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This dissertation presents a theoretical analysis of the interaction between the clauses in correlative constructions in Hittite at the syntactic, semantic, and discourse level. I argue that the relative clause is not connected with the main clause in the syntax, only at the discourse level. I defend this claim by examining the syntactic and semantic relationships that the correlative has with the main clause and the resumptive correlate.I argue that the correlate is a discourse anaphor coreferent with the correlative, not a variable bound by it. This is the simplest explanation of the fact that the distribution of NP types as correlates is completely explained by Hittite-wide principles governing the distribution of NPs as discourse anaphors. There are no special requirements attributable to the correlative construction itself. Moreover, numerous correlatives are linked indirectly to the main clause and not resumed by a coreferent correlate — a fact incompatible with variable binding but ordinary for discourse anaphora.I argue that the correlative’s position cannot be derived by movement from within the main clause. Moreover, the correlative is not syntactically integrated into the main clause, despite being semantically dependent on it. The correlative is a clausal hanging topic and is external to the main clause, linked to it only in the discourse. This accounts for a variety of complexmulti-clausal correlative constructions that pose difficulties for integrative approaches.I propose a model of correlative semantics framed in Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (Asher and Lascarides 2003), a dynamic framework that models the rhetorical relationships between segments of discourse. I posit a function REF that makes the correlative into a referential expression and a rhetorical relation HT that predicates the main clause conditionson the correlative’s referent(s). I demonstrate how this model encodes the characteristic maximal interpretation of correlatives in definite and indefinite readings as a reflection of referent identifiability in context.A common assumption in the theoretical literature is that dependent clauses are syntactically subordinate to their main clause. I articulate a different view of the division of labor between syntax and discourse, and I suggest that standard assumptions should be re-examined.

I investigate how verbal aspect was expressed in multiple Sanskrit and Middle Indic language varieties andwhat changes in aspectual semantics accompanied the radical changes in verbal morphology that occurredover the many centuries separating Vedic Sanskrit from late Middle Indic. My discussion is based on dataextracted from text samples representing each variety covered. I collected from each sample all verbalpredicates with past reference (or encoding states caused by past events) and identified the viewpoint aspectof each form wherever possible. This enabled me to describe the morphological expression of aspect ineach linguistic stratum under consideration. Furthermore, I discuss and suggest theoretically informedexplanations for the diachronic changes observed. The major predicate categories observed in Sanskrit arethe imperfect, perfect, aorist, past participle and past-referring present. The imperfect and perfect (earlierdistinct) were both aspectually neutral at the Vedic prose stage and so remained. The aorist encodedanterior aspect in Vedic prose, becoming compatible with perfective and imperfective readings in post-VedicSanskrit (so merging semantically with the imperfect and perfect). In Middle Indic the merger was bothsemantic and morphological, since only a single aspectually neutral finite past, itself lost in later varieties, isattested. I suggest that the aspectual merger of the finite past tenses in post-Vedic Sanskrit may be due toMiddle Indic influence. The past participle, like the aorist, was an anterior category in Vedic prose and laterunderwent semantic generalisation, since it has perfective readings in all later Sanskrit and Middle Indiccorpora; however, generalisation never proceeded to a point where the participle became compatible withimperfective readings. I argue that the past-referring present, originally aspectually neutral and still neutralin Vedic prose and at least one early Middle Indic variety, later became associated with imperfective aspect(in both Sanskrit and Middle Indic) due to blocking of non-imperfective readings by the past participle. Ialso draw attention to the presence of perfective-looking presents even in later forms of Middle Indic anddiscuss semantic and contextual regularities among them, especially a high frequency of verbs denotingspeech events.

The dissertation comprises three case studies on the history and prehistory of Homeric language, focusing on the ways in which archaic forms are preserved, and innovated forms created. In the first study I examine Homeric accentuation, together with related issues of morphology and morphophonology, in the u-stem adjectives. Beginning from the archaic oxytones θαμειαί ‘close-set’ and ταρφειαί ‘thick’, I outline the historical developments leading to the paradigmatic feminines in -εῖα, which are based on the masculine/neuter stems, and to the recessively accented adjectives θάλεια ‘abundant’, λάχεια ‘wooded’, λίγεια ‘sweetly sonorous’. I propose that the recessive accent results from the morphological isolation of these words (i.e. they lack a masculine/neuter base), coupled with a subsequent re-accentuation to the default, recessive accent of the language. Turning to Vedic, I will examine its cognate class of adjectives, whose accent is unequivocally oxytone; for instance svād-�v- ‘sweet’ is the masculine/neuter stem to svād-v-ī,́ the feminine. But the morphophonology of the u-stem adjectives requires further study, I argue, and must be set in the broader context of Vedic accentuation. Returning to Greek, I look into a few nouns arguably going back to substantivized adjectives, arguably reflecting zero-grade ablaut of the suffix. Such nouns would correspond precisely with Vedic, where zero-grade ablaut of the suffix is the rule (Ved. –vī)́ : ὄργυια ‘fathom, span of the arms’, ἄγυια ‘street’, and possibly a few others. Taken together, these accentual classes chronicle the history of u-stem morphophonology in Greek.In the next case study I treat how innovations and archaisms developed within one morphological category, the compound s-stem adjectives. In particular, I investigate anew questions of accents and of ablaut grades: which are archaisms, which innovations? To do so, I offer a revised philological account concerning the various accentual classes of s-stem adjectives, then argue that the recessively s-stem adjectives agree most closely with the largely overlooked Indo-Iranian evidence. Re-examining the evidence for Greek accentuation offers in turn an opportunity to look again at the evidence for archaisms and innovations in Greek ablaut. Greek evidence from zero-grade ablaut in the root of second compound members, such as αἰνοπαθής ‘terribly suffering’, sometimes understood to reflect ancient PIE derivational processes, reflects rather a highly significant innovation in Greek morphology: the class of s-stem adjectives transforms from a denominal to a deverbal class. I will demonstrate that the zero-grade ablaut in the second member reflects the verbal bases from which the adjective derives (in this case the aorist παθεῖν ‘to experience; suffer’). Why the aorist, opposed to the present or perfect stem, so often serves as the verbal basis in deverbal derivation will be a question I can pose, but cannot fully answer. Finally, I will work through the Indo-Iranian– effectively just Vedic– evidence for accent and ablaut in the cognate class of s-stem adjectives. I will establish first a philologically sound position for the varying accentual classes in Vedic, then will ask in what ways the Indo-Iranian evidence corresponds to the Greek. This re-examination of the combined evidence of Greek and of Vedic leads to a substantially revised picture of the derivational morphology of s-stem adjectives in the protolanguage.The last study casts a wider net, turning to issues in the transmission of Homeric poetry across Greek dialects and across generic boundaries. I focus the case study on one form found in one formula, φρασί ‘in mind’ in the hemistich φρασὶν ἄλλα μενοινῶν, incontestably the older form of the dative plural of φρήν (for Cl.Gk. φρεσί), but only contestably “Homeric”. The hemistich with φρασί is inscribed on a funerary monument in Attica, but paradoxically may not be evidence for the Attic dialect at all: φρασί with a-vocalism closes a Homeric verse-end formula (Hom. φρεσὶν ἄλλα μενοινῶν), but in Homer only φρεσί is ever found; and φρασί is unknown to all other Attic documents, while found abundantly– and more abundantly than the lexica and handbooks let on– in texts of the Doric West (Pindar, Stesichorus, and the Orphic leaves). In our study, complications of language and genre come to the fore: Why use a Doric form in an Attic epigram? Why use a Homeric formula in an elegiac couplet inscribed upon a funerary monument?

In this dissertation, I investigated the usage of subordinators in Ancient Greek dialectal inscriptions and their interactions with supradialectal formulas, i.e., relatively fixed expressions shared across dialectal borders. Subordinators are grammatical elements and therefore are expected to behave in a systematic manner; supradialectal formulas are expected to provide a “test tube”, revealing how different dialects express the same notion. As the first step, I compiled an up-to-date collection of known attestations of subordinators in the dialects of Mainland Greece. Using this collection, I investigated the interactions of local dialects and the standard language in the contexts of fixed expressions and creative composition. In some cases, the confinement of a subordinator into a fixed expression suggests its inactive status in the dialect, and in contrast, the active status of a subordinator is illustrated by its appearances in supradialectal formulas replacing non-local subordinators. Uses of non-local subordinators often result from the predominance of the standard language, but sometimes from the borrowing of phraseological units as a whole rather than the borrowing of the subordinator alone.

Scholarly work on literary features in Hittite texts has been minimal and rarely incorporates results of literary theory from the last approximately hundred and twenty years. In this dissertation, I investigate how a literary effect can be produced within a discourse pattern by developing a method of analysis at the intersection of linguistic discourse analysis and literary theory. My method of analysis first utilizes linguistic discourse analysis for identifying and assessing a pattern in discourse. In this regard, the core concept within linguistic discourse analysis that is employed is the notion of discourse cohesion and the “ties” that establish it. The second facet of the method of analysis is the application of the results of literary theory for the identification of how language produces a literary effect. Once a discourse pattern is identified, the pattern is analyzed for the presence of linguistic features that conform to what literary theorists claim create literary effects that are experienced as aesthetic. In this regard, the work of Roman Jakobson and his concept of the poetic function of language is at the core of this facet. This method of analysis aims to be applicable to texts that have different styles of communication; texts that are typically said to belong to different genres. To this end, the three case studies represent a sample of different styles. One is a formulaic historiographical/political text, one is a mythological text with portions that I argue are written in poetry, and one is a non- formulaic story organized as a series of events. These case studies reveal two implications. They illustrate the applicability of the method of analysis to texts written in different styles. And second, they demonstrate how various discourse patterns integrate varying amounts of words and grammar to participate in forming the pattern, thereby producing a varying frequency of literary effect in a given text.

Cognitive and generative approaches to linguistics have taken a different perspective on grammatical polysemy and grammaticalization. While the former see polysemy as a core characteristic of language and a necessary result of grammaticalization within idiolects, the latter see it as a less interesting phenomenon peripheral to linguistics proper. Grammaticalization is seen as a phenomenon of language acquisition which does not disturb the homogeneity of idiolects. These differing perspectives have generated much debate between the two approaches and are even in large part responsible for the different programmatic focuses of each. While the disagreement over grammatical polysemy between these two approaches to language is rooted in entrenched commitments on each side that are perhaps irreconcilable, at least some common ground does seem to be possible. Specifically, when it comes to inter-generational corpora, it seems that both cognitive and generative approaches to linguistics can agree that the universal phenomenon of grammaticalization would result in polysemy at least at the language community level. This can serve as a common ground on which both generative and cognitive linguists can join efforts in describing and explaining usage profiles of grammatically polysemous forms at the corpus level according to prototypicality, even if disagreement persists on the nature of the idiolect.2Keywords: polysemy, polyfunctionality, grammaticalization, cognitive linguistics, generative linguistics, corpus linguistics, ancient languages

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