Tense-Switching in Classical Greek
A Cognitive Approach

Explores the relationship between the present tense and the conceptualisation of 'presence' in Greek from a cognitive perspective.

Arjan A. Nijk (Author)

9781316517154, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 February 2022

334 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.63 kg

'… contributes significantly to the understanding of the use and value of time in Greek and demonstrates how productive the application of cognitive linguistic approaches to the study of ancient languages ​​is.' Giuseppina di Bartolo, Rivista di Filologia

Tense is at its most interesting when it behaves badly. In this book Arjan Nijk investigates the variation between the past and present tenses to refer to past events in Classical Greek and beyond. Adopting a cognitive approach to the issue, he argues that the use of the present for preterite depends on the activation of implicit conceptual scenarios in which the gap between the past and the present is bridged. The book is distinguished from previous accounts by its precision in describing these conceptual scenarios, the combination of linguistic theorising with philological and statistical methods, the size of the corpus under investigation and the explicitly cross-linguistic scope. It provides a complete overview of the phenomenon of tense switching in Classical Greek, as well as new theoretical perspectives on deixis and viewpoint, and is important for classicists, narratologists and linguists of every stamp. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Introduction
1. General conceptual model
2. Scenic narrative and the mimetic present
3. Summary narrative and the diegetic present
4. Zero-degree narrativity and the registering present
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Linguistics [CF], Language: history & general works [CBX]