Dative for Accusative Case Interchange in Epistolary Formulas in Greek Papyrus Letters

Abstract

Greek papyrus letters preserve not only instances of the replacement of the dative case; they also show the use of the dative instead of the accusative case as direct object and disjoint infinitival subject. This interchange is mostly found in epistolary phrases, namely the salutation formula (ἀσπάζομαί σε) and the initial (εὔχομαί σε ὑγιαίνειν) and final (ἐρρῶσθαί σε εὔχομαι) health wishes. The phonetic similarity of the pronouns might have created the circumstances for case confusion. Contamination of the constructions reflects the difficulties of the scribes to construct conservative epistolary phrases and, thereby, diachronic phraseological variation might reflect language change. In salutation formulas, the use of a dative Addressee could be explained by analogical overextension from the category of communication verbs taking a dative complement. The decline of the accusative and infinitive construction might be one of the reasons why the accusative disjoint infinitival subject is replaced by the dative case in health wishes.