Linguistic Studies and Essays

Vol. 60 No. 2 (2022)
Articles

Resultative constructions in Ancient Greek? The case of διδάσκω

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  • Marina Benedetti,
  • Carla Bruno
Carla Bruno
Università per Stranieri di Siena
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4454/ssl.v60i2.321

Published 2022-12-24

Keywords

  • Ancient Greek, secondary predicates, resultatives, causatives
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Abstract

This paper investigates syntactic and semantic properties of a rare Euripidean use of the verb διδάσκω, occurring in gnomic expression and describing the effect of passions on human beings, where a predicative adjective refers to the direct object. Through a contrastive analysis with its rephrasings by ancient authors, who replace διδάσκω with ποιέω, the pattern is argued to involve a resultative secondary predication, since the similarities and differences singled out correspond to the well-known contrast between causative and resultative structures. Accordingly, unlike what is generally assumed, Ancient Greek attests – although confined to tragedy – resultative constructions, a pattern particularly productive in Germanic languages, where it has been explored in depth.

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