Les différentes manières de dire "jamais" en grec ancien

In Ancient Greek there are at least four different ways of expressing the temporal adverbial negative «never»: οὐ...ποτέ, οὐ...πώποτε (in one or two words), οὐδέποτε and οὐδεπώποτε. The data are taken from classical orators (Lysias and Demosthenes) in order to try to explain why a series of forms with πώποτε (which is often translated by «(n)ever yet») is used in addition to a series of forms with ποτέ. For that purpose, we emphasize various differences between the two series. There are syntactic differences, since πώποτε is a negative polarity item, as well as πώ, which is part of πώποτε, and semantic differences, especially aspectual and modal ones, which are linked to the meaning of πώ (usually translated by «(not) yet»). In the series with πώποτε, as far as aspect is concerned, the negative process is likely to become positive beyond a reference point which is defined in discourse; as far as modality is concerned, the negative process is opposed to a positive one which could have been expected. The specificity of Ancient Greek comes from the utterances where the indefinite πώ, a negative polarity item, compels to understand πώποτε as a free choice indefinite («never, at any moment»), and not as a phasal adverb («never yet»).