Clause Combining in Ancient Greek Narrative Disourse: The Distribution of Subclauses and Participial Clauses in Xenophon's Hellenica and Anabasis (Mnemosyne, ... Bibliotheca Classica Batava Supplementum)

This study describes the usage of subclauses and participial clauses in Xenophon’s Hellenica and Anabasis, with additional examples from other texts, using a text grammar-oriented approach, which can map more factors underlying the distribution of these clauses, and offers a more satisfactory explanation of a larger number of instances than is possible using the traditional sentence-level approach. The discourse-analytic description of the different clause types focuses on how relations are coded by means of subordinating conjunctions, the differences in form and function as discourse boundary markers between preposed, sentence-initially placed subclauses and participles, and the differences between clause types with respect to the information ?ow in on-going discourse. The discussion of many examples from the work of Xenophon makes this book interesting for both linguists and classical philologists. Readership: All those interested in Greek language description, Discourse Analysis, as well as classical philologists working on Xenophon and Greek historians in general. Preface 10 Chapter One Introduction 12 1 Status Quaestionis 12 1.1 'Temporal' Subclauses and Verbal Aspect 14 1.2 Conclusion 20 2 Analysis of Ancient Greek Narrative Discourse 20 2.1 The Nature of Narrative Discourse 20 2.1.1 Temporal Relations 22 2.2 Factors Operating on the Choice among Alternative Expressions 24 2.2.1 Presentation of Real World Relations 24 2.2.2 Text Articulation 26 2.2.3 Information Processing 28 3 Aims 32 Chapter Two Six Near-minimal Pairs 35 Introduction 35 1 NMP 1: Hellenica 4.3.20-21 vs. Agesilaus 2.15 35 2 NMP 2: Anabasis 6.2.13-15 vs. Hellenica 2.4.10-11 49 3 NMP 3: Hellenica 3.4.15-16 vs. Agesilaus 1.19-25 54 4 NMP 4: Agesilaus 1.38-2.2 vs. Hellenica 4.2.4-8 & 4.3.1-4 64 5 NMP 5: Anabasis 7.3.23-26 vs. Cyropaedia 8.4.12-13 73 6 NMP 6: Cyropaedia 5.4.43-50 vs. Hellenica 3.4.9-10 (& Cyropaedia 1.4.19-20, Anabasis 2.5.15-24, Anabasis 6.3.11-15, and Hellenica 3.2.25-26) 83 7 Conclusion 95 Chapter Three Presentation of Real World Relations 96 Introduction 96 1 Subclauses Headed by a Semantically Specific Relator 96 1.1 'Causal' Relations 96 1.2 Temporal Relations 100 1.3 Conclusion 122 2 Subclauses Headed by a Semantically Non-specific Relator 123 3 Participial Clauses Headed by a Relator 140 4 Conclusion 145 Chapter Four Real World Construction and Tex Articulation: Preposed Subordinate Clauses and Discourse Segmentation 148 Introduction 148 1 Real World Construction 148 2 Text Articulation and Segmentation 149 2.1 Segmentation in the Story of Mania (Hellenica 3.1.10-16) 151 3 Form and Function of Subordinate Clauses 159 3.1 Desententialization 160 3.2 (Dis-)Continuity and Linguistic Coding 164 4 (Dis-)Continuity at Points of Segmentation 166 4.1 Thematic Coherence 170 4.2 The Articulation of Thematic Units 174 4.2.1 Temporal Discontinuity 180 4.2.2 Spatial Discontinuity 182 4.2.3 Referential Discontinuity 188 4.3 Thematic Continuity 189 4.3.1 The Genitive Absolute 190 4.3.2 The Conjunct Participle 198 4.3.3 Special Cases of Thematic Continuity 207 5 Conclusion 209 Chapter Five Clause Combining and Information Processing 212 Introduction 212 1 Postposed Embedded Predications 212 1.1 Postposed 'Causal' ἐπεί/ἐπειδή-clauses 215 1.2 Postposed 'Causal' Participial Clauses 225 1.3 Summary and Conclusion 231 2 Genitive Absolute Constructions vs. Conjunct Participles 232 2.1 The 'Regular' Conjunct Participle 234 2.2 The 'Irregular' Genitive Absolute Construction 237 2.2.1 Text Grammar vs. Sentence Grammar: Schwyzer (1942) 244 2.3 Summary and Conclusion 263 Chapter Six Conclusion 265 Bibliography 272 Index of Linguistic Terms 280 General Index 284 Index Locorum 286

This study describes the usage of subclauses and participial clauses in Xenophon’s Hellenica and Anabasis, with additional examples from other texts, using a text grammar-oriented approach, which can map more factors underlying the distribution of these clauses, and offers a more satisfactory explanation of a larger number of instances than is possible using the traditional sentence-level approach.
The discourse-analytic description of the different clause types focuses on how relations are coded by means of subordinating conjunctions, the differences in form and function as discourse boundary markers between preposed, sentence-initially placed subclauses and participles, and the differences between clause types with respect to the information flow in on-going discourse.
The discussion of many examples from the work of Xenophon makes this book interesting for both linguists and classical philologists.

"This book describes the usage of subclauses and participial clauses in Xenophon's Hellenica and Anabasis, with additional examples from other texts, using a text grammar-oriented approach, which can map more factors underlying the distribution of these clauses, and offers a more satisfactory explanation of a larger number of instances than is possible using the traditional sentence-level approach." "The discourse-analytic description of the different clause types focuses on how relations are coded by means of subordinating conjunctions, the differences in form and function as discourse boundary markers between preposed, sentence-initially placed subclauses and participles, and the difference between clause types with respect to the information flow in on-going discourse." "The discussion of many examples from the work of Xenophon makes this book interesting for both linguists and classical philologists."--Jacket This study describes the usage of subclauses and participial clauses in Xenophon's Hellenica and Anabasis, with additional examples from other texts by Xenophon, providing new insights into the distribution of these clauses by adopting a text grammar-oriented approach