Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics

Abstract The Balkan Sprachbund is a well-known linguistic area largely identifiable with the Balkans, which has over the centuries been the stage of complex historico-political and social events resulting in situations of bi- or multilingualism. Consequently, Balkan languages, including Mod. Gk., share striking structural convergences – so-called ‘Balkanisms’ – even though each language retains its own identity. While the origins of phenomena considered Balkanisms often go far back in time, actual …

Abstract ‘Bartoli’s Law’ refers to an accent retraction rule by which polysyllabic oxytone words became paroxytone if they ended in a sequence of a light followed by a heavy syllable, e.g. * thugatḗr > thugátēr ‘daughter’. ‘Bartoli’s Law’ (Bartoli 1930) describes the phonological process in Greek by which words that were originally oxytone (stressed on their final syllable) became paroxytone (stressed on their penultimate syllable) if they ended in a sequence of a light followed by a heavy syllable: e.g. * thugatḗr > thugátēr ‘daughter’, * eretḗs > erétēs ‘rower’. Note that word-fi…

Abstract   See Accentuation Bibliographie  

Abstract Beneficiary (or benefactive) is the semantic role of a participant, usually human or animate, who benefits from a state of affairs, e.g. ‘(for) my mother’ in ‘I bought a present for my mother’. This constituent can be a nominal or prepositional phrase and is considered to occupy the position not of argument, but rather of adjunct or satellite. 1. Definition Beneficiary (and its counterpart malefactive) is the semantic role (Lehmann et al. 2000:68, Givón 1984:107) fulfilled by a participant, usually human or animate, who gets a beneficial (or adverse) effect f…