Phrasal verbs and preverbs in Homeric Greek between telicization, incorporation and valency change

That which is known as tmesis in Homeric Greek – i.e. the co-occurrence of a particle and a verb in a discontinuous phrase – is cross-linguistically an instance of verb-particle constructions. Synchronically, it is a mechanism exploited by singers to suit metric and pragmatic requirements. From a diachronic perspective, it allows us to analyze the phases of the grammaticalization process from verb-particle constructions to preverbs. In Homeric Greek this process can be reconstructed almost in its entirety, i.e. from the sporadic co-occurrence of P with a verb for syntactic needs and semantic compatibility to the univerbation.