Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T06:26:53.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Apollonius Dyscolus and the ambiguity of ambiguity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Catherine Atherton
Catherine Atherton
Affiliation:
New College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Apollonius Dyscolus’ use of ambiguity in grammatical problem-solving has in recent years had the benefit of two scholarly studies. David Blank, in the course of his analysis of the Syntax as a whole (1982), has described the broad functions which Apollonius assigns to ambiguity. Jean Lallot's 1988 paper, ‘Apollonius Dyscole et l'ambigüité linguistique: problemes et solutions’, is devoted exclusively to the treatment of linguistic ambiguity in Apollonius’ work. Yet it is to be feared that the flood of light thrown by these scholars on what had been an unregarded corner of ancient grammar has shown up rather more than Apollonius would have cared to admit, both about the nature, and about the prospects for success, of the enterprise on which he was engaged. At the same time, certain structural features of ancient grammar, at least of the ancient grammar which Apollonius himself constructed, have come into sharper focus: features clear enough with the benefit of hindsight, but glimpsed, it appears, all too dimly by Apollonius himslf. It is now worryingly clear not only that ambiguity was ambiguous for Apollonius, but also that the ambiguity of ambiguity represented a genuine threat to the coherence and value of his work. In this paper I set out to justify both these claims.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , December 1995 , pp. 441 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography: Ancient

Apollonius Dyscolus de adverbiis (adv.), de coniunctionibus (coni.), depronominibus (pron.), in: Grammatici Graed (G.G.) II i 1, Schneider, R. (ed.), (Leipzig, 1878; repr. Hildesheim, 1965; cited by page and line numbers); de syntaxi (synt.), G. Uhlig (ed.), in: G.G. II ii (Leipzig, 1910; repr. Hildesheim, 1965; cited by book and section, and by page and line numbers; e.g. ‘III 27, p. 292.17f.’ refers to section 27 of Book III, at p. 292, 11. 17f. of Uhlig's edition). (Also de pronomine liber, I. Bekker (ed.), (Berlin, 1813); de constructione orationis libri quatuor, I. Bekker (ed.), (Berlin, 1817); de pronominibus, P. Maas (ed.), Kleine Texte für Vorlesungen und Uebrigen 82 (Bonn, 1911).)Google Scholar
Dionysius Thrax (D.T.) Arsgrammatica, in: G. G. I i, Uhlig, G. (ed.), (Leipzig, 1883; cited by page and line numbers). Scholia on Dionysius Thrax’ Ars grammatica (D.T. Sch.) In: G. G. I iii, A. Hilgard (ed.), (Leipzig, 1901; cited by page and line numbers). Grammatici Latini (G.L.), H. Keil (ed.), (Leipzig, 1857–1880; VII vols. + supplement; repr. Hildesheim, 1961, 1981; cited by vol., page, and line numbers).Google Scholar
Rhetores Graed, Spengel, L. (ed.), (Sp.) (Leipzig, 1853–1856, III vols.; repr. Frankfurt-am-Main, 1966; cited by vol., page, and line numbers).Google Scholar
Erbse, H., (ed.) (1969) Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera), vol. I (Berlin).Google Scholar

Bibliography: Modern

Anderson, S. R. (1976) ‘On the notion of subject in ergative language’, in Subject and Topic, Li, C. N. (ed.), (New York), 3–23.Google Scholar
Atherton, C. (1993) The Stoics on Ambiguity (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Blank, D. (1982) Ancient Philosophy and Grammar. The Syntax of Apollonius Dyscolus. Chico, California: Scholars Press. (American Philological Association: American Classical Studies, 10).Google Scholar
Butts, R. E. (1986) The ‘Progymnasmata’ of Theon. A new text with translation and commentary (Diss., Claremont).Google Scholar
Chao, Y. R. (1959/1960) ‘Ambiguity in Chinese’, in: Studio Serica Bernhard Karlgren dedicata: Sinological Studies dedicated to B. Karlgren on his 70th birthday, Egard, S., Glahn, E. (eds.), (Copenhagen), 1–13.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1967) ‘The formal nature of language’, in: The Biological Foundations of Language, Lenneberg, E. H. (ed.), (New York), 71–100.Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1978) ‘Ergativity’, in: Syntactic Typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language, Lehmann, W. P. (ed.), (Austin, TX), 329–94.Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1981) Language Universals and Linguistic Typology (Oxford).Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1988) ‘Coreference and conjunction reduction in grammar and discourse’, in , Hawkins 1988a, 186–208.Google Scholar
Desbordes, F. (1988) ‘Homonymie et synonymie d'après les textes théoriques latins’, in , Rosier 1988, 51–102.Google Scholar
Ebbesen, S. (1988) ‘Les grecs et l'ambiguïté’, in , Rosier 1988, 15–32.Google Scholar
Frede, M. (1978) ‘Principles of Stoic grammar’, in: The Stoics, Rist, J. (ed.), (Berkeley, LA and London), 27–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, J. H., Osgood, C., Jenkins, J., (1966) ‘Memorandum concerning language universals’, introduction to Universals of Language: Report of a conference held at Dobbs Ferry, NY, April 13–15, 1961, Greenberg, J. H. (ed.), (Cambridge, MA, 2nd edn.; 1st edn., 1963).Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. H., (ed.) (1978) Universals of Human Language (Stanford; 4 vols.).Google Scholar
Hawkins, J. A., (ed.) (1988a) Explaining Language Universals (Oxford, 1988).Google Scholar
Hawkins, J. A. (1988b) ‘Explaining language universals’, in , Hawkins 1988a, 3–28.Google Scholar
Hirst, G. (1987) Semantic Interpretation and the Resolution of Ambiguity, (Cambridge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hockett, C. F. (1954) ‘Two models of grammatical description’, Word 10, 210–34 (repr. in Readings in Linguistics, M. Joos (ed.), [Washington, 1957]).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Householder, F. (1981) The ‘Syntax’ of Apollonius Dyscolus. Translated, and with Commentary. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series III: Studies in the History of Linguistics, 23).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Itkonen, I. (1991) Universal History of Linguistics. India, China, Arabia, Europe (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series III. Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaimio, J. (1979) The Romans and the Greek Language (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum LXXIV) (Helsinki).Google Scholar
Keenan, E. L. (1988) ‘On semantics and binding theory’, in , Hawkins 1988a, 105–44.Google Scholar
Kirk, G. S. (1985) The Iliad: a commentary. Vol. I (Cambridge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kooij, J. G. (1971) Ambiguity in Natural Language (North-Holland Linguistic Series III). (Amsterdam and London).Google Scholar
Lallot, J. (1988) ‘Apollonius Dyscole et l'ambiguite linguistique: problemes et solutions’, in , Rosier 1988, 33–49.Google Scholar
Lana, I. (1951) Quintiliano, II ‘Sublime’, e gli ‘Esercizi Preparatori’ di Elio Teone (Turin).Google Scholar
Lloyd, A. C. (1978) ‘Definite propositions and the concept of reference’, in: Les Stoïciens et leur Logique, Brunschwig, J. (ed.), (Paris), 285–95.Google Scholar
Mallinson, G., Blake, B. J. (1981) Language Typology (Amsterdam).Google Scholar
Matthews, P. H. (1993) Grammatical Theory in the United States from Bloomfield to Chomsky (Cambridge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, J. R. (1990) ‘Language universals and language types’, in: An Encyclopaedia of Language, Collinge, N. E. (ed.), (London and New York), 281–330.Google Scholar
Rosier, I., (ed.) (1988) L'Ambiguïte: Cinq études linguistiques (Pr. Univ. de Lille).Google Scholar
Schneider, R. (1902) Commentarium criticum et exegeticum in Apollonii Scripta Minora, G.G. II i 2 (Leipzig; repr. Hildesheim 1967).Google Scholar
Siebenborn, E. (1976) Die Lehre von der Sprachrichtigkeit und ihren Kriterien, Studien zur antiken normativen Grammatik (Amsterdam).Google Scholar
Sluiter, I. (1990) Ancient Grammar in Context: Contributions to the Study of Ancient Linguistic Thought (Amsterdam).Google Scholar
Wells, R. S. (1947) ‘Immediate constituents’, Language 23, 81–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar