Polarity reversal constructions and counterfactuals in Ancient Greek

Abstract

Polarity reversal has recently been argued to be the defining characteristic of counterfactuality. Ancient Greek had a diverse set of constructions which bring about polarity reversal that is not the direct result of a negation marker nor do they all express a counterfactual meaning. It is the aim of this paper to detail the major differences between these constructions synchronically and especially diachronically, focusing on counterfactual mood forms, counterfactual modal verbs, avertives (almost+past (im)perfective), non-counterfactual rhetorical questions and non-standard wishes. As a historically varied constructional group, these constructions bring about polarity reversal in different ways with different implicatures (e.g., counterfactual, contradictory, undesirable), but they most importantly differ in their diachronic conventionalization of polarity reversal. Whereas counterfactuals conventionalize their polarity reversal in various ways (e.g., changing temporal reference, counterfactual implicature transfer), non-counterfactual polarity reversal constructions create polarity reversal as a synchronic implicature through pragmatic means (e.g., a rhetorical question identifying a contradictory presupposition in the common ground or a non-standard wish evaluating an undesirable outcome to the speaker).