[B-Greek] H vs. QH passives in Homer
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Fri Feb 1 16:19:33 EST 2008
I found the first two chapters of R.Allan [1] good reading. Allan
seemed to be drawing together functionalism and cognitive semantics
in manner that demonstrated he had internalized the principles from
these frameworks and wasn't just borrowing ideas from them in a
haphazard manner. Chapter three however seems to be venturing into
dubious territory. Allan attempts to establish a distinctive semantic
maps based on morpological patterns like the H and QH passives in
Homer. TheH and QH semantic maps have a high percentage of overlap
but the specific semantic category Body Motion appears to be absent
in the H passives. I don't have the necessary expertise to critique
Allan's work in chapter three but I am wondering about validity of
this project. What would we say of someone tried to draw a semantic
map of the first, second and third declension? How does this differ
in principle from what Allen is doing with H vs. QH.
I noted that Monro (Homeric Grammar 2nd ed. 1891) suggested that
there might be some semantic significance to the H vs. QH passives.
Elizabeth Kline
[1] Rutger Allan, "Middle Voice in Ancient Greek: A Study of
Polysemy" Amesterdam 2003.
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