The Relevance of Evidentiality for Ancient Greek: Some Explorative Steps through Plato

What is it about?

The present paper aims at drawing renewed attention to the relevance of evidentiality for Ancient Greek by means of a number of case studies taken from two of Plato’s works (namely the Apologia Socratis and Crito). First, I briefly identify the conceptual framework within which the main analysis of Attic evidential phenomena occurs. Then, I provide a preliminary overview of (possible) linguistic means used in marking evidentiality in Ancient Greek (formal aspect). I also explore the way in which evidential values are conveyed (semantic aspect). Certain Attic particles (e.g., ára, dḗpou), functional oppositions in complementizing patterns (e.g., hóti vs. hōs), defective verbal forms (e.g., ēmí), and “auxiliaries” (e.g., dokéō) are revealed as evidential markers or “strategies”. These are able to express inferential, presumptive, reportative, quotative, visual, and participatory evidentiality. The oblique optative is suggested to have evidential overtones as well. In summary, the paper endeavors to show the importance of “evidentiality” as an integrative conceptual frame for the descriptive analysis of certain Ancient Greek phenomena.

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