Μέν in the Roman and Byzantine papyri. Syntax, semantics and pragmatics

In the first part of this article, I discuss the syntax and semantics of the particle μέν in the Roman and Byzantine papyri (I-VI AD). As previous studies have shown, μέν went ouf of use early on in the Post-classical period. However, the particle is not entirely absent in the documentary papyri: this especially concerns 'co-ordinate' μέν, but examples of 'solitary' μέν can also be found. In the second part, I go into the pragmatics of this particle, discussing the social context in which μέν was used. For this purpose, I turn to Systemic Functional theory, which provides an integrated socio-linguistic framework (Hasan 2009).

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8131058