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Negative Concord in Classical Greek. Case Study: Xenophon

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2019

Abstract

Ancient Greek has at its disposal a complex system of negatives (n-words and negators) that can combine in different ways. Drawing on Xenophon's works, I will show various patterns reflecting the combinations of negatives (negator and n-words) in Ancient Greek sentences; due to its relatively free word order, the place of negative elements may vary considerably.

I pay special attention to n-words and negative spread, which is markedly developed in Ancient Greek, and examine the differences between non-strict negative concord languages (like Italian and Spanish) and specific non-strict negative concord languages (like Ancient Greek), arguing for scalar properties of negation.