Costrutti risultativi in greco antico? Spunti su διδάσκω

This paper investigates the syntactic and semantic properties of a rare Euripidean use of the verb διδάσκω, occurring in gnomic expressions and describing the effect of passions on human beings, where a predicative adjective refers to the direct object. Through a contrastive analysis with its rephrasings by ancient authors, who replace διδάσκω with ποιέω, the pattern is argued to involve a resultative secondary predication, since the similarities and differences singled out correspond to the well-known contrast between causative and resultative structures. Accordingly, unlike what is generally assumed, Ancient Greek attests – although confined to tragedy – resultative constructions, a pattern particularly productive in Germanic languages, where it has been explored in depth.