In my survey of recent books in Greek grammar from 2021, I realized that I was missing one. Content questions are understudied topic in Ancient Greek, so it is quite encouraging to see a full length treatment of their syntax and semantics. Typically when questions are examined, there’s a tendency to focus on the “usual”—things like rhetorical questions. But doing so misses step one: studying the what rhetorical questions are diverging from in their syntax and semantics. I hope this volume lives up to its promise in the title and description.

The Syntax and Semantics of Wh-Clauses in Classical Greek Relatives, Interrogatives, Exclamatives (Amazon US)

By Richard Faure

Adapting tools recently developed in general linguistics and dwelling on a solid corpus study, this book offers the first comprehensive view on Classical Greek wh-clauses since Monteil (1963) and scrutinizes how wh-items (ὅς, ὅστις, τίς) distribute across the different clause types. False ideas are discarded (e.g., there are no τίς relative clauses, ὅστις does not take over ὅς’ functions). This essay furthermore teases apart actual neutralization and so-far-unknown subtle distinctions. Who knew that ὅστις is featured in three different types of appositive clauses? In the interrogative domain, an analysis is given of what licenses ὅς to pop in and τίς to pop out. Tackling these topics and more, this essay draws a coherent picture of the wh-clause system, whose basis is the notion of (non)identification.

About the Author

Richard Faure (Phd, Sorbonne 2010) is Maître de conférences (associate professor) at Université Côte d’Azur. He specializes in Ancient and general linguistics. He published extensively on subordination at the syntax/semantics interface on Greek, but also on Armenian, French, Occitan.

Product details

• Publisher: Brill (September 23, 2021)
• Language: ‎ English
• Hardcover: 292 pages
• ISBN-10: 9004467521
• ISBN-13: 978-9004467521
• Item Weight: 13.51 pounds
• Dimensions: 6.25 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches