Quelques adverbes négatifs en grec ancien sous l'angle du cycle de Jespersen

摘要

This article deals with the negative adverbs in Ancient Greek which can take two forms (οὔποτε / οὐδέποτε, οὔπω / οὐδέπω, οὐπώποτε / οὐδεπώποτε). For this purpose, it adopts a diachronic point of view (from Homeric poems to IInd A.D.). The adverbs with –δε‐ first appeared as coordinators, and were then employed as reinforced and emphatic forms, and hardly ever as focal forms. These emphatic adverbs finally overtook the corresponding forms without –δε‐, and lost their emphatic characteristics, according to the evolution put forward by Jespersen. When authors from the IInd century A.D. follow the classical pattern, their imitation is shaped by this evolution.