Clause intertwining and word order in Ancient Greek

Abstract

In Ancient Greek complex sentences consisting of a main and complement clause, constituents which semantically and syntactically belong to the complement clause can be placed in a position preceding or interrupting the main clause. This phenomenon is referred to as clause or sentence intertwining. This paper examines the pragmatic factors involved in the preposing of contituents in sentences containing an in initival complement clause. It will be argued that the specific pragmatic function of the preposed constituents is Theme (left dislocation), new/contrastive topic or narrow focus. Preposing can be analyzed as a device to pragmatically highlight the involved constituents. The paper also addresses the position of new, contrastive and given topics and of adverbs and clauses with Setting function. © 2012 BRILL.