Epistemic modality, particles and the potential optative in Classical Greek

This paper challenges the commonly held view that the Classical Greek potential optative has a subjective epistemic semantics, the result of a conceptual confusion of subjectivity and epistemic modality inherited from our standard grammars. I propose that this view becomes less convincing when the optative’s unique interaction with the subjective particles ἦ and ἄρα is incorporated into the analysis. Rather, the potential optative has a non-subjective epistemic semantics presenting an epistemic judgment as interpersonally accessible to the conversational participants. Frequencies of combination with ἦ and ἄρα, linguistic tests for subjectivity on the potential optative, and contrastive contextual analyses corroborate this view

A rephilologized diachronic analysis of 'Post-Classical Greek' : pitfalls and principles for progress

Picking up on the notion of “rephilologization” promoted by the editors of the 2020 volume Postclassical Greek as a recurring theme in the book under consideration here, I offer in this review article an overview and critique of the ways in which philological analysis intersects with grammatical and diachronic analysis in the 12 studies contained in this work. In addition, I discuss various pitfalls and principles for progress in analysing Greek in its Postclassical instantiations

Stigma and stress:Studies on attitudes towards sexual minority orientations and the association between sexual orientation and mental health

Stigma and prejudice towards sexual diversity negatively affect the mental health of sexual minority individuals. This dissertation contains five empirical studies that tried to fill lacunae in scientific knowledge regarding this association. The first two sought to further insights into antecedents of that link, by studying attitudes towards sexual minority orientations, focusing on the role of education in explaining these attitudes. The effect of educational attainment appeared to be limited, as its association with acceptance of homosexuality was largely confounded by family and individual factors. Within schools, friends affected and were affected by the homophobic attitudes of their peers over time. The last three empirical chapters studied whether minority stress processes explained mental health disparities between heterosexual and sexual minority individuals, as well as between subgroups of sexual minority individuals. Experiences of parental rejection and bullying victimization partly explained mental health disparities between heterosexual and sexual minority youth, but sociometric analyses did not find sexual minority youth to be more socially isolated in schools than their heterosexual counterparts. Bisexual individuals reported worse mental health than other sexual minority individuals, but dimensions of sexual identity were of limited use in explaining this difference

Correctional Education: A Pathway to Reducing Recidivism in Wisconsin?

The United States has the highest number of incarcerated individuals per capita of any country in the world. Every single year, a large number of these individuals are released from prison and re-enter their communities. However, within three years,many of them will have recidivated and returned to prison. In Wisconsin, roughly 40% of all individuals released from prison will recidivate within three years. The financial burden of keeping such a high number of people incarcerated is monumental and rising. Identifying solutions to the problem of recidivism is critical to reducing the overall costs of incarceration for society. Correctional education programs have been shown to be one avenue in reducing the recidivism rates of individuals who participate in them while they are incarcerated. To date, Wisconsin has had very limited study of its correctional education programs and their effectiveness in reducing recidivism rates. In this descriptive piece of work, I will be examining the correctional education programs offered within the Wisconsin correctional system. Additionally, I will provide a basic analysis of the effectiveness that involvement in Wisconsin’s correctional education programs has on reducing recidivism rates

Attitudes in motion:acculturation in views on family, sexuality and gender roles among immigrant-background youth in Sweden

Swedes uphold progressive attitudes regarding family, sexuality, and gender norms. At the same time, Sweden has had generous immigration policies for decades. This leads to challenges for children of immigrants, who must navigate between expectations from their family and the surrounding society. Therefore, this study asks whether children of immigrants’ attitudes relating to family, sexuality and gender roles adapt and approach those of their Swedish-background peers, using the Swedish branch of the CILS4EU survey (n = 5434). We account for dynamics in three ways: We compare attitudes of first- and second-generation immigrants; compare attitudes of youth to those of their parents; and study change in youth’s attitudes over time. In favour of acculturation, we find that second-generation immigrants have more liberal attitudes than first-generation immigrants, that immigrant-background youth are closer to majority peers in attitudes than their parents are to majority parents, and that gender norms of immigrant-background youth move closer to those of Swedish-background youth over time. For attitudes relating to family and sexuality, however, we find a divergence in attitudes over time, but not because immigrant-background youth become less liberal: Their views do become more liberal, but majority youth see an even stronger change in the same direction.</p

The Development of εὑρίσκω ‘find’ as Evidence towards a Diachronic Solution of the Matching-Problem in Ancient Greek Complementation

This paper traces the semantic and constructional development of the complement-taking verb εὑρίσκω ‘find’ from Homeric Greek to Post-Classical Greek. First, the paper details the semantic development of εὑρίσκω using characteristics such as predicate type, semantic role of the subject and factivity. Subsequently, explanations are offered for the constructional development of εὑρίσκω, using insights from grammaticalization research such as reanalysis and analogy. In contrast to previous studies on Ancient Greek complementation which support the idea of a systematic Classical Greek opposition of factive participial versus non-factive infinitival complementation, this paper shows how bridging contexts of mental judgment εὑρίσκω with a participial complement do not follow this opposition as they are non-factive and changed their meaning (with reanalysis) before changing their complementation structure (through analogy). Also, by extending our view to the individual history of other cognitive predicates (ἐπίσταμαι, γιγνώσκω and οἶδα) the author shows that other cognitive predicates undergo similar developments from factive+object to factive+ ACP to non-factive+ACI, although their individual histories are still in need of a systematic diachronic account. Thus, complementation patterns per period could be analysed in a more fine-grained way by analysing complementation patterns bottom-up from the semantic and constructional evolutions of individual predicates. Also, the findings from this paper provide evidence towards a diachronic solution of the so-called matching-problem: diachronically related semantic and constructional stages strongly motivate the choice of a specific complementation structure but absolute factivity oppositions in Classical Greek complementation are rather strong tendencies