A renewal of linguistic studies of the early Greek epics using inscriptional sources

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 22K20016
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0102:Literature, linguistics, and related fields
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Matsuura Takashi 東京大学, 大学院人文社会系研究科(文学部), 助教 (70963114)
• Project Period (FY): 2022-08-31 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 韻律 / 叙事詩 / アクセント

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Early Greek epics such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are subject to Hermann's Law, i.e. the rule that a word ending is not placed at a certain position in the verse (after the first short syllable in the fourth metron). The exceptions to this law are very few, about 0.28% (78 cases). However, I have shown that many of these exceptions are not regarded as word-final in terms of prosody on the basis of the fact that finite verbs (and some other words) were pronounced together with the preceding (or following) word in the inscription. As a result, I was able to reduce the number of exceptions to Hermann's Law to about 0.075% (about 21 cases).

Free Research Field

西洋古典学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

Hermannの法則に違反する詩行は従来，(1)その位置の前後にも単語末が置かれているので，違反している位置に単語末が置かれていることによる違和感が緩和されている，あるいは，(2)その詩行が意図的にぎこちない詩行としてつくられていると説明されてきましたが，違反するとされてきた詩行のうちの多くが，実は違反しておらず，これらの説明が必要でないことが示されたことになります．これにより，ホメーロスら叙事詩人が，どのような詩行を美しいと考えて，単語を詩行中に配置していったのか，叙事詩の作詩法の一端をより明らかにすることができたと考えます．