Greek grammar conceptualized case and mood as a shared movement of inflection or falling.
Evidence
What the Roman grammarians designate with the bland expression modus the Greeks call “γκλισις, an inclining to the side. This word moves in the same direction of meaning as another Greek word meaning grammatical form or rubric. We know this word, πτ’σις better in its Latin translation: casus, case, in the sense of the inflection of the noun. But to begin with, πτ’σις designates any kind of inflection of the fundamental form (deviation, declension), not only in substantives but also in verbs. Only after the difference between these word forms had been more clearly worked out were the inflections that belong to them also designated with separate terms. The inflection of the noun is called πτ’σις (casus); that of the verb is called “γκλισις (declinatio). — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1167
Categorization
- DEFINE: Key etymological grounding: ptōsis (case) and enklisis (mood) both mean ‘a falling/inclining to the side,’ which lets Malabou read grammar as a ‘fall’ of meaning.
- QUESTION: How does enklisis becoming the model of modality tie back to plasticity as the capacity to receive form (bending into a contingency that becomes necessity)? Worth tracing.
- XREF: connects to: Metaphor’s etymological carrying-over mirrors the parable’s theme of being carried — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 761
Broader Connections
- Metaphor’s etymological carrying-over mirrors the parable’s theme of being carried
#exemplifies(0.72) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 761