Cet article est une étude de l’anglais may dans deux types de phrases, la question fermée et l’optatif. Avec des données de corpus, nous nous inscrivons dans l’approche énonciative de Culioli pour tenter de répondre à la question: le verbe modal anglais typique may perd-il sa valeur déontique de permission (tel qu’observé dans les questions fermées) dans une phrase optative exprimant des prières ou des souhaits? L’hypothèse est que may demeure un marqueur de compatibilité, le paramètre énonciatif clé modifiant l’interprétation des phrases étant l’attitude du locuteur. Dans une interrogative, le locuteur laisse l’interlocuteur juger de ce qui est demandé, tandis que dans une optative, le locuteur asserte la nature bénéfique de la prière, s’en remettant aux circonstances pour sa validation. Des preuves textuelles sont apportées pour illustrer les différents types d’engagement du locuteur.

This study explores the language of the Histories of Agathias Scholasticus, the sixth-century poet and historian. Through two case studies – the syntagm πλὴν ἀλλά and the optative future – and their synchronic and diachronic contexts, it argues that Agathias’ classicizing prose should not be seen as a flawed version of Classical Greek. Rather, his usage reveals a stylistic negotiation between inherited literary models and contemporary linguistic developments. Agathias’ case demonstrates how the choices of individual authors – often hidden behind modern labels like ‘linguistic classicism’ or ‘highbrow literature’ – illustrate the evolution of high-register Byzantine Greek and challenge previous assumptions about its rigidity.

The neglected area of later Greek syntax is explored here with reference to the future optative. This form of the verb first appeared early in the classical age but virtually disappeared during the Hellenistic era. Under the influence of Atticism it reappeared in later literary texts, and this paper is concerned largely with its revival in late legal and epistolary texts on papyrus from Egypt. It is used mainly in set legal phrases of remote future conditions, but we also see it in letters to express wishes (again, largely formulaic) for the future, both of which uses are foreign to Attic Greek. Finally, the future optative's appearance in conjugations on grammatical papyri from Egypt is used to demonstrate the form's presence in education even at the end of the classical world there, with the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodito uniquely showing both this theoretical knowledge of it and examples of its application in legal documents.