.........- Jecto[......-655 typau[pérreve
Asd)Agvor[aulas Ev Atjoviiaios
23, 34. Adi . .Juoxdpés Mup[p]ivfdoios typayyd{r]eve [Ae]AAEvo-
Taptas By [Oi]AErenpos ['I}kofpret]s58 GREEK WORD ORDER
The prescripts of lists 16, 17 and 19 are illegible, and list 18 is lost
altogether, so that we do not know exactly when, between list 15
and list 20, the composer of the record chose to adopt chiastic
order; but once adopted, the new formula was maintained until in
list 25 (24 is missing) the character of the whole prescript was
altered by naming all the members of the board.
The serious problem lies in lists rx and 12:
11, 1 Adi Erpdp[Pryos Xo]AAelBes éy[pop]ucrreve
12, 1 Aét [ZJoplos éypafypér]eve *EAcvatvi(os)
In list 1x the order which I have described as ‘antithetical’ is
adopted; yet there is no antithesis, as no one else is named. List 12
reverts to the earlier practice, in which ypoypéreve is treated as C.
The co-secretaty and the eponym are not named in the prescript,
but separately, at the bottom of the list (12, 36), and they are stated
in ‘antithetical’ order: Zétupos Aeukovoels youveypou[péreve
Z]opoxAts KoaAd[vitey heAAévorouflos tv. The explanation of these
phenomena is that formulae belonging to one series of documents
influenced similar formulae belonging to other series. In the pre-
scripts of decrees several individuals were named as performing
different functions. The composer of the prescript of a tribute-list
therefore had available to him three sets of models: (i) previous
tribute-lists, (ii) other documents in which only one official was
named, (iii) other documents, notably decrees, in which several
officials were named and their different functions specified. Lists 11
and 12 are a battle-ground of models, and lists 13ff. represent the
victory of the third set of models.
The existence of formulae has an important bearing on the com-
pilation and use of statistics. Suppose, for example, that we wanted
statistical information on the relation between the imperatival
infinitive and its object in the language of Attic documents. JG, 1°,
81 (421/0 B.c.), § opens with the words Tdv ‘Petrov Toy Trapé TS
[Eloteos yepupSca1, and 94 (418/17 B.c.), 4f. with the words ipyocn
‘70 huppav 76 Ké8po . . . Kal prodScos TO Thevos Karr Ts cuvypaipdss,
In the former case the object precedes the infinitive, and in the latter
it follows. Now suppose that we add to these two examples the
scores of decrees which record the public commendation of indivi-
duals or states and begin, almost without exception, with the words
trrenvéocn Tov Eelva. If we counted each of these commendatory
”LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 59
decrees as one example, we should conclude that it was much
commoner in Attic decrees for the object to follow the imperatival
infinitive than to precede it. In one sense, this is literally true; but it
would not necessarily follow that the composer of an Attic decree,
if required to say ‘strip the statue of its gold’, would be more likely
to say TwepieAgoben Tol éydAperos Tév xpuody than ToU dy dAyerros
tov xpuodv tepieAéoben. The Athenians often had occasion to
commend people; they rarely had occasion to bridge the Rheitus or
to fence the sanctuary of Codrus. Thetefore the expression of
commendation became formulaic at an early date; and the more
instances of the use of a formula we include in our statistics, the more
we distort the picture which our statistics were intended to give us.’
‘The influence of such formulae on each other may be seen.on a
grand scale in decrees. An Attic decree usually makes the provision:
‘let the Secretary of the Council inscribe this decree on a stone
stele’. This provision sometimes. begins with the words 1d 8
Whpicpa Tobe, sometimes with dvarypéyon St, sometimes with Tov
88 ypouporrta; by the end of the fourth century the form beginning
with évorypéypon 5é emerges, after a varied career, with the status of
a formula. Another common provision is ‘and invite the ambassa-
dors (etc.) to dinner in the prytaneum’; and here too the formulation
beginning with koAtoon 8¢ or Kal xoiAéoon has an almost unchallenged
predominance.* To draw general syntactical.conclusions from these
instances would be not only rash in principle but in conflict with the
results of statistical inference from contemporary literature. If we
could trace a formula back to its source we should find that the
initial lead of one formulation over its alternatives was the product
of what we, as students of the history of the language, would be
compelled to call ‘chance’. Once the lead is established, the likeli-
hood that this leading formulation will become a formula is greatly
increased; so is the likelihood that it will help to determine the
* Schwyzer, 01, p. 693, by going on from a distinction between ‘habituell’
and ‘okkasionell’ to cite many examples of the type Kexporrls érputaveve
and add ‘Doch liest man auch Eyves B&pos Del.3 623 (Erythrae, II*)’, may give
the impression that Kexpottis éputéveve exemplifies a general principle
while Eyvw Bayos demands a special explanation. This impression would be
fundamentally misleading, since the alternative formulations are syntactically
indifferent and the predominance of either in a given community is a question
of habit and tradition.
3 McDonald, pp. 153f.60 GREEK WORD ORDER
ptedominant formulation of other utterances of similar structure
and content. When these formulations conform to each other, their _..
very conformity strengthens the predominance of the formula with
which the process began.
Despite this, certain formulae have been used statistically to prove
that one syntactical order is ‘normal’ and others ‘abnormal’. But to
collect hundreds of instances of dedicatory inscriptions or artists’
signatures’ or proverbs,” and to argue syntactically from them, is
illegitimate. The more instances we collect of identical formulation
of a single type of utterance, the more conclusively do we demon-
strate the existence of a formula and the less relevant does our
information become to the establishment of general syntactical
rules. Two utterances of type (a) tend to be formulated similarly
simply because they are both (a).
Every sustained utterance, colloquial or literary or administrative,
is necessarily in some degree formulaic; it is hard to say anything
which does not in some way resemble something which one has said
or heard before. I set out below the various ways in which Homer,
in the catalogue of ships, and Herodotus inform us of the name of
the commander of a force or ship.3 I arrange the examples in an
order designed to show (so far as is possible when one is compelled
to operate in only two dimensions) the extent to which each example
is derivative or original. Dots indicate words in apposition to the
commander’s name, dashes words in apposition to the name of the
force.
(a) B727 GAAK MéBcov Kdopnoe .. .
(6) B704 GAA opens KécuNGE ToSdpxns ...
I, 103,3 tye St atrrods ... Mans ...
VI, 92,2 ye St atrrols ... EvpuBderns ...
IX, 17,2 frye 58 ovrrous ‘Appowuins ...
VIL, 63 Fpxe 5€ opecov ’OTdoTs ...
VI, 103, 1 Fyov 8 ogeas otparnyol SéKa
VII, 222 do tparrtyyee St axtrrésv Anudoiaos ...
IX, 28,6 éotporrijyee 8 cnirréiv “ApiotelBns ...
IX, 96,2 totparrtyee St antrrod Tiypdévns ...
* Wackernagel, Gesetz, pp. 430ff.
? Fischer, pp. 2ff., Barth, pp. 28f., asf.
3 T exclude such passages as Hdt. vu, 215, 1x, 66, 2, where the relative Téav
means not kal toute bat TovTous dv,VIII, 131, 2
VII, 121, 3
Vil, 71
VII, 61, 2
Vil, 62, 2
Vil, 67, 1
(2) B 609
B 736
B 826
Bgy12
B 830
B 842
IV, 120, 3
Iv, 128, 2
VI, 211, 1
vil, 180
VIII, 47
VIII, 82, 1
vu, 181, 1
vu, 182
VII, 121, 3
VII, 194, 1
VI, 205, 2
B 713
B 586
B 576
@M y11
VII, 233, I
(e) B68s5
B731
B 540
B 552
B 563
LOGICAL DETERMINANTS . 61
otpormyds 68 Kal vowapxos. fv Acutuxlins .. .
otparmmyous 68 Tapelyeto EyepSopéved te Kal
MeydéBugov"
&pxovta 8 trapelyovto Macadyny ...*
Kad &pxovta trapelyovto ’Otavéa ...
trytudva Trapexopevor Meyérravov ...
trysiidva Trapexdpevor ApropapSov ...
tev Fpy’ ... "Ayorrivep éftxovra vetiv
t&v Ap’ Evipirruaos ...
t&v Apxe ... MdvBapos
TEV Fpy’ "AaKdiAagos Kal "IdApevos ...
T&v Apy’ “ABpnoTés te Kal “Auotos ...
tév Fpy’ ‘Itrrd80ds Te TWAatds 7”...
THis Fexe “ISaveupcos
‘THis Fpxe Zkcotraons?
‘iis Fipxe “Y¥Sdpuns
‘ijs Fipxe Tipn€ivos
Tis Fipxe ... D&UAAos
iis fipxe ... Tlavadrios ...
tis Etpinpdpxes ’Accovidns
tis Etpinpapyes Ddppos ...
tis totportyeov Tprravratyuns Te Kad Pépyis
aay totporrthyee ... LavSdoKns
tétv Eotporijyee Acovmidins ..
T&v Apy’ ... EvBexa vydv EGunros
tev ot... fipxe ... Mevédcos éEtixovta vedy
tev sxorrdv vydov fipye ... "Ayanéuvow ...
‘téSv 6 MeydPogos fipxe*
tev & Acovndins totporiyes*
Tév Of trevriiKovTa veddy Fv cpxds ’AXIAAEUS
tev 00” tHhyeloOny ... ToBaAelpios HS Maydcov
tév ot tyeudver’ ’EAgptiveop .. .
Tésv o8” thyepdveve ... Meveobads
tev ot” tHyepdveve . . . AtourSns Kal Léveros ...
* Here there is explicit antithesis between the command of a force and some
other aspect of it.
T doubt the propriety of including these three passages in my list, since in
all three cases (note the definite article in two of them) the purpose of the
relative clause is not so much to inform us who the commander was as to
remind us which force is being referred to.62
B Gor
B627
B 740
B 837
B 622
Cf) B78
B 636
B758
B 657
B 698
B 650
B 620
B 870
B 678
(s) B 623
VI, III, I
VI, 97
VII, 97
(A) vit, 66, 2
VII, 68
VU, 73
Vil, 77
VII, 80
‘VII, 81
GREEK WORD ORDER
tay até’ Hyeudveve ... Néorop
tév at’ Hyeudveve Méyns .. . or
tév a0’ fhyeudveve ... ToAutroftns ...
té&v ave’... Fipy’ “Agios ...
té&v 8... fipye ... Arcopns™
té&v BE Dirdoxrhtns fpxev ... Emre veddv
tev piv *OSuccets fipxe ..-
tév dv Tipddoos ... tryeudveve
way iy Tren Gbos « «+ flyshvevs
résv ot Tiporrectdctos . ~ frysubveve
Tay v py dp! “IBouevets « + Hyeudveve Mnpidvns
tév oubv & *Augleros kal OdAmOs Hynedoiny?
tev bv &p’ ’Apgipayos Kal Néotns hynodoinv
tev ott DelSitrirds te Kad “Avrigos hynodotny
té&v BE teT&pToo fpxe ToAUEewes .. .*
‘rot pv BeEi00 Kkpeos thyteTo ... KaAAlpoxost
Tiis BE GAANs otperrifis totporrtjyeov of Bo
Tou 58 vauTiKoU Lotpartjyeov ol6e?
_ Totrteoy & fipxov olBe?
torrreov Bé fipxov olde?
Tovtav ouvaygotépwy fipxe "ApTéyuns ...
tovrroov Trévtov fipye BaSpns ...
tote 58 Té&Sv vactwtiov fipxe MapSovrns ...
toto dv Tol otpatot fipxov piv otro: .. .3
VII, 121, 3 Tonrns pév Bi) dotpartyeov MapBdvids re Ked
vil, 83, 1
@ = vu, 79
G) vu, 82, 2
Maciorms*
tév 8 puplov touTwvy —-- torpariyee piv
“YBépuns3
tovrrev 5 Macionios ... fipye
totparijyeov 8% touTwav —~— Mapbdvids te ...
kod Tprravratypns3
(k) vil, 173, 2. dotpariyee St AoxeSoapovicov piv Evatvetost
@ B8s8
B 645
Muodsy 58 Xpduis fipye Kad “Evvopos ...
Koenrédv 8” "ISopevets ... tyyepdveve
* Here there is explicit antithesis (with pév/5é), within a single complex
sentence, between different forces.
? Followed by a list of names.
3 Here there is explicit antithesis between the command of a force and
some other aspect of it.B 863
B 494
VIL, 725 2
B 517
B 856
(m) B 844
B-756
VII, 62, 2
VII, 66, 1
Vil, 67, 1
VIL, 7§, 2
VII, 64, 2
VII, 69, 2
VII, 74, 2
Vil, 79
Vil, 97
VII, 131, 3
B 638
B 851
B 527
B 819
B 816
VU, 69, 2
vil, 62, 1
vit, 67, 2
(x) B 862
B 537
B 748
B 671
B 653
B 867
LOGICAL DETERMINANTS 63
Mrjooi at Méc€Ans ‘re xal “Avtipos Aynod-
Borerrdsv pév TinveAges Kal Atjitos Aipxov
TlopAcryéveov yév vuv Kal Marrinvéiv Adytos ...
fipxe?
are Deokiiav ZxéBios kal "Eriarpogos fipxov
anrrekp ‘AAizcoveov “OBtos Kal ’Emlotpopes fipxov
avrrap Gpriixas fly’ *Akduos Kal Telpoos ...
Mayvijreav 8° fipxe Tpd8oos
Kigotoov 88 fipye "Avdens ...
“Aploov 8 Fipxe Zicduvns ...
Lopayytov BE fipye Depevdéerns ..
Opnixcov 58 -—— Apye Bacodans ...
Boxtploow && xed Zoxtoov Fipxe “Yor&orms .
*ApaBloo 8 kad Al@idrranv ——— fipye ‘Avot.
AuBév 8 Kod Muadiv fipye “Aptappévns . .
Mapédv 58 Kal KéAyoov fipxe Sapevberns -
Alyutrrioov 88 orrporrtjyee ’Axonnévns .
"A@nvadeov 88 totpartyse ZdvOrriros .. .
AltaaAdav 8 tyetro Odas ...
TlapAaydvew 8’ tyetto MuAmpéveos Adciov Kijp
Aoxpéiv 8 fyyepovevev ... Alas
AapSaviav at’ fipyey ... Alvelag
Tpwol uty tyendveve ... “Exroop
‘tév pv St Urrép Alyurrrou Alfiérreay kal "ApoBiav
fipxe Apodunst
ol 6. Mabou &pxovta piv trapelyovro Trypévny
Tiéacrues 88 &pyovra trapelyovto *Aptativrny ...
@édpxus a Oplryas fiye Kal ’Ackdvios .
Alas 8 &x ZoAcuivos éyev SuoKaiBexcr vitos
Touvels 8’ & Kugou tye Buca kal door vijas
Nipevs oc ZUpnGev dye tpels vijas etoos
TAntréAguos 8... & ‘Pddou évvéc vijas cyev
Néortns at Kapéiv tytjoato —-—
* Here there is explicit antithesis (with pév/Sé), within a single complex
sentence, between different forces.
* Here there is explicit antithesis between the command of a force and
some other aspect of it.64 GREEK WORD ORDER
(0) B631 ata 'OSucaels tye KepadAfivas ———
B 848 outap Tupatyuns &ye Matovas ———
B 840 ‘InerrdBoos 8 eye pic MeAasyav ———
B 876 Laprndev 8’ Apxev Auxioov kai PAadwos .. .
A first glance over this list may suggest unlimited variety of
formulation, but a second glance corrects the impression. Homer
and Herodotus confine themselves to a proportion of the possible
total of permutations.’ If we turn from information on the com-
manders of troops to information on the names of persons and
places, we find that Herodotus’s formulations of ‘whose name was
...’ in part correspond to his formulations of ‘commanded by’;
otvona 8 of iv N~ tye 8 atrous 6 Siva and Tod otvopé tom V ~
tév Hpxe d Selva. Yet straightway we encounter a new formulation:
1, 179, 4 “Is otvoper arirrij, 1, 205, 1 Tépupis of fv obvope, 11, 29, 3
Toxopipds otvoper onrrij £oT1, VIIL, 32, 1 Tidopéa otvopte otrrij. This has
no counterpart among the formulations of ‘whose commander
was ...’; butif we seek its ancestry, we may find a cluein Hecataeus,
fr. 282 by 8 ovrroton TréA15, Topikévn otvoyc.
This brings us back finally to the ‘conflict of pattern and principle’
of which I spoke in ch. 1, (ii). In attempting to explain the word
order in any given Greek utterance, we must ask not only ‘with
what principles is it consistent?’ but also ‘what are its models and
what is the history of its models?’ The part played by patterns and
models offers an explanation of the process by which the syntactical
* It should be remembered that the Homeric catalogue, unlike Hdt. vu, is
simultaneously a catalogue of forces and a catalogue of heroes.
* Barth, pp. 37ff., emphasises the importance of formal analogy and
association. Frisk, p. 76, makes the point that an order originally determined
logically may become ‘mechanisiert’ through familiarity and may eventually
be employed in utterances to which the original determinants are entirely
inapplicable. Elsewhere in his argument he perhaps underestimates the
importance of this phenomenon. Thus (pp. 56ff.) he explains the order P Sin
rdv fipxe 6 Selva: by saying that 7px is a‘ Rubrikwort’,and the exceptions X.
An. 1, 7, 11 dv "Aptayépons Apxe, HG, 11, 1, 6, tv, 8, 10, VI, §, 11, by saying
(p. 59) that for Xenophon (unlike Herodotus and Thucydides) fipye is not a
‘Rubrikwort’. What then is the explanation of X. An. rv, 8, 18 dv Fipxev
Aloxlvns 6 *Axapvé, ibid. dv Apye KAscvoop 6 "Opxontvios, HG, 1, 2, 16?
Tt might seem that f\pxe cannot both be and not be a ‘Rubrikwort’ for the
same author in the same works. But perhaps it can, provided that we reverse
the cause and effect. Herodotus chooses to make fipye a ‘Rubrikwort’ by
putting it first; Xenophon sometimes chooses to do so, and sometimes not;
but the word order cannot be invoked to explain the choice.