Abstract
The thesis includes an introduction, in which the following points are clarified: a) the selection criteria of the two Byzantine historiographers as a field of research, b) the point of view from which the “archaisms” and “modernizations” of geographical and ethnological terms and names are studied. Later on, the thesis’s methodological structure is analyzed, as well as its sources and the scientific tools by means of which it is attempted to classify the terms and the names to a) those that belong to the linguistic “Atticist regularity” or b) those that represent the tendency for “archaism” or c) those that seem like “modernizations”. II. Then follows the “thesis’ main body”, in which: A) the first part, which exposes the phenomenology of “archaisms” and “modernizations” of the geographical and ethnological terms and names. This part consists of four chapters: the alphabetical tables of terms and names cited in the historical narrative of Nikitas Choniatis are included in the first an ...
The thesis includes an introduction, in which the following points are clarified: a) the selection criteria of the two Byzantine historiographers as a field of research, b) the point of view from which the “archaisms” and “modernizations” of geographical and ethnological terms and names are studied. Later on, the thesis’s methodological structure is analyzed, as well as its sources and the scientific tools by means of which it is attempted to classify the terms and the names to a) those that belong to the linguistic “Atticist regularity” or b) those that represent the tendency for “archaism” or c) those that seem like “modernizations”. II. Then follows the “thesis’ main body”, in which: A) the first part, which exposes the phenomenology of “archaisms” and “modernizations” of the geographical and ethnological terms and names. This part consists of four chapters: the alphabetical tables of terms and names cited in the historical narrative of Nikitas Choniatis are included in the first and second chapters and each of these tables consists of three paragraphs: i) terms / names of the Atticist linguistic form (“norm”), ii) of the archaistic tendency and iii) the modernizing tendency. The entries of these tables are accompanied by special comments, especially historical and linguistic ones. Chapters 3 and 4 follow having exactly the same structure and similar content as Chapters 1 and 2 and they contain the respective tables of the geographical and ethnological terms of the “Temporal Writing” of Georgios Akropolitis. B. The second part of the main body of the thesis consists of Chapters 5 and 6. The possible causes for the emergence of the two opposing divergences from the Atticist regularity are sought in Chapter 5. a) The will of writers to show the language they use attached as much as possible to the scholarly tradition and the fact that they were pupils of eminent teachers, representatives of the most scholarly linguistic tradition are considered causes of archaism, b) the change in the status of the greater area, in which took place the events recorded by history, the fact that the writers realized that what they narrated were events of the then present and that inspection of a place or thing was a source of information are considered causes of modernization. The sixth chapter examines the contribution of “archaisms” and “modernizations” to shaping the style of specific historical narratives. It is noticed that the presence of geographical and ethnological terms and names diverging from the Atticist vocabulary itself help in creating the personal style of our writers, as it creates the “variety” sought by them and enriches the famous figures of speech. III. The thesis ends with an addendum, in which a) the Temporal Narrative of Nikitas Choniatis and the “Temporal Writing” of Georgios Akropolitis are compared, as far as the special case of “modernizations” and “archaisms” of the geographical and ethnological terms and names is concerned, b) the general conclusions drawn from the previous research are cited and the most important of these conclusions are: i) that the statistically important presence of “archaisms” and “modernizations” of geographical and ethnological terms and names in the historical narratives of Nikitas Choniatis and Georgios Akropolitis cannot be overlooked, when the language and their style are studied, and b) that the particularity of the intellectual personality and especially the writing peculiarity of each writer decidedly result in the one or the other divergence from the linguistic “Atticist regularity”.
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