The Greek documentary papyri as a linguistically heterogeneous corpus: the case of the katochoi of the Sarapeion-archive

While the Greek documentary papyri constitute a rich resource for linguistic innovation, they cannot be considered a linguistically homogeneous corpus. In this article, I show that even in a single archive, the ‘katochoi of the Sarapeion-archive’, considerable variation exists in terms of phonology/orthography, morphology and syntax. I argue that the different types of documents contained in this archive, that is, dreams, letters and petitions, can be situated on a linguistic continuum or ‘register’ continuum. To account for the linguistic differences between these documents, the so-called ‘tenor’-vector plays a particularly important role.While the Greek documentary papyri constitute a rich resource for linguistic innovation, they cannot be considered a linguistically homogeneous corpus. In this article, I show that even in a single archive, the ‘katochoi of the Sarapeion-archive’, considerable variation exists in terms of phonology/orthography, morphology and syntax. I argue that the different types of documents contained in this archive, that is, dreams, letters and petitions, can be situated on a linguistic continuum or ‘register’ continuum. To account for the linguistic differences between these documents, the so-called ‘tenor’-vector plays a particularly important role.A