Can free relatives be concealed questions in Classical Greek ?

Richard Faure (1)

1 EDITTA - Édition, Interprétation, Traduction des Textes Anciens

In this paper I address the issue as to why there are at first glance three items that can introduce an embedded question in Classical Greek: hós (relative), tís ((direct) interrogative) and hóstis (so-called indefinite relative). Though, a closer examination shows that this threefold possibility is limited to the set of responsive question-embedding predicates. Moreover, tís patterns with hóstis in that both can also be used after rogative predicates. Therefore the distinction is amenable to a binary one. Giannakidou's 1998 notion of non-veridicality accounts for it: tís and hóstis prove to be licensed by non veridical contexts. Hós clauses are nothing else than actual Free Relative clauses, that function as concealed questions, or, better said, as concealed propositions. To explain this, I resort to Jacobson's (1995) theory of Free Relatives and to a type-shifting operation, already called for in Nathan (2005).

Mots clés: concealed questions; ancient greek; negative polarity items; NPI

Mots clés: questions cachées; grec ancien; interrogatives; relatives; termes à polarité négative; TPN

Domaines: Linguistique; Etudes classiques

Richard Faure. Can free relatives be concealed questions in Classical Greek ?. 9th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, Oct 2009, Chicago, Illinois, United States. ⟨hal-00469831v2⟩