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.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- How Style Met the City
- Mind Style, Cognitive Stylistics, and Ēthopoiia in Lysias
- A Civic Style: The Use of μετέχειν Metaphors in Athenian Oratory
- Persuasion by Immersion: The Narratio of Lysias 1, On the Killing of Eratosthenes
- The Mood of Persuasion: Imperatives and Subjunctives in Attic Oratory
- Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes
- Some Functions of Rhetorical Questions in Lysias’ Forensic Orations
- Speakers Diffident and Speakers Brash in the Athenian Courts
- List of Contributors
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- How Style Met the City
- Mind Style, Cognitive Stylistics, and Ēthopoiia in Lysias
- A Civic Style: The Use of μετέχειν Metaphors in Athenian Oratory
- Persuasion by Immersion: The Narratio of Lysias 1, On the Killing of Eratosthenes
- The Mood of Persuasion: Imperatives and Subjunctives in Attic Oratory
- Impersonal Constructions Between Personae and ‘Personlessness’. Strategies of Language Manipulation in Aeschines and Demosthenes
- Some Functions of Rhetorical Questions in Lysias’ Forensic Orations
- Speakers Diffident and Speakers Brash in the Athenian Courts
- List of Contributors