Greek Prepositions

This is the most comprehensive history of the Greek prepositional system ever published. It is set within a broad typological context and examines interrelated syntactic morphological and semantic change over three millennia. By including for the first time Medieval and Modern Greek Dr Bortone is able to show how the changes in meaning of Greek prepositions follow a clear and recurring pattern of immense theoretical interest. The author opens the book by discussing the relevant background issues concerning the function meaning and genesis of adpositions and cases. He then traces the development of prepositions and case markers in ancient Greek (Homeric and classical with insights from Linear B and reconstructed Indo-European); Hellenistic Greek which he examines mainly on the basis of Biblical Greek; Medieval Greek the least studied but most revealing phase; and Modern Greek in which he also considers the influence of the learned tradition and neighbouring languages. Written in an accessible and non-specialist style this book will interest classical philologists as well as historical linguists and theoretical linguists.