Home Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes

  • Liana Tronci ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 11, 2022
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

This paper investigates the distribution of different types of impersonal constructions in Attic oratory and focuses on the data taken from two political speeches, i. e., Aeschines’ Against Ctesiphon (speech 3) and Demosthenes’ On the Crown (speech 18). The topic of impersonal constructions in Ancient Greek has not yet received much attention from scholars, with the exception of some studies devoted to singular aspects, e. g., the semantics and morphosyntax of impersonal verbs and the comparison with other Indo-European languages. No attention has been paid to the analysis of textual distribution of impersonal constructions and to the effects that impersonal constructions produce in communicative terms. This paper aims at filling the gap, by analysing different types of clauses under the umbrella of impersonal constructions. Some of them are usually recognised as impersonal constructions, while others are not. Constructions are of three types: the first includes constructions with impersonal verbs, e. g., δεῖ, δοκεῖ, etc., which are to be compared with the corresponding personal constructions. The second group contains some non-personal uses of grammatical persons, namely the non-referential uses of the first person plural and the clauses with indefinite subject τις. Finally, the third type includes constructions with non-human subjects, which display no-agreement in number between the verb and its external argument. The purpose of the paper is twofold. On the one hand, it aims at contributing to the debate on ancient Greek impersonal constructions; on the other hand, it investigates the role played by impersonal linguistic strategies in building the contents of forensic speeches and conveying the messages that orators wanted to communicate to the audience.

Bibliography

Allan, R.J. (2013), “Exploring Modality’s Semantic Space. Grammaticalization, Subjectification and the case of ὀφείλω”, in: Glotta 89.1, 1–46.10.13109/glot.2013.89.14.1Search in Google Scholar

Benveniste, É. (1966 [1946]), “Structure des relations de personne dans le verbe”, in: Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1, Paris, 225–235 [BSL 43, 1–12].Search in Google Scholar

Benveniste, É. (1966 [1956]), “La nature des pronoms”, in: Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1, Paris, 251–257 [M. Halle (ed.), For Roman Jakobson, La Haye, I, 34–37].Search in Google Scholar

Benveniste, É. (1966 [1958]), “De la subjectivité dans le langage”, in: Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1, Paris, 258–266 [Journal de Psychologie, juillet-septembre].Search in Google Scholar

Benveniste, É. (1974 [1970]), “L’appareil formel de l’énonciation”, in: Problèmes de linguistique générale, 2, Paris, 79–88 [Langages 17, 12–18].10.3406/lgge.1970.2572Search in Google Scholar

Benveniste, É. (1971), Problems in General Linguistics, English translation by Mary Elizabeth Meek, Coral Gables, FL.Search in Google Scholar

Bruno, C. (2017), “Dietro la maschera. Apparizioni della prima persona nell’Antigone di Sofocle”, in: P. Poccetti/F. Logozzo (eds.), Ancient Greek Linguistics. New Approaches, Insights, Perspectives, Berlin-Boston, 523–534.10.1515/9783110551754-535Search in Google Scholar

Cooper, G.L./Krüger, K.W. (1998), Attic Greek prose syntax, II, Ann Arbor.10.3998/mpub.15876Search in Google Scholar

Conti, L. (2010), “Analysis of the dative in impersonal constructions: the concepts of subject and semi-subject in ancient Greek”, in: Emerita 78.2, 249–273.Search in Google Scholar

Cuzzolin, P. (2006), “Impersonali e semantica dei predicati in greco antico”, in: P. Cuzzolin/M. Napoli (eds.), Fonologia e tipologia lessicale nella storia della lingua greca, Milano, 70–85.Search in Google Scholar

Cuzzolin, P./Napoli, M. (2009), “An Overview of the Impersonals in Proto-Indo-European”, in: R. Lühr/S. Ziegler (eds.), Protolanguage and Prehistory. Akten der XII. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft (Krakau, 11.–15.10.2004), Wiesbaden, 75–81.Search in Google Scholar

Dahl, E. (2014), “Impersonal Verbs/Constructions”, in: G.K. Giannakis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics, Leiden-Boston, II, 198–201.Search in Google Scholar

Danesi, S./Johnson, C./Barðdal, J. (2018), “Where does the modality of Ancient Greek modal verbs come from? The relation between modality and oblique case marking”, in: Journal of Greek Linguistics 18.1, 45–92.10.1163/15699846-01801005Search in Google Scholar

Díaz de Cerio, M. (2020), “Sintaxis y semántica del dativo”, in: Jiménez López (ed.) 2020, 297–326.Search in Google Scholar

van Emde Boas, E./Rijksbaron, A./Huitink, L./de Bakker, M. (2019), Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek, Cambridge-New York.10.1017/9781139027052Search in Google Scholar

Fleischer, J./Rieken, E./Widmer, P. (2015), “Introduction: the diachrony of agreement”, in: J. Fleischer/E. Rieken/P. Widmer (eds.), Agreement from a Diachronic Perspective, Berlin, 1–25.10.1515/9783110399967-002Search in Google Scholar

Jiménez López, M.D. (ed.) (2020), Syntaxis del griego antiguo, Madrid.Search in Google Scholar

Jiménez López, M.D./Méndez Dosuna, J. (2020), “Los cuantificadores. Indefinitos y numerales”, in: Jiménez López (ed.) 2020, 461–490.Search in Google Scholar

Kennedy, G. (1963), The art of persuasion in Greece, London.Search in Google Scholar

Kühner, R./Gerth, B. (1898), Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. Zweiter Teil: Satzlehre, Zweiter Band, Hannover-Leipzig.Search in Google Scholar

La Fauci, N./Tronci, L. (2014), “Noi in Se questo è un uomo”, in: M. C. Janner/M. A. Della Costanza/P. Sutermeister (eds.), Noi – Nous – Nosotros. Studi romanzi – Études romanes – Estudios románicos, Bern, 95–125.Search in Google Scholar

La Fauci, N./Tronci, L. (2015), “Se questo è un uomo: Chimica della quarta e della prima persona”, in: H. Necker (ed.), Prisma Levi, Pisa, 61–94.Search in Google Scholar

Lambert, F. (2010), “Peut-on parler d’impersonnel en grec ancien?”, in: F. Daviet-Taylor/D. Bottineau (eds.), L’impersonnel. La personne, le verbe, la voix, Rennes, 157–174.Search in Google Scholar

Lochbihler, B./Oxford, W./Welch, N. (2021), “The Person-animacy Connection: Evidence from Algonquian and Dene”, in: Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 66.3, 431–442.10.1017/cnj.2021.14Search in Google Scholar

Luraghi, S. (2016), “The Dative of Agent in Indo-European Languages”, in: STUF: Language Typology and Universals 69.1, 15–47.10.1515/stuf-2016-0002Search in Google Scholar

Malchukov, A./Ogawa, A. (2011), “Towards a typology of impersonal constructions. A semantic map approach”, in: A. Malchukov/A. Siewierska (eds.), Impersonal Constructions. A cross-linguistic perspective, Amsterdam-Philadelphia, 19–56.10.1075/slcs.124Search in Google Scholar

Malchukov, A./Siewierska, A. (2011), “Introduction”, in: A. Malchukov/A. Siewierska (eds.), Impersonal Constructions. A Cross-linguistic Perspective, Amsterdam-Philadelphia, 1–15.10.1075/slcs.124.01malSearch in Google Scholar

Méndez Dosuna, J. (2020), “El verbo (I). Persona, número y voz”, in: Jiménez López (ed.) 2020, 559–596.Search in Google Scholar

Papaioannou, S./Serafim, A./da Vela, B. (2017), “Introduction”, in: S. Papaioannou/A. Serafim/B. da Vela (eds.), The Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric, Leiden-New York, 1–9.10.1163/9789004341876Search in Google Scholar

Pieroni, S. (2010), “Nos as expression of the ‘ego’ in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus (books I–IV)”, in: P. Anreiter/M. Kienpointner (eds.), Latin Linguistics Today. Akten des 15. Internationalen Kolloquiums zur Lateinischen Linguistik (Innsbruck, 4–9 April 2009), Innsbruck, 595–607.Search in Google Scholar

Riaño Rufilanchas, D. (2020), “Sintaxis y semántica del nominativo”, in: Jiménez López (ed.) 2020, 145–192.Search in Google Scholar

Rieken, E. (2017), “Ergativity, Agentivity, Individuation? Agreement Patterns of Collective Nouns in Hittite”, in: A. Mouton (ed.), L’hittitologie aujourd’hui. Études sur l’Anatolie hittite et néo-hittite à l’occasion du centenaire de la naissance d’Emmanuel Laroche (Istanbul, 21–22 novembre, 2014), Istanbul, 7–17.10.4000/books.ifeagd.3437Search in Google Scholar

Ruiz Yamuza, E. (2008), Tres verbos que significan ‘deber’ en griego antiguo, Zaragoza.Search in Google Scholar

Serafim, A. (2017), “‘Conventions’ in/as Performance: Addressing the Audience in Selected Public Speeches of Demosthenes”, in: S. Papaioannou/A. Serafim/B. da Vela (eds.), The Theatre of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric, Leiden-New York, 26–41.10.1163/9789004341876_004Search in Google Scholar

Serafim, A. (2021), “‘I, He, We, You, They’: Addresses to the Audience as a Means of Unity/Division in Attic Forensic Oratory”, in: A.N. Michalopoulos/A. Serafim/F. Beneventano della Corte/A. Vatri (eds.), The Rhetoric of Unity and Division in Ancient Literature, Berlin-New York, 71–98.10.1515/9783110611168-004Search in Google Scholar

Siewierska, A. (2004), Person, Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9780511812729Search in Google Scholar

Siewierska, A. (2008), “Introduction: Impersonalization from a subject-centered vs. agent-centered perspective”, in: Transactions of the Philological Society 106.2, 1–23 (Special issue Impersonal Constructions in Grammatical Theory).10.1111/j.1467-968X.2008.00211.xSearch in Google Scholar

Siewierska, A. (2011), “Overlap and complementarity in reference impersonals: Man-constructions vs. third person plural-impersonals in the languages of Europe”, in: A. Malchukov/A. Siewierska (eds.), Impersonal Constructions. A cross-linguistic perspective, Amsterdam-Philadelphia, 57–89.10.1075/slcs.124.03sieSearch in Google Scholar

Wackernagel, J. (2009 [1920]), Lectures on Syntax, with special reference to Greek, Latin, and Germanic. Introduction, translation, notes and bibliography David R. Langslow, Oxford [Vorlesungen über Syntax. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Griechisch, Lateinisch und Deutsch, I, Basel].10.1017/CBO9780511706370Search in Google Scholar

Worman, N. (2017), “Aeschines and Demosthenes”, in: T. De Koen/E. van Emde Boas (eds.), Characterization in Ancient Greek Literature, Leiden-New York, 428–442.10.1163/9789004356313_025Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2022-11-11
Published in Print: 2022-11-25

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 26.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/tc-2022-0014/html
Scroll to top button