Investigating the disclosure formula in non-literary papyri : some observations on complement clauses

Kavčič, Jerneja (author)

As already pointed out by Bentein (2018), formulaic expressions are an important aspect of non-literary papyri that may provide valuable insights into postclassical Greek. I focus on a corpus consisting of complement clauses that follow the initial greeting formula of private and business letters and by which the senders inform the recipients about a past, present, or future event. This event is encoded within a finite or non-finite complement clause dependent on the verb γι(γ)νώσκω that constitutes part of the so-called disclosure formula. I discuss statistical data concerning the use of tenses in this corpus and reexamine several issues concerning temporal properties of infinitive clauses in postclassical Greek. These issues include expressions of anteriority in infinitive complements, the impact of Latin on the use of the synthetic perfect as the perfective past, and the confusion of tenses in infinitive clauses. Inaddition, I discuss past-oriented participle clauses, arguing that in the corpus, in contrast to classical Greek, the perfect participle adopts the function of conveying anteriority.

• Language: English
• Keywords: postclassical Greek, non-literary papyri, complement clauses, disclosure formula, infinitive clauses, tense usage, Latin influence, participial clauses
• Work type: Other
• Typology: 1.16 - Independent Scientific Component Part or a Chapter in a Monograph
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 269-299
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-183998
• UDC: 811.14'02/'04'367.625.41
• DOI: 10.33134/HUP-34-11
• COBISS.SI-ID: 271028995
• Publication date in RUL: 23.06.2026

Record is a part of a monograph

• Title: Rays of language : linguistic perspectives on non-literary papyri and related sources
• Editors: Klaas Bentein, Marja Vierros
• Place of publishing: Helsinki
• Publisher: Helsinki University Press
• Year: 2025
• ISBN: 978-952-369-139-1
• COBISS.SI-ID: 270973699

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
• Description: A creative commons license that bans commercial use, but the users don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: poklasična grščina, neliterarni papirusi, dopolnilni stavki, razkrivna formula, raba časov, infinitivni stavki, vpliv latinščine, deležniške konstrukcije