Classical Greek Syntax: Wackernagel's Law in Herodotus

by David B. Goldstein

In Classical Greek Wackernagel's Law in Herodotus , David Goldstein offers the first theoretically-informed study of second-position clitics in Ancient Greek and challenges the long-standing belief that Greek word order is ‟free" or beyond the reach of systematic analysis. On the basis of Herodotus' Histories, he demonstrates that there are in fact systematic correspondences between clause structure and meaning. Crucial to this new model of the Greek clause is Wackernagel's Law, the generalization that enclitics and postpositives occur in ‟second position," as these classes of words provide a stable anchor for analyzing sentence structure. The results of this work not only restore word order as an interpretive dimension of Greek texts, but also provide a framework for the investigation of other areas of syntax in Greek, as well as archaic Indo-European more broadly.

331 pages, Hardcover

First published December 14, 2015

About the author

David B. Goldstein is a critic, poet, food writer, and Associate Professor at York University in Toronto. His publications include Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare’s England, the poetry collections Object Permanence (UDP), Lost Originals and Laws of Rest, and two co-edited essay collections.