Verbal periphrasis in Ancient Greek: a state of the art

The term 'verbal periphrasis' is commonly used to denote constructions consisting of a finite and a non-finite verb. This state of the art focuses on Ancient Greek periphrastic constructions, more specifically those formed with a participle. The first part of the article gives a broad outline of previous research and offers an overview of those constructions which are called 'periphrastic' in the literature. In the second and third part of the article I discuss recent and less recent advancements with regard to two general issues, the definition of verbal periphrasis and the role of language contact, and two more specific issues, the syntax and pragmatics of the most frequently occurring periphrases, which take epsilon i mu i as finite verb. I conclude with some suggestions for further research