Bru, Mathilde Mone Suzanne;
(2024)
A study of variation and change in the Greek lexicon of the Post-classical period.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
The aim of this study is to examine the factors that drive lexical variation and change in one of the world’s longest-attested languages: Greek. This thesis collates evidence for variation and change in the lexicon of literary, para-literary and documentary sources in order to document a phase in the Greek language when the lexicon evolved often, but not always, with implications for the development of Modern Greek. The principal focus is the lexicon of the Post-classical period (c. 323 BC – AD 300), but since periodisation is arbitrary for most linguistic purposes, reference to the language of the Classical period (c. 479 – 323 BC) is also made in order to contextualise discussion of the later period. At the other end of the diachronic continuum, the thesis investigates the foundations for the development of Byzantine Greek, and the lead-up to the linguistic debates of the nineteenth century, which shaped the modern language. The lexicon is an underexplored topic in linguistics, and, unlike other features like phonology and morphology, lacks a clear typology. The thesis aims not only to add to the understanding of the diachronic development of Greek but also to develop a cross-linguistic methodology for the evaluation and analysis of lexical change. The four chapters of this thesis examine the impact of Atticism and language prescriptivism on linguistic variation in the Second Sophistic; the restructuring of the phonology of Greek, and its wide-reaching impact on the development of the lexicon; the evolving morphological system, and the effects of this evolution on word-formation; and the impact of cultural/non-linguistic factors (the growth of Christianity; the absorption of Greece into the Roman Empire; and the rapid expansion of the koine) on the development of the Greek lexicon.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | A study of variation and change in the Greek lexicon of the Post-classical period |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Greek and Latin |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192876 |
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