Indo-European linguistics and classical philology
E. V. Yanzina, O. V. Korneev Some comments on the role of grammar in creation of the language of ancient Greek philosophy (pp. 1034–1050)
Author
E. V. Yanzina, O. V. Korneev (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow City Teacher Training University)
Pages\n 1034–1050
Summary\n
The article discusses some grammatical issues of the ancient Greek language, which have become necessary linguistic premises for the creation of the language of ancient Greek philosophy and its technical vocabulary. The issues under consideration exist on various levels of the language. On the lexical level terms of philosophy can be developed from elements of common language and be borrowed of existing terms from other sematic fields by metaphors, metonymy etc. Terms are also taken from other technical vocabularies. On the level of word-formation new terms of philosophy can be created through affixation, compounding and conversion. The remarkable example of conversion is article substantivation that is the formation of grammatical noun from almost any other part of speech, word-group or even clause through adding the definite article to it. Such article substantivation in the field of Greek philosophical terminology was first employed by Parmenides and since Aristotle became a typical method of coinage of new philosophical terms. Alongside with the article substantivation an important role is played by exploiting the specific semantic characteristics of the Greek verb “to be” (εἶναι) and variations of its usage, which is based on its two meanings – predicative (to be something/ somewhere etc.) and absolute (in two variants: existential – “to be” as “to exist” and veridical – “to be” as “to be so, to be true”). The unity of system of “to be” in Greek provides the capability to join together three concepts – predication, truth and existence, which has a remarkable impact on evolution of ancient Greek ontology and epistemology. Keywords philosophy, terminology, Anaxagoras, Aristoteles, Heraclitus, Democritus, Melissus, Parmenides, Plato, Protagoras, Stoics.
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