Congratulations to Ian Hollenbaugh, who will receive this Friday the CAS Early Career Excellence Award from his alma mater, Western Michigan University!
After an award ceremony on the Western Michigan campus, Ian will give a talk entitled “Poetic grammar: On the linguistic value of metrically constrained language from Homer to Sabrina Carpenter.”
Here is an abstract of the talk:
Metrical considerations are often invoked to explain certain apparent aberrations from the ordinary usage of everyday language. When Paul Simon sings “April, come she will”, we do not need to wonder why he chose such Yoda-like syntax, since it is the only way to make “will” rhyme with “April”. Poetically modified grammar of this kind goes back to our most ancient traditions, but what is often missed is the extent to which poetic grammar can inform our understanding of “ordinary” grammar. A reliable theory of poetic grammar is particularly important for traditions, such as ancient epic, for which we only have poetic texts. This talk explores the ways in which metrical substitution (so called) of one form for another in poetic texts is not motivated solely by the meter but obligatorily obeys the rules of ordinary grammar as well. In this way, poetic texts can inform us about non-poetic usage, if we are keen to observe not only the substitutions we do find but also the substitutions we do not find. The talk focuses on ancient Greek, particularly the epics of Homer, but will also touch on parallels in English, Tunisian Arabic, Latin, and Sanskrit.
