Abstract
Much attention has been paid to ‘deictic shifts’ in Ancient Greek literary texts. In this article I show that similar phenomena can be found in documentary texts. Contracts in particular display unexpected shifts from the first to the third person or vice versa. Rather than constituting a narrative technique, I argue that such shifts should be related to the existence of two major types of stylization, called the ‘objective’ and the ‘subjective’ style. In objectively styled contracts, subjective intrusions may occur as a result of the scribe temporarily assuming himself to be the deictic center, whereas in subjectively styled contracts objective intrusions may occur as a result of the contracting parties dictating to the scribe, and the scribe not modifying the personal references. There are also a couple of texts which display more extensive deictic alternations, which suggests that generic confusion between the two major types of stylization may have played a role.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the participants to the International Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics (Helsinki, August 30–September 1, 2018), in particular Julián Méndez Dosuna and Anna Bonifazi, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. Any remaining errors and inconsistencies are entirely my own. My work was funded by the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research (Grant Nr 12B7218N), the Center for Hellenic Studies (Fellowship in Hellenic Studies, 2017–2018), and the European Research Council (Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Starting Grant Nr 756487).
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