‘To do or not to do’

The support verbs ποιέομαι poieomai ‘to do’ and τίθημι tithēmi ‘to put’ exist in bound and unbound forms from classical into medieval times, ποιέομαι poieomai as ποιέομαι poieomai and -ποιέομαι -poieomai, τίθημι tithēmi as τίθημι tithēmi and -θετέω -theteō. They differ from auxiliaries, in that they are semi-lexical as they contribute to the event structure of the verb phrase. The article draws on the literary corpus of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and the documentary corpus of the Duke Database of Documentary Papyri to answer three research questions: (i) Are support verbs the unbound alternative of bound affixes? (ii) How do semi-lexical support verbs become semi-grammatical affixes? (iii) Why did -ποιέομαι -poieomai ‘to do’ and -θετέω - theteō ‘to put’ not become productive? It finds that the bound and unbound forms of the support verb differ in the semantics of the lexical unit and its pragmatic embedding. Through the univerbation of leader words and their subsequent reanalysis, a new word-formation pattern emerges, which never becomes productive but is available as a creative option especially in technical registers (akin to English readable alongside established legible) from the Ptolemaic/Roman periods onwards. This new word-formation pattern involves a semi-lexical affix, just like the unbound support verb.