Sobre la expresión del esfuerzo y de la aproximación: Análisis de μόγις y μόλις en Griego Antiguo

Abstract

In Ancient Greek, μόγις y μόλις generally express the effort an agent takes to display the verbal action. Besides this use as manner adverbs, μόγις and μόλις show also a use, although much less frequently, as approximative adverbs. This paper, which analyses The Illiad and The Odyssey , the complete tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the plays by Aristophanes and Plutarch’s Lives, focuses on the determination of the semantic and pragmatic factors that have triggered the development of μόγις and μόλις into approximative adverbs. It aims also at describing the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features of both adverbs in their use as approximative expressions. Finally, it will analyze the possible functional differences between both adverbs.