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  • Discontinuous syntax: Hyperbaton in Greek by A. M. Devine, Laurence D. Stephens
  • Miles C. Beckwith
Discontinuous syntax: Hyperbaton in Greek. By A. M. Devine and Laurence D. Stephens. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. ix, 348.

Discontinuous syntax is the most recent offering from A. M. Devine and Laurence Stephens which, like their previous works, uses modern theoretical methods to describe Ancient Greek. The book has two possible target audiences. On the one hand, the book may serve to give Classical scholars a more modern perspective on the unusual syntactic problems of Greek while, on the other hand, it may introduce theoretical linguists to a language which shows some remarkable syntactic structures. Unfortunately, the book may not reach these audiences. Classicists are likely to find the theoretical analyses tough going, and linguists untrained in Classical languages will be put off by the pages of examples in Greek. This is unfortunate because the data are truly fascinating. Moreover, the authors present a number of aids to help in parsing the material. English translations of all numbered examples are provided at the bottom of each page, and transliterations and morpheme glosses are given in an appendix. Unfortunately, unnumbered examples and forms in the text are not transliterated or even translated, and many examples presuppose a knowledge of Greek. I note in passing that D&S use a limited Greek transliteration [End Page 319] system with no diacritics marking accents or vowel quantity. In the examples quoted below, I have used a more standard transliteration type and fleshed out the morpheme glosses.

Like Mark Baker’s 1996 The polysynthesis parameter (largely based on texts in Mohawk) the present work is based entirely on written sources. All the examples are taken from ancient texts; the authors have done a remarkable job of collecting pairs of sentences which show only slight variations. D&S are to be commended for the ability to collect pairs of sentences where one shows a noun phrase in its base position while a similar passage shows the discontinuous structure.

Ch. 1, ‘Y1 hyperbaton in prose’ (3–32), presents the theoretical viewpoint of the authors and their first analysis of hyperbaton. D&S begin with the simplest type of hyperbaton where a modifier is raised out of its noun phrase as if one could say in English: *which has he invited friend to dinner (4)? Greek, however, has no problem with such structures, and D&S give numerous examples as in the following pair from Plato (5).

They assume that Greek base generates its structures into constituent structures and that modifying elements are then subject to movement, generally speaking a raising of one or more steps up the tree. The fronted modifier need not be a wh-element as in this example from Aeschylus (10).

Such structures, which are so jarring in English, are extremely common in Greek, so much so that beginning students of the language often see it as almost entirely lacking in constituency. This, however, is an illusion; Greek syntax shows a high degree of configurationality, and D&S have done a fine job of qualifying the information and explaining how and when such discontinuous structures are licensed.

Ch. 2, ‘The meaning of Y1 hyperbaton in prose’ (33–87), introduces an extended discussion of focus. Here the authors discuss a number of published theories of focus with examples from English and other languages. The authors confront a simple question: Why is ‘launching a phrase into discontinuous fragments … related to focus’ (71)? In one sense the discussion reads as a bit of ‘straw man’ argument. Still, the final analysis is persuasive, and sentences such as that noted above (etérōn parembolēȋ pragmátōn ‘by the introduction of other matters’) are shown to be comparable to English ‘only proud of his ELDER daughter’ (80).

Ch. 3, ‘Hyperbata varia’ (88–140), moves on to more complex patterns of Y2 hyperbaton and hyperbaton in verse. Y2 hyperbaton is the reverse of Y1, where the nominal is extracted stranding various adjectival materials. Not surprisingly, hyperbaton is more common in verse; moreover, verse shows hyperbaton of low focus elements (e.g. demonstratives...

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