‘I haven’t got a clue!’: Assessing negation in classical Greek support-verb constructions

Abstract

Support-verb constructions are combinations of a verb and a noun that act as the predicate, as ‘made the suggestion’ in I made the suggestion that she join. They are frequent, variable, and ambiguous across texts, as well as language-specific in their lexical and syntactic properties. The article examines patterns of negation with δίκην δίδωμι ‘to pay the price for one’s actions’, ὅπλα ἔχω ‘to be armed’, and συμμαχίαν ποιέομαι ‘to ally up’ in classical literary Attic. Syntactically and lexically, support-verb constructions can behave like a word or like a syntagm. A word does not have an internal syntax but only an external one; a syntagm has an internal syntax. Negation in support-verb constructions can be achieved either morpho-syntactically or lexically as long as the syntagm character has not faded. Morpho-syntactically, support-verb constructions can be negated by drawing on their external or their internal syntax. Lexical negation can be achieved by means of negative verbs of realisation indicating a zero-degree of multiplication. If available for a support-verb construction, lexical negation appears to add a nuance of intensity; morpho-syntactic negation appears primarily in contrastive contexts.