[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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