Peter Sipes Typology wh-movement with direct objects in Ancient Greek Abstract This paper looks at wh-movement of direct

objects in Ancient Greek. Although Ancient Greek has a relatively flexible word order, wh-movement is highly preferred, but with a twist. In situations where the wh-movement involves a noun-adjective pair, and the wh-adjective may be moved while the governing noun is left in situ. The Ancient Greeks called this sort of split structure as hyperbaton.

Methodology
Since Ancient Greek is not a spoken language in the 21st Century, I turned to the nearest simulation of the spoken language that can be had: Ancient Greek plays. There are pitfalls with this approach, but I have attempted to avoid them. First, I selected plays from three different authors and types of plays written in 5th Century BCE Athens. Euripides's Cyclops is a satyr play. Sophocles's Oedipus Rex is tragedy. Aristophanes's Lysistrata is a comedy. By doing this I am hoping to avoid any one writer's particular language idiosyncrasies as well as any quirks related to genre. In comparison to non-scripted speech, Greek drama is quite structured. However, there are passages that are clearly more conversational in nature. The meters used in those passages are meant to reflect the rhythms of ordinary spoken language, if not the diction and delivery (Porter, 2010). After all, theaters were large in comparison to a movie theater and did not feature any sort of sound amplification. On the other hand, these constraints would also require that the language be understandable to the audience. I started with the original texts of these plays as found at the Perseus Project. To help me locate questions faster, I used the search function on in my browser to zero in on questions by looking for question marks. I then selected the first twenty questions where the wh-word was related to the direct object. To ensure that the selected questions were what I intended, I checked them against an English translation. As a point of complication, Greek uses the same word for why (ti) and what (ti), so I had to

eliminate those. The reason that ti (why) cannot be accepted as data in this paper is because ti (why) is short for dia ti (because of what) To avoid speech that may be less natural and more stylized, I ignored any questions posed in what appeared to be soliloquies or choral passages.

Data
Abbreviations c = common gender (i.e. masculine and feminine) imp = imperfect aspect (quite often unmarked, sometimes inherent in the principal part of the verb) inf = infinitive mp = medio-passive voice part = participle (has aspect and voice) perf = perfect aspect PRT = particle sup = superlative All verbs are indicative mood and active voice unless noted. Since aspect is so much more important than tense, I will only indicate tense where the morphology indicates past action. The transcription system is fairly typical for transcribed Greek, but not strictly IPA to allow for variations in current pronunciation (e.g. is transcribed as instead of e, /e/ or //; is transcribed as th rather than // or /t/).

Oedipus Rex
1. ; tin hm-in h-k-eis t-ou the-ou phm-n fer-n? what.acc.s.c us-dat.pl come-perf-2s def.art-gen.s.m god-gen.s.m message-acc.s.f carry.imppar.act.nom.m.s What message from the god do you bring us? 2. ; dedra-k-e poi-on erg-on act-perf-3s what.sort-acc.s.n work-acc.s.n Did what [sort of thing]? (Note: in addition to the -k- morpheme, the perfect aspect is shown with reduplication in the main stem) 3. -; ti dta chrzeis what.acc.s.n PRT want-2s.imp What ever do you want?

4. ; ti mou dra-s-ai be-bouleu-sai peri what.acc.s.n me.gen.s do-aor-inf perf-judge-2s.mp about What have you decreed for me? Note: mouperi is very marked. Ususally peri mou. 5. ; hout-os de tis pot es-ti kai ti moi leg-ei this-nom.s.m PRT who.nom.c.s here be-3s and what me.dat.s say-3s.imp Who is this guy here and what is he saying to me? 6. ; poi-on andr-a kai leg-eis what.sort-acc.s.m man-acc.s.n and say-3s.imp What man do you mean? 7. , , ; ti d o pher-ist-e despotn hamartan- what.acc.s.n PRT o noble-sup-voc.s.m master.voc.s.m do.wrong-1s.imp What, o noblest master, do I do wrong? 8. ; ti proschrz-n math-ein what.acc.s.n want-part.imp.nom.s.m learn.inf.imp What [are you] wanting to learn? Note: no conjugated verb, implied you and qu-word is direct object of math-ein

Lysistrata
9. ; ti syntetarax-ai what.acc.s.n be.concerned-2s.mp.imp What are you concerned about? 10. ; ; ti ph-s ti sig-as what.acc.s.n say-2s.imp what.acc.s.n be.quiet-2s.imp What do you say? Why are you quiet? Note: The second question shows how ti can also indicate why with an intransitive verb. 11. ; tin hork-on ork-s-eis poth hm-as what.acc.c.n oath-acc.s.m swear-fut-2s toward us-acc.p What oath do you swear to us? 12. ; ti dr-as what.acc.s.n do-2s.imp What are you doing?

13. ; alla ti gar -ou but what.acc.s.n PRT predict.past-2s.mp But what then were you predicting? Note: I call this in situ because of the alla, but an argument could be made for wh-move. 14. ; alla ti dra-s-eis but what.acc.s.n do-fut-2s But what will you do? Note: I call this in situ because of the alla, but an argument could be made for wh-move. 15. ; tin-a log-on leg-eis what.acc.c.n word-acc.s.m say-2s.perf What [word] are you saying? 16. ; ti leg-eis what.acc.s.n say-2s.perf What are you saying? 17. ; d-s-eis ti moi give-fut-2s what.acc.n me.dat.s You give what to me? 18. ; aut- ti pasch-eis this-nom.s.f what.acc.s.n suffer-2s.imp What are you (this) suffering? 19. ; tin-a bin-s- ts kall-ist-s pas-n pseu-th-eis whom.acc.c.n screw-fut-1s def.art.gen.f.s beautiful-sup-gen.f.s all-gen.f.p trick-pas.aor-part.nom.s.m Who shall I screw being deceived by the most beautiful of all?

Cyclops
20. ; ti dra-s-omen what.acc.s.n do-fut-1p What shall we do?

1 wh-move x in situ modifier? y split? y

2 x y n

3 x

4 x

5 x

6 x y n

7 x

8 x

9 x

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 x x y n x x x y n x x x x x x

Ancient Greek had a very flexible word order. There has been disagreement over the unmarked order of constituents (SOV, SVO and VSO have been suggested), though Cervin concludes that SOV and SVO are equally frequent (1990). In these two basic orders, wh-movement for objects should be apparent. Objects come come first neither in SVO nor in SOV. Unfortunately, it is not so straightforward. Greek's tendency to drop pronouns complicates matters. If the order SOV is just as likely as SVO, has a question like 9 put ti first because there has been wh-movement in an (S)VO sentence? Or is the ti first because the underlying order is (S)OV with the 2nd person subject is implicit in the verb? I have no way to tell. If the pronoun is dropped and the wh-word in question is the very first word of the sentence, I called it wh-movement whether the underlying order is OV or VO. Of the five in situ questions, three (2, 17 and 18) are very similar in use to in situ questions in English: they look to clarify a matter (2 and 17) or show disbelief (18). The remaining two in situ questions (13 and 14) could just as easily have been judged to be whmoves. Why? Conjunctions like alla are invariably first in their clauses, which can also be seen with kai in 5. In both 13 and 14, if alla sits at a level in the syntax tree that is higher than the branch that whmoves go to, they are both fair to consider as wh-moving questions. I note here that in English, a whmoving language, shows a wh-move with a similarly structured question But who did the Eagles draft in 2001? (DiPietro 2009). Without syntax trees, which are beyond the scope of this investigation, there is no way to tell if 13 and 14 are wh-move questions despite intuition that they may be. To be conservative in the analysis, we will say they are conditionally in situ. Based on these assumptions and data points, Ancient Greek shows wh-movement with direct

objects in 15 of the 20 examples show a wh-move in this circumstance (75%). A statistical analysis shows that the odds of this distribution being a result of random chance is 2.53%. Given this, we can classify Ancient Greek as a wh-moving language in regards to the object.

wh-movement and modifiers

Six of the questions involved a modifier to the direct object (1, 2, 6, 11, 15), all of which had the interrogative modifier before their governing nouns. In four of the instances, the noun moved up to be with the wh-adjective (2, 6, 11, 15). Example 1 is different and instructive. Not only does it clearly demonstrate wh-movement, it also shows the enormous word order flexibility in Ancient Greek. In this case the basic sentence order is VS with no direct object. V S tin hm-in h-k-eis t-ou the-ou phm-n fer-n? The explicit subject of this sentence is a participle of a transitive verb, which in turn allows for an object. O part tin hm-in h-k-eis t-ou the-ou phm-n fer-n? So far so good. Now we turn it into a question with an interrogative adjective. O tin hm-in h-k-eis t-ou the-ou phm-n fer-n? The tin is not only moved before it's governing noun and the noun's participle, it is moved even before the main verb of the sentence. The wh-move is strong enough to pull only the interrogative word out of place.

Summary
Ancient Greek shows wh-movement with direct objects. In the special circumstance of a questioned direct object with an adjective, Ancient Greek allows for the wh-movement to move the entire direct object or the interrogative modifier alone.

References
Data Aristophanes. Lysistrata. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ Euripides. Cyclops. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ Other Cervin, Richard Stuart. (1990). Word order in ancient Greek: VSO, SVO, SOV, or all of the above? [Abstract]. Retrieved from https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/21810 DiPietro, Lou. (2009, August 26). The Falcons Got Vick; But Who Did the Eagles Draft in 2001? [Bleacherreport.com] http://bleacherreport.com/articles/243362-the-falcons-got-vickbut-whodid-the-eagles-draft-in-2001 Porter, John. (2010). Greek Tragedy: Formal Elements. Retrieved from http://homepage.usask.ca/~jrp638/CourseNotes/tragform.html