An Analysis of the Modal Particle in Iliad 24, Part 2: Syntactic and Semantic Analyses

In this article, I discuss the use and absence of the modal particle (MP) alpha nu and kappa epsilon nu in Iliad 24. In the first part of the article, I discussed the etymology, determined the usable forms for the investigation and tagged and classified all instances. In the second part, I proceed to the actual analysis of the future-desiderative, future-subjunctive, subjunctive and optative forms of Iliad 24 (for these labels, see previously in Part 1). This book, one of the longer ones of the Iliad, offers about 160 instances to discuss, and has both many speeches and longer narrative passages. The investigation is based on two previous theories, namely that by Hartung and von Baumlein that the MP was preferred in concrete instances and absent in generic statements (a theory followed by Delbruck, Monro, Chantraine and Ruijgh) and that by Basset, who argued that the MP was only used in instances closely related to the realm of the speaker. My analysis will check if these theories can be used to explain the use of the MP in Iliad 24.(1)