Variation and change of counterfactual conditionals in Postclassical Greek: Evidence from private papyrus letters

This paper deals with counterfactual conditional clauses in Ancient Greek, focusing on evidence from private letters from Greek documentary papyri of the Roman and Byzantine periods (1st-7th century CE). It investigates variation and change in the constructions of counterfactual conditionals in the Postclassical stage of the language in comparison with the Classical stage, investigating certain aspects of apodosis and protasis construction. In particular, it addresses the verb morphology and the combination of the verb with the modal particle án in the apodosis, the morphology of the verb in the protasis, and the emergence of some new types of conditional clauses, for instance, the type introduced by ei mē hóti (literally 'if not that'). The present investigation contributes to the general topic of the volume by analyzing the different elements that occur in counterfactual conditional clauses in order to express modal meanings, investigating how they have changed with respect to the previous language stage, and how they interact with further elements found in the conditional structure (e.g., negation and particles). The morphosyn-tactic analysis is complemented by the pragmatic one, which discusses the functions of ei mē hóti utterances, with respect to the position of the conditional structure within the discourse. The functions of the coordinator kaí 'and', which often precedes the construction under investigation, as well as information structure and clausal relation are also considered.