about

Ancient Greek

is one of the most important languages when it comes to the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. It is attested from ca. 1500 BCE onwards, which makes it a fascinating object of diachronic linguistics in its own right. In literary texts and inscriptions, many Ancient Greek dialects are preserved (see introduction). Its phonological inventory differs strikingly from that of Modern Greek – and from the pronunciation used in contemporary Classical studies (see sounds). Ancient Greek is highly inflective with massive allomorphy, part of which is inherited, part of which is due to conditioned sound changes (see words). Ancient Greek is the only archaic IE language which is not clearly OV. On the contrary, SVO is attested already in Mycenean, the oldest stratum of the language. There is reason to believe that the language was discourse-configurational (see structures).

Lecturers

Lucien van Beek

Leiden University

Luuk Huitink

University of Amsterdam

introduction

Ancient Greek, intro, unit 1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48903

external history of Greek and main sources, Greek within IE, Mycenaean, Archaic Classic, Koine

slides

Ancient Greek, intro, unit 2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48904

alphabet, quick phonetic details, overview of writing systems, linear B, epichoric alphabets

slides

Ancient Greek, intro, unit 3

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48905

dialects in the Archaic and Classical periods, classifications, illustrative dialectal examples

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sounds

Ancient Greek, sounds, unit 1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48906

segments: consonant phonemes, geminates, vowels, diphthongs, evidence for realization

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Ancient Greek, sounds, unit 2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48907

accentuation: evidence and realization, accent laws, accent assignment

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Ancient Greek, sounds, unit 3

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48908

syllables, suprasegmentals, prosodic words: on dissimilation, epenthesis, assimilation and coda deletion.

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words

Ancient Greek, words, unit 1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48909

derivation: morphological type, roots and suffixes, ablaut, the Caland System

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Ancient Greek, words, unit 2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48910

compounding: general grammatical and typological considerations, right-oriented and left-oriented compounds

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Ancient Greek, words, unit 3

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48911

declension: categories, gender, noun vs. adjective, special issue on confused nominal paradigms

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Ancient Greek, words, unit 4

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48912

conjugation: verbal categories, verb stem formation, sample paradigms, voice, various forms of reduplication

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structures

Ancient Greek, structures, unit 1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48913

overview of morphosyntactic categories, agreement, noun phrases, linearization including discontinuous noun phrases

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Ancient Greek, structures, unit 2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48914

voice: active and middle-passive meanings and forms, argument structure, passivization, different kinds of verbs and middle meanings

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Ancient Greek, structures, unit 3

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48915

tense, lexical and grammatical aspect, the seven indicatives of the Greek verb, imperfect-aorist-present in narrative

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Ancient Greek, structures, unit 4

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48916

mood and modality: mood and modality in Classical Greek, use of moods in main and subordinate clauses

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Ancient Greek, structures, unit 5

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5446/48917

constituent order and information structure: word order, prepositives and postpositives, constituent order, clausal peripheries

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