Colloquium | Talk

Talk O. Cepraga, „Evidential and Epistemic Nuances in Ancient Greek Perception Verb Complements”

Abstract:

Perception verbs have attracted considerable attention in linguistics
due to their polysemy and their ability to govern a wide range of
sentential complements. Typological studies have shown that the
complementation patterns of perception verbs can reflect different
evidential and epistemic nuances depending on the sensory modality, the
type of complement clause, and the presence of epistemic modifiers. My
talk explores the interplay of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in the
complementation of perception verbs in Ancient Greek, focusing on the
constructions of akoúō ‘to hear’ and aisthánomai ‘to perceive’. These
verbs can govern genitive and accusative participial complements,
accusative and infinitive clauses, finite clauses introduced by
complementizers hóti or hōs, and indirect questions. Drawing on a
quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of Classical porse, I
will show how different complement clause constructions are associated
with epistemic and evidential meanings related to the source of
information, the degree of certainty, and the speaker’s commitment.