Imperatives and Other Directive Expressions in Latin: A Study in the Pragmatics of a Dead Language (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology, Vol 2) [Illustrated] 9050632068, 9789050632065

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IMPERATIVES AND OTHER DIRECTIVE EXPRESSIONS IN LATIN

As the recent hausse in pragmatic studies shows, linguistic attention is increasingly focussing on aspects of language use. Making use of recent insights developed within speech act theory, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics, Imperatives and other directive expressions in Latin deals with the various expressions that were used in Latin to perform so-called directive speech acts, i.e. orders, requests, advice, proposals, suggestions, etc. On the basis of a large corpus of comedy, correspondence, and instruction texts the expressions concerned (imperatives, subjunctives, future indicatives, as well as modal expressions and various other lexical expressions of directivity) are investigated against the background of the verbal interactions in which they typically occur. As regards its contribution to Latin linguistics, the present study adds a number of refinements to our knowledge of this well-documented language, for instance with respect to the reference of the subjects of the so-called imperative II ending in -to, the conventionalized speech act functions of interrogative quid and quin directives, and the diachronic process of conventionalization of velim requests. However, rather than in these descriptive details, the contribution of this study lies in the innovative analysis of the various directive expressions of Latin in terms of the specific directive meanings which they convey. The analysis concentrates on the position of directives within the surrounding discourse, the types of texts in which they are predominantly used, and, last but not least, the socially and situationally determined relationship between speaker and addressee.

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY EDITORS

ALBERT RIJKSBARON IRENE J.F. DE JONG

HARM PINKSTER

VOLUME TWO

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED

1. A. Rijksbaron, Grammatical Observations on Euripides' Bacchae. 1991.

RODIE RISSELADA

IMPERA TIVES AND OTHER DIRECTIVE EXPRESSIONS IN LATIN A STUDY IN THE PRAGMATICS OF A DEAD LANGUAGE

J. c. GIEBEN. PUBLISHER AMSTERDAM 1993

No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. © by R. Risselada, 1993 / Printed in The Netherlands / ISBN 90 50632068

Voor Dirk en Daan, die misschien liever wat vaker de eendjes hadden gevoerd

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

xi

1.

Introduction 1.1 Directives in Latin: a first sketch 1.2 Aim and content of the present study 1.3 Corpus and data

1 3 11 12

2.

Directives as speech acts 2.1 Speech acts 2.1.1 Speech acts and illocutionary acts 2.1.2 Illocution and perlocution 2.1.3 Felicity conditions 2.2 Directives among other types of speech acts 2.2.1 The status of speech act types 2.2.2 Criteria for distinguishing speech act types 2.2.3 A typology of speech acts 2.2.4 Speech acts about facts 2.2.5 Speech acts about emotions 2.2.6 Speech acts about actions 2.2.7 Final observations 2.3 Directive SUbtypes 2.4 Directives in interactional structure 2.4.1 Interactional units 2.4.2 Directives in various interactional positions 2.4.3 Reactions to directives 2.4.4 Conclusion: the maximal directive exchange

23 23 24

The expression of illocutionary force 3.1 Linguistic form and speech act function 3.2 Sentence type and illocutionary force 3.2.1 The 'sentence type = illocutionary type' approach 3.2.2 A non-illocutionary approach to sentence type 3.3 Illocutionary expression: outline of an alternative approach

63 63 67

3.

26

29 32 32 34 37 38

40 42 44 45

49 50 55

58 60

68 71 73

table of contents

viii

3.4

3.5

3.6

The expression of directive illocutionary force 3.4.1 Semantic properties 3.4.2 Sentence types in directives 3.4.3 Lexical properties Implicitness and conventionality in directive expressions 3.5.1 Implicit directive expressions 3.5.2 Implicitness, indirectness, and politeness 3.5.3 Conventionality in directive expressions The remainder of this study

78 79 80 82 86 86 90 93 96

4.

Grammatical expressions of directivity 4.1 Distribution 4.2 Sentence type and verbal mood

5.

Imperative directives 5.1 Distribution 5.2 The simple imperative 5.2.1 Directive SUbtypes 5.2.2 Contextual and linguistic indications 5.2.3 Sarcastic directives 5.2.4 The imperative in non-directive speech acts 5.2.5 The so-called conditional use of the imperative mood 5.3 The imperative II in -to 5.3.1 Temporal and conditional non-immediacy 5.3.2 Reference of the subject agent 5.3.3 Directive subtypes 5.4 The second person subjunctive 5.4.1 Diachronic limitations 5.4.2 Prohibitive directives 5.4.3 Dependency on the surrounding context 5.4.4 Directive subtypes 5.4.5 Perfect versus present subjunctive 5.5 The first person plural subjunctive 5.6 Condusion

107 109 111 111 113 115 117 120 122

Declarative directives 6.1 Distribution 6.2 The future indicative

165 168 169

6.

97 97 98

122

130 136 138 140 141 142 151 155 158 163

table of contents 6.3 604

The periphrastic gerundival construction Conclusion

ix

178 185

7.

Interrogative directives 7.1 Demarcating interrogative directives from other speech acts 7.2 Distribution 7.3 Linguistic properties of interrogative directives 7.3.1 Directive sentence interrogatives 7.3.2 Directive partial interrogatives 7 A Interrogative directives in Latin discourse 704.1 Optional interrogative directives 704.2 Binding interrogative directives 704.3 Etiam in binding directives 70404 Interrogative directives in context 7.5 Summary and conclusion

187 188 196 198 198 204 214 214 217 222 225 228

8.

Directives expre sed by lexical means 8.1 General characterization 8.2 Distribution 8.3 Speech act expressions 8.3.1 Performatives 8.3.2 Metadirectives 804 Modal expressions 804.1 First person volitional expressions 804.2 The imperative volitional expression noli 804.3 Expression of possibility: potes and potin 8.4.4 Expressions of necessity 8.5 Non-modal evaluating expressions 8.6 Conclusion

233 235 239 242 247 258 279 281 296 301 313 322 327

9.

Evaluation and conclusions

329

Bibliography

331

Index locorum

345

PREFACE

The present study was submitted as a doctoral thesis to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Amsterdam. Its materialization was possibk thanks to the help of a number of persons and institutions, to whom I want to express my gratitude in this preface. First of all, I want to emphasize the important role which Professor Harm Pinkster has played, not only as my supervisor during the preparation of my thesis, but also as the one who raised my interest in Latin linguistics and shaped my education as a linguist. It was the example which he sets, both as an indefatigable worker and as a highly gifted researcher, that inspired me to finish the research on which the present study is based. I am very grateful to him, not only for his contribution to the content of this study but also for his considerate encouragement during the desperate moments that inevitably occur during the preparation of a thesis. Secondly, I want to express my gratitude to Caroline Kroon, whom I regard as my collega proxima in more than one way. Due to the circumstance that our academic activities ran parallel during at least the last seven years, we have had numerous opportunities to fruitfully discuss the various aspects of my work on this thesis, which has not only greatly improved its contents, but also the way in which these contents are presented here. Besides, she was an invaluable companion during the various trips that we have made together during our research fellowships. The contents of this study have profited, furthermore, from the critical remarks that were made by the members of the Doctorate Committee, Professor H. Fugier, Professor c.J. Ruijgh, Professor W.H. Haverkate, and in particular Dr. Machtelt Bolkestein. During the final stages of the preparation of the manuscript, I have gratefully received the support of a number of friends and colleagues. Frederike van der Leek offered to correct my English. I am very greatful to her for the expert way in which she has managed to find a compromise between what I wanted to say and the requirements of the English language. Ysolde Bentvelsen helped me, in her usual dynamic manner, by checking references to Latin texts

xii

preface

and by compiling my bibliography. Thanks are due, furthennore, to Irene de Jong, who made the index [ocorum, and to Wim Liesker, who solved many lay-out problems and kindly let me use his professional computer facilities. To both of them I am also very grateful for their hospitality and moral support in the excruciating last week, during which I lived more or less pennanently in their study. Finally, I want to thank the editors of this series and the publisher, J.e. Gieben, for their assistence. This research was supported by the Linguistic Research Foundation, which is funded by the Netherlands organization for scientific research, NWO. NWO has also provided generous financial support for a very instructive five months stay at the University of California in Berkeley, a three weeks stay at the Fondation Hardt in Vandoeuvres (Switzerland), which offered a pleasant opportunity for undisturbed research work, and three trips to the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich to collect data. At special request of its addressee, the speech act that conventionally concludes prefaces of this kind will be perfonned here in an extremely implicit way. In spite of its implicitness, however, it probably is one of the most sincere speech acts that I have ever perfonned.

1. INTRODUCTION

Latin is a well-investigated language. Linguistic studies have dealt with many aspects of Latin that playa role in this study, such as sentence type or verbal mood, from a grammatical point of view. The present study presents a somewhat different perspective. It approaches Latin from a pragmatic point of view and deals with Latin utterances in terms of the functions that they fulfil in the verbal interaction in which they occur. This approach centres on the concept of 'speech act', i.e. that what a person 'does' by means of an utterance: making a statement, giving a compliment, making a promise, asking a question, giving an order, making a suggestion, etc. The range of speech acts that speakers may perform by means of their utterances is very wide. This study deals only with one particular group of speech acts, the so-called directives, which can be loosely defined as 'speech acts by means of which a speaker attempts to get the addressee to do something' (cf. Searle 1976). Examples are orders, requests, proposals, various forms of advice, and suggestions. The aim of this study is to describe the various linguistic expressions that speakers of Latin had at their disposal to perform directive speech acts, and to explain the use of these expressions against the background of the verbal interaction in which they occur. Observations on the communicative functions of utterances are not new in the tradition of Latin linguistics. Studies of particular expression forms often contain useful observations with respect to their use in particular speech acts 1. There are, furthermore, a number of studies that pay attention to (directive) speech acts in a more systematic way. Thus, LOfstedt (1966) is exclusively devoted to 'les expressions du commandement et de la defense en latin'. Although this study is

1. Examples are Morris (1897) on the subjunctive in independent sentences, Morris (1889-1890) and Hoff (1979) on interrogative sentences, Becker (1873), Stephens (1985), Bodelot (1987; 1990), and Bolkestein (f.c.) on indirect questions, and Orlandini (1980) on rhetorical questions. Furthermore, Hofmann's Lateinische Umgangssprache (1951 3) has a chapter on 'Bitt- und Uberredungsformeln' in which he discusses a number of expressions that equal English please, such as amabo, sis, quaeso, and

obsecro.

2

introduction

concerned with the diachronic developments from Latin to the Romance languages rather than with the ways in which the various expressions are used, it presents a thorough survey of a number of directive expression forms. Furthermore, VairelCarron (1975; 1981) discusses a number of aspects of the use of various imperative verb forms and prohibitive expressions in different stages of Latin. A more theoretical discussion of the nature of speech act expressions is found in a number of studies by Bolkestein (1976a and b; 1977; 1980), who first introduced aspects of speech act theory in Latin linguistics. The question of the relationship between deontic modality and directive speech acts, which is extensively discussed in Bolkestein (1980), is also dealt with in a recent study by Nunez (1991)? Two recent Latin grammars, finally, viz. Scherer (1975) and Pinkster (1990), make a systematic distinction between sentence type, verbal mood, and speech act type, thus providing a framework to discuss the complexity of the relationships that hold between these three concepts. None of the studies mentioned above, however, aims at investigating the full range of directive expressions in connection with their use in Latin texts. Furthermore, recent developments within pragmatics and related disciplines that deal with the use of language in its natural environment (e.g. discourse analysis and sociolinguistics) have made it possible to deal with speech act phenomena in Latin in a more systematic way than has been done until now. Following these developments, several attempts have been made within functionally oriented grammatical theories to incorporate properties of utterances that pertain to their

speech act functions. 3 The present study explores how these insights, both in pragmatics and in the field of grammar, can be applied to the study of the pragmatics of a 'dead language'. In order to give a first impression of the object of this study, viz. directives in Latin, this introductory chapter starts with an informal discussion of five examples of Latin directives. In section 1.2 the aim and content of the present study are presented. The chapter concludes with a survey of the Latin data on which this study is based.

2. Unfortunately • Nullez' study was not avaible to me until after the present study was completed. With the exception of a few references, therefore, Nullez' study is not taken into account in the remainder of this study. 3. Cf. e.g. the proposals made within Functional Grammar by Dik (1989) and Hengeveld (1988; 1989; 1991) and in various contributions to Nuyts et al. (1990), and the proposals made within Systemic Functional Grammar by Halliday (1973; 1984), Fawcett (1980), and Butler (1987; 1990).

directives in Latin

1.1

3

Directives in Latin: a first sketch

Directive utterances, i.e. utterances that are used to perform directive speech acts, vary widely with respect to both the specific type of directive speech act which they convey (orders, requests, etc.) and their form of expression. Consider for example the utterances that are given under (1) - (5). The directives in (1), the opening lines of the first act of a comedy by Terence, are addressed by an old gentleman to his slaves and to his freedman Sosia when they all come home from an errand. In (2), which is taken from a comedy by Plautus, Alcumena angrily addresses her husband. Example (3) is taken from a letter that is sent by Cicero to his friend Atticus when the former has been sent into exile. In (4), which also occurs in a letter, Cicero addresses his secretary Tiro, who has been left behind by Cicero in Patras because of illness. The directive in (5) is uttered (in a comedy by Plautus) by a desperate young man to his slave Libanus, who is bullying him. (1)

vos istaec intro auferte: abite. Sosia, ades dum: paucis te vol04 ('you others, take these things indoors; off with you. Sosia, stop a minute, I want a word with you' Ter. An. 28-29)

(2)

potin ut apstineas manum? 'can't you keep your hands off?', PI. Am. 903)

(3)

quam ob rem te oro des operam ut me statim consequare ('so I beg you to try to overtake me directly', Cic. Alt. 3,1)

(4)

quoniam non contigit ut simul [sc. mecum] navigares, nihil est quod festines nec quicquam cures nisi ut valeas ('seeing that bad luck has prevented you sailing with me, you have no reason to hurry or to bother about anything except getting well', Cic. Fam. 16,6,2)

4. English translations are in principle taken from the (Latin - English) Locb editions or, in the case of Cicero's letters, from Shackleton Bailey's commentary (Alt.) and translation (Farn.). In a number of cases, however, I have changed or adapted these translations in order to stay closer to the Latin text. A list of the Latin text editions that are used is given in the bibliography.

4 (5)

introduction amabo, Libane, iam sat est ('please, Libanus, that's enough now', PI. As. 707)

In all these cases one could say that the speakers attempts to influence by his or her words the actions or behaviour of the addressee(s) and thus performs a directive speech act. There are, however, significant differences, first of all as regards the specific type of directive speech act. Within their contexts, the utterances function as orders in (1), as an (irritated) request in (2), as a plea in (3), as a piece of advice in (4), and again as a plea in (5). These types of directives differ, among other things, as to whose interests are primarily served (the addressee's in (4) and the speaker's in all other cases) and as to whether or not they leave any options of non-compliance. Besides the specific type of directive that is performed, (1) - (5) differ with respect to their expression forms. As the discussion below will make clear, a directive may involve various kinds of linguistic properties. Both grammatical properties (such as sentence type, verbal mood, and person) and lexical properties (such as the meaning of the verb or the presence of adverbs, particles, and parenthetical expressions) may be relevant. 6 Often it is a combination of various grammatical and lexical properties by means of which the speech act function is expressed. In (1), the directive function of the utterances is expressed by grammatical means, viz. the imperative sentence type which is determined by the mood of the verbs involved. By contrast, the directive function of the utterance in (3) is expressed by lexical means, viz. the so-called performative expression te oro 'I beg you', by means of which the speaker explicitly marks his utterance as a plea. Here the sentence type plays only a subordinate role in the expression of the

5. I use 'speaker' throughout this study to cover both the speaker in the case of spoken interaction and the writer in the case of correspondence, in order to avoid any confusion between the 'author' and the 'person whose words are reproduced'. These two happen to coincide in the case of correspondence, but not in the case of (comedy) dialogues. 6. The prosodic structure, which in spoken language plays an important role, is not sufficiently accessible in the case of a dead language. Its importance in Latin is, however, demonstrated by the following observation by Quintilian: Quid quod eadem verba mutata pronuntiatione indicant adfirmant exprobrant negant mirantur indignantur interrogant inrident elevant? (,what of the fact that a change of pronunciation may make precisely the same words either demonstrate or affirm, express reproach, denial, wonder or indignation, interrogation, mockery or depreciation?', Inst. 11,3,176)

directives in Latin

5

speech act function. Unlike the grammatical expression form in (1), the lexical expression form in (3) is a rather specific means, with the help of which a particular type of directive, and not 'directivity' in general, is indicated. The situation is more complicated in (2), (4), and (5). The interrogative expression patin ut in (2) (a contraction of potis-ne 'is it possible?', followed by a subordinate clause that is introduced by the conjunction ut) is a conventional way of expressing a request in Latin comedy. As such, it resembles to some extent the very common can you type of request expression that is found in many languages. In Latin, unlike in other languages, the expression is, however, almost exclusively used for irritated, order-like requests. In this particular case, it is the combination of grammatical means (the interrogative sentence type; a subordinate clause that is introduced by ut and marked by a second person subjunctive verb form) and the lexical expression potis through which a specific type of directivity is expressed. In the case of (4), it is even more difficult to establish the way in which its directive function is expressed. The expression nihil est quod (followed by a subjunctive clause) is a set phrase, which means 'there is no reason why'; only in combination with a subordinate clause referring to a controlled future action or behaviour of the addressee (which is formally expressed by the second person verb form) nihil est quod constitutes a directive expression form. In many languages this is a conventional way of issuing a directive, most commonly a piece of advice. The last example, (5), differs from (1) - (4) in that it does not contain any reference to what the speaker attempts the addressee to get to do, i.e. the 'content' of the directive. In (1) - (4) this content is explicitly mentioned, in terms of a second person agent which refers to the addressee. In (5), on the other hand, one can only infer from the clause iam sat est 'it is enough' and from the context what the addressee is directed to do. The addressee is, of course, involved through the vocative Libane, but this is in itself not an exclusive characteristic of directives. However, the speaker gives an unambiguous indication of the directive nature of his speech act by means of the parenthetic expression amabo (literally 'I'll love (you)'), which is an idiomatic expression that functionally equals please. As such it is an explicit indication that the utterance is meant 'to get the addressee to do something' (or, in this case, 'to stop doing something').

6

introduction

The conclusion of this discussion of examples (1) - (5) is that there are various kinds of directive speech acts, and that these can be perfonned by means of a variety of expression fonns. The diversity of directives and directive expressions reflects the possibilities which speakers have to adapt the phrasing of their speech acts to the particular context and interactional situation in which they are perfonned. As will be demonstrated in the course of this study, the speaker's choice of a particular directive and expression fonn is affected by at least five factors: (i) the relationship between speaker and addressee (ii) the situation in which the directive is issued (iii) the content of the directive and the nature of the imposition on the addressee that results from it in the light of (i) and (ii) (iv) the verbal context in which the directive is embedded (v) the nature of the interaction The first three factors are derived from Brown & Levinson's (1987) influential study on politeness phenomena. According to Brown & Levinson, the expression fonn that is chosen in a particular case to express a directive (or another speech act that somehow threatens the 'face' of speaker and/or addressee) is detennined by the social distance between speaker and addressee, by their power relationship, and by the socially and situationally defined nature of the imposition which the content of the speech act involves for both of them. The verbal context and the nature of the interaction (factors iv and v mentioned above) are not taken into account by Brown and Levinson in the way in which they will be dealt with here. 7 It is important to note that it is usually not one of these factors by itself, but rather the interplay of these various verbal and nonverbal circumstances, that accounts for the choice of a certain expression fonn. It is, in general, difficult to isolate the effect of a single factor, and impossible to establish strict correlations between individual contextual or circumstantial factors and fonns of expression.

7. For an overview of the numerous studies in which Brown & Levinson's ideas are used, cf. the introduction of their study (Brown & Levinson, 1987: I-54), which reviews the relevant literature that has appeared since the first issue of their ideas in 1978. A more recent overview can be found in Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1990-1992, vol. 2).

directives in Latin

7

However, if we look once more at the examples under (1) - (5) in the light of the five factors mentioned, we can observe a number of clear tendencies. (i) The relationship between speaker and addressee involves various elements, such as the relation of power that holds between them, their relative age, whether they know each other (well), like each other, share interests, etc. Here, I will restrict myself to demonstrating the effects of power relations. For instance in (1), where a master addresses his slaves and his freedman, the (socially determined) power that the speaker has over his addressees is reflected in the straightforward, unqualified imperatives, and in the fact that, at least in the case of the slaves, he does not bother to give any motivation or justification for his order. (For the motivation which he adds to his second directive in (1), see factor iii below). (ii) It is, however, not only the socially determined power ofthe speaker that counts, but also his actual power in a specific situation. In (5) Argyrippus also addresses a slave, but in this case the slave has a temporary position of power over his master because he possesses a sum of money which his master needs. The effect is that the master is supplicating rather than ordering his slave to stop teasing. This is reflected in the addition of amabo 'please' and the formulation iam sat est 'it is enough', by means of which Argyrippus provides an argument for stopping rather than plainly issuing a directive. Both in (2) and in (3) speaker and addressee are (intimate) equals: wife and husband and very good friends respectively. Here too, the relationship (factor i) is influenced by the situation (factor ii). In (2), Alcumena is angry with her husband, which makes her issue an angry, order-like request. In (3), Cicero has just before been sent into exile and his situation is, at least in his own experience, dramatic. This fact, together with the urgent content of the directive (see below under iii), makes him issue a plea rather than a request, which is formulated, moreover, in a rather emphatic way. (iii) The content of a directive is relevant in at least two ways. As was briefly mentioned earlier, one of the criteria to distinguish between different kinds of directives concerns the question whose interests are primarily served by the content. The difference between the conventional expressions chosen in (2) potin ut ('can't you') and in (4) nihil est quod (,there is no reason why') reflects a difference in interests: in the request in (2) the speaker's interests are at stake, and in the advice in (4) (primarily) the addressee's.

8

introduction

Secondly, the content determines, in combination with the situation and the relationship between speaker and addressee, the degree to which a directive constitutes an imposition on the addressee. The degree of imposition is usually reflected, not only in the expression form of the directive proper, but also in the additional motivation and justification of the directive. This is most clearly illustrated if one compares example (1) with (3), which is repeated here under (6), together with the rest of the letter that it is part of. (6)

#8 Cum antea maxime nostra interesse arbitrabar te esse nobiscum, tum vero, ut legi rogationem, intellexi ad iter id quod constitui nihil mihi optatius cadere posse quam ut tu me quam primum consequare, ut, cum ex Italia profecti essemus, sive per Epirum iter esset faciendum, tuo tuorumque praesidio uteremur, sive aliud quid agendum esset certum consilium de tua sententia capere possemus. quam ob rem te oro des operam ut me statim consequare; quod eo facilius potes quoniam de provincia Macedonia perlata lex est. pluribus verbis tecum agerem nisi pro me apud te res ipsa 10queretur.# (,Even before I read the bill I felt it was very important to me to have you with me, and now that I have done so I see that nothing could be more desirable with a view to the journey on which I have decided than that you should overtake me as soon as possible, so that when I leave Italy I may have the protection of you and your people if I am to travel through Epirus, or if I am to take some different course I may have your advice in fixing upon a plan. So I beg you to try to overtake me directly. You can do so more easily now that the law about the province of Macedonia has gone through. I should urge you at greater length, but you have the facts and they will speak for me', Cic. Aft. 3,1)

The content of Cicero's directive in (6) is much more of an imposition on the addressee than the content of Simo's directive in (1). What Simo requires from his slaves (i.e. for them to bring some purchases into the house) is a very normal thing for a master to demand from his slaves and does not constitute a heavy imposition. The second directive, addressed to Sosia, is equally 'unimposing', 8. The symbol # is used to indicate the beginning or the end of a letter. Apart from this, it is also used to mark a change of speaker in comedy dialogue.

directives in Latin

9

although the unexpectedness of its content may have triggered the additional explanation (paucis te vola 'I want a few words with you'). In (6), on the other hand, Atticus is directed to make a journey in order to join Cicero, which involves a considerable imposition. This explains the emphatic formulation of Cicero's plea by means of the performative verb oro plus operam des ut ('I beg you to do your utmost to ... ') as well as the fact that it is aCLOmpanied by several utterances containing a motivation and justification for this directive. Thus, Cicero states in the preceding clause how important it is that Atticus joins him (nihil mihi optatius cadere posse, 'nothing more desirable for me could happen') and he explicitly motivates his plea (ut, ... , tuo tuorumque praesidio uteremur, ... consilium de tua sententia capere possemus 'in order that you could protect me ... and give your opinion'). In the last sentence, Cicero gives the ultimate justification for his directive: res ipsa 'the situation itself'. Moreover, he tries to play down the efforts which his directive requires from Atticus in the clause that immediately follows the directive proper: Jacilius potes quoniam ... 'and you can do it the more easily, because .. .' (iv) The above discussion of (6) demonstrates how elements within the surrounding context may support the expression of a directive with an 'imposing content', by offering motivation and justification. In fact, the context was analyzed there as forming part of the expression of a directive. In other respects, however, the verbal context can also be analyzed as a factor that by itself influences the choice of a directive expression form. Directives are, for instance, often formulated differently when they occur at the beginning of a verbal interaction than when they occur in the middle of it. A relatively 'opaque' directive like (5), whose content is not made explicit, cannot easily occur at the beginning of an interaction, where one rather expects an unambiguous expression with an explicit content like (1). Another example of the influence of the verbal context is found in the case of repeated directives, which occur when a previous attempt is, for whatever reason, not complied with. An example is given in (7), which is taken from the same passage as (5): (7)

ARG: LE: ARG:

hic pone, hic istam colloca cruminam in collo plane. nolo ego te, qui erus sis, mihi onus istuc sustinere. quin tu te labore liberas te atque istam imponis in me?

10

introduction ('put it there, hang that wallet here around my neck in plain sight # let my master bear such a load? no Sir, not I # why not take things easy yourself and let me stand the strain?', PI. As. 657-659)

In the first line quoted in (7) Argyrippus requests his slave Leonidas to hand him a wallet with money. He does so by means of a plain imperative sentence. When Leonidas politely refuses to do so, because it would be inappropriate for his master to carry such a load, Argyrippus repeats his request, this time by means of an interrogative sentence introduced by the emphatic directive particle quin 'why not' .9 (v) The last factor to be discussed concerns the nature of the interaction, which involves characteristics that relate to the medium of interaction (for Latin e.g. speech versus writing)lO and those that relate to the specific goals of particular types of interaction, such as political speeches, administrative correspondence, letters of recommendation, technical treatises, etc. The latter, characteristics of specific types of interaction, will be discussed in some detail in section 1.3 below; they are not very relevant with respect to the examples under discussion. As regards the medium of interaction, written interaction tends to be more explicit in its wording than spoken, 'face-to-face' interaction, because the intonation and the paralinguistic features (gestures, facial expressions etc.) that may support a speaker's words in spoken discourse are absent. Moreover, written interaction is usually more elaborate with respect to the explanation, motivation and justification of speech acts. In face-to-face conversation the speaker has the option of putting off the addition of such supportive elements until a speech act actually turns out not to have the required impact, whereas for instance in correspondence writers are forced to anticipate the possibility of an unsatisfactory 'uptake' and to motivate or justify their speech acts in advance. In addition to the impositional content of the directive in (6), these characteristics of written interaction are probably also responsible for the elaborateness of Cicero's plea, as compared with a plea in comedy like (5).

9. In section 7.3.2 I will discuss the conventionalized directive meaning of quin. 10. In modem languages there are other interaction media as well, such as telephone conversations, radio and television broadcasts, etc., which each have their own specific possibilities and limitations.

aim and content

1.2

11

Aim and content of the present study

The informal discussion of a number of Latin directives in the preceding paragraph gives an impression of the various aspects of directives that form the subject matter of the present study. Taking a speech act category, viz. directives, as a starting point, this study explores the range of expression forms that are used in expressing the various types of directives in Latin. These expression forms are investigated in relation with their contexts of use in Latin discourse. As such, the present study is in the first place a descriptive one. The description of the individual directive expression forms, which occupies the second part of this study, is preceded by a more theoretical discussion in which I present my views on directives as a category of speech acts and on the nature of speech act expression. The content of this study can be summarized as follows. Chapter 2 deals with directives as a category of speech acts. Directives are characterized both in terms of the ways in which they differ from other types of speech acts and in terms of the various kinds of directives that can be distinguished. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of how directive speech acts fit into larger units of discourse. Chapter 3 discusses the various types of linguistic properties that playa role in the way in which the speech act functions of utterances get expressed. After an introductory sketch of the complex relations between the form and function of utterances I go into the role of the sentence types. Because I do not agree with the decisive role that is usually ascribed to sentence types in speech act expressions, I will briefly sketch the outlines of an alternative approach in which the influence of semantic properties (such as person, tense, and type of state of affairs) and lexical properties is foregrounded. The consequences of this approach for the way directives get expressed is then discussed in greater detail. Chapter 3 concludes with a discussion of implicitness and conventionality in directive expression. The description of individual directive expression forms in the remaining chapters is arranged on the basis of a distinction between directive expressions in which only grammatical properties are involved (chapters 4 - 7) and those in which lexical elements playa central role (chapter 8). Chapter 4 serves as an introduction to the chapters on grammatical expressions of directivity. It contains some statistical data and a discussion of the relations between sentence type and verbal mood. Chapters 5 - 7 subsequently describe directives that are marked by

12

introduction

an imperative, a declarative, and an interrogative format. In chapter 8 the various lexical expressions of directivity are discussed. After a general discussion of the formal and lexical properties of lexical directives and their distribution in Latin texts, speech act expressions (performatives and metadirectives), modal expressions, and non-modal evaluating expressions are discussed in three separate sections. In chapter 9 I will, finally, briefly evaluate the ways in which the data presented in the course of this study contribute to the study of Latin linguistics and to the study of pragmatics more in general.

1.3

Corpus and data

A study of directive expressions in Latin is confronted with a number of methodological problems that relate to the fact that Latin is a dead language. l1 In the first place there are no native speakers of Latin whose intuitions could be consulted in describing the directive expressions that are used. Consequently, linguistic judgements (e.g. with respect to the conventionality of the various directive expressions) as well as sociolinguistic judgements (e.g. with respect to their degree of politeness and appropriateness in a given situation) must be exclusively based on corpus research.12 Here, however, arises a second problem, viz. the restrictions on the available data. Whereas investigators of modem languages may collect whatever (spontaneous or elicited) data they consider useful, those who investigate Latin are dependent on what tradition has preserved. The present section will be devoted to a characterization of the available data and the kinds of texts on which this study is based. I will argue that, in spite of its restrictions, the available corpus of Latin texts lends itself sufficiently well to speech act research. At the end I will briefly return to some methodological aspects of collecting data on the basis of a closed, partly literary corpus.

II. Cf. also Pinkster (1972, ch.1), who discusses a number of general problems that one is confronted with when studying a dead language. He is, however, mainly interested in the consequences which these problems have for a syntactic description of Latin. 12. In other words, investigators of Latin are forced to take immediate resource to what Labov (1975) presents as the ultimate 'working principle for the exploration of (grammatical) judgements': "When the use of language is shown to be more consistent than introspective judgements, a valid description of the language will agree with that use rather than introspections." (Labov 1975: 40). Cf. also the defence of corpus-based research in the introduction of Mair (1990).

corpus and data

13

Investigations of speech act related phenomena in modem languages are based on three types of data: ordinary conversation, specific types of interaction that take place in particular settings (class room interaction, job interviews, etc.), and elicited data. Conversation is informally characterized by Levinson as "that familiar predominant kind of talk in which two or more participants freely alternate in speaking, which generally occurs outside specific institutional settings like religious services, law courts, class rooms and the like." (1983: 284). It is generally considered the most prototypical and unmarked type of interaction. 13 In ordinary conversation, speech participants characteristically have equal opportunities to 'hold the floor' and they may all perform the same kind of verbal activities. 14 Consequently, conversation could be described as a 'highly interactional' type of interaction. Furthermore, as Levinson observes (cf. his remark quoted above), conversation usually develops in a more or less spontaneous fashion, not guided by external, a priori expectations that derive from a specific (institutional) setting. As a consequence the speech act expressions that are used in conversation can to a large extent be analyzed in terms of the internal properties of the conversation in which they occur, such as the topic of the conversation, the preceding context, and the relationship between speaker and addressee, which are all retrievable for the observing linguist. IS These three characteristics of ordinary conversation, viz. its high degree of interactionality, its spontaneity and its 'accessibility' for the analyzing linguist, make conversation a particularly useful source of data for a study of speech act expressions such as envisaged in the present study. The corpus of Latin texts that has been handed down to us does not offer conversational data of exactly this type. Although there are a number of literary texts that pretend to reflect actual conversations, such as the conversations in 13. Cf. e.g. R. Lakoff, according to whom ordinary conversation (OC) "... is the form we all learn first, under the setting most conducive to comfort and familiarity, and the one we use the most. Hence it functions as a template for all others [i.e. discourse types, RR], which we experience in terms of their similarities to and differences from OC (... )" (1989: 102-103). Similar arguments to defend the key position of conversation in pragmatic investigations can be found for instance in Levinson (1983: 284) and Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1990-1992 1,37-54). 14. R. Lakoff (1989) describes these two characteristics of conversation as 'dyadicity' and 'reciprocity', respectively. 15. Tannen (1984: 32-40) contains an interesting discussion of the 'retrievability' of the information that is relevant for the analysis of a dinner table conversation among friends, together with an evaluatory report of the analysis and the interpretation of the recorded data.

14

introduction

Cicero's philosophical and rhetorical works and Tacitus' Dialogus, these conversations are in fact strongly influenced by the expository goals of their authors and they mainly focus on the conveyance of information and points of view to the reader. 16 Therefore, they cannot be described as ordinary conversations. However, we have at our disposal two other kinds of texts, which, each in their own way, display most of the above mentioned characteristics of ordinary conversation that are important with respect to speech act research, viz. Latin comedy and correspondence. 17 The former, some twenty-six comedies by the hand of Plautus and Terence, are literary texts, whose dialogues are intended to reflect ordinary conversation. 18 Compared with actual conversations, comedy dialogues are, in view of their being fictional texts, not spontaneous, but they are highly interactional and very accessible for the analyst. The comedies' lack of phatic talk (i.e. the seemingly purposeless talking for the sake of talking) 19, which we often find in natural conversation, does not seriously interfere with an investigation of directive expressions, because phatic talk usually involves questions and answers rather than directives. As regards the accessibility of comedy dialogues for the analyst, the fictional world in which they take place makes them even more accessible than non-fictional conversations are, because all relevant background information is somehow presented in the play.20 Another feature of Latin comedies which makes them an attractive source of data is that they strongly focus on action, which results in a very high frequency of directives as well as a variety of

16. Following e.g. Burton (1980) and Moeschler & Reboul (1985), I distinguish in the case of literary dialogues between the 'internal' speakers and addressees (i.e. the characters) on the one hand and the 'external' author and reader/spectator on the other. Although this distinction does not play an essential role in this study, as it does e.g. in narratology, it is sometimes useful if we want to distinguish the intentions (e.g. to produce comic effecl~) or goals (e.g. expository goals) of the external author from the intentions and goals of the internal speakers. 17. Unfortunately, Petron's Salyricon, which contains quite a lot of ordinary conversation with many directives, cannot be consistently used as a source of data because its lacunary character often makes the necessary reconstruction of the contextual and situational backgrounds of the directives that are found impossible. In incidental cases, however, it yields some interesting examples. 18. The twenty more fJr less complete comedies of Plautus that have survived (he wrote more than a hundred) were written during the end of the third and the beginning of the second century B.C. The six plays by the hand of Terence were written between ca 170 and 160 B.C. 19. For a discussion of phatic talk and the function it may have in a piece of modem drama, cf. Burton (1980: 18-23). 20. Cf. Van Rees (1982: 107-108), Burton (1980: 115), and Brown & Gilman (1989:170-171) for similar arguments in favour of the use of drama texts for speech act research.

corpus and data

15

reactions to directives which provide the analyst with information on how the directives are interpreted and evaluated by their addressees. A minus of Latin comedies (from the perspective of speech act research) is the fact that their dramatic development is rather schematic and predictable, while their characters, i.e. the speech act participants in the comedy conversations, are stock characters rather than realistic personae. As a consequence, the conversations that are presented in comedy do not convey the subtleties we may find in modem conversations. 21 On the other hand, the speech of stock characters is a useful ·source of data to study the influence of social relationships (father-son; husbandwife; master-slave, etc.) on speech, because they typically speak in their social roles as (authoritative) fathers, (angry) masters, (cunning) slaves, (desperate) lovers, etc. rather than as individual persons. The fact that the linguistic reflexes of these roles are in some cases exaggerated in order to produce comical effects is, in my opinion, not necessarily to be considered a disadvantage, and may sometimes even provide useful clues for the analyst. The other Latit} text type that is a useful source of speech act data is correspondence, in particular the personal correspondence of Cicero. In the first place Cicero's correspondence is non-fictional and spontaneous. As regards their accessibility for the analyzing linguist the letters are more or less comparable with ordinary conversation, albeit conversations between intimates that require a lot of background information to be properly understood. Fortunately, the background information that is needed to properly analyze individual letters is often contained in other parts of the correspondence, which as a whole constitutes an extremely important source of political and historical information concerning the period it covers.22 As regards the third relevant characteristic, however, i.e. the letter's degree of interactionality, correspondence is somewhat different from conversation. Although letters usually are, like conversation, strongly oriented towards specific addressees, and the 'speech partners' in correspondence may interact as freely and

21. Cf. Duckworth (1952: 236-271, esp. 268-271), who observes, among other things: "In general, the characters are differentiated rather than individualized. They are far more than stock types, but they lack subtlety and complexity, and they do not grow or develop during the course of the play (... )" (1952: 270). 22. Cicero's extant letters cover the period between 68 and 43 B.C., the year in which he died. Together they make up more than 1200 pages in print (OCT), half of which belong to Cicero's correspondence with Atticus.

16

introduction

on as reciprocal a basis as in conversation, the inherent physical absence of the addressee somewhat decreases the interactionality of correspondence. There is less immediate 'negotiation' of the content and the course of the interaction between speaker (Le. writer, cf. note 5) and addressee than is the case in face-to-face conversation, and the speaker determines more independently the length and structure of his contribution to the interaction. 23 As was illustrated with example (6) at the end of section 1.1, this may lead to a higher degree of explicitness as well as a greater elaborateness in the expression of speech acts in correspondence. Another factor that decreases the interactionali ty of Cicero's correspondence from the point of view of a modem investigator results from historical coincidence. With a few exceptions, only Cicero's own letters have been handed down and not the letters that were written to him in return. Therefore we can investigate only his side of the interaction and we cannot determine the influence of the addressees' reactions or caB in their help in judging the impact of Cicero's ways of expressing his directives. Despite the absence of the addressees' side of the correspondence, however, we can often detect their presence in Cicero's mind. The variety of addressees in Cicero's correspondence, ranging from the members of his family and close friends like Atticus to highly positioned officials of the Roman republic, is very neatly reflected in his choice of directive expressions. Therefore Cicero's correspondence constitutes, in spite of its somewhat lower degree of interactionality, a rich source of spontaneous data on personal interaction and directive expression. In addition to Cicero's, Pliny's correspondence has also been handed down to posterity. These letters differ from Cicero's in that, although they originally were genuine letters, Pliny has almost certainly revised them for publication.24 The consequent lack of spontaneity and the awareness of their writer of a 'third party' (Le. the external addressee: the reader of the correspondence, cf. note 16) makes Pliny's correspondence less attractive as a source of data. An interesting exception is formed by the last book of Pliny's correspondence, which contains letters to as well as from the Emperor Trajan about administrative matters.

23. Cf. De Rijcker's (1987) observations on the pecularities of the mechanisms of tum taking in correspondence. 24. Pliny's correspondence consists of ten books of letters addressed to a variety of relatives, (literary) friends, and official personalities (among whom the Emperor Trajan). They were written between ca. 95 and 114 A.D. For detailed discussions of their authenticity as correspondence see the introduction of Sherman-White (1966) and Aubrion (1989).

corpus and data

17

However, because of their content they rather fall into the category of 'specific types of interaction' to which I will tum now. Data that derive from specific types of interaction in particular settings are mainly of interest if one wants to investigate the influence of the setting and the a priori expectations of speaker and adressee on the expressions that are used to perform directives. Most of the specific types of interaction that are studied in modem languages cannot be studied for Latin: e.g. class room interaction, service encounters in shops or restaurants, job interviews, court room interaction, etc?5 There are, however, at least three other 'specific interaction types' in the corpus of Latin texts that can be studied for the same purposes. The first category can be found in the administrative letters in Pliny's correspondence mentioned above. They are written t6 as well as by the Emperor Trajan and they mainly concern administrative measures to be taken by Pliny, who in that period was governor of Bithynia, an eastern province of the Roman empire. Especially Trajan's letters contain interesting examples of 'business letters'. Together with some administrative letters of Cicero, they provide good examples of professional politeness and formal directives. This category also covers Cicero's letters of recommendation (Cic. Fam. XIII), whose conventional, schematic form and formulation can be largely related to their specific function. Secondly, there are a number of 'instruction texts' on subjects like agriculture, medicine, and cooking. 26 They all share one important characteristic, which distinguishes them from the types of texts discussed above: they do not constitute interactions between a speaker and a specific addressee, but are addressed to any reader that is interested in the subject matter. 27 As such they cannot be described as highly interactional texts, although the anonymous addressee/reader is more strongly involved than e.g. in the case of historiography or epic poetry, because it is his potential future behaviour (as a farmer, a doctor, a cook) that forms the subject matter of these texts. The main interest of these

25. Some interesting studies are e.g. Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) on class room interaction; ErvinTripp (1976) on various work settings; Labov & Fanshell (1977) on therapeutic discourse; Tucker (1989) on requests in bookshops; R. Lakoff (1989) on therapeutic and court room discourse. 26. The majority of these texts and their linguistic peculiarities are discussed in De Meo's (1983) study on technical language. Cf. also Adams (1984), Onnerfors (1989), and Pinkster (1992) on the particulars of Latin medical texts. 27. Some of them have, by convention, a sort of 'internal' addressee (cf. note 16) to whom the work is dedicated. This kind of addressee does not, however, play the interactional role of a regular addressee, and will not be taken into account here.

18

introduction

texts for the present study is that they can be used as a means of comparison. Furthermore, they provide some data on the conventional expression forms of instructions that are not (or in any case not very much) influenced by interactionally motivated politeness. The absence of politeness applies a fortiori to a third 'specific text type', viz. law texts, which provide interesting examples of the most categorical types of directives that can be found. They are indiscriminately 'addressed' to every citizen concerned and, for the sake of non-ambiguity, necessarily formulated as explicitly as possible. To sum up, the data on which the present study is based derive in the first place from two types of texts, which in view of their accessibility for the analyzing linguist, their spontaneity, and/or their high degree of interactionality are useful sources for the investigation of directive expressions: - the conversations in Latin comedy, which are not spontaneous, but which are highly interactional and, in view of the self-contained fictional world in which they are located, extremely accessible for the analyzing linguist; - Cicero's correspondence, which is less highly interactional but constitutes about the most spontaneous and personal Latin data we possess and which is sufficiently accessible to be used as a source of data. For comparative purposes occasional use will be made of data that derive from Pliny's correspondence, as well as from specific types of interaction, such as administrative letters, instruction texts and law texts. I want to conclude this section with a few methodological observations which concern the collection and the analysis of data from a heterogeneous, closed, and partly literary corpus. I will start with the diachronic status of the texts involved. The texts that form the main source of data derive from two different stages of Latin. Plautus and Terence wrote their comedies during the last part of the third and the first part of the second century B.C., more than a hundred years before Cicero wrote his letters. Moreover the comedies were written well before Latin developed, not in the last place by the efforts of Cicero himself, into the highly refined literary language of the classical period?8 In theory, therefore, we have

28. For an overview of the various stages of Latin and its development as a literary language, cf. Palmer (1961 3 , ch. 4 and 5).

19

corpus and data

to reckon with differences in directive expressions that could create problems for the use of data from two different sources. In fact, however, the Latin that is used by Cicero in his personal letters appears to be much closer to the spoken (colloquial) Latin than to the literary Latin of his days29. If, therefore, we find occasional differences in directive expressions between the comedies and Cicero's correspondence, they are likely to be due to changes in the spoken language rather than to the development of literary Latin. However, from a methodological point of view it is important to consider first whether the differences in expression that do occur are not rather due to differences in the type and the medium of interaction, and to tum to diachronic explanations only as a last resort. From the perspective of the present study, which is concerned with the use rather than with the syntax of Latin expression forms, diachronic differences are interesting only in as far as they concern their conventionality as directive expressions. 30 Thus, for instance amabo 'please' (lit. 'I'll love (you)'; cf. ex. 5 in section 1.1) seems to function quite generally as a conventional directive expression in Latin, regardless of time and author, whereas e.g. potin ut plus 2nd person subjunctive 'is it possible that you?' (cf. ex. 2 in section 1.1) is used as a conventional angry-request expression in comedy only, and is not attested at later times. However, the importance of taking into account the type and medium of interaction before passing judgement on the (non-)conventionality of an expression, can be illustrated with quin. Quin (orig.: 'why not'), which seems to be a conventional directive particle in comedy, is as such used only three times by Cicero in his letters. Rather than assuming a decrease in conventionality, however, one should first consider whether quin's absence as a directive particle in Cicero's letters can be explained by its meaning, because its (impatient) 29. Cf. for example observations like the following: "The use of si in the sense of 'whether' in indirect questions which is frequent in earlier Latin and doubtless also in the colloquial language of classical times (it occurs in Cicero's letters), is avoided in classical prose (... (Palmer 1961 3 : 126). For a characterization of the colloquial nature of Cicero's letters cf. the introductory chapter of Hofmann's Lateinische Umgangssprache (1951 3: 1-8) and Palmer (1961 3 : 151). The latter is preceded by a brief discussion of the methodological problems of 'reconstructing' vulgar (and colloquial) Latin (ibid., p. 148-150). 30. The difficult question of the conventionality of speech act expressions will be dealt with in some detail in section 3.5.3. For some interesting observations on diachronic differences between the conventional request expressions that are found in Shakespeare and those that are found in modem English, cf. Brown & Gilman (1989: 181).

r

20

introduction

reference to a particular course of action being self-evident in view of the immediate situation, is more compatible with the face-to-face interaction in comedy dialogues than with correspondence. In fact it turns out that quin is quite frequently used as a directive particle, in exactly the same way as in comedy, in other works by Cicero that reflect face-to-face interaction (e.g. his orations or the dialogical parts of De oratore) as well as in later interactional texts. This brief illustration of possible diachronic differences in conventionality leads us to the point of the actual data collection. In this respect the Latin corpus offers some advantages as a source of data over modem data. The availability of (exhaustive) lexica on both the relevant individual texts and the Latin literature as a whole, as well as the recent development of computer search programs which cover large parts of the relevant texts greatly facilitate the collection of data. To begin with, the exploration of the variety of directive expressions requires an exhaustive 'close reading' of representative parts of the relevant texts in order to make an inventory of possible directive expressions in Latin. For this purpose I have investigated ca 250 pages of comedy and ca 335 pages of correspondence. 3l This part of the research is not unlike the analysis of transscripts of conversation (or drama texts) in modem languages. However, in Latin additional cases of each type of expression can be found very easily by means of the above mentioned research tools, whereas investigators of speech act phenomena in modem languages usually do not have these possibilities. To some extent the relative ease of data collection as well as its exhaustive nature (within the limits of a closed corpus) may compensate for the lack of linguistic and sociolinguistic judgements by native speakers. If we cannot retrospectively ask speakers what exactly they meant when they used a particular directive expression or ask addressees how they actually interpreted it, we can at least fairly easily investigate the parallel cases that may help us to answer these questions ourselves. A final methodological property of speech act research that is conducted on the basis of a corpus of extant Latin texts is not related to dead as opposed to modem languages, but relates to the use of independently existing data as opposed 31. Plautus' comedies Amphitruo, Asinaria, and Mostellaria (ca 145 pages); Terence's comedies Andria and Phormio (102 pp.); Cicero's Epistulae ad Allicum books I, II, and XII,1-23 (ca 140 pp.) and Epistulae ad Familiares books III (addressed to friends), V,l-l3 (to Roman officials), XIII (letters of recommendation), XIV (to his wife) and XVI (to his secretary Tiro), together also ca 140 pages; and, finally, Pliny's Epistulae III,l - IV,19 (ca 55 pages).

corpus and data

21

to elicited data. 32 A major (perhaps the only) advantage of elicited data consists in the fact that investigators can control the various factors that may influence the choice of a certain type of speech act and its expression form. Consequently, they can study the effects of the various values of one particular factor by keeping the others constant. In corpus research on the other hand, it is much more difficult to single out the various effects of one particular factor because other potential factors of influence usually vary with it. Thus, in the discussion of the Latin examples in section 1.1, the differences in expression were explained as being due to various combinations of the relationship between speaker and addressee, the content of the directive, the situation and verbal context, and the type of interaction. As a consequence, the effects of the various factors that influence the choice of directive expression forms have to be stated in terms of tendencies rather than rules. In a way, this is consistent with the nature of pragmatic correlations, which as a rule involve a certain amount of choice and optionality.33

32. Elicited data constitute the third type of data in modem speech act research that was mentioned at the beginning of this section. An example of the use of elicited data is provided by the research that is conducted within the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project, which is reported on in BlumKulka et al. (1989). 33. Thus, even in the case of elicited data a certain variety of expression forms is found in cases in which all relevant factors were kept constant, as can be seen for example in the results that are reported in Blum-Kulka et al. (1989).

2. DIRECTIVES AS SPEECH ACTS

In the preceding chapter I repeatedly used the notion 'speech act' without giving a proper definition. In the first section of this chapter I will attempt to characterize this concept more clearly, by stating the view of language which it represents and the principles and premises on which it is based. I This characterization will serve as a starting point for a closer examination of the object of this study, viz. directive speech acts, to which the rest of this chapter will be devoted. Section 2.2 focuses on directives as a type of speech act and discusses the characteristics which distinguish directives from other types of speech acts. Section 2.3 goes into the internal diversity of directives and describes the various SUbtypes that can be distinguished. The last section (2.4) will be devoted to the question how directive speech acts fit into larger interactional structures. I will discuss the various ways in which directives may be 'supported' by other speech acts and the reactions which they may receive.

2.1

Speech acts

The concept of speech act as it is used in this study can be loosely defined as 'the verbal action which a speaker performs by means of an utterance'. This concept originates from the philosophy of language, where it was introduced, among others, by Austin in reaction to the narrow, truth conditional approach of language that dominated language philosophy at the time? Austin's ideas have been elaborated by Searle (1969; 1975; 1976) into a theory of speech acts.

1. It is not my aim to give an exhaustive overview of the problems that have been brought up with respect to speech acts by the various disciplines that have been interested in it. For more general overviews the reader is referred to for instance the thorough discussions in Lyons (1977a, ch. 16) and Levinson (1983, ch. 5). 2. Austin's ideas were presented mainly in lectures, in their most elaborate form (cf. the preface to the first edition of Austin 1962) in the Williams James lectures, which he gave in Harvard in 1955. They were edited posthumously by Urmson as Austin (1962). Before Austin, Biihler (1934) had taken a more or less similar perspective, and so did Wittgenstein (1953) and, independently, Benveniste (cf. the articles collected in Benveniste 1966, esp. p. 258-285). The latter three, however, did not elaborate the notion of speech act in such a way that it could be systematically incorporated in linguistics. For overviews of the philosophical backgrounds of speech act theory, cf. the references given in note 1.

24

directives as speech acts

The underlying idea of speech act theory is that language does not exclusively serve to describe states of affairs in propositions which may be true or false, but that speakers can do all kinds of things with words. It is based on an approach to language which regards utterances as verbal actions rather than as the products of verbal action. 3 Taken as a form of action, a speech act presupposes the existence of an 'actor' (the speaker), one or more addressees, the occasion of its performance, as well as intentions on the part of the speaker and effects (intended or otherwise) on the part of the addressee. The need for an action perspective on language makes itself felt when one wants to describe certain properties of utterances that relate to elements of their performance. This is for instance the case when one wants to describe so-called expressive properties of utterances or certain properties of non-declarative sentences. It is interesting to note that most linguists, in describing such properties, make use of notions that belong to an action perspective, even if they are not explicitly committed to such a perspective. If we take as a random example Ktihner-Stegmann's characterization of the imperative mood in Latin, we find that they repeatedly refer to elements that relate to the performance of a speech act: "Der Imperativ ist der Modus des unmittelbar ausgesprochenen Willens oder Gewollten, der als Befehl an eine Person gerichtet wird." (I, 195) Thus unmittelbar ausgesprochenen refers to the way in which the speech act is actually performed, des ( ...J Willens oder Gewollten refers to the intentions of the speaker, der (. ..) an eine Person gerichtet wird involves the addressee, and als Befehl is a speech act label. 2.1.1 speech acts and illocutionary acts

The characterization of speech acts that was given at the beginning of this section ('the verbal action which a speaker performs by means of an utterance') is, in fact, a characterization of speech acts in a restricted sense. In this restricted sense in

3. These two aspects of the English word 'utterance' are neatly distinguished in other languages such as e.g. 3. French, which uses 'enonciation' to refer to an utterance in the sense of a verbal action and 'enoncC' for the product of this action, cf. Lyons (1977a: 26).

speech acts

25

which 'speech act' is nonnally used, and will be used in this study, it equals Austin's illocutionary act, which is only one (albeit the most important one) of the three subacts which, according to Austin (1962), together constitute the speech act in the wider, nontechnical sense of 'what we do when we are saying something,.4 The illocutionary act is defined by Austin as 'what we do in saying something', such as asking a question, giving infonnation, announcing a verdict, making an appointment, etc. On the one hand, the illocutionary act must be distinguished from the instrumentallocutionary act; this subact involves the production of the 'meaningful utterance' (i.e. "with a certain sense and a certain reference", cf. Austin 1962: 94) by means of which the speaker perfonns his illocutionary act. On the other hand, the illocutionary act must be distinguished from the nonverbal effects on the addressee that are created as a result of it, the so-called perlocutionary act. The distinctions between these three subacts can be illustrated with the help of example (1). (1)

I could give you a ride back home later

When the utterance in (1) is for instance addressed to a guest who is leaving a party in order to catch the last train home, we could describe the various subacts of (1) as follows: the speaker is persuading (i.e. creating a nonverbal effect: per[ocutionary act) the addressee to remain a little longer, by means of an offer (verbal act: illocutionary act or speech act in a narrow sense), which is made by producing the meaningful utterance (locutionary act) represented under (1). The fact that one and the same illocutionary act (and locutionary act) may correspond to various perlocutionary acts can be demonstrated with (2). (2)

the police will arrive in two minutes

If (2) is addressed to the victim of a robbery, the speaker will be perfonning the

perlocutionary act (i.e. creating the nonverbal effect) of reassuring the addressee, by means of an assertion (verbal act: illocutionary act), which is made by producing the meaningful utterance (locutionary act) represented under (2). When the same utterance is, on the other hand, addressed to the robber, the locutionary

4. Austin (1962: 94-132). Cf. also the systematic elaboration of Austin's distinctions by Searle (1969: 22-33).

26

directives as speech acts

act and the illocutionary act remain the same, but the perlocutionary act is different, because the nonverbal effect that the speaker attempts to create in his addressee is, in all probability, not reassurance but rather fear or panic. Austin uses the term illocutionary force to describe the function of an utterance in terms of the illocutionary act which is performed by means of it. In this terminology the utterance under (1) has the illocutionary force of an offer, while the illocutionary force of (2) is that of a statement. Austin introduced the term in order to distinguish the illocutionary force of an utterance from its (locutionary) meaning. The latter only encompasses the sense and the reference of the elements which together constitute the utterance, but does not include the value of the utterance as an illocutionary act in the context in which it is used. In fact, however, the relationship between meaning and illocutionary force (or between locution and illocution) is more complicated; I will return to this in the following chapter, which will be devoted to the expression of illocutionary force. Here, I will confine myself to a few remarks on the relationship between illocution and perlocution, in order to characterize the former more clearly.

2.1.2 illocution and perlocution Within speech act theory illocutionary acts are usually defined in terms of the speaker's intentions and his psychological state with respect to the content of the speech act. 5 Statements are for instance defined by Searle in terms of the speaker's belief (psychological state) and his intention to commit himself to the truth of the content of the statement; requests are defined, among other things, in terms of the speaker's desire (psychological state) that the content of the request be fulfilled. Perlocutionary acts, on the other hand, are defined in terms of the addressee and the effects which the performance of the speech act has on him.6 Thus illocution is associated with the speaker, whereas perlocution is exclusively associated with the addressee. Austin's main objective in distinguishing between ilIocution and perlocution is to separate the verbal act itself from the various non-verbal effects which its

5. Notably by Searle (1969; 1976), less so by Austin (1962, ch. 12), who is not much concerned with exhaustive definitions of the various types of illocutionary acts, but is content to give examples. 6. Cf. Austin (1962: 94-120). Searle is not very interested in pcrlocution; he just summarizes Austin's views (Searle 1969: 42-50), without actually integrating perlocution into his theory of speech acts. For similar criticism, cf. Van Eemeren & Grootendorst (1984: 23).

speech acts

27

perfonnance act may have, in order to define the fonner (i.e. the illocutionary act) more precisely. He regards the distinction between illocution and perlocution as one between an act and its consequences (intended or not intended). According to Austin and Searle illocutionary acts are somehow conventional, in the sense that there are systematic relations between illocutionary acts, the utterances that can be used to perform them, and the ensuing commitments on the part of the speaker. In the case of perlocutionary acts, on the other hand, no such systematic relationships obtain. Perlocutionary effects are not related by convention to the utterances by means of which they are created, but they fully depend on the circumstances. 7 Although I subscribe to Austin's objective to distinguish the effects and consequences of an illocutionary act from the illocutionary act itself, I do not fully agree with the way in which this distinction is envisaged. In my opinion, the neat 'division of labour' of illocution and perlocution between the speaker and the addressee is too rigi~, because illocution should not be entirely reduced to the speaker's intentions and psychological state. Being its intended 'receiver', the addressee is involved in the perfonnance of an illocutionary act as well. As has been pointed out from various sides, speakers generally do not perform illocutionary acts in order to simply express themselves (i.e. their beliefs, desires, and intentions), but speech acts are nonnally perfonned in a communicative setting, in the presence of one or more addressees and with the objective to create certain perlocutionary effects in the addressee(s).8 The addressee's involvement is most obvious in the case of directives, which can be characterized in tenns of the speaker's intentions with respect to the addressee's behaviour. The addressee is also clearly involved in the case of question speech acts, which can be characterized, among other things, by the speaker's intention that the addressee somehow commit himself to the description of (a part of) the state of affairs referred to.9 However, in most of the other types of speech acts, too, the speaker's intentions are somehow oriented towards the

7. Cf. Austin (1962: 102-104; 121). 8. Cf. Levinson (1983:241); Van Eemeren & Grootendorst (1984: 23); Reiss (1985: 40ff). The central question here, as is pointed out in the clear overview of this question given by Van Eemeren & Grootendorst (1984, ch. 3), is whether or not ilIocutionary acts are systematically related to at least some of their perlocutionary effects. This is denied by Austin and Searle. 9. I take questions as a distinct speech act type, and not as a SUbtype of directives as is usually done in speech act theory. Arguments for this choice will be given in the next section (cf. 2.2.4 and 2.2.7).

28

directives as speech acts

addressee. Thus, for instance promises are usually made in order to create expectations on the side on the addressee with respect to the speaker's future behaviour, and apologies are made in order to create the impression that the speaker is sorry about something. For this reason, I agree with those speech act theorists who take the speaker's orientation towards the effects to be produced on the part of the addressee as a point of departure for their approach to illocutionary acts. \0 For instance Reiss (1985) proposes to define all speech act types in terms of the specific perlocutionary effects on the addressee that are conventionally and systematically associated with them. Thus she defines statements in terms of the speaker's intention to inform the addressee and/or to create belief on his part, and promises in terms of the speaker's intention to create expectations. On this view the perlocutionary effects on the addressee that are systematically related to particular types of illocutionary act must be distinguished from other perlocutionary effects (such as e.g. frightening or reassuring, cf. the discussion of example 2), which are incidentally rather than systematically linked with the performance of particular illocutionary acts. For the former, systematic type of perlocutionary effect Reiss uses the term 'intended perlocutionary effect'. This label suggests, however, that the further reaching, incidental perlocutionary effects are necessarily unintended, which is in my opinion not correct. If one asks a question (illocutionary act) with the conventionally intended effect that the addressee provides the information that was left open in the question, the speaker may well have in mind an intended further reaching perlocutionary effect (e.g. to embarass the addressee) which is not an 'intended perlocutionary effect' in the sense of Reiss. Therefore I prefer to speak of systematic effects versus incidental perlocutionary effects.!!

10. Cf. Verschueren 1980, and Reiss 1985. Reiss' proposal will be discussed here in some more detail. Levinson (1983: 241) also makes some remarks in favour of an approach to speech acts in terms of their intended effects. 11. For a comparable distinction, cf. also Van Eemeren & Grootendorst's notion of 'inherent perlocutionary effect', which encompasses the addressee's 'acceptance' of the speech act involved (1984: 24-25; 55-57). According to them, this is the minimal perlocutionary effect of the performance of an ilIocutionary act, and it is systematically related with it. It must be distinguished from what they call the 'consecutive' perlocutionary effects which encompass all other effects. I have the impression, however, that my 'systematic' effects go slightly further than van Eemeren & Grootendorst's 'inherent' effects.

speech acts

29

To conclude, Austin's distinction between illocution and perlocution is useful only, if a further distinction is made between systematic and incidental perlocutionary effects. Only the latter type of perlocutionary effect can be really isolated from the illocutionary act from which it ensues. From an interactional point of view the former type, i.e. the systematic perlocutionary effects, form an essential component of the corresponding illocutionary acts, with which they stand in an inextricable means-end relationship. As we will see in section 2.2, systematic perlocutionary effects provide a useful criterion in characterizing the various types of speech acts that can be distinguished in a typology of speech acts. Before I tum to speech act typologies, however, I will first discuss another aspect of illocution that plays an important role in speech act theory, viz. felicity conditions. 2.1.3 felicity conditions

Being language philosophers rather than linguists, both Austin and Searle pay relatively much attention to the conditions which underlie the successful or 'felicitous' performance of speech acts. The notion of felicity has been introduced by Austin as a dimension along which the performance of speech acts can be judged. 12 In Austin (1962) he describes, in a rather loose way, a number of ways in which the performance of speech acts can be infelicitous or invalid. The systematic elaboration of Austin's ideas in Searle (1969) goes further. Searle's aim is to establish for every type of speech act a list of the necessary and sufficient conditions that govern its felicitous performance (the felicity conditions) and to deduce from these conditions a list of rules for performing speech acts. In itself, conditions or rules for the felicitous performance of speech acts are not very relevant in view of the aims of the present study. In fact, even the notion of felicity as a prescriptive norm or criterion of judgement is not relevant if one's aim is to describe speech acts in actual interaction. Felicity conditions are, however, relevant in as far as Searle (and other speech act theorists after him) have used the felicity conditions as a basis for the characterization of the various

12. Austin's main objective was to create a satisfactory alternative for the 'truth conditions' which played an important role in the philosophy of language of the first half of this century as the standard by which the meaning of descriptive (or constative) sentences can be judged. By replacing the truth conditions by felicity conditions, Austin wanted to develop criteria to judge the validity of utterances with other kinds of illocutionary functions as well.

30

directives as speech acts

types of speech acts and their expression forms. 13 Searle proposes four types of felicity conditions (FCs), viz: 14 (i) (ii) (iii)

(iv)

preparatory conditions, which govern the beliefs and expectations which the speaker has in performing a particular speech act; sincerity conditions, which pertain to the sincerity of the speaker's intentions in performing a speech act; propositional content conditions, which specify the type of propositional content of the utterance by means of which the speech act is performed; essential conditions, which specify the purpose or 'illocutionary point' of a particular speech act.

If we take as an example the felicity conditions that underlie the successful performance of a request, (i) the preparatory conditions make sure that the speaker believes that the addressee is able to realize the content of the request, but also that the addressee would not realize it if the speaker would not request him to; (ii) the sincerity condition states that the speaker must sincerely want the addressee to display the requested behaviour; (iii) according to the propositional content condition the propositional content of the utterance involved must refer to this requested behaviour of the addressee; (iv) the essential condition states what the purpose ('illocutionary point') of a request is, namely that it 'counts as' an attempt to get the addressee to display the behaviour that is specified on the basis of the propositional content condition. This last felicity condition amounts, in fact, to a definition of what a request is. A number of comments can be made. First, as is also briefly pointed out by Searle himself (1969: 69), the essential condition in general determines the others. IS Levinson (1983: 241) goes one step further and claims that the essential

13. Cf. Searle (1976) and (1975), respectively. For the relationship between felicity conditions and the expression forms of so-called indirect speech acts, cf. furthermore Gordon & Lakoff (1971); Morgan (1978); Haverkate (1979). I will come back to this latter point in section 8.1. 14. Cf. Searle (1969: 54-71). For an elaborate discussion of the felicity conditions for the performance of directive speech acts, cf. Haverkate (1979). Apart from the four types of felicity conditions discussed here, Searle proposes a number of more general 'input and output conditions' (1969: 57) which guarantee that speaker and addressee will understand each other's utterances at all (speaking the same language, absence of disturbing noises, etc.). They are, however, not relevant for the present discussion. 15. Cf. also Haverkate (1979: 94-95).

speech acts

31

condition defines the various speech acts in such a way that the other conditions can be simply deduced from it on the basis of general rules of rational and cooperative behaviour.16 Therefore, given the essential condition, conditions (i) (iii) are in fact predictable and redundant. A second comment concerns the status of the felicity conditions. Austin and Searle regard them as conditions that must be fulfilled for a speech act to be successfully perfonned. It is, however, also possible to look at them from an opposite perspective, as is proposed for instance by Reiss (1985), and to say that the perfonnance of a speech act commits the speaker to the various intentions and beliefs that correspond with the felicity conditions. Thus, instead of saying that a request is perfonned successfully only if the speaker sincerely wants the addressee to realize its content and if he believes that the addressee is able to so, we can also say that a speaker who performs a request speech act commits himself implicitly and by default (i.e. unless the opposite is explicitly stated) on the basis of principles of rational conversational behaviour to believing that the addressee is able to do what is requested and to sincerely wanting it. This is more or less what Brown and Levinson mean when they state that "we can say (loosely) that speech acts standardly presuppose their felicity conditions" (1987:134, emphasis mine, RR). On the basis of this view of felicity conditions, we can explain for instance how speakers may try to influence aspects of a speech situation (for instance their relationship with the addressee) by means of a particular speech act which 'presupposes' certain felicity conditions. To give an example, a speaker who de facto has no authority over the addressee can try to assume control by giving an order, because giving orders presupposes having authority over the addressee. Instead of simply concluding that the perfonnance of this speech act is 'not felicitous' because one of the preparatory conditions does not hold, it makes more sense, in my opinion, to analyze the performance of this speech act in tenns of the commitment (viz. to having authority) which the speaker tries to make by perfonning this particular speech act. Such an analysis does not only account for the ways in which language use reflects social relationships between speech participants, but also for the ways in which speakers may use language to create

16. Such as, notably, the Gricean Cooperative principle and his conversational maxims, cf. Grice (1975) and the extensive discussion of Grice's ideas by Levinson (1983, ch. 3).

32

directives as speech acts

or to influence these relationships. I? Some Latin examples of the latter will be given in section 6.2.

2.2

Directives among other types of speech acts

When the concept of speech act as discussed in the preceding section is applied to actual verbal interaction, it is clear that the variety of different speech acts that can be perfonned is enonnous. In the literature on speech acts various typologies have been proposed which reduce this great variety of speech acts to a restricted number of speech act types. 18 Although it is not my main objective in this study to propose an exhaustive speech act typology of my own, it is important to make clear the backgrounds against which directives are defined as a speech act type. For that purpose I will sketch in the present section the outlines of a speech act typology in which the position of directives vis-a-vis other types of speech acts is defined. I will start with a discussion of the methodological basis of this speech act typology, by comparing a number of speech act typologies that have been proposed. This discussion will focus on (a) the status of the speech act types that are distinguished (2.2.1), and (b) the criteria on which speech act typologies are based (2.2.2).19 2.2.1 the status of speech act types The various speech act typologies that have been proposed differ considerably with respect to the status that is ascribed to the types of speech acts that are distinguished. Roughly speaking two approaches can be discerned. The first approach involves speech act typologies that aim at a categorical classification in tenns of necessary and sufficient conditions, whereas in the second approach types of speech acts are described on the basis of continua rather than by defining strict 17. Cf. also Reiss (1985: 22-23). 18. Cf. e.g. Austin (J962: 148-164); Fraser (1974); Searle (1976); Sinclair and Coulthard's (1975); Labov & Fanshell (1977); Bach & Harnish (1979); Leech (1980. ch. 4); Martin (1981); Verschueren (1983); Ballmer & Brennenstuhl (1981); Tsui (1985); Reiss (1985); Weigand (1989); Givon (1990: 779-824); Croft (n.d.). 19. Cf. Pinkster (1972: 17-33) for a number of general observations on the problems that are involved in classification. Weigand (1989: 46-53; 72-181) discusses a number of problems which relate in particular to speech act typologies.

speech act types

33

categories. The possibility of classifying speech acts is even altogether rejected by some adherents of the latter approach, who simply propose a number of dimensions with respect to which individual speech acts may differ from each other, without distinguishing actual classes of speech acts. The former approach is the one that is commonly found within speech act theory. The best known example is Searle's (1976) classification, which has been very influentia1. 20 The latter kind of typology is mainly proposed by those who approach speech acts from a more linguistic point of view?l In my opinion, a speech act typology should combine features of both approaches. Even though it is not always unproblematic to assign individual cases to one speech act type rather than to another, I do not agree with the total rejection of classification by the latter approach. The speech act types to be distinguished should, however, be defined in terms of prototypes rather than in terms of categorical classes that are based on necessary and sufficient conditions. Categories that are based on a prototype approach are 'defined' in terms of a number of characteristits that may, but need not all be present in the individual members of the category.22 In general, we can say that the more characteristics are present in an individual member of a category, the more central this member is to the category. A 'prototype typology' of speech acts such as I would propose is based on a number of intersecting continua that each represent a particular criterion for classification (for the criteria involved, cf. section 2.2.2). Along these continua we find 'clusters' of speech acts which can be regarded as forming one speech act type. 23 Such an approach can account for the fact that some speech acts seem to be more prototypical members of a speech act type than others. Thus, for instance 20. Cf. furthermore Bach & Hamish (1979); Verschueren (1983); Ballmer & Brennenstuhl (1981); Tsui (1985); Weigand (1989). 21. E.g. Leech (1980: 84-87); Givon (1990: 779-824); Croft (n.d.). 22. For an overview of the various views on the use of prototypes in categorization, cf. Lakoff (1987: 12-57); Lakoff also briefly discusses prototype effects in linguistic categories (id. 58-67). Croft (1991) contains a more detailed exploration of the possibilities of prototypical categorization with respect to grammatical categories. In Croft (n.d.) this approach is applied to the grammatical means that are used in various languages for expressing iIIocutionary force. For another example of a prototype approach to speech acts, cf. Givon (1990: 779-824). For some arguments (which are however not convincing, in my opinion) against such an approach, cf. Weigand (1989: 75-76). 23. This is more or less the same 'imagery' as is used by Givon, who speaks of 'categorial peaks along the functional continuum' (1990: 780; his emphasis). Note however that in Givon's view these categorial peaks represent the three major sentence types (i.e. expression forms), whereas my clusters represent speech act categories.

34

directives as speech acts

orders and requests constitute more prototypical directives than, say, suggestions or challenges (cf. section 2.3 below). Besides, a prototype approach can explain differences with respect to one criterion between members that belong to the same category on the basis of other criteria. Orders and requests, for instance, differ from suggestions as regards the speaker's interest in having the content realized by the addressee, while requests and suggestions both differ from orders with respect to the degree of optionality of realization (these differences will be discussed in more detail in section 2.3). In spite of these differences they all belong to one and the same speech act type on the basis of their pertaining to future actions of the addressee. A prototype approach to speech act classification reflects, furthermore, the gradual transitions from one speech act type to another that we find when we try to classify the speech acts that are found in actual interaction. An example is formed by the 'chain of speech acts' which reflects the gradual transition from prototypical assertions to prototypical questions: 24 ASSERTION - guess - biased question - QUESTION From 'guess' onwards they gradually lose the main characteristic of assertive speech acts, viz. that the speaker commits himself to a description of a state of affairs, and start to display an important characteristic of questions, viz. that the addressee is invited to commit himself to a description of a state of affairs (cf.

section 2.2.4).

2.2.2 criteria for distinguishing speech act types The most important factor, however, that determines the nature of a speech act typology is constituted by the criteria on which it is based. Criteria for speech act classifications roughly divide in three groups. They can be formulated from the perspective of the speaker (e.g. his psychological state, his intentions, or his aims

24. Cf. Givan (1990: 814-818) and Croft (n.d.) who come up with comparable 'chains of speech acts expressions' (cf. the preceding note) that form the transition from one speech act type to another. Note however that the chains which they discuss are chains of expression types rather than chains of speech acts such as I propose here.

speech act types

35

in performing the speech act involved)2S, from the perspective of the addressee (e.g. the perlocutionary effect which the speech act has on the addressee or the nature of his reactioni 6 , or on the basis of aspects of the speech act itself. A criterion of this last kind is for instance the so-called 'direction of fit between words and the world'.2 7 This criterion is used to distinguish speech acts whose content (Le. the 'words') reflects a state of affairs that exists in the (real or hypothetical) 'world', such as for instance assertives, from speech acts whose content (Le. the 'words') refers to a state of affairs to which the 'world' must somehow be adapted, such as for instance directives. A revised, and. more concrete version of this criterion is 'what the content of the speech act is about', Le. whether the content of the speech act primarily refers to action, information, or emotions?8 Another criterion that is based on the speech act itself is the speech act's 'orientation' with respect to the speech participants, i.e. whether the speech act (primarily) involves the opinions, actions or emotions of the speaker or those of the addressee.2 9 Of these three kinds of criteria those that are based on the speech act itself are, in my opinion, the most objective ones, because they are based on information that is usually contained in the utterance by means of which the speech act is performed, and do not not require insights into the minds of the speech partners. Therefore I will primarily use these kinds of criteria as a basis for a typology of speech acts. Criteria that are based on the actual intentions of the speaker, on the other hand, are the least 'checkable' ones, because we do not have access to the speaker's mind to reveal his psychological state or his purposes in performing a particular speech act. The cases in which a speaker explicitly refers to them are, at least in my corpus, relatively rare. An alternative possibility is, however, to base oneself not on the actual psychological state and intentions of the speaker but 25. Cf. among others the classifications proposed by Searle (1976); Fraser (1974); Bach & Harnish (1979). 26. Cf. among others Reiss (1985); Weigand (1989); Croft (n.d.). 27. Cf. Searle (1976). In one way or another, this criterion has found its way in most of the typologies that have been proposed since. 28. Cf. Croft (n.d.). A comparable criterion is Halliday's (1984; 1985) 'nature of the commodity that is being exchanged', on the basis of which he distinguishes between goods & services and information. 29. Although he does not use it as a criterion for classifying speech acts, the 'orientation' of the speech act plays an important role in Haverkate (1984), cf. especially his overview of the interactional roles of speaker and hearer in the various speech acts that are distinguished on the basis of Searle's classification of iIIocutionary acts.

36

directives as speech acts

on the state of mind and intentions to which he commits himself by perfonning a particular speech act, regardless of his actual state of mind and intentions. In fact, this is in line with the view on the status of the felicity conditions that was argued for at the end of section 2.1.3. Interpreted in this way, the speaker's state of mind and the intentions to which he commits himself fonn a useful additional means of characterizing the various speech act types that can be distinguished on the basis of the above mentioned 'objective' criteria that are based on the speech act itself. A similar line can be taken in the case of criteria that are based on the speech act's effects on the addressee. Only the 'systematic' perlocutionary effects of a speech act, which are conventionally connected with the various types of illocutionary forces (cf. section 2.1.2), are useful for the characterization of a particular speech act type, not the actual, 'incidental' ones. To sum up, a typology of speech acts should be primarily based on the following two criteria, which are entirely based on the speech act itself: (i) (ii)

what the speech act is about: facts, emotions, or actions; the orientation of the speech act: i.e. whether the speech act primarily involves (opinions/emotions/actions of) the speaker or the addressee; in addition, there are types of speech act that are oriented, not towards the speaker or the addressee, but towards definite or indefinite third persons.

The types of speech act that can be distinguished on the basis of (i) and (ii) can be further characterized by means of: (iii) (iv)

the characteristic commitments on the part of the speaker that conventionally result from their perfonnance; the systematic perlocutionary effects that are conventionally related to them.

It should be observed that (iii) and (iv) are to some extent complementary to each other, because in the case of speaker-oriented speech act types (e.g. assertives and commissives, cf. below) the commitments of the speaker playa more important role, whereas in the case of addressee-oriented speech act types (e.g. questions and directives) the systematic periocutionary effects are more prominent. Nevertheless,

37

speech act types

as we will see below, both (iii) and (iv) playa role in the characterization of all speech act types. 2.2.3 a typology of speech acts

A tentative typology of speech acts that can be proposed on the basis of the above criteria (i) and (ii) is graphically represented under (3). As was discussed in section 2.2.1, and will be illustrated in more detail in sections 2.2.4 - 2.2.6, both criteria give rise to continuous scales that contain overlaps and borderline cases rather than totally discrete categories. The main speech act types are printed in bold; by way of example a number of borderline cases are represented in brackets. (3)

a typology of speech acts orientation:

speech act about: FACTS

(

SPEAKER

assertives

ADDRESSEE

3RD PERSON

questions

(rhetorical questions)

directives

3 rd p. dirs

)

(exclamations) EMOTIONS

expressives (wishes)

ACTIONS

commissives (proposals)

(

>

The speech act types that are distinguished in (3), as well as the names given to them, correspond for the larger part with those that are distinguished in Searle's (1976) classification, although, as was discussed above, they are defined on the basis of slightly different criteria. There are, however, some important differences with respect to the position of questions, which will be discussed in sections 2.2.4 and 2.2.7. Furthermore a hitherto neglected speech act type of third person

38

directives as speech acts

directives is distinguished, which will be discussed in some detail in section 2.2.6. 30 In the following subsections I will discuss the various speech act types that are distinguished, moving 'down' along the vertical axis from 'facts' via 'emotions' to 'actions'.

2.2.4 speech acts about facts Starting with speech acts that pertain to facts (and opinions about facts), we can distinguish between assertives and questions. Both types of speech act are concerned with the description of states of affairs in some real or hypothetical world. They differ, however, as to their orientation, which here involves the responsibility for the description. In the case of assertives this responsibility is taken by the speaker. As a consequence, assertives prototypically create commitments to the validity of the description (criterion iii) on the part of the speaker. When a speaker does not want to fully undertake this commitment, he will usually indicate this explicitly, for instance by modifying the claim to truthfulness or by attributing the description involved to others, cf. (4a) and (4b). Otherwise, he can be presupposed to undertake the commitments involved (as in 4c). (4)

a. perhaps John will publish his book in October b. they say that John will publish his book in October c. John will publish his book in October

The most distinctive feature of questions, on the other hand, is that the speaker evokes (part of) a particular state of affairs but does not commit himself to a (complete) description of this state of affairs. Instead he assigns the responsibility for providing a (more complete) description of the state of affairs evoked to the addressee, who is thus invited to undertake commitments (cf. 5a below). This is, 30. Moreover, Searle's class of declarations is altogether left out of account. Declarations are speech acts whose mere perfo'1l1ance, under the appropriate conditions, realizes a particular state of affairs. In general, they rely heavily on institutional settings, authorized speakers, and fixed expression forms; the states of affairs brought into effect usually have an institutional, legal, or ceremonial character. Wellknown examples are 'pronouncing a verdict', 'christening', 'declaring war', 'opening a meeting', etc. They form a rather isolated and restricted class of speech acts, which cannot be defined in terms of the criteria used here. Because they have no connections whatsoever with directives I will not discuss them here.

speech act types

39

in fact, the systematic perlocutionary effect that is associated with prototypical questions (criterion iv). Besides, there are other, less prototypical types of questions, which are not exclusively addressee-oriented. An example of a less prototypical kind of questions is formed by biased questions, cf. (5b).31 The orientation of biased questions is partly towards the addressee and partly towards the speaker; the speaker invites the addressee to commit himself to the description of a state of affairs, but at the same time he indicates to what kind of description he is inclined to commit himself. Another, more intuitive characterization would be that the speaker invites the addressee to commit himself to a confirmation of his assertion. This in-between status of biased question as a borderline case between prototypical assertions and prototypical questions was also indicated at the end of section 2.2.1 by the position which they take in the 'chain of speech acts' that reflects the gradual transition between assertions and questions. A second kind of less prototypical questions are the so-called rhetorical questions. Some kinds of rhetorical questions are even more speaker-oriented than biased questions are, because they do actually involve an unequivocal commitment of the speaker to a description of the state of affairs evoked, which is usually contrary to the description that is contained in the utterance involved, cf. (5c). However, an adequate account of rhetorical questions involves much more than could be dealt with here.32 Therefore I will confine myself to just this example. Another group of less prototypical questions are those that are used by a speaker to introduce a (series of) assertive speech act(s) to be uttered by himself (as in (5d)). In these cases the 'question' involved serves to indicate the topic of the subsequent assertive speech act(s). (5)

a. b. c. d.

is John home? John is not home, is he? is John ever home when you need him? now what are the consequences of this decision? first ...

31. The partly assertive nature of biased questions is more clearly indicated in their structure in English, where they are expressed by means of a tag that is attached to an assertive utterance, than e.g. in Latin, where they are expressed by means of specific question particles, cf. section 7.3.1. For an elaborate discussion of English tags, cf. Bolinger (1989: 115-131). 32. The reader is referred e.g. to Meibauer (1986) and, for Latin rhetorical questions, to Hoff (1979; 1983) and Orlandini (1980).

40

directives as speech acts

Questions have been assessed in quite divergent ways in speech act studies. Searle, for instance, does not even ackowledge them as a distinct speech act type. He regards them as a particular type of directives, which instruct the addressee to provide verbal information. 33 However, as has been pointed out, among others, by Lyons (1977a: 753-757),34 this analysis only covers a small subset of questions (even though these are the most prototypical ones) and excludes other, less prototypical types of questions such as the ones mentioned above. 35 In my opinion, the correspondences between the various types of questions are more important than their differences in orientation. Therefore I prefer to take them all as constituting one speech act type, which is 'about facts' rather than about the addressee's 'action' of providing information. I will briefly return to this point in section 2.2.7.36

2.2.5 speech acts about emotions Moving down on the vertical dimension of 'what the speech act is about', we come to the various types of expressive speech act, a characterization which is often used in the speech act literature as a convenient wastebasket for a number of quite heterogeneous types of speech act. The speech acts involved are not (primarily) concerned with a description of states of affairs in some real or hypothetical world, but rather with the speaker's emotions about such states of

33. For a similar conclusion on the basis of formal resemblances between questions and requests, cf. Bolinger (1989: 144-170). 34. Lyons' solution amounts to the other extreme, because he proposes to describe questions exclusively in terms of expressing one's doubt (i.e. refusing to make a commitment to a description of a particular state of affairs) and explains the expectation of an answer from the addressee entirely in terms of Gricean conversational cooperativeness. However, as will be discussed in chapter 7, this description would apply to some extent to the interrogative sentence type, but not to questions as a type of speech acts. 35. Other arguments that have been brought forward to consider questions a speech act type in their own right are based on the prototypical expression form of questions. They justify the independent existence of a question speech act type by referring to the universal occurrence of the interrogative sentence type, cf. e.g. Dik (1989: 255-256); Givon (1990: 780-781); Croft (n.d.). I will come back to the value of the interrogative sentence type in chapter 7. 36. It is only a terminological question, in my opinion, whether one chooses to use the label 'questions' for this speech act type as a whole or prefers to use this label only for the most prototypical, addressee oriented subtype of this class and another, more general label (e.g. 'erotetic speech acts', cf. Wunderlich 1976) for the speech act type as a whole. In this study I opt for the former solution, because it is more closely connected with the labels that are used in ordinary language.

speech act types

41

affairs. The existence of the state of affairs involved is not affirmed or denied in these speech acts; it is simply presupposed. Expressive speech acts are in general speaker-oriented. This does not mean that the state of affairs involved necessarily relates to the speaker, but that the emotions expressed are the speaker's. The commitments that are involved in expressive speech acts are commitments of sincerity (with respect to the emotions expressed) rather than commitments to the truthfulness of the description of the state of affairs that is presupposed. The systematic perlocutionary effect of the various expressive SUbtypes is often no more than that it creates an acknowledgement of the speaker's emotions on the part of the addressee, although in the more assertive-like expressive speech acts (esp. exclamations, cf. below) the perlocutionary effect of creating the same emotions on the part of the addressee may also be involved. 3? Prototypical examples of expressive speech acts are felicitations, condolations, and apologies (which refer to the speaker's emotions about a state of affairs that is connected with the addressee), as well as expressions of (dis-)content, happiness, pain, etc., which refer to the speaker's emotions with respect to his own situation. The boundaries of this speech act type are not very strict. On the one hand, a gradual transition into the assertive speech act type is formed by exclamations. Exclamations (e.g. how big he is, or am I tired) do not only involve the expression of an emotion about a state of affairs whose existence is presupposed (cf. above) but they also describe this state of affairs at the same time. More interesting, however, for the present study is the gradual transition from expressives into directives (and third person directives) via wishes. Wishes can be characterized in terms of the speaker's emotions with respect to a state of affairs that is not (yet) realized and whose realization often involves some kind of action. If the action involved is a future action of the addressee, a wish can be analyzed either as a (speaker-oriented) expression of the speaker's emotions with respect to the addressee's behaviour or an (addressee-oriented) attempt to get the addressee to realize the action involved. Often, however, they are indeterminate in this respect, and thus constitute real borderline cases.

37. This is confirmed by the occurrence in exclamations of the parenthetical expressions quaeso and obsecro, whose function can be ascribed in terms of an appeal to the cooperativeness of the addressee, cf. Risselada (1989).

42

directives as speech acts

2.2.6 speech acts about actions The third group of speech act types is concerned with actions rather than with the description of states of affairs or with emotions. On the basis of their orientation, 'action speech acts' divide into commissives, directives, and third person directives. The orientation of the speech act relates here to 'whose actions' are involved. 38 Following Searle (1976), I speak of commissives in the case of speech acts in which the speaker's actions are involved. The performance of a commissive speech act commits the speaker to having the intention of realizing the action referred to in the content of the speech act; the systematic perlocutionary effect is to create expectations on the part of the addressee with respect to the speaker's behaviour. Prototypical commissives are promises (which have a content that is favourable for the addressee, or neutral in this respect) and threats (which have a content that is unfavourable for the addressee). When the action involved is the addressee's, the speech act is a directive. The commitments of the speaker involve that the speaker is presupposed to consider the realization of the content of the directive preferable to its nonrealization, for whatever reason. As with other addressee-oriented speech act types, however, the commitments of the speaker are less prominent as a characteristic than the systematic perlocutionary effects, which involve that the addressee realizes the action referred to. As will be discussed in section 2.3, the various types of directives differ as to the way in which this systematic perlocutionary effect is enforced on the addressee, but it is present in all of them. Besides commissives and directives, there is a third speech act type that is concerned with action. This type is usually oriented towards definite third persons, but it may also have an indefinite orientation. For lack of a better term, I will simply speak of third person directives, although this term carries too much of a suggestion that they are some sort of derived, less prototypical directives. In fact, they form a distinct speech act type of their own, one that has been generally overlooked in speech act typologies. The commitments on the part of the speaker that are connected with this speech act type are, indeed, like those of directives: the speaker is presupposed to consider the realization of the action referred to to be preferable to non-realization. The systematic perlocutionary effect, however, differs significantly from that of directives in that it is not primarily oriented 38. Cf. Haverkate (1984: 15).

speech act types

43

towards realization of the content by the addressee, but towards realization by other, third persons. As regards the addressee, the systematic perlocutionary effect varies. In some cases it involves no more than creating knowledge, for whatever incidental perlocutionary purpose, on the part of the addressee of the speaker's views on the realization of a particular action by a third person (cf. 6a). More prototypically, however, the perlocutionary effect on the addressee consists of creating some sense of responsibility on the part of the addressee with respect to the realization of the content by the third person involved. This responsibility may be restricted to simply conveying the message to the intended agent (cf. 6b), but it may also amount to the addressee's full personal responsibility for the realization of the content (6c). It will be clear that the latter case forms, in fact, a gradual transition from directives to third person directives. (6)

a. don't worry, it's up to John to find a solution b. if you see John, he must be home before dark c. let John telephone me when he comes home

The transition between directives and commissives is also a gradual one. The transition is formed by proposals, which are directives that contain a commissive element. A speaker who proposes that the addressee takes part in some joint action (e.g. let's go to the nwvies tonight) does not only attempt to get the addressee to do so, but also commits himself to having the intention of taking part in the action involved in case the addressee will comply. Proposals are, therefore, oriented towards both the speaker and the addressee. 39 This somewhat lengthy sketch of the various speech act types that I propose to distinguish should suffice as a background for the characterization of directives as a type of speech acts. The internal structure of this speech act type will be discussed in more detail in the next section. Before I will do so, however, I want to make two final observations concerning the typology that is proposed here.

39. Cf. Havcrkate (1984: 15) for a similar conslusion.

44

directives as speech acts

2.2.7 final observations First, I want to draw attention to the fact that in the typology proposed here speech acts are classified without taking into acount their position in the larger interactional structure in which they occur. This does not imply that such distinctions cannot or should not be made (on the contrary) or that they are not reflected in the expression form that is chosen to perform the speech act involved. These distinctions belong, however, to another level of analysis, which should be based on criteria of its own, in order to avoid unnecessary complications.40 This interactional level of analysis will be discussed in section 2.4. Secondly, it is important to note that, although directives clearly constitute a speech act type of their own on the basis of their characteristic commitments and systematic perlocutionary effects, there is a directive, or rather a metadirective element in every speech act type. This metadirective element results from the systematic perlocutionary effects that are connected with each speech act type, which in all cases involves a claim (however small) on the addressee.41 Thus, performing an assertive speech act involves asking the addressee to take its descriptive content into consideration, and, preferably, to believe it. Similarly, the performance of a commissive involves 'metadirecting' the addressee to take the announced intentions of the speaker seriously and, preferably, to act on the assumption that the speaker will actually do what he announces. The metadirective element is even stronger in the case of addressee-oriented speech acts. Thus, the performance of prototypical questions involves a metadirective element to the effect that the addressee provides some sort of answer. As was mentioned in section 2.2.4, the presence of such a metadirective element in questions led Searle to regard them as a subtype of directives. The fact that other types of speech acts (assertives, commisive, and even expressives) also contain a metadirective element, is perhaps the best argument against such an analysis of questions.

40. Cf e.g. the speech act classifications that are proposed within Systemic Grammar by Martin (1981) and Halliday (1984), who deal with the two levels (i.e. speech act level and interactional level) in one network. 41. For similar observations, cf. Reiss (1985:35). The concept of metadirectivity is also related to Van Eemeren & Grootendorst's views on the 'acceptance' of the illocutionary act (1984: 23-25; 56-57). My own ideas on this point were inspired by the frequent use of 'metadirective imperatives' like die mihi 'tell me', seito 'know', crede mihi 'believe me', etc., by means of which the speaker formulates the instrinsic perlocutionary effect in terms of a directive. I will briefly mention them at the end of this section; they will be discussed in more detail in chapter 8, section 8.3.2.

speech act types

45

Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish this metadirective element, which is inherent to the performance of all speech acts, from the specific 'directive' nature of directive speech acts. In the case of directives, 'getting the addressee to do something' is their main characteristic, in fact their ultimate raison d' etre. The 'something that is to be done', i.e. the content of the directive, is in general some external action that falls outside the verbal interaction in which the directive occurs. The metadirective element that is present in the other speech acts types, on the other hand, does not involve external actions, but rather encompasses the interactional goals of the speaker. Metadirectives operate at the 'metalevel' of the interactional world and can be defined as 'attempts by the speaker to get the addressee not only to acknowledge but also to realize the systematic perlocutionary effect of the speech act involved'. At a descriptive level this concept of metadirectivity is needed for an adequate description of utterances which contain the imperative of a 'perlocutionary' verb (e.g. crede mihi 'believe me' or dic mihi 'tell me'). These metadirective uttet'ances, which are reinforced expressions of an assertive or a question speech act, are often misinterpreted as ordinary directives. They constitute, in fact, the functional counterparts of performative expressions like I tell you that or I ask you whether, which have received much attention within Speech Act Theory. Just as I promise that I will be here is not an assertive speech act, but an emphatically expressed commissive, believe me that I never saw him do that before is not a directive, but an emphatically expressed assertion. As a consequence, such a 'metadirective assertive utterance' may contain elements (for instance certain particles, conditional clauses, epistemic adverbs, etc.) that are typical of assertives, but not compatible with directives. This will be discussed in more detail in chapter 8, section 8.3.2.

2.3

Directive subtypes

In the preceding section, directive speech acts were characterized as one type of speech acts vis-a-vis other types. The directive speech act type itself, however, comprises quite diverse kinds of speech acts, which range from categorical orders to humble supplications, and from straightforward instructions to tentative suggestions. The present section will be devoted to a description of the variety of the speech acts that may be called directives.

46

directives as speech acts

In a general way, the variety of directives could be simply related to differences in the degree of prototypicality of the members of the directive speech act type. Orders, requests, and pieces of advice, for instance, are prototypical directives, because they constitute unequivocal attempts to get the addressee to do something, whereas for instance suggestions, challenges, and proposals are less prototypical instances, because they constitute rather vague (suggestions) or sarcastic (challenges) attempts to get the addressee to do something, or involve an action of the speaker as well (proposals). The distinctions between the various types of directives can, however, be described in a more insightful way on the basis of the following criteria, which relate to two specific aspects of directive speech acts: (i) (ii)

the content of the directive in relation to the speaker's and addressee's interests;42 the extent to which the action that is specified in the content of the directive is forced upon the addressee; or formulated differently, the extent to which the speaker leaves the addressee an option of non-compliance. 43

In studies that are concerned with directive speech acts at least two other kinds of criteria for a subclassification of directives are mentioned. One kind involves various minor properties of the action that is specified in the directive content, such as e.g. its 'aspect' (once-only actions versus iterative and generic actions) or the time of realizing the action (immediate versus future actions).44 Although some of these minor distinctions may be reflected in the expression form that is chosen,45 they are not essential to the nature of the directive speech act that is performed. The other kind of criteria wilI not be used here for a more fundamental reason, i.e. they pertain to the situation in which a particular directive is per-

42. This criterion is mentioned by almost everyone who discusses directive subtypes. Haverkate (1979) and Hamblin (1987) even present it as the most important criterion. 43. Cf. Leech (1980, ch. 4) and Hamblin (1987). Note that this criterion also resembles Searle's criterion of the 'force or strength with which the illocutionary point is presented' (Searle 1976). 44. Cf. e.g. Haverkate (1979: 35·61). Note that Haverkate himself also regards these criteria as less important. 45. Notably the distinction between immediate and non-immediate realization of the action involved, which is to some extent refleetcd in the existence in Latin of two imperative mood forms, cf. section 5.3.

directive sUbtypes

47

fonned rather than to the directive itself. Examples of situational criteria are the relative status of speaker and addressee, the presence or absence of sanctions, and whether the speech situation is institutional or not. 46 Although these factors tend to influence the kind of directive that is chosen (as was illustrated in section 1.1), they cannot be taken to directly define the directive subtype itself, since that would mean that in a given situation speakers do not have the option of choosing how they will present their illocutionary intentions. As will be shown in later chapters, however, the use of Latin directives clearly involves a certain amount of choice. Therefore, I prefer to use situational factors to explain, in tenns of tendencies, the occurrence of particular types of directives in particular circumstances, rather than defining these types of directives directly as situational factors. I will restrict myself, therefore, to the two criteria that are mentioned above under (i) and (ii). As regards the first criterion, the question whose interest is served by the content of the directive is ('the benefit criterion') can be used to distinguish between orders, requests, pleas, and supplications, on the one hand, and advice and suggestions, on the other. The fonner primarily serve the speaker's interest and the latter the addressee's.47 Proposals and invitations occupy an intennediate position. In general, the fonner equally benefit both the speaker and the addressee, whereas the latter primarily benefit the addressee but also involve a commitment on the side of the speaker (if only for reasons of politeness) that the invitation is also in his own interest. Like proposals, invitations also involve a commissive element, to the effect that the speaker commits himself to providing certain commodities in case the addressee complies. The second criterion, i.e. the extent to which the speaker leaves the addressee an option of non-compliance can be defined in terms of a bindingness/optionality scale, which is derived from Leech (1980).48 On the basis of this dimension we can distinguish for instance between orders, which are binding directives, and, at the other end of the scale, requests, which are optional directives, because the decision whether or not to realize the content is left to the addressee. In between, there are directive SUbtypes such as prayers and supplica-

46. Criteria like these are used e.g. in Hindelang's (1978) typology of 'Aufforderungen'. 47. For a more extensive discussion of the 'interest criterion', cf. Havcrkate (1979: 31-34). 48. I have slightly adapted the originally dichotomous bindingness/optionality scale, because, as will be presently discussed, the latter two notions are not as mutually exclusive as Leech's treatment suggests.

48

directives as speech acts

tions, which are not binding, but do not leave the addressee a real option of noncompliance either, in view of the urgency which their content usually has. In the case of directives that primarily serve the addressee's interest, the bindingness/optionality criterion can be used for instance to distinguish between advice and suggestions. Suggestions are, like requests, fully 'optional' in leaving an open choice to the addressee. Advice, on the other hand, occupies a position on the binding side of the scale, although advice is, in general, not as binding as orders are. The diagram under (7) contains a graphical representation of the distinctions that I propose to make on the basis of the criteria of interest and bindingness/optionality. Like the criteria that underlie the speech act typology that was proposed in the preceding section, these criteria constitute two intersecting continuous scales, on which the directive sUbtypes that are distinguished can occupy various positions. (7) a subclassification of directives bindingness: benefit: SPEAKER

BINDING

OPTIONAL

(

order

supplication

)

request

proposal ADDRESSEE

(

advice

invitation suggestion

)

The types of directives that are distinguished in (7) will be used as a basis for the description of the use of directives in Latin that will be given in the chapters 5-8. To conclude this section, I will briefly discuss two types of directives that will also playa role in the descriptive part of this study, but that, for different reasons, do not fit in this subclassification, viz. permission and challenges. The granting of permission, or simply permission, is a type of directive that can be characterized as a speaker's positive reaction to an initiative by the addressee, who wants to do something for which he needs the consent of the speaker. This description of permission as a reaction to an initiative by the addresseee does, however, not belong to the level of the speech act itself; rather,

directive sUbtypes

49

this feature belongs to the level of the interactional structure in which the speech act functions (cf. my remarks in section 2.2.7). Permission is, therefore, not so much a specific type of directive speech act, but it is a type of directive that is characterized by a specific position in the ongoing discourse. Larger interactional structure and the roles which speech acts can play in them will be the subject matter of the next section. Challenges, on the other hand, fall outside a regular typology of directives, because they do not constitute ordinary language use, but should rather be analysed as 'sarcastic directives'. Challenges result from a flagrant violation of the ordinary conditions of sincere language use (cf. Searle's sincerity condition, discussed in section 2.1), which specify in the case of a directive that the speaker is presupposed to prefer (or at least to act as though he prefers) the addressee to realize the action that he is invited to carry out. In the case of challenges, however, this sincerity condition is violated in a way that is usually obvious to the addressee, because the speaker makes clear, by his intonation if not by lexical means ('if you dare'), that he actually prefers the addressee not to realize the action involved. Although challenges constitute, on these grounds, a clear cut type of directive, one that will be referred to as such in the description of Latin directives (cf. e.g. section 5.2.3), they do not fit in the subclassification proposed under (7), because their distinctive characteristics belong to another level.

2.4

Directives in interactional structure

For the sake of clarity, (directive) speech acts have been dealt with in the preceding sections as though they are independent entities. The present section will concentrate on the question how directive speech acts fit into larger interactional structures. I will start with an overview of the various interactional units that playa role in an analysis of the structure of verbal interaction (section 2.4.1). This overview is based on a model of description for the hierarchical structure of discourse that is proposed by Kroon (f.c., ch. 4) in connection with the description of connective particles in Latin.49 Kroon's proposal is based on

49. Related views with respect to the complex structures of verbal interaction and the position which speech acts occupy within these structures are set forth by Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1990-1992). This study also offers a comprehensive overview of the vast body of literature in this area.

50

directives as speech acts

the approach to discourse analysis that was introduced by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and on the more recent model of description for discourse structures that was developed by Roulet (cf. Roulet et al. 1985). On the basis of the interactional units that are distinguished in 2.4.1, I will discuss the various positions that directive speech acts may occupy in the structure of the surrounding context (section 2.4.2) and the reactions which they may receive (section 2.4.3). By way of conclusion, I will sketch in 2.4.4 the maximal format of a directive exchange. 2.4.1 interactional units

Within speech act theory it is (more or less tacitly) assumed that the units by means of which verbal interaction takes place are single sentences, which from the action perspective adopted are regarded as 'speech acts'. If one looks, however, at actual instances of verbal interaction, it turns out that the interaction does not necessarily proceed by means of single, sentence sized speech acts, but that the meaningful units of interaction may also be smaller or, which is more often the case, larger. This observation can be illustrated with the comedy passage that is quoted under (8). It is taken from Plautus' Menaechmi and forms part of a conversation between Menaechmus and his mistress Erotium. Erotium has invited Menaechmus (and a parasite who has not yet arrived) into her house; after some discussion, which is not quoted here, Menaechmus accepts (line 1). (8)

ME: 2. ER: 3. ME: 4. 5. 6. ER: 7. 8. ME: 9. ER: 10. 11. 12. ME: 13.

( ... ) nunc, quando vis, eamus intro etiam parasitum manes? neque ego illum maneo neque flocci facio neque, si venerit, eum volo intromitti ecastor haud invita fecero sed scin quid te amabo ut facias? impera quid vis modo pallam illam quam dudum dederas, ad phrygionem ut deferas, ut reconcinnetur atque ut opera addantur quae volo hercle qui tu recte dicis: eadem ignorabitur, ne uxor cognoscat te habere, si in via conspexerit

directives in interactional structure

51

14. ER: ergo mox auferto tecum, quando abibis 15. ME: maxume 16. ER: eamus intro ('(1) now, when you wish, let's go inside. # (2) shouldn't you wait any longer for the parasite? # (3) not I - I neither wait for him, (4) nor care a straw for him, (5) nor want him admitted if he does come. # (6) goodness me, I'll see to that without reluctance! (7) but do you know what I should love you to do? # (8) whatever you wish - you have only to command me. # (9) take that mantle you gave me a while ago to the embroiderer, (10) so as to have it repaired and (11) have some trimmings I want added. # (12) right you are, by Jove! (12) that will make it quite different, too, and my wife won't recognize it on you, if she notices it on the street. # (14) well, then, take it with you later when you leave me. # (15) by all means. # (16) let's go in' , PI. Men. 422-431) The 'size' of the units through which the interaction develops varies in this fragment. The first two units, indeed, consist of single speech acts, which are performed by means of single sentences. The first (line 1) is a proposal by Menaechmus, the second (1. 2) a reminding question by Erotium. Both function as independent units in the ongoing interaction and constitute what are usually called 'moves', i.e. 'minimal free units of discourse that are able to enter into an exchange structure' (cf. Kroon, f.c., section 4.1.2.2).50 Moreover, they nicely correspond with the turns of speaking in which they occur. Such a neat correspondence between sentence, speech act, move, and tum of speaking is, however, not always the case, as can be seen in the rest of (8). Although Menaechmus' next tum of speaking (1. 3-5) again corresponds with a single interactional unit, this interactional unit consists of three coordinated, sentence sized speech acts, a commissive (neque ... maneo), an expressive (neque flocci facio), and a directive speech act (neque ... eum intromitti volo), respectively. From an interactional point of view, however, these three speech acts are closely connected, because they together constitute Menauchmus' reaction to Erotium's preceding move and thus form a single 'interactional move'. In the remaining part of (8) the correspondences are even less neat. The immediately

50. For discussions of the concept of 'move' as the basic unit of interaction, cf. also Sinclair & Coulthard (1975, ch.3) and Edmondson (1981, ch. 6). It closely corresponds with what Roulet et al. (1985) call an 'intervention'.

52

directives as speech acts

following tum by Erotium (I. 6-7), for instance, consists of two different moves, or rather by one full move plus part of another. The first move (I. 6), which consists of a single, commissive speech act, contains her evaluation of the directive part of Menaechmus' reaction to her reminder. The second speech act (1. 7) belongs to a new move,51 which not only contains a number of different speech acts, but also extends over more than one tum. This move consists of the •preparative , question speech act in I. 7, the three directives in Erotium's next tum (1. 9-11), and a final, summarizing directive in 1. 14. Erotium's move as a whole is directive in nature. This directive move is, however, not concentrated in one directive speech act, but divided into a number of coherent steps, viz. the securing in advance of Menaechmus' compliance by means of a preparatory question (1. 7), the spelling out of the details of the content by means of the three directives in I. 9-11, and the final, summarizing instruction in the last tum that belongs to this move (1. 14).52 Menaechmus' compliance with Erotium's directive move is likewise 'spread' over three turns. The first part (I. 8) of Menaechmus' compliance is in itself a directive speech act; by means of it Menaechmus gives Erotium permission to perform her directive (cf. my remarks on permission at the end of section 2.3). From an interactional point of view, it contains Menaechmus' reaction to Erotium's preparative question and it expresses a general compliance in advance with whatever directive content is to come. The details of Menaechmus' compliance are filled in in his next turn, by which he positively reacts to the content of Erotium's request, and both aspects (compliance to the directive in general and assent with its content) are again summarized in the final global compliance reaction maxume (I. 15). This informal analysis of the various steps by means of which a stretch of actual verbal interaction proceeds illustrates the complex relationships that may hold between speech acts, interactional moves, and exchanges (turns are not represented here). The relationships between the various interactional units that can be distinguished are graphically represented in the diagram that is given upder

51. Cf. Kroon (f.c., section 4.2.2.3) on the use of sed to introduce new interactional units. 52. The use of ergo in the final, summarizing act within a move is very characteristic, cf. Kroon (1989:239).

53

directives in interactional structure

(9) (cf. Kroon f.c.). It is modelled on a two party conversation, which can be regarde~ as the most basic form of verbal interaction. 53

(9) the units of verbal interaction CONVERSATION

1

EXCHANGE(s) opening

IMOVE l initiating

EXCHANGE - EXCHANGE ..

-I --

-

EXCHANGE(s) closing

1

MOVE2 reactive

--

(MOV~)

evaluating

MOVE

1--(ACT(s)) -subsidiary

-rI

----~

ACT -- (ACT(s)) main subsidiary

In this simplified model, a conversation is conceived of as a series of exchanges between the parties involved. Exchanges are, loosely speaking, the links which

make up the chain of a conversation. Each of them consists, in principle, of a socalled initiating move plus its reaction (i.e. a reactive move) by the other party, and may be optionally rounded off by an evaluation of this reaction by the first speaker. An example of an evaluating move is found in line 6, which contains the first speaker's (i.e. Erotium's) evaluation of the second speaker's (Le. Menaechmus') reaction (11. 3-5) to her initiating move (1. 2). Often, however, there is no third, evaluating move. Although exchanges are usually linked, if not interlaced, with the preceding and following exchanges, they constitute independent steps in the interaction in the sense that ideally the reaction (plus evaluation, if there is 53. For a discussion of 'ordinary conversation' as the basic form of interaction, cf. section 1.3.

54

directives as speech acts

any) round off the initiating move by the first speaker, and thus clear the way for a new exchange. The first and the last exchanges within a conversation, which are the opening and closing exchanges, usually consist of strongly ritualized pairs of moves, involving summons and answer, the exchange of greetings, and questions and answers relating to the participants' well being at the start of the conversation, and expressions of agreement and conclusion, announcement of other activities, and various wishes of wellbeing marking the closing of the conversation. 54 The exchanges in between, on the other hand, are not a priori determined by their position in the overall conversational structure. Moves may, as we have seen, consist of single speech acts, as is the case with the moves in 1.1, 1.2, and I. 6; however, they may also be made up of more than one speech act. In the latter case, they are usually built up around one central 'main' act, whose illocutionary function determines the interactional function of the move as a whole. This main act is then accompanied by one or more 'subsidiary' acts, which may precede and follow the main act. These subsidiary acts can be preparatory questions (as in I. 7 in 8), but they may also contain for instance a justification or a motivation for the main act (ct. to) or an explanatory sketch of the situation which forms the starting point for the main act (ct. 11).55 (to)

Libane, mi patrone, mi trade istuc. magi' decorumst libertum potius quam patronum onus in via portare ('oh Libanus, my dear patron, do hand it over to me! a freedman is the proper person to carry a load on the street, not his patron', PI. As. 689-690) 0

(11) viginti minae hic insunt in crumina, has ego, si vis, tibi dabo ('there's eighty pound in this wallet here: I'll give it to you if you like', PI. As. 653-654)

Subsidiary acts may also serve to link the main act to the ongoing verbal interaction, to amplify on the speaker's illocutionary intentions with respect to the

54. Cf. Hoffmann (1983) for a discussion of the various types of exchanges that usually make up the conversation openings in Latin comedy. 55. For a more elaborate account of the various relations that may obtain between acts that constitute one move, cf. Kroon (f.c., chapter 4).

directives in interactional structure

55

main act, or to check its effects on the addressee. In that case, the subsidiary acts can be said to operate on a metacommunicative level. Example (12) contains a number of such 'metacommunicative subsidiary acts'. (12) AMPH: SOSIA:

quid hoc sit hominis? equidem deciens dixi: domi ego sum, inquam, ecquid audis? et apud te adsum Sosia idem. satin hoc plane, satin diserte, ere, nunc videor tibi locutus esse? AMPH: vah, apage te a me. ('what am I to make of the fellow? # I have told you how it is ten times over: I am at home, I say. do you hear that? yes and I am here with you, the same Sosia. there sir, do you think that is putting it plainly enough, lucidly enough for you? # bah, get away with you', PI. Am. 576-579)

In the following section, I will discuss in which ways directive speech acts can enter in the various interactional units that have been outlined above. 2.4.2 directives in various interactional positions

The foregoing discussion of the various interactional units and the relationships that hold between them make clear that directives may fit in the interactional structure in various ways. As will be shown in later chapters of this study, the position which a directive occupies in the larger interactional structure is often reflected in the expression form. I will start with the role of directives within the smallest independent interactional unit, viz. the move. Within moves, directives can be either main acts or subsidiary acts. As the examples discussed up to this point make clear, the former, i.e. directive main acts, are far more usual than the latter; subsidiary acts usually are assertives or questions, not directives. However, my corpus contains a few cases of directive subsidiary acts, in which a directive is not primarily performed for its own sake, but serves the purposes of another (main) speech act. An example is (13), in which Amphitruo calls his slave Sosia to witness. The directive speech act in 1. 1 (asp ice ... ) functions as a subsidiary act that supports the directives vola .. .1 nolo ... in 1.3, which in turn form a subidiary act to the main act of Amphitruo's move, viz. his question in 1. 4.

56

directives as speech acts

(13) AM: Sosia, age me huc aspice 2. SO: specto 3. AM: vera volo loqui te, nolo adsentari mihi 4. audivistin tu hodie me ilIi dicere ea quae ilia autumat? (' Sosia, here ! look me in the eye. # very good, sir. # what I want from you is the truth, no obsequiousness. did you ever hear me utter a syllable of what she says?', PI. Am. 750-752) As was stated above, however, most of the directives constitute directive main acts, i.e. directive speech acts that form the central units within moves. I now turn to the position which directives, as main acts in a 'directive move', constitute within exchanges. Within exchanges, directive main acts can occur in initiating as well as in reactive moves. 56 The former are, however, far more common than the latter. They are the ones that are found in most of the examples discussed in this section (cf. the directives in 11. 9 and 14 in (8), and those in examples 10 and 11). However, it is important to note that the latter, too, constitute directives. Even if they are not, strictly speaking, 'attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something', they at least can be described as somehow stimulating (by giving consent, not opposing it, etc.) the addressee's realization of the action involved. Most commonly, directives in reactive moves involve the granting of permission. An example is the permission (inscende) in (14) which Argyrippus gives (under protest) to his slave Libanus who has demanded a horseride on Argyrippus' back. (14) LI: ( ... ) vehes pol hodie me, si quidem hoc argentum ferre speres AR: ( ... ) # LI: ( ... ) # AR: perii hercle. si verum quidem et decorum erum vehere servom, inscende ('you'll carry me on your back today, by gad, that is, if you count on getting this cash. # ... # ... # 0 damnation! well, if it is right and proper for a master to catry a servant on his back - get up', PI. As. 699-702)

56. In my corpus, I have not found instances of directives in evaluative moves.

directives in interactional structure

57

Besides, directives in reactive moves may involve the acceptance of an offer or a proposal (cf. cupio herde in 15), or they may constitute 'invited advice' as in (16). (15) LE: vin faciam ut me Philaenium praesente hoc amplexetur? LI: cupio hercle ('d'ye want me to make Philaenium give me a squeeze right before his face? # I'd love you to', Pi. As. 647-648) (16) (a woman feels threatened by the strange behaviour of her husband and asks her father what she must do) MA: ut pandiculans oscitatur! quid nunc faciam, mi pater? SE: concede huc, mea nata, ab istoc quam potest longissume ('how he stretches and gapes! father, father dear" what shall I do now? # come over here, my child, as far as you can from him', Pi. Men. 833-834) Directives in reactive moves differ from directives in initiating moves because in the former the addressee's compliance in general (as in 16) or his willingness to perform the particular action involved (as in 14 and 15) is 'guaranteed' by his initiating move. 57 As a consequence, the expression of directives in reactive moves is often less specific, because the content involved has already been specified (as in 15), and reactive directives generally do not contain motivation or elements of politeness, because the compliance has already been secured. As regards more specific linguistic properties, we will see in section 5.4.3 that the subjunctive is relatively often used in directives that occur in a reactive move. Within the conversation as a whole, finally, directives occurring in opening and closing exchanges are different from those that occur in the other exchanges. As a result of the ritual nature of opening and closing exchanges, the directives occurring here are in general rather formulaic ones, which have often lost their directive nature in favour of an expressive value. This holds not only for the

57. Note that this is also the effect that is aimed at by preparatory questions that function as a subsidiary act, cf. Erotium's preparatory question in (8), repeated here: ER: sed scin quid te amabo ut facias? ME: impera quid vis modo. ('but do you know what I should love you to do? # whatever you wish - you have only to command me', PI. Men. 425)

58

directives as speech acts

fonnulaic expressions salve and vale (literally 'be healthy') that are used as expressions of greeting and farewell respectively, but also for more elaborate expressions such as those quoted under (17), which are frequently found at the end of Cicero's letters: 58 (17) a. cura ut valeas (atque me ames) ('mind to look after your health (and to love me)') b. tu velim/at te peto ut me absentem diligas atque defendas ('you please/l beg you to love me and to defend my interests when I am not there') I will briefly return to directives in opening and closing exchanges in section 5.2.4.

2.4.3 reactions to directives A final issue to be briefly discussed in view of the relation between directives and their interactional environment, is fonned by the various kinds of reactions that may be given to directives in initiating moves. There are three kinds of possible reactions, viz. compliance, refusal, and 'problemizing reactions'. Reactions of outright compliance and refusal speak for themselves; examples are the parasite's reaction in (18) and Syrus' reactions in (19), respectively. 59 (18) DI: ( ... ) sequere intro PA: sequor (,follow me in. # very well', PI. As. 809) (19) CL: SY: CL: SY:

sine non sinam, inquam quaeso, paullisper veto.

58. Expressions like (17a) are found e.g. at the end of Cic. Fam 15,20 and 16,12; (17b) is found at the end of Fam. 15,3;15,7;15,8. 59. For more examples of outright compliance and refusal, cf. Thesleff's study on 'yes and no in Plautus and Terence' (Thesleff 1960).

directives in interactional structure

59

('let me go # I won't, I say # please do, only for a moment # I say no', Ter. Hau.378) However, whereas outright compliance is quite common, outright refusal is much more rare. 60 More often than outright refusal we find 'problemizing reactions', which usually trigger off so-called subsidiary exchanges in which the speaker tries to get his addressee to comply after all. 6 \ 'Problemizing reactions' often consist of requests for motivation, justification, or additonal information (e.g. what the consequences of compliance will be), which the addressee apparently needs before deciding whether or not to comply. The speaker usually reacts to such 'problemizing reactions' by either (more forcefully) restating his directive, cf. (20), or by providing the requested additional information, cf. (21). (20) (Menaechmus wants Peniculus, a parasite, to compliment him on his good

looks; the parasite first wants to know what his reward will be (in terms of food) before he complies) ME: dic hominem lepidissumum esse me PE: ubi essuri sumus? ME: dic modo hoc quod ego te iubeo PE: dico: homo lepidissume ('say that I am a splendid fellow # where are we going to eat? # just you say what I command # I do - splendid fellow', PI. Men. 147-148). (21) LE: opta id quod ut contingat tibi vis

AR: quid si optaro? LE: eveniet AR: opto annum hunc perpetuom mihi huius operas ('wish for something you want to happen to you # what if I do? # it'll come true # my wish is to have this lady's attentions this whole next year through', PI. As. 720-722)

60. For a similar observation, cf. Thesleff (1960: 53): "Denials are less common than confirmative replies. Whether this is a universal truth or not need not bother us here. At least it is true of Roman Comedy and, apparently, of Roman literature in general." 61. For a discussion of the function of subsidiary exchanges, or 'insertion sequences' as they are usually called within conversation analysis, cf. Levinson (1983: 303-308).

60

directives as speech acts

The addressee's 'problemizing reaction' may also consist of an objection to the content of the directive, as in (22); this example contains the full exchange, of which only the beginning and the end were quoted in (14). In these cases, too, the speaker usually reacts to the addressee's 'problemizing reaction' by means of one or more subsidiary acts that provide additional motivation or justification for his directive main act, or by adding (implicit) sanctions, as in (22): tun hoc teras argentum aliter a me 'do you think that you would otherwise get that money you want from me?'. (22) LI: (... ) vehes pol hodie me, si quidem hoc argentum ferre speres AR: ten ego veham? LI: tun hoc feras argentum aliter a me? AR: perii hercle. si verum quidem et decorum erum vehere servom, inscende. ('you'll carry me on your back today, by gad, that is, if you count on getting this cash. # I carry you on my back? # see any other way of getting this cash, do you? # 0 damnation! well, if it is right and proper for a master to carry a servant on his back - get up', PI. As. 699-702) 'Problemizing reactions' are relevant for a desciption of directive expression forms, because the repeated directives to which they may give rise (cf. 20) often have particular linguistic properties. Thus, there are certain particles that are often found in repeated directives (cf. modo in (20)62 and quin in example (7) in section 1.1). Furthermore, certain types of interrogative directives are especially frequent in repeated directives, as will be discussed in chapter 7. 2.4.4 conclusion: the maximal directive exchange

By way of conclusion, I want to summarize the observations that have been made in this section on directives in interactional structure, by sketching the maximal format that a 'directive exchange' can have. By directive exchanges I mean exchanges in which a directive speech act constitutes the main act of the initiating

62. For a description of the use of modo in Latin directives, cf. Risselada (1991).

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directives in interactional structure

move. The maximal format which a directive exchange can have is represented in the diagram given under (23).63 (23)

the maximal directive exchange

INITIATING MOVE

REACTIVE MOVE

EVALUATING MOVE

(speaker)

(addressee)

(speaker)

I

(a) preparatory check

(b) confIrmation of check

(c) motivation, justification (d) DIRECTIVE (e) motivation, justification

(I)

'problemizing reaction' (objecting or asking extra information)

(g) countering (I) (by additional information or repeated directive)

(h)

(i) EVALUATION

COMPLIANCE

The basic structure of a directive exchange involves, as was discussed in 2.4.1, an initiating move by the speaker that consists of a directive speech act, a reactive move by the addressee consisting of a commissive speech act by means of which he expresses compliance (or non-compliance), and an •optional , evaluating move, which consists of an expressive speech act by means of which the speaker 63. Comparable schemata for directive exchanges have been proposed within a Systemic framework by Burton (1980), and Butler (1985). These proposals are, however, less elaborate.

62

directives as speech acts

and often do, take a more elaborate format when the main acts of the initiating and reactive move are supported by one or more subsidiary acts. From a structural point of view, these subsidiary acts may both precede and follow their main acts. Furthermore, they can belong to the same tum of speaking as the main act, but they can also make up separate turns. Subsidiary acts that typically form separate turns are preparatory checks by the speaker, which may introduce a directive sequence, cf. (a), and additional information or repeated directives, cf. (g), which are triggered off by a 'problemizing reaction', cf. (t). Having discussed in this chapter the status of directives as a type of speech act and the ways in which directives fit into larger units of discourse, I will tum in the next chapter to the question of the expression of directive speech acts.

3. THE EXPRESSION OF ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE

The preceding chapter focused on directives as a type of speech act. The present chapter deals with the linguistic properties of directive utterances. In section 3.1 I will sketch in a general way the complex nature of the relationship between linguistic form and speech act function, and indicate the various positions one can take in describing this relationship. The most common approach, which regards the sentence types as the literal expression forms of illocutionary force, is critically discussed in 3.2. On the basis of the conclusions that are drawn in this section I will outline in 3.3 my own views with respect to the expression of illocutionary force and the ways in which syntactic, semantic, and lexical properties may contribute to it. These views will take more detailed shape in section 3.4, which deals with the ,expression of directive illocutionary force and contains an overview of the variety of directive expressions that are found in the Latin corpus on which the present study is based. I will conclude this chapter by briefly discussing in 3.5 the role of implicitness and conventionality in the expression of directives.

3.1

Linguistic form and speech act function

Speech acts are performed by means of utterances. Few people will raise objections to this statement, nor will they object to the - slightly less trivial statement that the speech act function of an utterance is at least to some extent related to properties of this utterance. The actual nature of the relationship between utterances and the speech acts that are performed by means of them is, however, by no means an uncontroversial issue. The issue of the relationship between linguistic form and speech act function has been first introduced into linguistics in a systematic way by Searle (1969).1

1. Occasional observations have been made before with respect to the relationship between certain formal properties of utterances and certain speech act functions (cf. e.g. Kiihner-Stegmann's observation on the Latin imperative mood that was quoted in section 2.1.1). Austin also briefly refers to 'devices that playa role in expressing illocutionary function' (mood, intonational features, adverbs,

64

illocutionary expression

In Searle's view, speech acts can be analysed in terms of an illocutionary force, which operates on a propositional content. Accordingly, Searle proposes to distinguish "two (not necessarily separate) elements in the syntactic structure of the sentence, which we might call the propositional indicator and the illocutionary force indicator. (... ) The illocutionary force indicator shows how the proposition is to be taken, or to put it in another way, what illocutionary force the utterance is to have" (Searle 1969: 30)? He goes on to list a number of 'Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices' (IFIDs) in English, viz. word order, stress, intonation contour, punctuation, the mood of the verb, and the so-called performative verbs. The most important point of Searle's statement is that it explicitly offers the possibility of linking the illocutionary force (i.e. the speech act function) to linguistic properties of the utterances involved. 3 Various problems arise, however, when one wants to establish the ways in which individual linguistic properties function as illocutionary force indicating devices. In the first place, as is also pointed out by Searle (1969: 70-71), there is not a strict one-to-one relationship between the speech act functions and linguistic forms of utterances. One and the same expression may be used to perform, in different contexts, various speech acts, and, conversely, various expressions can be used to perform one and the same speech act. Thus, as will be discussed in more detail in chapter 7, the interrogative Latin sentence etiam astas 'are you standing still?' is used in (1) to perform an expressive speech act by means of which the speaker expresses his disapproval of the addressee's behaviour (viz. standing still) at the moment of speaking, whereas in (2) the same sentence is used to perform a directive speech act, by means of which the speaker attempts to get the addressee to display this behaviour. (1)

TR: sed tu, etiamne astas nec quae dico optemperas? TH: quid faciam? TR: cave respexis, fuge, [atque] operi caput

connecting particles, gestures, and circumstances of the utterances; Austin 1962: 73-76). However, none of these are serious attempts at dealing with illocutionary expression in a systematic way. 2. This distinction is represented by Searle as: F (p), "where the variable "F" takes iJlocutionary force indicating devices as values and "p" takes expressions for propositions". (Searle 1969: 31). 3. Note that Searle's speaking of 'elements in the syntactic structure' reflccts the Transfonnational Grammar view then predominant, in which all linguistic properties are reduced to syntax. Some of the IFIDs listed by him would, in my opinion, rather qualify as semantic (e.g. verbal mood) or lexical (e.g. performative verbs) than as syntactic elements. I therefore prefer to speak of linguistic properties.

form and function

65

('but you, you're still standing there? not minding what I say? # what shall I do? don't look back, run, and cover your head', PI. Mos. 522-523) (2)

heus tu, tibi dico, mane, redi. etiamne astas? (,hey, you there, I'm talking to you, wait, come back. are you going to stand still?', PI. Men. 696-697)

The fact that one speech act function may be expressed by means of various expression forms, is illustrated by the examples (3) - (6), which, although formally quite different, are all expressions of urgent requests to send letters with information. (3)

ad me obsecro te ut omnia certa perscribas ('I beg you to send me full and reliable news on all matters', Cic. Aft. 3,11,2)

(4)

vos, meae carissimae animae, quam saepissime ad me scribite et vos quid agatis et quid istic agatur. ('my dearest hearts, write to me as often as you can to tell me how you are and what is going on in Rome', Cic. Fam. 14,14,2)

(5)

de ea re et de ceteris rebus quam primum velim nobis litteras mittas ('I would like you to send me a letter as soon as possible on this and other matters', Cic. Fam. 14,10)

(6)

item posthac, si quid opus erit, si quid acciderit novi, facies ut sciam ('in future, too, you will let me know if there is anything needful or any new development', Cic. Fam. 14,8)

A second problem, illustrated by (3) - (5), is that the expression of illocutionary fuctions is not specifically linked with one type of linguistic property but may be expressed, in different utterances, by different kinds of linguistic properties. Thus, the illocutionary force is expressed by lexical means (the performative verb obsecro) in (3), by means of the imperative verbal mood in (4), whereas in (5) it is expressed by means of the conventionalized directive expression velim plus subjunctive.

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illocutionary expression

A further complication is illustrated by (6). Here, it is not one property of the utterance by itself, as is the case in (3) - (5), but it is rather the interplay of various properties through which the illocutionary force is expressed. Neither the future indicative nor the declarative sentence type as such are specific directive expressions. The combination, however, of a second person agent, a future indicative, and the declarative sentence type has the effect that expressions like (6) constitute quite common directive expressions, both in Latin and in other languages. 4 Summarizing we can say that the relationship between the speech act function of utterances and their linguistic form (in a broad sense) is a complex one: on the one hand, the linguistic form in itself does not always correspond unambiguously with one speech act type and, on the other hand, the expression of illocutionary force is linked up with a number of different kinds of linguistic properties, which are often combined in one and the same utterance. In dealing with this complex relationship between the form and the function of utterances, various positions can be adopted. One, quite radical, position is to conclude that, in view of the many-to-many relationship between form and function, linguistic properties are actually relatively unimportant with respect to an utterance's speech act function. This radically pragmatic position is for instance often adopted within conversation analysis. s This type of research primarily concentrates on aspects of the conversational structure that go beyond the properties of single utterances and on the influence of situational factors. Most of the other approaches, however, try to somehow reduce the complex many-to-many relation between linguistic form and speech act function to more convenient proportions. The strategy adopted is to regard some expression means as 'literal' or 'direct' illocutionary expressions, and others as more 'indirect' expression forms. This approach is usually taken by speech act theorists, and by most linguists that take into account illocutionary force. Adherents of this view usually attribute an important role in this respect to sentence types, which are regarded as the principal, if not exclusive, means of illocutionary expression. For that reason, I will now first go into the role of sentence type in illocutionary

4. Cf. e.g. LOfstedt (1966: 145-162) on Latin and on a comparison with Ancient Greek and Hebrew; for modern languages, cf. e.g. Haverkate (1979: 160-162) on Spanish. 5. This position is defended, for instance, by Levinson (1983: 274-283).

form and function

67

expression. My own position with respect to the expression of illocutionary force will be outlined in section 3.3.

3.2

Sentence type and iIlocutionary force

In traditional grammars the close connections between sentence type and speech act function (although the term did not yet exist as such) have always been taken for granted. This is reflected by the fact that terms like 'imperative' and 'interrogative' (or 'Fragesatz' in German) are used indiscriminately in many grammars of Latin both for formal categories of utterances (i.e. utterances that are marked by particular formal properties) and for functional categories of utterances (i.e. utterances that are used for particular speech act functions). Compare for instance (7a), for which Kuhner-Stegmann describe the semantic value of the imperative as a formal category of verbal mood, with (7b), in which 'der negative Imperativ' is more of a functional category.6 (7)

a. "Der Imperativ ist der Modus des unmittelbar ausgesprochenen Willens oder Gewollten, der als Befehl an eine Person gerichtet wird" (I, 195) b. "Der negative Imperativ wird auf folgende Weise ausgedri.ikt: a) durch noli, nolite (... ) mit dem Infin. (... ); b) durch ne mit der 2. Pers. der ersten Imperativform; (... )" etc. (I, 202)

The connection between sentence type and speech act function is, however, formulated more explicitly in a number of recent theoretical studies. In section 3.2.l I will discuss the views of two representatives of what I call the 'sentence type = illocutionary type approach' and discuss a number of objections. In 3.2.3 I will present an alternative view on sentence types.

6. Another example is Hofmann-Szantyr's observation (in a chapter on 'die einzelnen Arlen des einfachen Satzes'): "In der Umgangssprache (... ) dienen (... ) die Fragen sehr oft nicht einer tatsachlichen Erkundigung, sondern bringen eine Versicherung und Behauptung, auch eine Aufforderung bzw. Einladung oder einen Wunsch zum Ausdruck, ... etc." (1965: 467). Note however that for the rest Hofmann-S7.antyr take a rather consistently functional starting point. The introduction to the chapter involved (p. 445-446) shows that they are fully aware of the distinction between formal and functional aspects of sentence types.

68

3.2.1 the 'sentence type

illocutionary expression

= illocutionary type'

approach

In their typological article on 'Speech act distinctions in syntax', Sadock and Zwicky define the sentence type as a regular association of grammatical structure and conventional conversational use (1985: 155-156).7 A similar approach is taken by Dik (1989), who regards the sentence types that are found in all languages (i.e. declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives, which correspond to Sadock & Zwicky's three 'major sentence types') as expressing 'basic illocutions'. These basic illocutions are interpreted by Dik as instructions that specify what the speaker wants the addressee to do with the propositional content (Dik 1989: 254256). Thus, e.g. the Imperative basic illocution is paraphrased by him as 'Speaker instructs Addressee to perform the controlled SoA as specified in the proposition'. Sadock and Zwicky's paraphrases of the values of the three major sentence types are more or less similar, although they are formulated less explicitly in terms of interactional instructions. Thus, their paraphrase of the imperative sentence type is that it "indicates the speaker's desire to influence future events" (Sadock & Zwicky 1985: 160).8 Various arguments can be given in favour of an approach to sentence types in terms of illocutionary types, such as exemplified here by the approaches of Sadock & Zwicky (1985) and Dik (1989). In the first place, this approach has a strong functional-typological basis in as far as all languages seem to have grammatical forms by means of which major and apparently universal illocutionary goals (conveying information, eliciting verbal response, eliciting action) can be expressed. Moreover, although indivual languages widely diverge as to the details of the actual form of these three sentence types, Sadock & Zwicky list a number of interesting general tendencies, which provide an

7. Cf. observations such as: "Such a coincidence of grammatical structure and conventional conversational use we call a sentence type" (Sadock & Zwicky 1985: ISS) and "When there is a regular association of form and the speaker's use of sentences, we will speak of the form - use pair as a sentence type" (ibid., p. 156). 8. Furthermore, Sadock and Zwicky explicitly allow for differences between individual languages with respect to how specific or global the 'conventional conversational use' of a particular sentence type is, whereas the values that are assigned to the sentence types by Dik are regarded as universal.

sentence type

69

additional indication of the universal character of the grammatic ali zed expression of illocutionary goals. 9 Secondly, if we look at individual languages - for instance English - the ascription of an illocutionary meaning to the sentence types seems to be a satisfactory way to account for the differences between utterances like (8a) - (8c), which only differ as to their sentence type: (8)

a. you see the Eiffel Tower over there b. do you see the Eiffel Tower over there? c. see the Eiffel tower over there

A third argument that is usually brought forward is of a methodological nature. As was mentioned at the end of 3.1, the 'sentence type = illocutionary type' approach offers a simple way out of the problem of the many-to-many relationship between the linguistic form of utterances and their speech act functions: on the basis of the literal ill 'please') and sodes ('if you feel like it' > 'please') are only used in combination with explicit directives?5 Another, albeit less unequivocal, indication of directivity in otherwise implicit directives may be the addition of a vocative. Although vocatives do not, of course, actually express the addressee's active involvement in the future realization of some state of affairs, they do indicate that the addressee is somehow involved. As such, vocatives can be used to indicate that the utterance to which they are attached is an addressee-oriented speech act (i.e. a question or a directive) rather than a speaker-oriented one (i.e. a statement or a commissive)?6 Thus, in the case of an otherwise implicit directive such as (42), the addition of the vocative uxor '(my) wife' makes it clear that the speaker not only expresses his own opinion about the addressee's behaviour (which would be an assertive or an expressive, i.e. a speaker-oriented speech act) but that his utterance also has further consequences for the addressee?? (42) ohe, iam satis uxor est ('oh, I say, my dear, that's enough now', PI. Cas. 249 Besides proper names and other forms of address such as uxor, speakers may also use the vocative of the personal pronoun tu 'you', in order to express the addressee-orientation of their speech acts. Thus heus ... tu in (43) parallells the uxor in example (42) in indicating the addressee's involvement in the otherwise implicit directive; in this case the utterance is not followed by explicit directives, 25. For an overview of the comb inability of a number of peripheral lexical directive expressions with sentence types and speech act types, cf. Bolkestein (1977:63-64). 26. See section 2.2 for 'orientation of the speech act' as one of the parameters for the speech act typology which I use. Cf. Haverkate (1979: 17-19; 110) for some similar remarks on the iIIocution indicating function of vocatives. His remarks are, however, based on slightly different arguments. 27. In this case, the utterance is actually followed by several others utterances in which these consequences are explicitly spelled out ('get yourself in hand! you're rattling on too far', etc.), but that need not be the case, cf. e.g. (43) below.

90

illocutionary expression

just by a motivation for the implicit directive (cf. note 25). In the case of (44), heus tu, qui ('hey you there, who ... ) compensates for the lack of expression of the addressee's role as an agent in the piece advice that follows it. (43) (in an aside, exchanged by two slaves who are trying to impress a third person by simulating a fight) heus iam satis tu. audin quae loquitur? ('hi you! that's enough now! d'you hear what he says?', PI. As. 446) (44) heus tu qui lana ventris caussa circumis, iubere meliust prandium omari domi ('I say, you, hanging around the temple for the sake of your belly, it is better to order a lunch to be prepared at home', PI. Rud. 140)

3.5.2 implicitness, indirectness, and politeness

Up to this point in the discussion of implicit directive expressions, I have avoided the term 'indirectness' for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that indirectness in speech act expression is a rather loaded term, one that has acquired its meaning primarily on the basis of the 'sentence type = illocutionary type' approach that was discussed in section 3.2.1: any speech act that is performed by means of another sentence type than the one that is regarded as being directly associated with it is considered indirect. Since I do not adhere to this view, I prefer to speak of implicitness rather than indirectness in order to avoid confusion. Quite a large number of directive utterances that would be considered indirect are in my view not implicit. 28

28. Cf. Dascal (1983, ch. 3) for an interesting discussion of the notions 'indirectness' and '(mere) implicitness'. He proposes a slightly different view on the distinction. Implicitness involves all kinds of non-transparent elements in a sentence's meaning (having to do with reference, deixis, logical or temporal connections, or even cases of ellipsis, etc.) which are usually filled in when the sentence is actually uttered in a particular context, whereas the term indirectness is reserved for those cases in which a lack of transparency is exploited in order to convey something else than the utterance meaning. Although Da~cal's distinction is a useful one, I will not use the notion of indirectness for the reasons discussed here.

implicitness and conventionality

91

Secondly, the notion of indirect speech act is usually associated with explanations in terms of politeness.29 However, in my corpus of Latin texts directives are far more often implicit for various other situational or contextual reasons than because of politeness. If we tum back for instance to the examples of implicit directive expressions discussed above, we see that the majority is uttered under circumstances in which politeness out of the question. Thus, both (37) and (39) are uttered by an angry moneylender who has come to collect the interest on a loan. Neither the relationship between him and the addressee (the slave of his debtor) nor the object of his demand, which he regards as his right (several lines earlier (1. 588, not quoted) he has stated meum peto 'I am asking for what is mine') require politeness from his side. In cases like this, the speaker's implicitness should rather be explained in terms of irritated curtness in a situation in which both speaker and addressee know exactly what the moneylender is coming for. The term 'indirectness' would be rather odd in a situation like this. In other cases, the (partial) implicitness can be simply explained in terms of leaving out redundant information, which has already been specified or will be specified immediately afterwards in the surrounding context. An example of this kind of implicitness is provided by example (35). The 'missing' agent has already been specified in the preceding utterance (cf. 45), where he is addressed both by means of a vocative and as the responsible agent in a reproaching rhetorical question. Similarly, at least part of the implicitness in the directive that was quoted under (37) can be explained by its being a reaction to a preceding offer, cf. (46). If we take this preceding utterance into account, the addressee's agentive role as well as the action he is directed to perform (viz. handing over something) can be inferred more easily than on the basis of the implicit directive alone. (45) Palinure, quid stas? quin depromuntur mihi quae ... ? ('Palinurus! what are you standing still for? why aren't the things I need brought out ... ?', PI. Cur. 251-252) (46) sortem accipe # immo faenus, id primum volo

29. Cf. e.g. Searle (1975), Leech (1980; 1983), Butler (1982; 1988), Brown & Levinson (1987), Brown & Gilman (1989), and various contributions to Bluk-Ku1ka et aI. (1989). Extensive overvies of the host of literature on the relationship between indirectness and politeness are given in the introduction to Brown and Levinson (1987) and in Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1990-1992, vol. II).

92

i!locutionary expression ('here, take your principal # no, no, the interest, I want that first', PI. Mos. 592)

There are, however, also cases in which the (partially) implicit performance of a directive can indeed to some extent be explained in terms of politeness or related phenomena. A first case in point is example (38). In this case Cicero, who is usually fairly explicit in his directives addressed to Atticus, may indeed have chosen an implicit form of conveying his (or rather his daughter Tullia's) request for reasons of politeness, although his politeness is probably playfully feigned. Similarly, the partially implicit expression form chosen in (36) can also be explained, if not in terms of genuine (Le. socially determined) politeness, at least in terms of situationally determined caution: the speaker wants to make amends to his angry wife for his strange and unexpected behaviour towards her. (38) Tulliola, deliciolae nostrae, tuum munusculum flagitat et me ut sponsorem appellat. mihi autem abiurare certius est quam dependere. (36) te volo, uxor, conloqui. quo te avortisti? Examples of implicitness that is motivated by merely social (and not situational) factors, on the other hand, are relatively rare in my corpus of Latin data. Instead, we usually find, in cases in where politeness is required for purely social reasons, fairly explicit expression forms, in which the required politeness is displayed by means of compensatory, additional elements or extra motivation and justification for the directive involved rather than by implicitness. 3D A number of clear examples in Cicero's correspondence will be discussed in section 8.3.1, which deals with performative directive expressions.

30. In tenns of Brown & Levinson (1987), therefore, speakers of Latin make primarily use, at least in the types of text th;,t have survived, of strategies of 'positive politeness'. Positive politeness is oriented towards the 'positive' face (or public self-image) of the addressee, and it is aimed at reassuring him that the speaker valuates him, respects his opinions, and treats him as a reasonable person that is sensitive to rational arguments and justifications. Socially motivated implicitness, on the other hand, is regarded by Brown & Levinson as a strategy of negative politeness, which is aimed at the addressee's 'negative' face, i.e. his self-esteem as a free, independent person, who does not want to be imposed upon.

implicitness and conventionality

93

3.5.3 conventionality in directive expressions

To conclude this section I will have to briefly discuss the role of conventionality in directive expressions, a notion which quite regularly turns up in connection with indirectness. The term 'conventional indirectness' was introduced (e.g. in Searle 1975) to account for the use of a number of txpression forms which, although indirect on the basis of the 'sentence type = illocutionary type' approach, seem to be very common expressions; some of them are even more frequently used than the corresponding 'direct' speech act expressions. A famous example from Searle is the can you request quoted under (47a) when used to convey a request to pass the salt rather than a question concerning the addressee's abilities to do so. This type of 'indirect' speech act is regarded as conventional because can you is a far more common and unmarked request expression than the various alternative expressions that can be used to inquire about the addressee's abilities to realize the state of affairs mentioned, such as (47b). (47) a. can you pass the salt? b. are you able to pass the salt? For this type of conventionality Searle has introduced the term 'convention of usage' in order to distinguish it from regular idioms.3 ! In the case of idioms (or 'conventions of meaning' as Morgan 1978 calls them), the 'idiomatic meaning' which an expression has, has acquired the status of unambiguous literal meaning. In the case of conventions of usage, on the other hand, the literal meaning of the expression involved (in (47a) a question concerning the addressee's abilities, on the 'sentence type = illocutionary type' view) and the particular usage that is conventionally associated with it (viz. a request) are considered to be both, separately, available to the addressee. 32 Occasionally, conventions of usage develop into a regular idiom, when an expression has lost its original 'literal 31. Cf. Searle (1975). The notion of convention of usage has been further explored by Morgan (1978). Cf. also Blum-Kulka's (1989) discussion of the role of conventionality in indirect speech acts. She investigates, among other things, the actual language specific conventions of usage in indirect requests and apologies in a number of languages. 32. The argument that is usually brought forward to prove this is the fact that the speaker can react both to the question (by affirming or denying) and to the request (by complying or non complying). It should be noted, however, that affirmation without compliance is usually regarded as a bad joke, whereas denial constitutes non compliance.

94

illocutionary expression

meaning' and its usage is wholly confined to what originally was only an instance of conventional usage. 33 As an example Morgan (1978) mentions the various expressions that are used as departing formulas, such as goodbye and adieu. It is interesting to note that this transition is usually accompanied by phonological reduction and/or a reduction in syntactic status, such as the reduction from a fullblown phrase ('God be with you') or nominal phrase ('it Dieu') into a one word expression. If we now tum to the relevance of these notions for the present study, I want to argue that, although the concept of 'indirectness' as defined within Speech Act Theory will not be used here (cf. sections 3.2.2 and 3.5.2), the notion of conventionality can be used to describe a number of expression forms in Latin directives that are frequently used to convey a particular speech act function. Thus, the impersonal formula potin ut plus 2nd. person subjunctive (lit. 'is it possible that you ... ?') could be described as a conventionalized irritated request expression. Potin ut is invariantly used in directives, cf. (20), while the personal expression potin es 'are you able to' is exclusively used in questions, never in directives. An example of the latter is (48). (20) potin ut apstineas manum? ('can't you keep your hands off?', PI. Am. 903) (48) SI: potin es mihi verum dicere? DA: nil facilius ('is it in you to tell the truth? # nothing easier, sir', Ter. An. 437-438) Another example is velim '1 would like you to', which in view of its very frequent use in requests in Cicero's letters (cf. section 8.4.1) appears to have been a conventional request expression. An example is (19). Unlike potin ut, however, velim is also occasionally used in other speech acts, cf. the wish in (49). The conventionalized directive value of velim and potin ut will be discussed in more detail in section 8.4.1 and 8.4.3, respectively. (19) tu velim saepe ad nos scribas

33. Cf. the discussion in Morgan (1978) and Blum-Kulka (1989).

implicitness and conventionality

95

(49) tu quod egeris, id velim di approbent ('whatever you do, I wish the Gods be with it', Cic. Fam. 2,18,3) It should be noted that the (degree of) conventionality of expressions such as potin ut or velim in Latin is a matter which can never be absolutely proved, but must be assumed on the basis of frequency of occurrence and apparent preference over alternative expressions. This situation is, however, not really different from the situation in modem languages, where the linguist's native speaker intuitions on which judgements of conventionality are based, are, in my opinion, also strongly influenced by actual frequencies of use. The situation is somewhat different in those cases in which a transition from 'conventionality' to 'idiomatic status' has taken place, because here traces of accompanying phonological and/or syntactic 'reduction' may provide more objective indications. Some Latin examples are the peripheral lexical expressions sis, sultis, and sodes, which are exclusively used to stress the optional character of a directive, and have therefore reached a particle like status. The former two are contractions of the full expressions si vis (singular) and si vultis (plural), 'if you want', the latter is a contracted form of si audes 'if you feel like it' .34 Another indication of a fully idiomatic status (i.e. of loss of the literal meaning) is provided in the case of interjectional age 'come on' (original literal meaning: sing. imp. form 'do') which is occasionally used in combination with a plural subject. 35 A further indication is that the function of such idiomatic expressions often extends from those functions that agree with the former literal meaning to other uses that are somehow related to, but do not fully agree with the original full lexical meaning. Thus, age as well as parenthetical verbs such as quaeso and obsecro have broadened their function and may be used in a more general urging sense with other addressee-oriented speech acts beside directives. They can also be used to stress the urgent nature of questions, or even some types of exclamations. 36

34. Cf. also Hofmann (1951 3 : 132-134). 35. Cf. Hofmann (1951 3 : 37), who describes age in terms of a "partikelartige Erstarrung". 36. Cf. Risselada (1989).

illocutionary expression

96

3.6

The remainder of this study

The remainder of this study is devoted to a description of the actual use of the various directive expression forms that were briefly outlined in the preceding section in Latin texts. The descriptive chapters are organized on the basis of formal grounds. First, I will deal with directives that are exclusively expressed by grammatical (i.e. syntactic and semantic) means (chapters 5-7), while chapter 8 is devoted to directives whose expression is (at least partly) based on lexical features. The three chapters on 'grammatical directives' are organized on the basis of sentence types; they concentrate on imperative directives (chapter 5), declarative directives (chapter 6) and interrogative directives (chapter 7), respectively. They are preceded by an introductory chapter (chapter 4), which mainly deals with the formal properties that characterize these three sentence types in Latin.

4. GRAMMATICAL EXPRESSIONS OF DIRECTIVITY

The present chapter serves as an introduction to a series of three chapters that deal with the variety of directive expression forms whose directive function is exclusively expressed by means of grammatical (i.e. syntactic and semantic) properties. The most important properties involved are the semantic features that reflect the three essential ingredients of directivity (cf. section 3.4.1 above), viz. a controllable state of affairs, a non-past tense, and an agent expression that refers to the addressee. As the subsequent three chapters will demonstrate in detail, these semantic properties may combine with each of the three major sentence types to express directive speech acts. In chapter 5 I will deal with the various directive expression forms that belong to the imperative sentence type, chapter 6 deals with declarative expressions of directivity, and chapter 7 with interrogative ones. In this introductory chapter I will first give an indication of the distribution of grammatical directives over these three sentence types (section 4.1). In section 4.2 I will discuss the formal characteristics of the three sentence types in Latin, and sketch the problems that are involved in the relationship between sentence type and verbal mood.

4.1 Distribution

The figures under (1) give an impression of the distribution of grammatically expressed directives over the major sentence types in comedy (plautus) and correspondence (Cicero and Pliny).l The figures are based on roughly the same amounts of text (ca 55 pages OCT) for each author. However, in view of differences as to the types of text involved, the total numbers of directives found in the samples of these three authors vary (cf. the bottom line, which contains the total numbers of directives, including both grammatically and lexically expressed directives ).

1. Plautus Mos.; Cicero Alt. 12, 1-23; Fam. 5, 1-3 (addressed to various senior Roman officials), 14, 1-10 (to his wife Terentia), and 16,20-27 (to his secretary Tiro); Pliny, Ep. 3,1-4,19.

98

grammatical directives

(1)

grammatical directives

sentence type: - declarative - interrogative - imperative 2

PLAUTUS

CICERO

PLINY

8

42

9

31 262

-

-

61

32

TOTAL NUMBER of grammatical directives

301

103

41

(TOTAL NUMBER of directives

355

229

67)

"----

Not surprisingly, the imperative sentence type is the prevalent sentence type in the case of grammatical directive expression, in particular in as far as Plautus is concerned. In correspondence, however, grammatical expressions within the declarative sentence type are also fairly well represented. Interrogative directives, on the other hand, are exclusively confined to comedy. The most important difference, however, between Plautus (or comedy in general) on the one hand and Cicero and Pliny on the other is that the latter use more lexical expressions, whereas Plautus mainly uses grammatical expressions.

4.2

Sentence type and verbal mood

In section 3.2 above the three major sentence types were discussed from the point of view of their 'value', i.e. their contribution to the semantic content of utterances. The present section is devoted to their formal properties. I will discuss the most important formal properties by means of which we can distinguish between declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences in Latin. In doing so

2. I have left out of account the so-called periphrastic imperatives (jac, cave, noli, etc.). As will be argued in more detail in the introduction to chapter 5 below, I regard them as lexical expressions of directivity and they will be discussed in chapter 8. If these were included, the numbers for the imperative sentence type would be: 271 (Plautus), 93 (Cicero), and 33 (Pliny), respectively.

sentence type and verbal rrwod

99

I will more or less follow the approaches that are taken in Rubio (1968) and Pinkster (1990, ch. 10).3 An important starting point of these approaches is that they emphasize the distinction between sentence type and verbal mood. Verbal mood is a property of verbal predicates, whereas sentence type is a broader qualification of the utterance as a whole, which is at least partly independent of the mood of the verbal predicate,4 and is based on various other properties of the utterance as well. This distinction is motivated by the fact that it enables us to explain for instance the various 'uses' of the subjunctive mood as determined by the combination of one, relatively general meaning with a particular sentence type, rather than assuming various 'kinds of subjunctives', as is the most common approach in grammars of Latin.s The verbal moods express the speaker's view on the 'reality status' of the state of affairs referred to. In independent sentences the indicative is used to characterize, roughly speaking, a state of affairs as 'virtual', whereas the subjunctive characteriz~s it as 'potential' (present and perfect subjunctive) or 'purely hypothetical' (imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive);6 the imperative mood presents a state of affairs as 'to be realized' (at the end of this section I will come back to the imperative mood). The sentence types, on the other hand, express the speaker's attitude with respect to the proposition as a whole. In the case of declarative sentences, the proposition is simply presented, while in the case of interrogative sentences, the proposition is presented as open. In the case of

3. A comparable approach is also taken by Scherer (1975). Cf. also Lyons (1977a, ch. 16) and Palmer (1986) on sentence type, esp. in relation to verbal mood; both of them occasionally refer to Latin. For a discussion of the views of a number of Ancient grammarians on verbal mood and sentence type, cf. Schenkeveld (1984) and Baratin (1989: 167-185). 4. Rubio goes quite far (too far, in my opinion) in this respect, by regarding sentence type and verbal mood as wholly independent. He regards e.g. directive utterances which have an indicative verb form (as e.g. in si quid opus erit, ( .. .). facies ut sciam 'you will let me know if there is anything needful' Cic. Fam. 14,8) as belonging to the imperative sentence type in view of their iIIocutionary force. In my view, however, in which sentence types are not automatically equated with speech act types, such utterances are simply declarative sentences with a directive iIIocutionary force. 5. Cf. the overview of the various opinions on mood in Latin given in Pinkster (1990: 206-208). 6. Cf. Pinkster (1990: 206-208) and Lyons (l977a: 817-820). I will not go into the use of the various moods in dependent clauses. On this matter, see Pinkster (1990: 209-213) and the references given there.

100

grammatical directives

imperative sentences the speaker does not actually present a proposition in a particular way, but he presents the content of the proposition for realization. 7 However, since the verbal predicate constitutes the central element of a clause and, therefore, tends to receive the formal marking for properties of the utterance as a whole (as is for instance very clear in the case of tense), verbal mood and sentence type are not totally unconnected either. The connections involved can be characterized in terms of compatibilities and restrictions on the distribution of the moods over the sentence types. If we now return to the question of what the formal characteristics of the three major sentence types in Latin are, it must be observed that the answer is more complicated than one would expect on the basis of the self-evident way in which the notion of sentence type is usually dealt with. The relevant features belong to various levels of the grammar: interrogative particles and question words; form of the negation, and, to some extent, verbal mood. Although there seem to be some differences in word order between the three sentence types, in particular with respect to the position of the verbal predicate, these are tendencies rather than fixed patterns. 8 Therefore word order cannot be used as an indication of the sentence type in Latin. The role of intonation, on the other hand, must have been very important, but we cannot retrieve it. The distribution of the various relevant properties over the sentence types is quite uneven, and the various formal oppositions intersect. Differences between the declarative and interrogative sentence type on the one hand and the imperative sentence type on the other predominate. The declarative sentence type seems to be the unmarked member both in the opposition of declarative versus interrogative sentence type, and in the opposition of declarative (+ interrogative) versus imperative sentence type. The details are summarized under (2); they are for the larger part derived from Pinkster (1990, ch. 10).

7. Cf. Palmer's characterization of the imperative sentence type, in comparison with the declarative sentence type: "The imperative seems to do no more than express, in the most neutral way, the notion that the speaker is favourably disposed towards the action. He merely 'presents' a proposition, just as the declarative, but for action, not merely for accepting as true, by the hearer." (1986: 29-30). 8. Cf. e.g. Morris (1890: 43-47) on the different positions which non and the finite verb tend to occupy in declarative and interrogative sentences. Cf. also Panhuis (1982, esp. pp. 61-72) on word order and sentence type.

101

sentence type and verbal rrwod

(2) fonnal properties of the three major sentence types in Latin DECLAR.

INTERROG.

IMPER.

(i)

form of negation

non

non

ne

(ii)

particles relevant

-

+

-

(iii)

verbal mood: - indicative - subjunctive - imperative

+ + -

+ +

-

(iv)

intonation

-

+ +

not retrievable

Ad (i). The imperative sentence type is distinguished from both declarative and interrogative ones by the form of the negation, which is non in the case of the latter two, and ne in the fonner case.9 On the basis of this criterion the imperative sentence type is a relatively broad category. Whereas most definitions in modem languages restrict this sentence type to sentences marked by an imperative verb fonn, the criterion of the negation form also includes part of the sentences that are marked by a subjunctive verb fonn in the imperative sentence type. Two arguments can be adduced in favour of this approach. First, in prohibitive utterances (i.e. negative directives), the subjunctive is far more common than the imperative mood.1O Excluding the fonner from the imperative sentence type would give a defective picture of this sentence type in Latin." Secondly, some

9. Unless the negation has a limited scope, and pertains only to one particular constituent rather than to the content of the utterance as a whole; in that case non is used also in imperative sentences, cf. Kuhner-Stegmann (1,191-192; 203); Uifstedt (1966: 12-13). For a discussion of the counterexamples mentioned by these authors, cf. Pinkster (1986). 10. Cf. Kuhner-Stegmann (I, 187-189). Ne plus an imperative verb form is, although not uncommon in early Latin (comedy), very rare in classical Latin; an alternative for ne plus imperative is the periphrastic imperative expression noli ('do not want to') plus infinitive, which is quite frequently used in Cicero. Noli's use as a prohibitive expression will be discussed in chapter 8, section 8.4.2. 11. Note that Sadock and Zwicky (1985) propose to distinguish a distinct prohibitive sentence (sub-) type beside the imperative sentence type, in view of the fact that in many languages affirmative and prohibitive 'imperatives' have distinct characteristics (e.g. the verbal mood that is used). However, the very fact that ne plus imperative verb form does occasionally occur argues against this solution for Latin.

102

grammatical directives

of the illocutionary functions that are typically expressed by the subjunctive (such as wishes, curses, maledictions, and concessions) can also be expressed by means of utterances marked by an imperative verb form. These two arguments, a formal and a functional one, point to a strong connection between the imperative verbal mood and those uses of the subjunctive mood that are formally characterized by the negation form ne. A methodological drawback of using the form of the negation as a basic criterion for distinguishing imperative sentences is, of course, that it is only manifest in a relatively small part of the utterances involved, affirmative utterances (imperative or other) being far more frequent than negated ones. Therefore, this criterion involves an appeal to the linguist's capacity to 'extrapolate' the findings in negated utterances in order to cover the affirmative ones. In actual practice, however, this does not constitute a serious problem. Ad (ii). The criterion that can be used to distinguish interrogative sentences from declarative and imperative ones is constituted by the presence of question words and the so-called interrogative particles. The former (the interrogative pronoun quis/quid and interrogative adverbs such as ubi 'where', cur 'why', etc.) are used in so-called partial interrogation, whereas the latter (-ne; num; nonne; an) are used in so-called total interrogation (or 'sentence questions', as they are often called). The various interrogative particles indicate the speaker's attitude with respect to the proposition that is presented as open: nonne expresses a positive ('optimistic ') attitude, num a negative ('pessimistic') attitude, whereas enclitic -ne expresses a neutral (i.e. really open) attitude in this respect. 12 The status of the interrogative particles has raised some discussion in Latin grammars. It has been observed that the particles need not always be present. Stated more precisely, we occasionally find utterances which do not contain one of the interrogative particles mentioned, but which must be interrogative sentences because the declarative sentence type (simply presenting the proposition involved) would make no sense. A clear example among the ones quoted by KtihnerStegmann (II, 501) is (3). The addressee's check numquid nunc es certior ('are you any wiser now?') provides additional support for the interpretation of Mercurius' utterance as an interrogative sentence, but even without this check it

12. I will briefly return to interrogative particles in section 7.3.1.

sentence type and verbal rrwod

103

would be clear that as a declarative sentence it would make no sense in this context. I3 (3)

ME: possum scire quo profectus, quoius sis aut quid veneris? SO: huc eo. eri sum servos. numquid nunc es certior? ('may I be informed where you are bound for, who owns you, or why you have come? # I am bound for here - master's orders - and I am his slave. are you any wiser now?', PI. Am. 346-347)

On the basis of these observations it is often assumed that the interrogative particles are (or at least originally were) optional devices, and that the interrogative sentence type is primarily marked by intonational features of the utterance involved: a rising intonational pattern in interrogative sentences versus a falling pattern in declarative sentences. 14 In this view these particles are merely used to emphasize the interrogative nature of the utterance involved or to specify the speaker's attitude. This representation of the facts deserves, however, a number of comments. 15 First, the role which intonational features play is more complicated than is suggested here. As has been pointed out by studies of intonation of modem languages, the intonational pattern of sentences is determined by various factors. Both sentence type and illocutionary force playa role, as well as the information structure of the utterance and other, social and emotional factors. 16 Connecting the intonational pattern in a direct way with the sentence type is therefore too simplistic.

13. There is only one other sound example among those listed by Kiihner-Stegmann (II, 501), which is Cic. Mil. 60 (quoted by Pinkster 1990: 191). Most of the examples listed by Kiihner-Stegmann, however, actually belong to their second category, which is discussed below, because they all express 'gewisse Affekte'. 14. Cf. e.g. Kiihner-Stegmann (II, 502); Szantyr (p. 456-457); Scherer (1975: 164-165). The most extensive argumentation is brought forward by Vairel-Carron (1975: 118-128). 15. Cf. also the largely hypothetical, but rather appealing sketch given by Morris (1890: 168-178). According to Morris, intonational features probably were the original and most basic characteristics of interrogativity. In the course of the development of Latin, however, a number of pronouns and particles, which originally were optional and expressed no more than a particular shade of the speaker's attitude with respect to the proposition conveyed, have lost much of their original 'meaning' and have turned into markers of interrogativity. For statistical data concerning the presence versus absence of interrogative particles in a large corpus of Latin texts, see Bodelot (1990). 16. Cf., among others, Bolinger (1989: 67-80; 98-143) and Dik (1989: 379-399).

104

grammatical directives

Secondly, the situation in Latin with regard to interrogative marking is, in fact, not very different from the situation in other languages. Thus, in modem West European languages the interrogative sentence type has unambiguous structural characteristics such as the inversion of subject and predicate in English or Dutch, or the interrogative formula est-ce que in French, but here too, interrogative utterances are occasionally characterized by intonation only. This does not imply, however, that the structural characteristics mentioned are in these languages merely optional, secondary features. Thirdly, as is pointed out in most grammars of Latin, interrogatives without interrogative particles are in most of the cases not mere questions, but are usually uttered in order to convey some extra emotion, such as surprise, doubt, reproaches, etc. ("wenn die Frage mit einem gewissen Affekte namentlich der Verwunderung, des Unwillens, der Verh6hnung, des Tadels ausgesprochen oder eine Beistimmung gefordert wird", Kuhner-Stegmann II, 501). This makes clear that the interrogative particles are not merely optional, redundant indications of interrogativity, but that their presence or absence bears upon on the perlocutionary effects which the speaker wants to create in the addressee. One of the examples given by KuhnerStegmann is (4), which is an interrogative directive. (4)

accipin argentum? accipe sis argentum, inpudens, tene sis argentum, etiam tu argentum tenes? (,will you accept the money? come, kindly accept your money, brassface, kindly take your money! are you ever going to take your money?', PI. Per. 412-413)

The directive uses of interrogative sentences with and without particles will be discussed in more detail in chapter 7. Ad (iii). The role of the verbal moods has already been touched upon in connection with (i), where it was stated that the subjunctive figures beside the imperative verbal mood in the imperative sentence type. In fact the subjunctive is used in all sentence types; the indicative and imperative moods, on the other hand, are in complementary distribution, the former being restricted to the declarative and interrogative sentence type and the latter to the imperative sentence type. It is only with respect to these restrictions that verbal mood can be

sentence type and verbal mood

105

used as a criterion for distinguishing between the sentence types. The imperative mood, then, is in itself an unequivocal indication of the imperative sentence type. Among the verbal moods the imperative mood occupies a special position, because it is a relatively specific and restricted mood, both with respect to its formal (i.e. morphological and paradigmatical) properties and in functional respect. In functional respect it is more closely connected with one particular group of speech act types (viz. directives, concessions, and various expressive subtypes such as wishes, curses, and maledictions) than the indicative and the subjunctive mood are. In terms of the criteria used for speech act classification (cf. section 2.2) these speech acts can all be characterized as addressee oriented and they are about actions (or emotions) rather than about facts. This functional restrictedness is closely connected with the paradigmatical restrictiveness of the imperative mood. Although the so-called imperative II in -to is occasionally used with indefinite third person reference (cf. section 5.3.2 below), the imperative paradigm mainly consists of second person forms. A further, morphological peculiarity of the imperative mood is that the basic form (2nd pers. sing.) does not have any morphological coding for tense or person, but simply consists of the bare stem form. This exceptional morphological status of the imperative mood, which is found in many other languages (cf. Sadock & Zwicky (1985: 159; 172-173); Palmer (1986: 29)) has as effect that the imperative is a highly idiosyncratic mood, which does not just express the speaker's view with respect to the state of affairs involved, but which involves the grammaticalized expression of a particular illocutionary value that is shared by a group of addressee-oriented speech acts, among which directives are the most prominent ones.I7 The highly idiosyncratic status of the imperative mood is also clear when we compare the imperative with the subjunctive mood as used in imperative sentences: the imperative as a mood category corresponds with what is expressed by the subjunctive mood PLUS the information encoded in the second person, non past tense ending. In the next chapter I will go into the ways in which the imperative and subjunctive moods are used in Latin directives.

17. Cf. the remarks of Sadock and Zwicky "The relative frequency with which these various morphological contrasts [i.e. tense, aspect, person, RRJ are dispensed with in imperatives is thus, to a large extent, reflective of the inherent semantics of the imperative" (1985: 173), and Rubio: "Ateniendonos exc1usivamente al sistema verbal latino, observamos que s610 existe una forma especificamente impresiva: el imperativo." (1968: 192).

5. IMPERATIVE DIRECTIVES

In virtue of the relatively broad definition ofthe imperative sentence type that was proposed in the preceding chapter, this sentence type covers a number of different expression forms that can be used to convey directive speech acts. The purely grammatical ones are illustrated under (1). The utterances under (1a) and (lb) contain verbs that are marked by the imperative mood, the simple imperative and the so-called imperative II (or 'future imperative'), respectively. The verbs in the other three utterances are marked by the subjunctive mood, viz. the second person of the present (1c) and the perfect (1d) subjunctive, and the first person plural of the present subjunctive (1e), which combines a commissive and a directive element (cf. section 2.2). With the exception of the imperative II, these expressions are also used in prohibitives (Le. negative directives) marked by ne; the perfect subjunctive (cf. Id) is even used exclusively in prohibitives. (1)

a. b. c. d. e.

(ne) da argentum dato argentum (ne) des argentum ne dederis argentum (ne) demus argentum

'(don't) give the money' 'give the money' '(don't) give the money' 'don't give the money' 'let's (not) give the money'

Besides, there are also various so-called periphrastic expression forms, a number of which are exemplified under (2). (2)

a. tu nos fac ames ('do love me', Cic. Fam. 5,9,2) b. sed cura ut valeas ('take care to recover', Cic. At!. 9,8,2) c. mitte male loqui ('stop being abusive', PI. Per. 207)

108

imperative directives

d. ab his me remediis noli in istam turbam vocare ('do not want to call me away from these remedies to your city hurlyburly', Cic. Aft. 12,21,5) e. sed eiusdem Antias cave contemnas (,but look out that you don't despise this man's place at Antias', Cic. Alt. 9,9,4) Although some of these expressions (notably fac in 2a and noli in 2d) are so strongly conventionalized that they could almost be regarded as grammatical expressions of directivity, they are in fact lexical expressions. They will be dealt with in chapter 8. The purely grammatical expression forms listed under (1) have received considerable attention in Latin grammars and in a number of detailed studies.! With the exception of Bennett (1910), these studies mainly concentrate on the semantic oppositions that are assumed to obtain between these expression forms, such as for instance an opposition between immediate and non-immediate realization in the case of simple imperative (la) versus imperative II (lb), and an aspectual opposition between present (lc) and perfect subjunctive (ld). Although I will briefly discuss some of these semantic oppositions in the course of this chapter, I will concentrate on the question in which kinds of directives they are used and under which contextual and situational circumstances. I will start with an overview of the frequencies of the expressions involved and their distribution in comedy, correspondence, and instructional texts (section 5.1), and then deal with the use of each of these expression forms separately (section 5.2 - 5.5). The section on the simple imperative (5.2) will be used to illustrate in some detail the various directive subtypes that were distinguished in section 2.3 above and the linguistic and contextual indications by means of which they can be identified. In section 5.6 I will briefly summarize the main conclusions of this chapter.

1. The most extensive studies are Ulfstedt (1966) and Vairel-Carron (1975); cf. also Handford (1946) on the subjunctive forms. Loch (1871) contains a useful collection of data, which are mainly taken from Plautus. Bennett (1910: 162-178; 348-365) presents an overview of the use of these expression forms in Early Latin. As far as I know, this study is the only one which deals with them in terms of what I call directive subtypes (Bennett uses the term 'logical force').

109

distribution

5.1

Distribution

Among the five grammatical expression forms listed under (1), the first plural subjunctive form (Ie) stands apart, because its partly commissive nature cannot be expressed by any of the other forms. The others, however, could at least in theory be considered as roughly equivalent. Hence it is interesting to compare their actual use in various text types. A useful overview of their distribution in Early Latin is presented in Vairel-Carron (1975: 304), from which the following statistical data are derived: 2 (3)

imperative directive expressions in Early Latin (source: Vairel-Carron 1975: 304)

imperative imperative II, in -to present subj., 2nd person perfect subj., 2nd person

PLAUTUS

CICERO

PLINY

3365 360 226 37

795 65 43 5

31 967 14 7

In order to compare these figures with the distribution in correspondence, the results of a comparable (but less extensive) statistical survey of parts of Cicero's and Pliny's correspondence are presented under (4), together with the figures for a similar amount of comedy (ca. 55 pages for each author; for the texts used, cf. note 1 of chapter 4). Because Vairel-Carron's figures include both purely grammatical (cf. 1a-d) and periphrastic imperative directives (cf. 2a-e above), I have added the frequencies of the latter in brackets in (4) for the sake of comparison. The bottom line lists the total numbers of directives that are found in the texts on which the figures in (4) are based.

2. The following adaptations have been made: Vairel's separate figures for affrrmative and prohibitive cases have been added up, and under the heading of the perfect subjunctive I have taken together the regular forms and the older forms in -sis, which are listed separately by Vaire!. Vairel's data on the imperative forms in Plautus are based on an extrapolation of the data in four comedies (Aul., Cur., Men., Mil.); all other data presented in (3) are based on exhaustive counting.

110 (4)

imperative directives

imperative directive expressions in comedy and correspondence PLAUTUS imperative imperative n, in -to present subj., 2nd person perfect subj., 2nd person (TOTAL NUMBER direc-

228 (+9)

CICERO

PLINY

51 (+32)

25(+1) 1 (+1)

11 17 4

2 2 2

355

229

67)

tives

On the basis of the figures listed under (3) and (4) it is unmistakably clear that the simple imperative mood is by far the most frequent directive expression within the imperative sentence type. An exception is formed by Cato's work on agriculture, in which the imperative II is the prevalent expression. The high frequency of simple imperatives can be explained as a consequence of the neutral and unspecific character of this directive expression form. The predominance of the simple imperative is especially strong in the case of the comedies of Plautus and Terence. This expression form is used in circa two thirds of all directives that are found in the comedies involved. In the correspondence of Pliny, on the other hand, the simple imperative is used in only about one third of the total number of directives and in Cicero even in less than a quarter of the directives. Cicero's use of the various periphrastic imperatives is rather striking: 32 instances beside 51 purely grammatical imperative directives. Although the number of cases of the imperative II and the present subjunctive are low in relative terms, the absolute numbers given by Vairel-Carron (cf. 3) make clear that these expression forms nevertheless deserve a position among the grammatical expressions of the imperative sentence type: 425 cases of the imperative II in the comedies of Plautus (360) and Terence (65), and 269 (226 and 43, respectively) cases of the present subjunctive. The relatively low frequency of these expression forms can be explained as a consequence of a specific value (non immediate or conditional realization) in the case of the imperative II and specific contextual circumstances in the case of the subjunctive, as will be discussed in more detail in the sections 5.3 and 5.4, respectively. The use of the perfect subjunctive, finally, is rather limited, both in relative and in absolute

distribution

111

tenns. This expression form is exclusively used in prohibitive directives, which might explain their low frequency, because prohibitive directives are not very frequent anyway. I will come back from time to time to the distributional data presented here in the following subsections, in which I will discuss the individual uses of each of these imperative expressions separately.

5.2

The simple imperative

The simple imperative is the most frequent directive expression fonn. It is a very general directive expression form. It does not have a specific semantic value, such as the imperative II has (cf. section 5.3 below), nor is its use linked up with particular contextual environments. The simple imperative can be used to express all kinds of directives, as well as a small number of non-directive speech acts. 5.2.1 directive subtypes In the words of Bennett "( ... ) the present imperative covers the entire field between peremptory commands and the humblest request or prayer" (Bennett 1910: 351-352). As an illustration, compare the pair of utterances quoted under (5) and (6). Both of them contain an imperative verb fonn, although the fonner is addressed in prayer to the gods, while the latter constitutes an order that is addressed to a dog. (5)

pro di inmortales, opsecro vostram fidem! facite huc ut redeat noster quam primum senex, ( ... ) qui (... ) Coh gods immortal, I beg for your support, bring about that our master returns here as soon as possible', Pl. Mos. 77-78)

(6)

st! abi, canes ('shoo! go away, dog', Pl. Mos. 850)

Furthennore, imperatives are used both in 'speaker interested directives' and in 'addressee interested ones'. The former kind is illustrated by (5) and (6), the latter by the piece of advice in (7) and the invitation in (8).

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imperative directives

(7)

(Tranio is deceiving his master into believing that his house is haunted by a ghost) luge, opsecro, atque apscede ab aedibus. luge huc, luge ad me propius. ('run, for god's sake, and get away from the house! run! this way! nearer to me! run!', (PI. Mos. 460-461)

(8)

(two courtisans, speaking to their lover's fathers, whom they are trying to seduce) it dies, ite intro accubitum, filii vos exspectant intus ('the day is going: go inside and take your places on the couches. your sons are within waiting for you', PI. Bac. 1203-1204)

An overview of the various directive sUbtypes in which imperative directives are used in the comedy by Plautus and the letters of Cicero and Pliny on which the data in (4) are based is given under (9). A number of linguistic and contextual indications that can be used to determine which type of directive is involved will be discussed in the next subsection. (9)

the imperative's use in directive sUbtypes3 PLAUTUS

CICERO

order

88

2

request

31

24

supplication/prayer

3

advice

37

invitation

12

PLINY

10 2

7

9

suggestion permission

5

concession

11

3 ------

3. The other imperatives that occur in these texts (cf. the figures under 4) are metadirectives (cf. the end of section 2.2.7). They are not included in the figures given here, but will be discussed in section 8.3.2. For the texts on which these figures are based, cf. note 1 of chapter 4.

simple imperative

113

If only the figures for Plautus are looked at, the connection between imperatives and orders that is so often claimed to exist seems to be confirmed. If, however,

the other texts are taken into account a quite different picture arises. Thus, in the letters of Cicero and Pliny imperatives are mainly used to convey requests and advice. Clearly, the prevalence of orders among the Plautine directives should be related to the fact that comedy characters frequently order each other about, rather than to a specific 'order value' of the imperative mood. In a similar way, the predominance of requests in the two corpuses of correspondence represented can be related to the specific nature of the letters involved. 4 The only type of directive that is not represented in the texts on which the figures under (9) are based is suggestion. To some extent, this is caused by the fact that suggestions are relatively rare in the kinds of texts examined here anyway. If they occur, however, they are usually expressed by lexical rather than by grammatical means; examples will be discussed in section 8.4.3. 5.2.2 contextual and linguistic indications

In view of the non-specific value of the imperative mood, the question which specific directive SUbtype is at stake must often be decided on the basis of the context. Thus, in the case of (10) the interpretation of abscede ab aedibus. abi rus, abi directe, abscede ab ianua as orders is exclusively based on the discordant tone of the preceding context. On stage, intonation and paralinguistic gestures played, of course, an important role; however, even without them we are able to interpret the specific value of these directives correctly on the basis of the context. (10) OR: exi e culina sis foras, mastigia, qui mi inter patinas exhibes argutias. egredere, erilis permities, ex aedibus. ego pol te ruri, si vivam, ulciscar probe. exi, inquam, nidoricupi, nam quid lates? TR: quid tibi, malum, hic ante aedis clamitatiost? an ruri censes te esse? apscede ab aedibus. abi rus, abi dierecte, apscede ab ianua

4. For more examples of the various directive subtypes expressed by a simple imperative in Early Latin, cf. Bennett (1910: 351·354). Although I do not in all cases agree with Bennett's assignments of individual cases to a particular subtype. his enumeration gives a fairly good picture of the variety of uses of the imperative.

imperative directives

114

('you kindly come out of the kitchen, you ropes-end! showing me how smart you can be amongst your saucepans! come on out from the house there, you family vampire! by gad, once on the farm and I'll pay you back in fine shape, sure as I am alive! come out, come out, I tell you, you stench! what are you skulking for? # why the devil are you making all this row out in front here? think you are on the farm, do you? away from the doorway! off to your farm! off and be hanged! away from the doorway!', PI. Mos. 18)

Similarly, the permission interpretation of Theopropides' utterance in (11) is based on our knowledge of the preceding context, in which Callidamates has been begging him not to punish the slave Tranio. (11) CA: mitte quaeso istum (Theopropides refuses, Callidamates repeats his request various times) CA: sine te exorem TH: [to Tranio] age abi, abi inpune ('please, forgive Tranio this offence (# ... #) do let me prevail upon you # all right, get out, get out! I'll let you off, PI. Mos. 1172-1180) In other cases, however, the interpretation of the specific directive SUbtype involved is based on additional elements within the utterance itself. Thus, the invectives (mastigia 'rascal', erilis permities 'source of evil for your master', nidor 'greasy smoulder') in the utterances of the first speaker in (to) are explicit indications of his unfriendly tone and of the order character of his imperatives exi, egredere, exi ('get out'). In the first utterance of Callidamates quoted in (11), quaeso is an indication of the request nature of this imperative directive, while in the case of (12), the request character of the utterance involved is expressed by the optionality creating conditional clause nisi quid magis es occupatus 'if you have no other bussiness on your mind', by means of which the speaker explicitly offers an option of non-compliance. (12) nisi quid magis es occupatus, operam mihi da ('but unless you are otherwise engaged, give me your attention', PI. Mos. 1008-1009)

simple imperative

115

5.2.3 sarcastic directives

One of the directive subtypes listed under (9) that was not discussed in the preceding subsection is the concession. Concessions (or 'disinterested permissions') are not very prototypical directives. In fact, they result from a rhetorical exploitation of one of the commitments that conventionally ensue from the performance of a directive, viz. the speaker's commitment that he is somehow positively disposed towards the realization of the action involved. As in the case of challenges, to which I will return below, the specific nature of concessions is based on a sarcastic undertone. The speaker is not attempting to get the addressee to do something, but rather expresses that he is not interested in stopping the addressee from doing something which he considers harmful for the addressee himself. What the speaker wants to make clear by means of a concession is that he does not care and leaves the responsibility to the addressee. This is often explicitly expressed by the addition of peripheral expressions such as mea causa 'for all I care', si lubet 'if it pleases (scil. you), if that's what you want', or vel in the sense of 'if you wish,.5 As can be seen in (9) concessions are quite frequently expressed by imperatives in Plautus. An example is (13). The negative consequences for the addressee (viz. being sent to the country to work in the mills, a severe form of punislunent for slaves) are actually made explicit in the utterance which precedes the series of concessions, and the speaker's disapproval of the addressee's actions that constitute the content of the concessions is expressed in the rhetorical question following them. (13) cis hercle paucas tempestates, Tranio, augebis ruri numerum, genu' ferratile. nunc dum lubet licetque, pota, perde rem, corrumpe erilem adulescentem optumum; dies noctesque bibite, pergraecamini, amicas emite, liberate: pas cite parasitos : opsonate pollucibiliter. haecine mandavit tibi, quom peregre hinc it, senex?

5. Bolkestein (1980: 44) observes that, in the case of concessions, the state of affairs involved is not necessarily controlled by the addressee. One of her examples is PI. Rud. 522: tu vel suda vel peri algu vel tu aegrota vel vale ('as far as I care you may sweat or die of cold, or be sick or well') Note, however, that this case could also described as a malediction; as will be discussed in section 5.2.4 below, the state of affairs that is involved in the case of maledictions is often non-controlled.

116

imperative directives ('within a few days, by gad, you'll be swelling our numbers on the farm and joining our ball-and-chain club! So, now you've got the chance and choose to do so, drink away, wreck the property, demoralize that fine young son of master's! get fuddled day and night, live like Greeks, buy girls and set them free, feed parasites, go in for fancy catering! are these the instructions the old master gave you when he went abroad?', PI. Mos. 17-25)

Another non-prototypical type of directive that can be expressed by means of the imperative is the challenge, which was dealt with in section 2.3 as an insincere, sarcastic directive. The speaker directs the addressee to do something which they both know the addressee is not able to do, or should not do because the consequences are unfavourable. The difference between challenges and concessions is that in the latter case the speaker wants to make clear his indifference with respect to the addressee's behaviour, while in the case of challenges he implicitly or, more often, explicitly threatens the addressee by means of sanctions and thus attempts to get the addressee not to realize the action mentioned. Although challenges are not found in the texts on which the figures in (9) are based, they do occur in other comedies and letters. Two examples are (14) and (15). In (14) the unfavourable consequences for the addressee of the action involved are explicitly spelled out. In (15) Demaenetus is daring the pimp Labrax to drag two girls from an altar where they are seeking protection. In the preceding context, Demaenetus has already made explicit the consequences for Labrax (cf. minacias 'threats'). (14) modo sis veni huc: invenies infortunium

(,just you be good enough to step this way, and you shall meet with a mishap', PI. Am. 286) (15) LA: minacias ego flocci non faciam tuas, equidem has te invito iam ambas

rapiam DA: tangedum LA: tangam hercle vero ('I shan't care a straw for your threats. I'm going to drag'em both off this minute in spite of you, I surely am. # just you dare to touch them # indeed I will touch them, by gad', PI. Rud. 795-797)

simple imperative

117

5.2.4 the imperative in non-directive speech acts

In addition to these various directive uses, the imperative mood is also used in a restricted number of other speech acts. 6 A first group consists of wishes and maledictions. These speech acts are not directive, because the action involved is usually not controllable or not fully controllable. The content of wishes and maledictions often involves some sort of evaluative expression, such as bene (cf. 16 and 17), male (cf. 20), or malus (cf. 22). Moreover, in the case of the maledictions the content is usually so evidently ridiculous that they would never be considered regular directives, even if the action involved is controllable. Examples of wishes are (16) and (17). In its context (17) constitutes an elaborate farewell formula, which contains a number of wishes. 7 The imperatives vincite, perdite, and parite could be considered as denoting semi-controlled states of affairs, because the virtute vera 'true virtue' that is required to achieve these states of affairs could be considered as controlled, but the actual realization is beyond the control of the addressee. The imperatives are used here primarily to express the speaker's hope that the addressee will be successful in achieving these states of affairs.

(16) SI: eo ego hinc ad forum TH: fecisti commode, bene ambula (,well, I'm off to the forum # I'm much obliged to you! have a pleasant walk', PI. Mos. 854) (17) bene valete et vincite virtute vera, quod fecistis antidhac; servate vostros socios, veteres et novos, augete auxilia vostris iustis legibus, perdite perduellis, parite laudem et lauream, ut vobis victi Poeni poenas sufferant. ('fare ye well, and win your victories by very valour as heretofore; hold fast your allies old and new by, and by just dealing add to your auxiliaries; lay low your foemen, earn laud and laurels, and let the conquered Carthaginians feel your righteous wrath', PI. Cist. 197-202).

6. Cf. also Bolkestein (1980: 43-47) on what she calls 'uncharacteristic uses of the imperative', and the examples and references given there. 7. Other instances of vale et vince (virtute vera) et serva in farewells are PI. Mer. 497; Cas. 87-88.

118

imperative directives

A number of imperative wishes have turned into conventional expressions of greeting and farewell, like e.g. vale and salve ('be healthy'). Thus, very little of the litteral sense of well-wishing is present in vale's use as a farewell formula between the two angry men in (18). (18) vale, dentifrangibule # et tu, integumentum, vale ('farewell, Sir Toothcracker # the same to you, Mister Bodyguard', Pi. Bac. 605)

However, the non-final occurrence of vale in (19), followed by an assertive speech act (about Tiro's doctor), which clearly still belongs to the 'body' of the letter, makes clear that vale can also be used in a more litteral way in wishes of wellbeing. 8 At the end of the letter a final vale salve fulfills the function of the actual farewell formula. (19) Etiam atque etiam, noster Tiro, vale. medico, Curio, Lysoni de te scripsi diligentissime. vale salve. ('again and again, Tiro, get well. 9 I have written to the doctor, to Curia, and to Lyso most particularly about you. goodbye and good wishes', Cic. Fam. 16,9,4) Three examples of the use of the simple imperative in curses and maledictions are (20) - (22). It will not be surprising that they are found in the comedies of Plautus and Terence rather than in the civilized correspondence of Cicero and Pliny. (20) male vive et vale ('hard luck and bad health to you', Pl. Trin. 996) (21) bellator vale # quid, valeam? # at tu aegrota aetatem, si lubet, per me quidem

8. More often, however, a periphrastic formula is used, such as fac ut valeas 'make that you be healthy' or cura ut valeas 'take care that you be healthy, take care for your health', cf. Cic. Farn. 16,7 and passim in the letters addressed to Tiro (Farn. XVI) and Terentia (Farn. XIV), cf. section 8.3.2. 9. I do not agree with Shackleton Bailey's translation which also takes the first vale quoted here as a farewell formula.

simple imperative

119

('farewell, warrior # "farewell" is it? # or be sick for the rest of your life, if you like - little I care', PI. Cur. 553-554) (22) EP: quia perire solus nolo, te cupio perire mecum, benevolens cum benevolente TH: abi in malarn rem maxumarn a me cum istac condicione ('I dislike to sink alone and yearn to have you sink with me - two devoted friends together # go to the devil with these proposals of yours', PI. Epid. 77-79) Utterances like (22) are frequently used to express the speaker's disapproval of or disagreement with the addressee's preceding words (as in 22) or his behaviour more in general (as in 23). (23) (to a group of slow-footed friends) quin si ituri hodie estis, ite, aut ite hinc in malam crucem. sicine oportet ire arnicos homini arnanti operam datum? ('come, get going, if you intend to get here today, or else get to the devil out of here! is this the way for friends to go to give aid to a lover?', PI. Poen.511-512) Vapula can be used in a similar way. This is the imperative form of the intransitive verb vapulare which has the meaning 'to get thrashed'.10 In its litteral sense vapula 'be thrashed' is used to express a threat (Le. a commissive speech act): 'I will give you a thrashing'. The commissive nature of vapula in (24) is confirmed by the presence of profecto 'undoubtedly, naturally', which is never used in directives, only in assertives and commissives.11

10. Hofmann (1951 3 : 11) describes vapulare in terms of an onomatopoeic verb 'to cry yah'. For the use of the intransitive verb vapulare as the passive pendant of verberare 'to give a thrashing', see Kiihner-Stegmann (I, 1(0). 11. In fact, the utterances following on (24) contain a pun on the way in which pro/eeto is used here: ME: nunc profecto vapula ob mendacium SO: non edepol volo profecto ME: at pol profecto ingratiis. hoc quidem 'profecto' certum est, non est arbitrarium ('and naturally now get thrashed for fibbing # 0 dear, I object, naturally # oh well, naturally that is immaterial. my "naturally", at least, is a cold hard fact, no matter of opinion' PI. Am.

370-372)

120

imperative directives

(24) nunc profecto vapula ob mendacium ('and naturally now get thrashed for fibbing', PI. Am. 370) In some cases, however, vapula is used like i in rnalam crucem, as a cursing expression of annoyance. 12 Thus, in (25) a master is trying to get the attention of his slave Geta. Geta, who is in a hurry, does not want to be bothered and expresses this by means of vapula; a threat of thrashing his master is obviously not at stake here. (25) ANT: Geta! (# ... #) non manes? GETA: vapula (,Geta! # ... # don't you mean to stop? # drop dead', Ter. Ph. 848-850)

5.2.5 the so-called conditional use of the imperative mood Finally, the so-called conditional use of the imperative mood must be briefly discussed. In these cases an imperative clause is followed by a declarative clause presenting the consequences of the realization of the action mentioned in the imperative clause. 13 Under this heading various kinds of cases are usually lumped together, which are exemplified under (26) - (28). (26) (Libanus is constantly interrupting an account by his fellow slave Leonidas with questions) LI: quid tum postea? # (LEON continues his story) # quid tum? LE: ausculta ergo, scies. (... ) ('well, what next? # ... # what next? # well listen and you'll find out', PI. As. 346-350)

(27) verbum etiam adde unum, iam in cerebro colaphos apstrudam tuo

12. Cf. also Bergh (1975: 69-70) who compares this use of vapu/a with the English expression drop dead. 13. Cf. Kiihner-Stegmann (II, 165); Bolkestein (1980: 44-45). Bolkestein differentiates between the three types of cases discussed below. For an extensive discussion of 'imperative-like conditionals' in English, cf. Davies (1986, ch. 6).

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('you add just one more word and I'll bury my fists in your brains', Pl. Roo. 1(07) (28) subdue cibum unum diem athletae: (... ) ferre se non posse clamabit (,take away an athletic's food for a single day: (... ) he will cry out that he cannot endure it', Cic. Tuse. 2,40)

In cases such as (26) the imperative clause actually expresses a directive. On the basis of the context it is clear that the action involved is what the speaker attempts to get the addressee to do; the declarative clause lists the ('positive') consequences. Cases like (27) are in fact challenges, comparable to the ones discussed in section 5.2.3 (cf. ex. 14): the addressee is in a sarcastic way 'invited' to realize the action involved. As was mentioned there, challenges may, but need not be followed by a clause stating the ('negative') consequences. In both cases, a conditional interpretation of the imperative is not at stake, in my opinion. Cases like (28), on the other hand, are quite different. Here the addressee is neither directed nor actually challenged to realize the action involved, although (28) is closer to a challenge than to a regular (i.e. more prototypical kind of) directive. Even in these cases, however, it is misleading to ascribe to the imperative clause in itself some sort of conditional value; the conditional value rather results from the juxtaposition of two clauses referring to states of affairs that are somehow related in the extra-linguistic world (cf. KUhner-Stegmann II, 164: als eine rhetori sche Parataxe anzusehen "). Interestingl y, the same conditional relation may also be expressed by means of two juxtaposed declarative clauses, cf. (29).14 II

(29) quidquid dicunt laudo; id rursum si negant, laudo id quoque; negat quis:

nego; ait: aio. (,whatever they say I praise; if again they say the opposite, I praise that too. If one says no, I say no; if one says yes, I say yes', Ter. Eu. 251-252) The difference between cases with an imperative 'protasis' (cf. 28) and those with a declarative 'protasis' (cf. 29) is that the former appear to be more hypothetical. This is in accordance with the value of the imperative sentence type, which is not 14. For more examples, cf. Kuhner·Stegmann (II, 164·165)

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used to simply present a proposition, but to present its content, which refers to a not (yet) existing state of affairs, for realization.

5.3 The imperative II in -to In addition to the 'simple imperative' discussed in the preceding section, the Latin imperative paradigm also includes a so-called imperative II, ending in -to. The imperative II differs from the simple imperative in two respects, which, as we will see, are not unconnected. First, the realization of the action specified in the content of an imperative II directive is envisaged as non-immediate, either in a temporal or in a conditional sense. Secondly, subject agents of imperatives II may not only refer to definite second persons, but they may also have indefinite reference. I will deal with these two peculiarities of the imperative II in 5.3.1 and 5.3.2, respectively. In 5.3.3 I will briefly discuss the various types of directives in which imperatives II are used. 5.3.1 temporal and conditional non-immediacy

The particular value that is usually ascribed to the imperative II in contrast with the simple imperative is 'non-immediate realization of the action involved' .15 Although this non-immediate realization is generally taken in a temporal sense, it should in some cases rather be taken in the sense that realization of the action involved is at stake only in a relevant situation, i.e. when particular conditions obtain. These two forms of non-immediacy are, however, not necessarily conflicting and in a number of cases both are involved. 16

15. Hence the lable 'future imperative' that is often used for this verb form. 1 prefer the more neutral term 'imperative II', because, as will be discussed below, this imperative form does not necessarily always refer to a distant future. The imperative II is dealt with by Loch (1871: 3-13), Riemann (1886), Lebreton (1901: 194-200) for Cicero, Bennett (1910: 354-361) for Early Latin, Uifstedt (1966: 22-59), and Vairel-Carron (1975). Vairel-Carron gives an overview of the opinions presented in earlier studies. Loch contains an almost exhaustive list of the instances of the imperative II in Plautus, Riemann also lists all passages in Terence, and Cicero's letters and orations. 16. They are mentioned together by Kiihner-Stegmann (I, 196) when he states that the imperative II is used in directives "dessen Ausfiihrung erst in einer bestimmten Zeit der Zukunft, unter bestimmten Bedingungen erwartet werd". Both kinds of non-immediacy fit in with the explanation that is usually given for the form of the imperative II. The ending is regarded as the ablative singular of the demonstrative to, meaning 'from that (moment) on', 'then' (cf. Leumann 1977: 571-572).

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The temporal kind of non-immediate realization expressed by the imperative II has been convincingly demonstrated in various studies (cf. note 16). Summing up, the following linguistic indications are mentioned: (i)

the presence of temporal adverbial expressions referring to a non-immediate future (cf. 30; cf. also mox in example 31); (ii) the presence of a future tense verb form in an accompanying subordinate clause (cf. 31) or in an independent clause referring to the same situation (cf. 32); (iii) the occurrence of an imperative II verb form in combination with a simple imperative in cases in which the action referred to by the imperative II logically follows (or is dependent on) the action referred to by the simple imperative (cf. 33).

(30) abi quaeso hinc domum (# ... #) redito huc circiter meridie ('go away, g..o home, there's a good fellow (# ... #) and come back here about noon', PI. Mos. 578-579) (31) ergo max au/erto tecum [sc. pallam], quando abibis ('well then take it with you later when you leave me', PI. Men. 430) (32) ego sorori meae cenam hodie dare volo viaticam: eo tibi argentum iubebo iam intus ecferri foras; tu /acito obsonatum nobis sit opulentum opsonium ('I want to give my sister a dinner today to celebrate her coming. I'll tell them to bring you out some money at once, and you're to see to provisioning us in perfectly splendid style', PI. Bac. 94-96) (33) i hac mecum intro atque ibi si quid vis filium concastigato

('do come inside here with me: yes, and punish your son ever so, in there, if you like', PI. Bac. 1175) Among the instances of an imperative II combined with a subordinate clause referring to a future moment (cf. 31) we find a relatively large amount of cases in which the subordinate clause involved is a conditional clause introduced by si 'if' (occasionally by ubi 'when'): more than 50% of the 112 instances listed by

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Loch (1871: 3_5).17 These cases combine the two kinds of non-immediacy discussed above: the realization of the action involved is not merely envisaged for the non-immediate future but, what is more, only under particular conditions, which are mentioned in the accompanying conditional clause. Two examples are (34) and (35). (34) si quicquam invenies me mentitum, occidito ('if you find I have lied any bit, put me to death', Ter. An. 863) (35) Epistulam quam Balbo (... ) scripsi, legendam tibi misi. etiam praetextam si voles legere, Gallum Cornelium, familiarem meum, poscito. ('I am sending for your perusal a letter I wrote to Balbus (... ). If you want to read the play too, ask my friend Cornelius Gallus for it.', Cic. Fam. 10,32,5) Interestingly, the imperative II is also occasionally combined with a conditional clause containing a present tense verb form. In (36) the challenging invitation pignus ... dato ('bet me') is made conditional, first by the present tense optionality formula si quis volt 'if anyone wants to' (see below, section 5.3.2), and secondly by the (present subjunctive) proviso that the arbiter be a Greek, Carthaginian, or Apulian man, i.e. someone who knows the customs of the regions involved. The utterances following on the challenge make clear that the speaker had envisaged immediate realization, and that, therefore, the imperative II does not express temporal non-immediacy here. (36) (prologue; the speaker has made the claim that slave marriages are taking place not only in Greece and in Carthago, but also in Apulia) id ni fit, mecum pignus si quis volt dato in urnam mulsi, Poenus dum iudex siet vel Graecus adeo, vel mea caussa Apulus. quid nunc? nihil agitis? sentio, nemo sitit. ('if this is not so, let someone bet me a bowl of wine and honey if he like, provided the referee be a Carthaginian, yes, or a Greek, or an Apulian, for

17. Cf. also the high proportion of conditional clauses among the Ciceronian instances listed by Lebreton (1901: 195-196).

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all I care. well now? you are not interested? I understand: no one is thirsty.' , PI. Cas. 75-78) Although the simple imperative is also regularly combined with conditional clauses (see e.g. Lodge, Lexicon Plautinum, s.v. si, II, p. 630-631) there is a difference between the kind of conditionals that are combined with the simple imperative and those that are combined with the imperative 11.18 The latter usually refer to a more or less hypothetical, extra-conversational state of affairs that must obtain in order to create a relevant situation for carrying out the content of the directive. The majority of the conditional clauses accompanying a simple imperative, on the other hand, either function at the level of the interaction (e.g. as a polite expression of optionality or as an appeal to reason, see below) or they refer to an action that was already proposed by the addressee in the preceding context, and that is, therefore, not so hypothetical. Characteristically, conditional clauses combined with an imperative II may be introduced by si forte 'if perchance' (cf 37), whereas those combined with a simple imperative are more than once introduced by si quidem 'if indeed' (cf. 38), which reveals their confirmatory character. 19 (37) si a viro tibi forte veniet nuntius, facito ut sciam ('if you happen to get a message from your husband, be sure [imp. II] you let me know', PI. St. 148) (38) STI: age, mulsa mea suavitudo, salta: saltabo ego simul (# reaction by a third person #) STE: siquidem mihi saltandum est, tum vos date bibat tibicini ('come, do, sweetness, my dear honeygirl, do dance. and I'll dance with you # ... # well then, if I must dance, you boys must give [simple imp.] the piper a drink', PI. St. 755-757)

18. Lodge (ibid.) gives only 10 instances (plus a corrupt one) of the imperative II with a si ('if') clause; these instances are, moreover, not representative for the kind of conditionals usually found with this expression form. The observations that are made below are, thererefore, based on the ca. 75 instances listed by Loch (1872: 3-7). Ysolde Bentvelsen kindly assisted me in examining these cases. 19. Other cases with si quidem are for instance PI. As. 701, Epid. 79, Mer. 872, and Per. 487.

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Among the circa 100 instances of a simple imperative that is accompanied by a conditional clause, about 35 involve an interactional condition (si vis 'if you want' , si lubet 'if it pleases you', si sapis 'if you're wise' etc., cf. 39). Among the other cases, the 'confirmatory' character discussed above is most clear in cases (7 in all) such as (38), but it is also quite clear in cases like (40) which contain a verbal repetition of a preceding clause by the addressee. (39) Tranio, quiesce, si sapi' ('Tranio, quiet down, if you have any sense!', PI. Mos. 1173) (40) DO: uritur cor mi

TO: da illi cantharum, exstingue ignem, si cor uritur, caput ne ardescat ('my heart's blazing # give him the tankard, put out the fire, if your heart's blazing, so as to keep your head from catching', PI. Per. 801-803) Furthermore, there are a number of cases in which the conditional clause that accompanies a simple imperative refers to a state of affairs that is more or less self-evident, and hence not hypothetical, such as the fact that people want to be well off (cf. 41) or want their son to be alive and well (cf. 42). (41) TO: SA: TO: SA: TO:

basilice agito eleutheria quid iam? quia erus peregri est ain tu, peregri est? si tut' tibi bene esse pote pati, veni: vives mecum, basilico accipiere victu ('I'm celebrating the Feast of Freedom in royal style # how's that? # because master's abroad # so abroad, is he? # if you can endure enjoying yourself, come along: you shall live with me and be regaled right royally', PI. Per. 29-31)

(42) pater, ducentos Philippos quaeso Chrysalo da, si esse salvom vis me aut vitalem tibi (,father, do for mercy's sake give Chrysalus two hundred pounds, if you wish to have your son safe, or alive', PI. Bac. 997-998)

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There are only 7 cases among the 100 instances given by Lodge in which the conditional clause that accompanies a simple imperative refers to a genuinely hypothetical situation. One example is: (43) intro abi ergo et, si isti est mulier, eam iube cito domum transire, atque ... ('go in, then, sir, and if the girl's there, bid her go over home at once, and .. .', PI. Mil. 255-256) On the other hand, nearly all of the ca 75 conditional clauses that are combined with an imperative II refer to hypothetical states of affairs; there are only two cases in which the conditional clause is a politeness formula20 • Some examples of hypothetical conditions are (44) and (45); in (46) the imperative II is a reaction to a hypothetical state of affairs that is brought up by the addressee. (44) (two slaves are instructed to guard a pimp who wants to drag away two girls) audite nunciam: si hercle illic illas hodie digito tetigerit invitas, nei istunc istis invitassitis usque adeo donec qua domum abeat nesciat, periistis ambo. si appellabit quempiam, vos respondetote istinc istarum vicem; sin ipse abitere hinc volet, quantum potest extemplo amplectitote crura fustibus ('now then, attention. in case that fellow ever lays a finger on those girls against their will, if you don't lay those clubs against his carcass so hard that he won't know the way home, by heaven, I'll murder the pair of you. if he speaks to either of them, you answer for them from where you stand, and if he wants to clear out, himself, catch him round the legs with your sticks just as fast as you know how', PI. Rud. 809-816) (45) PA: quo tu agis? LV: missus sum alio, iam huc revenero (an exchange about the details of Lurcio's mission) PA: abi, actutum redi LV: quaeso tamen tu meam partem, infortunium si dividetur, me apsente accipito tamen

20. Ter. Hau. 865-866; Eu. 596.

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(,where are you off to? # I've been sent somewhere, I'll be back here soon # ... # ... # be off, and come directly back # just the same, if there's any trouble doled out, and I'm away, you please take my share, just the same', PI. Mil. 863-866) (46) Agorastocles is consulting a group of 'advocati' which steps he must take against a pimp who has taken money from his slave AG: quid si recenti re aedis pultem? AD: censeo AG: si pultem, non recludet? AD: panem frangito ('what if I batter the door while the offence is fresh? # I approve # and if he pays no attention to the batter? # then break the bread', PI. Poen. 728729) This use of the imperative II to express non-immediacy in the sense of a conditional directive that is at stake only in relevant situations is very frequent in texts containing instructions and rules of conduct. Thus the imperative II is a predominant directive expression form in law texts and in technical manuals such as Cato's agricultural handbook (cf. the figures given under (3) in section 5.1)?1 The directives that are found in both of these texts types are not aimed at immediate and unconditional realization of the action involved by every person confronted with them, but are to be realized only by particular persons and under particular circumstances. These circumstances may be explicitly indicated, as is the usual case in law texts (cf. 47) and occasionally happens in instructional texts (cf. 48), but they may also be implied in the specific purpose of the text as a whole. Thus, in the case of Cato's manual the realization of the actions specified in the numerous directives is relevant only for those readers who actually intend to devote themselves to the various agricultural activities described (cf. 49). (47) vias muniunto. ni sam delapidissent, qua volet, iumenta agito

21. The data presented by Onnerfors (1989) show that even in Late Latin, when the imperative II had become obsolete in other types of texts, it remained a common expression form for instructions in e.g. medical texts.

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129

('persons shall mend roadways. if they keep it not laid with stones, one may drive beasts where he shall wish [i.e. leave the road]', Lex XII. 7,7f2 (48) praedium quom parare cogitabis, sic in animo habeto: uti ne cupide emas, neve (... ) (,when you are thinking of acquiring a farm, keep in mind these points: that you not be overeager in buying, nor (... )', Cato Agr. 1,1) (49) (the first line of a section entitledficos quo loco seras 'on which location you should plant figtrees'): ficos mariscas in loco cretoso et aperto serito (,plant mariscan figs in chalky, open soil', Cato Agr. 8,1) In most studies this use of the imperative II in instructional and law texts is described in terms of 'perpetual value', i.e. in temporal terms.z 3 However, I rather prefer to emphasize the 'conditional' value of these instances of the imperative II, which express directives whose realization is required only when the appropriate circumstances obtain. The fact that their validity is not restricted in a temporal sense is, in my opinion, not a primary feature here, as a comparison with instances such as (36) makes clear. I will now tum to a second semantic peculiarity of the imperative II, which agrees quite well with the conditional non-immediacy discussed above, viz. the possibility of the subject to refer to a particular subset of the potential addressees for whom realization of the action involved is relevant. 22. The Leges XII Tabu/arum is the oldest Roman codified lawtext that has survived. It dates back to the fifth century B.C. Although this text falls outside the temporal scope of this study (cf. section 1.3) the juridical language of law texts remains fairly constant over the centuries and therefore this is a representative example. For a characterization of Roman juridical language, cf. Kalb (\888 2; repro 1984) and De Meo (1983, 67-131). 23. Cf. Loch (\871: 10); Kuhner-Stegmann (I, 196); Szantyr (p. 340); Uifstedt (1966: 22; 25); VairelCarron (\975: 288; 291). Such a 'perpetual' value could be claimed only in a small number of cases, such as for instance PI. Cas. 209-212, quoted below. Here, however, the 'perpetual value' derives from semper 'always' rather than from the imperative II, which just has a temporal non-immediate value: MY: insipiens, semper tu huic verbo vitata aps tuo viro CL: quoi verbo? MY: "i foras mulier" (,stupid, there's one thing you should always beware of your husband's saying to you # what? # woman leave my house'). Cf. also PI. Cur. 28-30, and (without semper) Trin. 295-296.

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5.3.2 reference of the subject agent

A second respect in which the imperative II differs from the simple imperative pertains to the personal reference of the subject agent. The reference of the subject is not restricted to the second person, but as is pointed out in various studies (cf. the references given in note 15, in particular Vairel-Carron, 1975: 228-230), imperative II clauses may have an explicit third person subject (cf. filiUS 'son' in 50) or they may be accompanied by a subordinate clause that has a third person subject referring to the same entity as the subject of the imperative II main clause (cf. si quis volt in 36 and qua volet 'where he shall wish' in 47). (50) si pater filium ter venum duvit, filiUS a patre liber esto ('if father shall thrice surrender son for sale, son shall be free from father', Lex XII. 4,2)

(36) id ni fit, mecum pignus si quis volt dato in urnam mulsi (47) ni sam delapidissent, qua volet, iumenta agito This third person reference is mainly confined to law texts and to Cato's agricultural manual, whereas the imperative II in the other texts in which it is used (notably the comedy, but also in Cicero's letters) usually has second person reference (but cf. 36). On the basis of these observations Vairel-Carron claims (1975: 249-250; 258-261) that the distinction between second person reference and third person reference of the imperative II should be described in terms of two homologue forms belonging to two different registers: while 'third person -to' belongs to the juridical language, 'second person -to' belongs to the ordinary language. In my opinion, this claim is far too strong, if not outright wrong. VairelCarron does not produce empirical evidence for her claim that 'second person -to' and 'third person -to' are merely homologue forms, which is exclusively based on structuralistic reasoning in terms of oppositions, and on an analogy with the fact that for instance the genitive and dative singular forms in -ae are also two distinct, homologue forms. Moreover, neither Vairel-Carron nor anyone else takes into account the particular nature of the third person subjects with which the imperative II may be combined. In fact, these third person subjects never refer to definite third persons.

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The majority of the cases in which a third person reference is claimed (including those in comedy) are of the conditional type discussed above (cf. 36 and 47): quilsi quis + Jut. indo 3rd pers, imperative II. In these cases, a directive is issued that is relevant only for those among the body of potential addressees for whom the condition specified is met. Thus, what on the basis of the third person subject of the conditional clause seems to be a third person subject of the imperative II is, in fact, a subsection of the body of (potential) addressees as a whole. As a consequence, the subject of the imperative II in these cases is not an ordinary third person subject, but is somehow related to a second person subject as well. I propose to use the term 'indefinite reference'. This kind of directive that is addressed to all potential hearers or readers, but is relevant (in the sense that actual realization of the action is required) only for a particular subset of addressees that meet with particular conditions, is quite common in law texts. Their 'audience' includes the Roman society as a whole while realization of the actions specified by them is only required from those members of this society which are in a particular situation. Likewise, the audience of instructional texts such as Cato's De agricultura includes every incidental reader; however, actual realization of the actions specified in Cato's instructions is relevant only for a subsection of the audience as a whole, viz. those who actually are or are going to be farmers. The 'in between status' of the indefinite subjects of the imperatives II in Cato's manual is confirmed by the fact that the imperative II directives alternate both with simple imperatives (second person reference) and with third person subjunctive directives. Significantly, the imperative II is for instance not used in the chapter (Agr. 5) in which Cato discusses the duties of the vilicus, the 'farm overseeer', who usually was a slave, and hence not a potential reader of Cato's manual. Only third person subjunctive forms are used here. If the imperative II would have had ordinary definite third person reference, this form would have been suitable also for the third person directives issued in this chapter. Interestingly, the 'indefinite reference' of the subject of the imperative II is also found in comedy. These cases make up, in fact, the majority of the alleged third person references in comedy. Among the 18 third person reference cases in

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comedy that are listed by Vairel-Carron,24 8 are of the above mentioned quilsi quis volt type, all but one occurring in a monologue that is addressed to the audience and not to another character?5 These imperative II directives are all relevant only for a subsection of the audience that is 'defined' by an introductory conditional or restrictive relative clause. Two examples are (51) and (52). (51) (prologue) si quis quid vestrum Epidamnum curari sibi velit, audacter imperato et dicito, sed ita ut det unde curari id possit sibi ('if anyone of you should want any business transacted for him in Epidarnnus, command me freely and speak out [sic: the Loeb edition translates them as second person directives], that is in case you [sic; litt.: he] furnish the wherewithal for the transaction', PI. Men. 51-53) (52) (monologue of the choragus) sed dum hic ecgreditur foras, commonstrabo quo in quemque hominem facile inveniatis loco, ne nimio opere sumat operam si quem conventum velit, (... ). qui peiiurum convenire volt hominem ito in comitium; qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cloacinae sacrum, dites, darnnosos maritos sub basilica quaerito ('well, till he comes out, I will show you where you can readily find men of every variety, so that no one will have to labour too laboriously if he wishes to meet anyone, (... ). In case you [ef. 51] wish to meet a perjurer, go to the Comitium; for a liar and braggart, try the temple of Venus Cloacina, for wealthy married wasters the Basilica', PI. Cur. 466-472)

The fact that the imperative II form refers to a subsection of the body of addressees as a whole, and therefore expresses an 'indefinite' directive rather than a genuine third person directive, is clear from the genitive vestrum in (51), and from the second person plural inveniatis in (52)?6 The fact that indefinite

24. Cf. Vairel-Carron (1975: 230). She mentions 15 cases of third person reference of the imperative II in Plautus (in addition to 360 cases with second person reference) and 3 cases in Terence (in addition to 65 cases with second person reference). 25. Ter. Ph. 1027 is addressed to all characters that are present at the stage together. 26. Cf. also the second person agitis in example (36). Other cases are PI. Mil. 23; Poen. 211 (is example 53); Ter. Ph. 1027.

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reference and second person reference easily alternate in these kinds of 'subsection addresses' is shown by the combination of inveniatis in the first main clause and si quem conventum velit in the accompanying conditional clause in (52). Cf. also (53), in which a comparable 'subsection address' is followed by an utterance containing a second person clause. (53) negoti sibi qui volet vim parare, navem et mulierem, haec duo comparato. nam nullae magis res duae plus negoti habent, forte si occeperis exornare, neque (... ) ('a man that wants to make himself a world of trouble should get himself a ship and a woman, just those two. for no more two things can possibly be more troublesome, if you happen to try to fit them out, and (... )', PI. Poen. 210-213) Interestingly a comparable alternation between indefinite reference and second person subject reference is also found outside the domain of the imperative II. There are for instance cases in which the simple imperative (with its undeniable second person reference) is combined with a third person indefinite pronoun, which can be analyzed equally well as a subject pronoun or as a vocative, cf. (54).27 (54) heus heus Aeschinus ego sum: aperite aliquis actutum ostium ('anyone there? it's Aeschinus: open the door someone', Ter. Ad. 634) In a similar way, the prologue of Plautus' Poenulus contains a series of directives (edicta,1. 16) that are addressed to various subsections of the audience as a whole. Various social groups are subsequently adressed by means of third person present subjunctives (11. 17-39). The last group, however, is addressed by means of simple imperatives (ll. 41-43). Clearly, the various subsets of the audience as a whole occupy a position in between second and third person. It is precisely this inbetween area where the above discussed indefinite reference of the imperative II fits in.

27. For more examples, cf. Kuhner-Stegmann (1,60); L5fstedt (1966: 21-22).

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There are a number of cases where the imperative II indeed seems to have definite third person reference. First, there are three cases in comedy in which the imperative II involves the actions of definite third persons. It should be noted, however, that in all three cases the addressee himself is also involved in these actions. The clearest example is (55),zs Callidamates approaches an old man Theopropides on behalf of the latter's son with whom he is befriended. Callidamates asks the old man to forgive his son for his licentious behaviour, in which Callidamates himself has participated (cf. quidquid/ecit, nobiscum una/ecit 'whatever he did, he did along with the rest of us'). Therefore, the subject of amato, bibito, /acito need not necessarily refer to the son only (which would constitute a definite third person reference), but it may also in a rather unspecific way refer to 'all of you'. (55) CA: nunc te opsecro, stultitiae adulescentiaeque eiius ignoscas: (... )

quidquid fecit, nobiscum una fecit: nos deliquimus. (... ) omnia nos dabimus, nos conferemus, nostro sumptu, non tuo TH: non potuit venire orator magis ad me impetrabilis quam tu; neque sum illic iratus neque quicquam suscenseo. immo me praesente amato, bibito, /acito quod lubet: si hoc pudet, feci sse sumptum, supplici habeo satis ('Now I beseech you, sir, do forgive him for his folly and his youth. ( ... ) Whatever he did, he did along with the rest of us. we're all at fault. ( ... ) we'll club together and settle for it all at our own expense, not yours. # a more persuasive spokesman than you couldn't have come to me. I'm not angry with him now, I don't hold anything against him. no indeed, love, drink, and do what pleases before my very eyes. If remorse is shown for having spent all that money, I'll call that sufficient chastisement', PI. Mos. 1157-1165)

Secondly, the imperative II form esto of the verb esse 'to be' is, indeed, quite often used with third person reference. In comedy, there are three cases of esto, two of which are used to refer to a state of affairs under discussion, meaning 'so

28. The other cases are PI. Mos. 774 and Ter. Ph. 668. Both cases pertain to the realization of actions by definite third persons that are not present at the moment of speaking. Here too, however, the addressee does not simply function as an intermediary, but is himself involved in the action.

imperative II

135

be it' .29 In the third case the subject refers to an abstract juridical concept, viz.

a penalty (multa) in the case of bad conduct. (56) si dixerit, haec multa ei esto, vino viginti dies ut careat ('if such a word be said by her, her penalty shall be this: no wine for her for twenty days', PI. As. 800-802) The 'tone' of (56) and of the contract of which it forms part as a whole is mockjuridical. In legal texts (such as the Leges XII Tabularum, cf. 41), esto is the only imperative II form that is used with third person subjects, which either refer to abstract juridical concepts such as ius or auctoritas, or to categories of persons (cf. filius in 50), but never to specific individuals. To sum up this section on personal reference, the imperative II clearly has more possibilities in this respect than the simple imperative. In addition to cases in which the imperative II has, just like the simple imperative, unambiguous definite second person'feference, cf. (30) - (35) in section 5.3.1, the imperative II is also used with 'indefinite reference' in the case of directives that are intended for a restricted subset of the body of potential addressees as a whole, cf. (36) and (51) - (53). The imperative II is not used with definite third person reference, in order to express genuine third person directives for which the actual addressee only functions as an intermediary. Only esto seems to go in the direction of genuine third person reference; the subject involved, however, always refers to abstract concepts or categories of persons, never to individuals. It should be noted that the indefinite reference of the imperative II as well as the categories of persons that are found as subjects of esto in law texts agree quite well with the conditional kind of non-immediacy that was discussed in section 5.3.1. In both cases the imperative II does not involve an unconditional realization of the action involved but rather a realization under relevant conditions only and only by persons for whom realization is relevant. Vairel-Carron's claim, finally, that 'second person -to' and 'third person -to' are two structurally distinct, homologue forms belonging to two different registers of the language is to be discarded. As I hope to have shown, the normal second person reference, referring to the addressee(s), and the indefinite reference,

29. PI. Ps. 935a and Ter. Hau. 572.

136

imperative directives

referring to a subset of the body of (potential) addressees, are too closely related to be taken as an argument in favour of two distinct homologue verb forms. Moreover, the use of indefinite reference in comedy does not differ in essential ways from the use in law texts, and the same holds for the ways in which esto is used in both types of text. 5.3.3 directive sUbtypes

The specific features discussed above which distinguish the imperative II from the simple imperative (i.e. non-immediate realization and a wider personal reference) has in itself no influence on the type of directives that can be expressed by means of this form. Just like the simple imperative, the imperative II can in principle be used to express all directive sUbtypes. There are, however, some differences in frequencies between the two imperative forms as regards their use for the various directive subtypes. In view of its specific value, the imperative II is relatively often used in instructions and in the categorial orders that are found in law texts. Moreover, since the imperative II is used far more often in Early Latin than after that period (cf. the figures under 3 and 4 in section 5.1 )30 it is relatively often used in orders and advice, simply because these types of directives are more prominent in comedies (cf. the figures under 9 and the accompanying discussion in 5.2.1). Although Cicero's letters contain a number of imperative II clauses that express more optional types of directives (requests, advice, invitations, permission), the imperative II is simply less frequent in Cicero's time. The examples that were presented above provide an illustration of the use of the imperative II in various directive sUbtypes: 3 ! an order in (44) and a binding regulation in (50); requests in (30) and (31), advice (or instructions) in (35), (48), (49), (52), and (53), permission in (51) and (55), and a challenge in (36). One example of each type of directive is repeated here. (44) si appellabit quempiam, vos respondetote istinc istarum vicem; sin ipse abitere hinc volet, quantum potest extemplo ampiectitote crura fustibus

30. Cf. Blase (1903: 237-239) and L(jfstedt (1966: 22-40) for the diachronic developments of the imperative II. For the use of the imperative II in Late Latin medical texts, such as the Mulomedicina Chironis (ca 400 A.D.), see Onnerfors (1989: 135, n.9). 31. For more examples, cf. Bennett (1910: 359-361).

imperative II

(50) (31) (49) (55) (36)

137

si pater filium ter venum duvit, filius a patre liber esto ergo mox auferto tecum, quando abibis ficos mariscas in loco cretoso et aperto serito immo me praesente amato, bibito, /acito quod lubet id ni fit, mecum pignus si quis volt dato in urnam mulsi

Beside the high proportion of (categorial) orders and instructions, the imperative II is also relatively often used in permissions (i.e. the granting of permission, cf. 55) and, to a lesser extent also, in challenges (cf. 36). As regards permission, this does not mean (as is sometimes claimed, cf. Blase 1903: 248) that the imperative II had a special 'permissive meaning'. Rather, the use of the imperative II in this type of directive ensues from its specific value of non-immediate realization in the conditional sense: the realization of an action that is permitted is usually relevant only when the addressee actually prefers to realize it. Therefore permission directives are often accompanied by some sort of subordinate clause referring to the addressee's own preferences in this respect. 32 Two examples are: (57) ubi voles pater esse ibi esto; ubi noles ne fueris pater 3

('when you wish to be father, be so; when you don't, don't be', PI. Epid. 595) (58) accipias clavis; si quid tibi opus erit prompto, promito (,here are the keys; if you need anything, take it', PI. Cist. 111) In the case of challenges temporal non-immediacy is usually not involved, because they are concerned with actions right on the spot. Nevertheless, the imperative II is used a number of times. This could be explained, perhaps, in terms of an (implied) condition such as 'if you dare', 'if you are so bold as to ignore my authority'. An example is:

32. Ulfstedt (1966: 27-28) makes a comparable remark. However, she relates the suitability of the imperative II for granting permission to its frequently being accompanied by a future tense subordinate clause. This in itself does not constitute an explanation; in my view, the conditional kind of nonimmediacy provides a better starting point. 33. Unlike the simple imperative, the imperative II is never used in combination with negation; instead, the perfect subjunctive is used (cf. also section 5.4.5).

138

imperative directives

(59) (Iuppiter is scolding his servant Mercury) camufex, non ego te novi? abin e conspectu meo? quid tibi hanc curatio est rem, verbero, aut muttitio? quoii ego iam hoc scipione - # (interference by a third party) # - muttito modo ('you rascal, don't I know you? out of my sight, will you! what business have you to interfere with this matter, or to breathe a word about it, you scamp? I'll take my cane this instant and - (... ) - you just breathe a word now!', PI. Am. 518- 520) Another type of conditionality in challenges expressed by the imperative II was exemplified by (36) above, where the 'conditionality' of the challenge concentrates rather on the question who is bold enough to accept it.

5.4

The second person SUbjunctive

Because the subjunctive has in general received considerable attention within Latin linguistics, the use of the subjunctive in directives (the so-called 'jussive subjunctive' or coniunctivus iussivus) is also well-documented. 34 The prevalent view that is presented in these studies is that the second person of the subjunctive is used beside the imperative "ohne merkbaren Unterschied" (Kuhner-Stegmann I, 186).35 The interchangeability is continued by a number of instances in which imperative and present subjunctive are combined or used in parallel instances: (60) a. molestus ne sis nunciam, i rus, te amove ('stop annoying me [subj] this instant! go [imp] back to the farm! vanish [imp]!', PI. Mos. 74) b. abi intro, ne molestu's, linguae tempera

34. Besides Kiihner-Stegmann (I, 185-187) and Szantyr (p. 335-338), cf. e.g. Morris (1897); Blase (1903: 125-139); Bennett (1910: 162-178); Handford (1946: 42-48); Touratier (1977). These studies all deal with the whole range of 'uses' of the subjunctive. On the other hand, Loch (1871: 19-20), L(lfstedt (1966: 113-114; 125-132), and Vairel-Carron (1975: 237-238) deal with the subjunctive mood from the particular viewpoint of directive expression. 35. This view is also held by Loch, Blase, Handford, and Ulfstedt (cf. the preceding note), whereas Vairel-Carron, Touratier, and Thomas regard the subjunctive as expressing 'milder' directives.

second person subjunctive

139

('be off inside and stop annoying me [imp], control your tongue', PI. Rud. 1254) (61) LY: quid nunc? missurusne es ad me uxorem tuam? AL: ducas, easque in maxumam malam crucem cum hac cum istac, cumque arnica etiam tua. abi et aliud cura, ego ... ('well now, are you going to send your wife over to my house? # take [subj] her, and go [subj] to the devil with her, and with your own, and with that girl of yours too! off with you [imp] and occupy yourself [imp] with other things', PI. Cas. 610-613) (62) (Philolachus is panicked because his father has suddenly returned from abroad; both Delphium, the mistress of his friend Callidamates, and the slave Tranio try to calm him down) PH: [to Callidamates, who is drunk] perdis rem DE: tace, amabo # (... ) # (. .. ) # PH: perii! TR: habe bonum animum: ego istum lepide medicabo metum PH: nullus sum! TR: taceas: ego qui istaec sedem meditabor tibi ('you're wrecking everything # do keep still [imp], there's a dear # ( ... ) # ( ... ) # I'm done # brace up [imp]! I'll doctor that fright of yours in fine style # it's all up with me! # hush [subj]! I'm the man to think you up a sedative for all this', PI. Mos. 385-388) These examples make clear that the second person of the present subjunctive is, just like the imperative, a fully fledged directive expression form. As the figures under (3) in section 5.1 show, it is not a marginal expression form either: VairelCarron lists 226 cases in Plautus and 43 cases in Terence. Nevertheless, compared to the simple imperative, the use of the Latin subjunctive as a directive expression form appears to be more restricted in at least four ways: (i) diachronic limitations: while subjunctive directives are quite common in Early Latin, they are more rarely found in texts of the classical period and later;

140

imperative directives

(ii)

the subjunctive is in all stages of Latin strongly connected with prohibitive directives; (iii) although the subjunctive may also be used in independent directives, subjunctive directives are, more often so than imperative directives, dependent on the surrounding context and they occur relatively often in reactive directives; (iv) the range of directive SUbtypes in which the subjunctive is used is less wide than in the case of imperative directives. I will deal with these four types of restrictedness in this order. In the case of the first two restrictions I will confine myself mainly to giving statistic overviews. The third and fourth restriction will be dealt with in more detail. At the end of this section I will, furthermore, briefly go into the aspectual differences that are often claimed to obtain between the present and the perfect subjunctive in prohibitions.

5.4.1 diachronic limitations As regards the diachronic development of the subjunctive's use in directives, the figures that were presented in section 5.1 show a clear decrease for the second person of the present subjunctive. In Early Latin this expression form is regularly used, although not as often as the imperative. The ratio between present subjunctive and imperative in the comedies is something like 1 : 15. Thus for Plautus Vairel-Carron lists 226 instances of the present subjunctive versus 3365 instances of the simple imperative (cf. 3). The fact that Cato's De agricultura contains only 14 instances of the second person present subjunctive is due to his strong preference for the imperative II that was explained in the previous section. In Cicero's letters, however, the use of the present subjunctive has quite clearly decreased. As can be seen in the figures that were presented under (4), there are only 2 cases among the 225 directives on which these figures are based. 36 Although this decrease is to some extent parallelled by a decrease of imperative directives, due to a general preference in Cicero's letters for lexical rather than grammatical expression means, the decrease of the subjunctive is much more striking. According to the accounts given by Blase (1903: 126-127) and

36. These two cases occur, moreover, in one and the same utterance (Cic. Fam. 14,4,3). They will be discussed below in section 5.4.3 as example (78).

second person subjunctive

141

Lofstedt (1966: 113ff), this relatively low frequency of the present subjunctive is fairly constant in all types of text from Classical Latin onwards. In those letters of Pliny that were taken into account in (4) the present subjunctive is even totally absent, although there are a few instances in other letters.3? The use of the perfect subjunctive in directives, on the other hand, does not display a similar decrease after Early Latin. Although not very frequent in the comedies, the use of this expression form remains fairly constant until the second century A.D.38 Thus, Vairel-Carron lists 42 instances in the comedies (37 in Plautus and 5 in Terence, cf. (3)), while there are, according to Lebreton (1901: 3(0), 43 instances in Cicero's wqrk as a whole, 25 of which are found in the letters. The fact that the perfect subjunctive's use remains fairly constant while the present subjunctive's use decreases from Classical Latin onwards is, probably, not unconnected with the former's exclusive use in prohibitives, which will be the subject of the next subsection.

5.4.2 prohibitive diredives The second respect in which the subjunctive differs from the imperative concerns the distribution over affirmative and prohibitive directives. The statistical data presented by Vairel-Carron (1975: 304-305) are, again, very useful here. If her figures for Plautus and Terence are taken together, the Early Latin data are as presented under (63). They show that, whereas the simple imperative in Latin comedy is predominant in affirmative directives, the subjunctive is relatively more prevalent in prohibitives. The perfect subjunctive is even exclusively confined to prohibitives. Although, as was briefly sketched in the preceding subsection, the overall situation in Classical Latin is somewhat different, we find similar tendencies with respect to the distribution of imperatives and subjunctives over affirmative and prohibitive directives. The frequency of imperatives in prohibitives is even lower than in Early Latin. There are, for example, only two or three cases in Cicero. 39

37. 38. 39. in a

According to Blase (1903: 127), there are 8 cases in all in Pliny's letters. Cf. Blase (1903: 197); Handford (1946: 47-48); Uifstedt (1966: 126-135). There is some dispute, cf. Lebreton (1901: 295-296) and Vairel-Carron (1975: 322-324), whether case such as All. 12,22,3 the negation pertains to the imperative verb or only to the constituent

quid res mea familiaris pastutet:

imperative directives

142 (63) affinnative and prohibitive directives in comedy (source: Vairel-Carron 1975: 304) AFFIRMATIVE imperative (+ periphrastics lO

4079

imperative II

425

present subjunctive. 2nd person

160

perfect subjunctive. 2nd person

PROHIBITIVE 81 (+76) 109 42

On the other hand, the use of the perfect subjunctive in prohibitives remains fairly constant. In addition to the periphrastic imperative expression noli plus infinitive (cf. example 2d in the introduction to the present chapter), the perfect subjunctive is, in fact, a prevalent prohibitive expression in Classical Latin. Therefore we can say that in Classical Latin, too, the imperative is mainly used in affinnative directives, whereas the subjunctive almost exclusively occurs in prohibitives.

5.4.3 dependency on the surrounding context A third difference between the use of subjunctive and imperative in directives, pertains to the way in which they tend to be dependent on the surrounding context. The imperative is most commonly used in 'independent' directives, i.e. directives that are not somehow dependent on elements within the surrounding context or 'invited' by a preceding utterance by the addressee to which they fonn a reaction. In the tenninology that was presented in the last section of chapter 2 (section 2.4), imperatives are most commonly found in initiating moves. Directives containing a present subjunctive, on the other hand, tend to be more dependent on

habe tuum negotium. nee quid res mea familiaris postulet, (... ) sed quid veJim el cur velim

exislima ('make it your business, and don't consider my purse, which I don't care about, but consider what I want and why I want it') Two other cases, which occur in De legibus, seem to represent (archaic) juridical language rather than the Classical Latin of Cicero's own times. 40. There is a slight inconsistency in Vairel-Carron's figures, because the affirmative periphrastic expressions (cf. 2a-b) are included under the heading of the imperative, whereas the prohibitive ones (cf. 2 c-e) are listed separately by her.

second person subjunctive

143

elements within the surrounding context. As will be illustrated below, this 'dependency' may take three forms: syntactic dependency, paratactic dependency and pragmatic dependency. It must be emphasized, however, that the imperative's preference for independent environments and the subjunctive's preference for dependent environments is a matter of tendencies, not of strict rules. The most extreme form of dependency is, of course, syntactic dependency. In syntactically dependent directive clauses the imperative cannot be used; the subjunctive is (in addition to the accusative and infinitive construction) the only expression form available, cf. (64). (64) Saurea, oro mea caussa ut mittas ('Saurea, I beg you to let him off for my sake', PI. As. 431-432) Besides, the subjunctive is also found quite often in the case of a more paratactic kind of dependency, which is exemplified by (65) and (66). In these cases, the subjunctive is syntactically independent, but within the same utterance we find parenthetical expressions like dico 'I tell you' ,fac 'do so' or sic censeo 'that's my advice' (cf. example (70) below), which indicate the directive nature of the utterance in a general way. The subjunctive directive specifies the 'content' of these general parenthetical expressions. (65) audin tu, patrue? dico, ne dictum neges: tuam mihi maiorem filiam despondeas (,listen here, uncle! I tell you, so that you don't regard what I said as unsaid: promise me your older daughter', PI. Poen. 1155-1156) (66) hic apud nos hodie cenes, sic face ('have dinner here with me today, do so!', PI. Mos. 1129) Thirdly, subjunctive directives are preferred in situations of pragmatic dependency, in which the directive involved is closely connected with the preceding context. Pragmatic dependency may take two forms. First of all, subjunctive directives are regularly found when they are closely connected with a preceding utterance of the speaker himself, which constitutes a subsidiary act that supports the directive involved (cf. section 2.4). Thus, directives that are introduced by proin(de) 'accordingly, therefore' are far more often expressed by means of a subjunctive

144

imperative directives

(13 of the 19 instances listed in Lodge's lexicon Plautinum s.v. proin, proinde) than by means of an imperative (6 instances). Proin(de) is used to explicitly establish the connection between the directive which it introduces and a previously presented state of affairs functioning as a motivation. An example is (67). (67) PE: immo si audias meas pugnas, fugias manibus demissis domum MI: pol ego magis unum quaero meas quoi praedicem quam illum qui memoret suas mihi PE: hic non est locus; proin tu alium quaeras quoi centones sarcias (,why, man alive, if you heard of my battles, you would race for home, using your arms like a sprinter # gad, I am looking for some man to recount my own battles to, rather than for one to tell me about his # you have come to the wrong place, so search out someone else to patch up your old rags for', PI. Epid. 451-455) Furthermore, the subjunctive is relatively often used in 'reactive directives', i.e. directives that occur in moves that form a reaction to an initiating move by the addressee. This initiating move may for instance consist of a request for advice (cf. 68 and 70), a request for instructions (cf. 69), or more in general a question as to the second speaker's wishes (see below, on numquid vis). Note that example (70) displays both paratactic dependency (cf. sic censeo) and pragmatic dependency on the preceding utterance. (68) PH: quid si hic animus occupatust, mater, quid/aciam? mone CL: em, meum caput contemples, si quidem ex re consultas tua ('what if my heart isn't free, mother? what then? advise me # look, consider these gray hairs of mine, if you really have any regard for your own good', PI. As. 537-538) (69) SI: quid nunc? BA: argentum des, abducas mulierem ('what now? # give me the money, take the girl', PI. Ps. 1015) (70) MA: quid ego nunc cum illoc agam? PE: idem quod semper: male habeas; sic censeo. huc concedamus: ex insidieis aucupa

second person subjunctive

145

('how shall I act toward him now? # the same as always: make him miserable; that's my advice. let's step aside here, catch him from ambush', PI. Men. 568-570) In (70) it is interesting to note that Peniculus' second advice aucupa, which is not a reaction to the matron's question how she should behave towards her husband but constitutes an 'independent' directive, which, together with huc concedamus, forms a new move (cf. section 2.4), is expressed by means of an imperative. The same obtains in example (61), where the subjunctives ducas and eas constitute a reaction to Lysidamus' request to Alcesimus to send his wife, whereas the imperatives abi and cura are pragmatically independent, because they belong to a new move. (61) LY: quid nunc? missurusne es ad me uxorem tuam? AL: ducas, easque in maxumam malam crucem cum hac cum istac, cumque arnica etiam tua. abi et aliud cura, ego ... Among the 85 subjunctive directives in Plautus that are listed by Loch (1872: 1920), 29 cases (i.e. ca. 35 %) are paratactically dependent on elements within the utterance involved or pragmatically dependent on the preceding context. 41 Although the imperative is also occasionally used in this way (cf. 71 and 72), these cases are proportionally far less frequent. (71) sic faciundum censeo: da isti cistellam et intro abi cum istac semul

('here's what I recommend: give her the casket and go inside along with her', PI. Cist. 769-770) (72) MA: quid nunc faciam, mi pater? SE: concede huc, mea nata, ab istoc quam potest longissume ('father dear, what shall I do now? # come over here, my child, as far as you can from him', PI. Men. 833-834)

41. Other instances of 'paratactic dependency' are PI. Cur. 270-271.435-436. Mil. 1097 and 1118. PI. Cisl. 63. 768. Ps. 1148 and 237·238. as well as the num quid vis cases discussed below. are instances of pragmatic dependency.

146

imperative directives

In order to give a brief statistical impression of the tendencies towards contextual dependency of subjunctive and imperative directives, I have collected 23 instances in Plautus of reactions to a preceding request for instructions containing expressions such as quid/aciam, quid agam meaning both 'what am I to do', quid vis /acere me 'what do you want me to do', quid mihi auctor es 'what do you advise me'. Among these reactions, 10 are expressed by means of a subjunctive (in 3 cases introduced by ut 'that') and 13 by means of an imperative. 42 If it is kept in mind that the overall ratio between subjunctive and imperative directives in comedy is something like 1:15, it will be clear that the number of subjunctives in this kind of reactive directives is proportionally very high, even if the cases in which the subjunctive is combined with an introductory ut are left out af account (I will come back to ut below). A similar tendency is found in the case of reactions to the pre-farewell formula numquid (aliud) (me) vis 'is there anything (else) you want (me to do)'. The implication of this formula is: 'if not, I am off' .43 Here the reaction is almost always a subjunctive directive (with or without introductory ut) when the speaker indeed wants something else to be done, whereas an imperative is used in most cases in which the speaker does not react to the request for another instruction but just wants the addressee to be off: vale or lac valeas 'farewell' and once i sane ('no indeed, go). The figures are given under (73).

42. The following cases were examined: subjunctive:

PI. As. 537-538; Cist. 63; 249-250; 301; Epid. 693; Mil. 1094-1100; Poen. 330.

ut + subj.:

PI. Mer. 621-622; Poen. 410-411; 721.

imperative:

PI. Aul. 636-637; Bac. 857; Cist. 591; Men. 834; Mer. 565; 568; Mil. 363; Mos. 371; 523; 1149-1151; Per. 42-43; Poen. 357; Trin.981.

Besides 1 also found other expression forms in such reactions, such as performative formula's (quaeso ut 'I ask you to'), veiim plus infinitive 'I would like you to', etc. These are left out of account here. 43. Cf. Hough (1945), who gives an interesting account of the way in which this formula is used in comedy and how it is exploited for comic effects.

147

second person subjunctive

(73) reactions to numquid vis etc. SUBJUNCTIVE

with ut: without ut: total number: 44 reaction constitutes: - farewell formula: - another instruction:

IMPERATIVE

13 7 20

11

4 «ut) valeas)

8 (vale)

16

3

These figures again clearly illustrate the subjunctive's tendency to occur in directives that are pragmatically dependent on the preceding context. Moreover, the fact that we find subjunctive reactions containing introductory ut, as well as subjunctive reactions without ut and imperative reactions, shows that the pragmatic dependency of directives in reactive moves may, but need not be expressed in the syntactic structure of the utterance. The subjunctive without ut occupies in these cases an intermediary position between syntactic dependency (ut plus subjunctive) and syntactic independence (the imperative). In this connection, I want to briefly discuss another group of subjunctive directives containing ut that are found in Early Latin. 45 In these cases ut is usually regarded as an adverbial, and not as a subordinate conjunction,46 and the subjunctives involved are, therefore, regarded as syntactically independent. It is interesting to note that, with very few exceptions, these cases are all pragmatically dependent in the same way as the subjunctive cases without ut discussed above.

44. All instances that are listed s. v. numquid in the lexica on Plautus and Terence are included. In addition, there is one case in which the reaction constitutes an unfulfillable wish (PI. Mil. 1086) and two cases in which the directive reaction is expressed by other means: an accusative plus infinitive, which is syntactically dependent on the preceding numquid vis in Ter. Ad. 432, and a perfonnative expression in Ter. Ad. 247. 45. Cf. Blase (1903: 129); Bennett (1910: 165-166); Kiihner-Stegmann (I, 187). Cf. also the discussion in Handford (1946: 42; 51-52). 46. As such, it is closely related to the adverbial ulinam that is used in wishes, where ul is also used, cf. Bennett (1910: 164-165) .

148

imperative directives

Bennett (1910: 165-166) lists 10 instances in comedy.47 Within this group of 10 subjunctive directives containing ut only 1 case involves a pragmatically independent directive which constitutes a new move, cf. (74).48 (74) (Antipho has to meet his angry father; he is coached by Geta to put on a

confident face) AN: voltum contemplamini: em satine sic est? GE: non AN: quid si sic? GE: propemodum AN: quid sic? GE: sat est: em istuc serva: et verbum verbo, par pari ut respondeas, ne te iratu' suis saevidicis dictis protelet. ('keep your eyes on my face. see now, will this do? # no # this then? # that's more like it # what of this? # that'll do; yes, keep that up; and answer him word for word, hit for hit, else in his rage he'll rout you with a broadside of curses', Ter. Ph. 210-213) The other 9 cases all constitute pragmatically dependent directives, as is exemplified by (75).49 (75) (Chremes is asked by a third person to forgive his son Clitipho)

CH: ea lege hoc adeo faciam, si facit [sc. the son] quod ego hunc aequom censeo CL: pater, omnia faciam: impera CH: uxorem ut ducas ('just on one condition I will do it, that he does what I think right for him # father, I will do anything: command me # take a wife', Ter. Hau. 10541056)

47. Bennett admits the difficulty (impossibility in some cases) of distinguishing between syntactically dependent and independent cases, but claims that these 10 cases are cases of undeniable syntactic independence. Cf. also Handford (1946: 52): "some exx. can equally well be taken as independent jussive subj. or as subordinate 'stipulative clauses"'. 48. It was suggested to me by Caroline Kroon (p.c.) that even in this case the subjunctive directive could be taken as constituting a sequel to the speaker's reaction to a request for advice that was issued much earlier (1. 199: quid agam?). Although this interpretation would be very attractive, because it would mean that these ut subjunctives display 100 % pragmatic dependency, it cannot be proved. 49. The others are PI. Bac. 739; Cur. 130; Epid. 269; Ter. Hau. 470, 1056; Eu. 339; Hec. 78-80; Ad. 741.

149

second person subjunctive

A definite conclusion about the syntactic status of these 10 cases cannot be drawn. On the one hand, the existence of cases like (74), where an imperative is coordinated with ut plus subjunctive, show that they could be syntactically independent; on the other hand, the analogy with the 7 ut + subjunctive cases following on numquid vis shows that they could also be syntactically dependent. For the present discussion, however, it does not really matter. What is important here is the fact that, regardless of their syntactic status, these cases display a very strong tendency towards being used in pragmatically dependent directives. To sum up the discussion about contextual dependency, I hope to have shown that, compared to imperative directives, directives that are expressed by means of a subjunctive display a relatively strong tendency for environments of paratactic or pragmatic dependency. This tendency is even stronger in the case of subjunctive directives containing ut. There is, however, not a complete dichotomy in this respect between imperatives and subjunctives, because there is a considerable overlap. Graphically, the situation can be represented as under (76). The horizontal line represents the various degrees of (in)dependency, envisaged as a continuum ranging from absolute (i.e. pragmatic and syntactic) dependency (point A), via an intermediate situation of syntactic independence but pragmatic dependency (point B) to absolute (i.e. both syntactic and pragmatic) independence (point C). The two triangles represent the domains that are covered by subjunctive and imperative directives, and give an (impressionistic) indication of the frequencies of these two constructions along the vertical axis. (76) the (in)dependency of subjunctive and imperative directives

A dependency

B

C independence

150

imperative directives

The tendencies that are illustrated by (76) are nicely confirmed by the few cases of subjunctive directives that are found in Cicero's correspondence. In the letters there are 9 potential instances of subjunctive directives in all. 50 Their status is, however, not undisputed. 51 In a number of cases editors have inserted lac or velim and regard the subjunctive as syntactically dependent (cf. example 79 below); in other cases, the subjunctive is regarded as dependent on such expressions occurring in preceding or following utterances (cf. 78). In my view, however, the majority of these cases fit in with the Early Latin picture discussed above and with the subjunctive's tendency to occur in pragmatically dependent directives. A good example in this respect is (77), in which the subjunctive is used to express advice that is attributed by Cicero to his addressee (cf. inquis 'you say') and that is asked for (cf. te consulo) by means of quid ergo faciam?, etc. (77) quid ergo faciam? te consulo, qui philosophum audis. angar, excruciem me? quid adsequar? deinde, quem ad finem? "vivas" inquis "in litteris" ('well, what am I to do? (I ask you, since you are going to philosophy lectures.) am I to torture and torment myself? what should I gain? and how long should I keep it up? "spend your life" you will say "in literary work"', Cic. Fam. 9,26,1) Several other cases display paratactic dependency, as is for instance the case in (78). It is not necessary, in my view, to explain (as is sometimes done) the subjunctives confirmes and adiuves in the first part of Cicero's 'resolve' as syntactically dependent on the fac which occurs in the second part. Rather these subjunctives constitute syntactically independent directive expressions, which parallel fac venias, but they are paratactically dependent on the introductory phrase opinor, sic agam 'this, I think, will be my line of conduct'.

50. Cic. Fam. 9,26,1; 14,4,3; 15,17,4; 16,9,4; Au. 4,4; 4,19,2; 10,15,4; 12,29,2; Qfr. 1,3,10. Besides, there are 2 cases of independent third person subjunctives introduced by Ul, in which the implied passive agent refers to the addressee. These cases are both found in Fam. 14,20. 51. On the reliability of the manuscript readings of these cases, see Sj(jgren (1916: 7-12) and, more recently, Tuomi (1975: 35-47), whose thorough discussion of the cases involved agrees with the views presented here.

second person subjunctive

151

(78) quid nunc? rogem te ut venias ( ... )? non rogem? ( ... ) opinor, sic agam: si est spes nostri reditus, eam confirmes et rem adiuves; sin, ut ego metuo, transactum est, quoquo modo potes, ad me fac venias. ('what now, shall I ask you to come ( ... )? shall I not ask you then? (... ) this, I think, will be my line of conduct: if there is any hope of my return, build it up and help in the campaign. On the other hand, if all is over, as I fear, then come to me any way you can', Cic. Fam. 14,4,3) There are, however, also a few cases which constitute pragmatically independent directives, cf. (79), where lac is usually inserted, but not found in the manuscriptS. 52 (79) quo die venies, utique cum tuis apud me sis ('the day you get there, don't fail to stay with me and bring your folks', Cic. Att. 4,4) The conclusion must be that the subjunctive directives found in Cicero's letters display exactly the same tendencies (which are strong but not absolute) towards paratactic and pragmatic dependency that are found in Early Latin.

5.4.4 directive SUbtypes Although, as was discussed in the preceding subsection, subjunctive directives display a strong tendency to occur in 'dependent' environments, they are also found in 'independent' environments, when they form part of initiating moves. In this subsection, I will discuss the various directive SUbtypes in which these independent subjunctive directives are used.

52. In older editions such as e.g. Watt's OCT edition/ac is inserted; this insertion is, however, not sustained by Shackleton Bailey in his commentary, where he remarks: "the second personal jussive present subjunctive is common in comedy. C. hardly uses it outside his letters and seldom in them; but the evidence appears sufficient." Quite surprisingly, Shackleton Bailey retains/ac in his (1987) Teubner edition.

152

imperative directives

About 50 cases of the 85 subjunctive directives in comedy that are listed by Loch (1872: 19-20) constitute independent, initiating directives. As was stated at the beginning of section 5.4, some of them are interchangeable with imperatives. Thus, in (80) subjunctive taceas and imperative tace are used interchangeably in one and the same situation. Even in the case of farewell wishings, which are strongly conventionalized, subjunctive valeas and salvus sis are a number of times juxtaposed to imperative farewell wishings (vale, salve). An example is (81). (80) PH: DE: PH: TR: PH: TR:

perdis rem tace, amabo # ... # ... # perii habe bonum animum: ego istum lepide medic abo metum nullus sum! taceas: ego qui istaec sedem meditabor tibi

(81) CL: mox magis quom otium mihi et tibi erit, igitur tecum loquar. nunc vale MY: valeas ('later on when we're both more at leisure I want a talk with you. for the present, goodbye # goodbye', PI. Cas. 215-216) Blase (1903: 126-127) lists a number of other examples of subjunctive and imperative pairs of directives. However, in spite of these cases of genuine interchangeability, the use ofthe subjunctive to express the various directive subtypes that were distinguished in section 2.3 seems to be slightly more restricted than the imperative's use. The diagram under (82) lists the frequencies of the present subjunctive's use in directive subtypes. The figures cover those cases listed by Loch in which the subjunctive is used in pragmatically independent directives. In order to compare the subjunctive's with the imperative's uses in directive subtypes, the figures that were given under (9) for the use of the imperative in Plautus are repeated in (82). The figures under (82) show that subjunctive directives are less varied than imperative directives. In comedy subjunctives are predominantly used to express orders and advice, as well as a number of concessions, i.e. disinterested (or angry) permissions (cf. section 5.2.3). Examples of these three types of directives are (83), (84), and (85), respectively.

153

second person subjunctive

(82) the present subjunctive's and imperative's use in comedy

order request supplication/urgent request advice invitation suggestion permission concession

SUBJUNCTIVE

IMPERATIVE

18

88 31 3 37 12

2 10

5

7

11

(83) NI: Chrysale, ades dum ego has pellego CH: quid me tibi adesse opus est? NI: volo ut quod iubeo facias, ut scias quae hic scripta sient CH: nil moror neque scire volo NI: tamen ades CH: quid opust? NI: taceas: quod iubeo id facias CH: adero (,Chrysalus, stay here while I read this over # what's the use of my staying with you? I want you to do what I tell you, so that you may know what is written here # not for me-I don't wish to know # never mind, stay here # what's the use? # shut up, do what I say # I will', PI. Bac. 988-990a) (84) (Telestis has found out that Stratippocles is her brother, but he can hardly believe it; Epidicus tries to convince him that it's true) ST: quid? ego modo huic frater factus, dum intro eo atque exeo? EP: quod boni est id tacitus taceas tute tecum et gaudeas ('what? how can I have changed to a brother, while I just step in and out of the house? # take your good luck quietly, keep it quiet and rejoice', PI. Epid. 650-651)

154

imperative directives

(85) CL: ecqua pars orationis de die dabitur mihi? PH: et meam partem loquendi et tuam trado tibi; ad loquendum atque at tacendum tute habeas portisculum ('am I to get some share of the speechmaking before nightfall? # I give you my share and my own, too: you can have the boatswain hammer and beat the time for talking and keeping still', PI. As. 516-518) As can be seen in (82), these types of directives are also quite frequently expressed by imperatives. Besides, imperatives are also found in other directive subtypes, whereas the subjunctive is, at least in comedy, largely restricted to these three sUbtypes. In terms of the parameters on which the distinctions between the various types of directives are based, the subjunctive is mainly used in binding directives and is hardly found in optional directives, which leave the decision about actually carrying out the content of the directive to the addressee (requests, invitations, suggestions). It is significant in this connection that expressions of optionality such as sis and sodes 'if you want' are not found in subjunctive directives in comedy.53 As is indicated in (82) there are two instances of urgent requests, which are almost supplications and do not leave much room for optionality, either. One of them is (86).54 (86) (the parasite Gelasimus is urging Epignomus to invite him for dinner; the latter keeps refusing and postponing the invitation) EP: (... ) quando usus veniet, fiet GE: nunc ergo usus est EP: non edepol possum GE: quid gravare? censeas ('when the proper time comes, I'll invite you # well then, the proper time is now # upon my word, I can't # why demur? say "yes''', PI. St. 475-476) As will be clear on the basis of (82) and the examples given here, the view defended by Vairel-Carron (1975) and Touratier (1977) that the subjunctive

53. Cf. also Pinkster (1990: 200). Morris (1897: 146-147), who lists 121 cases of subjunctive directives, claims that there are "15 or 20 requests" but does not specify which cases he regards as such. I have not found any of them in my corpus. 54. The other request, which is even more urgent, is PI. Men. 782.

second person subjunctive

155

conveys a milder form of directive than the imperative is untenable. 55 A related view, expressed for instance by the ancient Latin grammarian Charisius, that the subjunctive expresses advice rather than orders could perhaps be related to the subjunctive's tendency to occur in reactive directives following on questions like quidfadam 'what shall I do,.56 However, the figures in (80) make clear that the subjunctive is quite commonly used in orders as well; therefore, it does not seem to be correct to say that the subjunctive'S value is 'advice'. Although the subjunctive is, as argued above, certainly not a relatively 'mild' directive expression, its use in requests is not totally excluded, as can be seen in correspondence. Among the small number of directive subjunctives that are found (cf. the end of 5.4.3), there are one or two directives that are quite optional, cf. (87). (87) quo die [ad me] venies, tu, si me amas, apud me cum tuis maneas57 ('please stay with me your first night in Rome, you and your people', Cic. Au. 4,19,2)

Nevertheless, the absence of optional subjunctive directives in comedy is so manifest, that an explanation in terms of the nature of this text type as compared to correspondence (optional directives are more rare in comedy than in correspondence) would not be sufficient, in my opinion. My conclusion is, therefore, that on the whole the subjunctive is not as neutral with respect to directive SUbtype as the imperative is, and if anything, it would rather be a more 'binding' type of directive expression than a 'milder' expression form.

5.4.5 perfect versus present subjunctive A few words, finally, must be devoted to the perfect subjunctive. As was mentioned earlier in this section, its use in prohibitive directives is, although not

55. This view was also held in antiquity, cf. Donatus ad Ter. An. 598 "quiescas pro quiesce imperativi modi, ne iniuriosum videretur". This quotation is given by L(jfstedt (1966: 113), who does not, however, agree with it either. 56. Cf. Charisius 228 in the edition of Keil (1847). 57. In his commentary Shackleton Bailey reads the tu printed here; in the OCT edition by Watt as well as in Shackleton Bailey's Teubner edition,fac is read instead of tu, which would make maneas syntactically dependent, cf. the end of section 5.4.3 with note 52.

156

imperative directives

extremely frequent, fairly constant in all periods of Latin. Most of the attention devoted to this expression form pertains to an alleged 'aspectual' difference between the present subjunctive and the perfect subjunctive: the former is supposed to express durative prohibitions, which direct the addressee not to continue an action already taking place, whereas the latter is supposed to express momentary prohibitions, which direct the addressee not to do something which he might be somehow expected to do. It will suffice here to refer to Handford's account of this discussion (Handford 1946: 43-48) and to quote his conclusion: 58 "( ... ) the usage of early Latin was quite consistent enough to justify us in regarding these constructions as being respectively the normal ones for the expression of the two kinds of prohibitions described. The exceptions merely show that differences of aspect were ceased to be felt in Latin, and that the constructions were coming to be regarded to some extent as mere alternatives, which could be employed as the speaker's choice or metrical convenience might determine" (1946: 45-46) As Handford correctly points out, in as far as such an 'aspectual value' of the present subjunctive was still alive in Early Latin, it was shared by the negated imperative. 59 Since, however, at a given moment both the imperative and the present subjunctive ceased to be used in prohibitions, it makes no sense to search for a specific aspectual value of the perfect subjunctive in Classical Latin. As regards the nature of the prohibitive directives in which the perfect subjunctive is used, there seem to be no restrictions such as the ones discussed in the preceding section in connection with the present subjunctive. The perfect subjunctive does not display a particular preference for pragmatically dependent directives, nor do there appear to be any restrictions as to the type of directive involved. It is not only found in orders (cf. 88, where sis 'please' is used rather sarcastically, as can be judged from the rest of the utterance), advice (cf. 89), and supplications (cf. 90), but also in requests (cf. 91, where the perfect subjunctive

58. Cf. also Bennett (1910: 173-174); Lofstedt (1966: 126-132); Kiihner-Stegmann (1,189); Szantyr (p. 337). 59. Vairel-Carron (1975: 189-219), on the other hand, claims the durative prohibitive value exclusively for the negated imperative and regards the present and perfect subjunctive prohibitive expressions as neutral in this respect.

second person subjunctive

157

is combined with nolito). The 25 instances of the second person perfect subjunctive in Cicero's letters are also mainly requests. 60 (88) ne sis me uno digito attigeris, ne te ad terram, scelus, adfligam ('don't you lay a finger on me, or I'll land you flat on the ground, you scoundrel!', PI. Per. 793) (89) nil me curassis, inquam, ego mihi providero ('don't bother about me, I tell you, I'll look out for myself all right', PI. Mos. 526)

(90) EU: at ego deos credo voluisse ut apud me te in nervo enicem L Y: ne istuc dixis ('yes, and I think it must have been fated that I am to shackle you at my house and murder you! # don't say that, sir', PI. Aul. 743-744) (91) sed tu, Gymnasium mea, si mea apsente Alcesimarchus veniet, noli to acriter eum inclamare: utut erga me est meritus, in cordi est tamen. sed, amabo, tranquille: ne quid quod illi doleat dixeris ('but listen, Gymnasium dear, if Alcesimarchus comes while I'm gone, don't be sharp and hash with him and say hateful things - no matter how he has acted toward me, I do think so much of him still! - but please be gentle with him; don't say anything to hurt his feelings', PI. Cist. 107-110) As this last example shows, the perfect subjunctive may function as the prohibitive congener of the imperative II in expressing non immediate directives; cf. also (57). The perfect subjunctive is, however, also regularly found in combination with a simple imperative (cf. 92). Apparently, the perfect subjunctive is neutral with respect to the immediate - non immediate opposition between the two imperative forms. (57) ubi voles pater esse ibi esto; ubi noles ne fueris pater

60. Lebreton (1901: 300) gives a complete list.

158

imperative directives

(92) P A: sunt crepundia DA: ecca video GR: (... ) mane, ne ostenderis ('there's a chain of toys # yes, here it is # ( ... ) hold on, don't show it to her', PI. Rud. 1154-1155) To conclude, although originally the perfect subjunctive may have had a particular aspectual value, expressing non-durative prohibitions, this expression develops, to some extent already in Early Latin, but more in Classical Latin into a regular prohibitive expression, whose value is relatively neutral with respect to aspect, immediacy, and directive SUbtypes.

5.5

The first person plural subjunctive

The last expression form within the imperative sentence type to be discussed in this chapter is the first person plural present subjunctive. 61 This expression is characteristically used to make proposals. Because the subject refers both to the speaker and to the addressee as the agents of the action involved, the speech act expressed is partly directive but has also a commissive element.62 Although the term 'proposal' suggests an optional kind of speech act (such as example 93), I use it to cover more binding ones as well, cf. (94). The interest of the content of proposals is usually primarily on the side of the speaker, as in (94) or in the interest of both speaker and addressee (cf. 93 and 95), but cases like (96) show that proposals may also be exclusively in the interest of the addressee. (93) ME/SO: eamus, Amphitruo. lucescit hoc iam IV/AM: abi prae, Sosia; iam ego sequar ('let's go, sir; it's getting light already # go ahead, Sosia; I shall be with you in a moment', PI. Am. 543-544)

61. The corresponding form of the perfect subjunctive is not used in directives. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that there are only very few cases in which the first person plural subjunctive is used in prohibitives (cf. Bennett 1910: 166-167). As was discussed in the preceding subsection, the perfect subjunctive is not used in affirmative directives. 62. Handford (1946: 40) gives a similar characterization, although he does not use the terms 'speech act', 'speaker', and •addressee' .

first person plural subjunctive

159

(94) LY: ( ... ) nam omnibus amicis meis idem unum convenit, ut me suspendam, ne addicar Agorastocli AG: leno, eamus in ius L Y: opsecro te, Agorastocles, suspendere ut me liceat ('( ... ) now all my friends were quite agreed that the only way for me to escape being adjudged to Agorastocles was to hang myself # pimp, let us be off to court # do be merciful, Agorastocles, and let me hang myself', PI. Poen. 1340-1343) (95) eamus intro, ut prandeamus

('let's go in and have luncheon', PI. Men. 387) (96) aqua calet: eamus hinc intro ut laves ('the water's hot: let's go inside so that you may bathe', PI. Bac. 105) The first person plural 'subjunctive is not only used in proposals that constitute initiating moves, but it may also be used in reactions to a proposal, to express compliance by means of a repetition: (97) EU: eamus intro, non utibilest hic locus, factis tuis, dum memoramus, arbitri ut sint qui praetereant per vias DE: hercle qui tu recte dicis: eadem brevior fabula erit. eamus ('let's go inside: this is not a fit place to discuss your doings for the enlightenment of passers-by # yours is a happy thought, I swear! and that will shorten the playas well. let's go', PI. Mer. 1005-1008) In a number of cases the directive element involved in first person plural proposals is much more predominant than the commissive element, as may be clear from the peripheral expressions of directivity that are added. 63 In a weaker form, the addition of a vocative, emphasizing the addressee's involvement in the speech act, suggests the prevalence of the directive element (cf. 93 and 94). This prevalence is, however, much stronger in cases like (98) and (99), which contain

63. Morris makes as similar observation, although he formulates it differently: "The use of age, agite and of vocative (... ) and especially of tu (... ) shows that the sense of the 2nd person was felt" (1897: 156, emphasis mine). Cf. also Handford (1946: 40).

160

imperative directives

tu. Although it is impossible to prove that tu is in such cases not a vocative but a subject 'ad sententiam', tu seems to express more explicitly than a mere vocative does the addressee's involvement as the principal agent of the action referred to. In (98) eamus tu 'let's go you' amounts to something like I mecum 'go with me, follow me', as can also be inferred from the addressee's reaction, which refers only to his own going to court, not to Callicles'. (98) CA: eamus tu in ius DI: quid vis in ius me ire? ('come now, you, off to court # why do you want me to go to court, sir?', PI. Truc. 840) Such a predominance of the directive element over the commissive element is not only found in binding proposals such as (98), but also in more optional proposals like (99) and (100). Here the emphasis on the addressee's involvement in the action finds expression in addressee oriented formulas of polite optionality, such as quando vis 'when you want' in (99) and sis 'if you please' in (l00). (99) nunc, quando vis, eamus intro ('now, when you wish, let's go inside', PI. Men. 422) (l00)

age sis, eamus, nos curemus ('come then, please, let's go in and make ourselves comfortable', PI. Poen. 1422)

Even in cases that do not contain an explicit reflection of a predominantly directive nature, the latter can be inferred on the basis of the context. Thus, the proposal in (101) does not display any indications of strong addressee involvement, but on the basis of the addressee's reaction (in addition to our knowledge from earlier parts of the comedy that 'returning to our native land' is quite selfevident for the speaker who actually lives there, but not for the addressee who has lived abroad all his life) we can infer that the proposal is made in the first place to get the addressee to do something. (l01)ME2 : quoniam haec evenere, frater, nostra ex sententia, in patriam redeamus ambo

first person plural subjunctive

161

frater, faciam, ut tu voles. auctionem hic faciam et vendam quidquid est ('now that things have turned out to our satisfaction, brother, let's go back to our own country together # I will do as you wish, brother. I'll hold an auction here and sell all I have', PI. Men. 1151-1153)

MEl:

A conspicuous feature of the first person plural proposals discussed up to this point is that they involve' going' (i.e. a form of ire 'to go' or redire 'to return'. Although, as we will see below, other actions may also be involved, cases involving (red)ire indeed constitute the majority of the proposals in comedy. This can be simply explained by the fact that 'going' lends itself quite well for a joint action. Explanations in terms of an idiomatic status of the form eamus are, in my opinion, not required. The first person plural subjunctive's use to express a proposal in correspondence is not different from its use in comedy. Two examples are (102) and (103). The addressee's involvement in (102) ensues from the fact that Atticus (to which this letter is addressed) usually was engaged in Cicero's financial transactions. (102)

sed de prima pensione ante videamus. adest enim dies, et ille currit ('but let us first see to installment number one. it will be due presently and he is in a hurry', Cic. Aft. 12,8)

(103)

gaude meo, gaude tuo, gaude etiam publico nomine: adhuc honor studiis durat. (... ) studeamus ergo nec desidiae nostrae praetendamus alienam (,rejoice, my friend, not only upon my account, but your own, and that of the public: oratory is still held in honour (... ) come on then and let us earnestly pursue our studies, nor screen our own indolence under pretence of that of the public', Plin. Ep. 4,16,1-3)

It should be noted, however, that in some of the cases in Cicero's letters, the first

person plural is used to refer to actions of the speaker only. This phenomenon, which is usually called 'soziative Pluralis' or 'pluralis modestiae', is a rhetorical device by means of which the speaker presents his opinions not as his own, but

162

imperative directives

includes the addressee (or other people) in his considerations.64 It is quite common in Cicero's letters in all kinds of speech acts. In the case of a subjunctive pluralis modestiae, the speaker does not intend to include the addressee in the action involved, only in his thinking about the actions. Therefore, these cases are de facto purely commissive and do not contain a directive element. Whether a particular instance of the first person plural subjunctive is a 'modest commissive' or constitutes a genuine addressee involving proposal can be judged only on the basis of the context. Two examples of pluralis modestiae commissives are (104) and (105). In (104) the argument that is given in support of the content of quiescamus is relevant only for Cicero's situation, not for Atticus', who is therefore not involved in the action. In (105) ut censes as well as Cicero's characterization of himself that is used as an argument make clear that, again, only Cicero's behaviour is at stake here, with respect to which Atticus apparently had expressed his opinion in a preceding letter. (104)

sed, opinor, quiescamus, ne nostram culpam coarguamus qui, dum urbem, id est patriam, amamus dumque rem conventuram putamus, ita nos gessimus ut plane interclusi captique simus. ('but I had best lie low or I shall be convicting myself, because in that love of Rome, my country, and in the belief that there would be a compromise I got myself in the position of a prisoner, completely cut off', Cic. Att. 9,6,2)

(105)

tanto plus apud me valet benifici gratia quam iniuriae dolor. faciamus igitur ut censes conligamusque. ('so far does gratitude for a service outweigh with me resentment of an injury. let me then do as you recommend and collect my thoughts', Cic. Au. 9,9,1)

Cases like (104) and (105) are, however, marked 'rhetorical' exceptions. In its unmarked use, the first person plural subjunctive expresses proposals involving a commissive as well as a directive element.

64. Cf. Kiihner-Stegmann (I, 87-88), Szantyr (p. 19-20), and Haverling (1988: 40).

conclusion

5.6

163

Conclusion

I will summarize the main observations that have been made in this lengthy chapter on directives within the imperative sentence type by summing up once more the differences between the five expression forms discussed: the simple imperative, the so-called imperative II, the second person of the present and the perfect subjunctive, and the first person plural of the present subjunctive. With the exception of the simple imperative, which is the most 'neutral' and most versatile, and hence the most frequent directive expression form, each of them displays certain preferences for particular circumstances of use. Thus, in view of its combined first and second person subject reference, the first person plural subjunctive is only used when the speaker somehow joins in the action involved, even though the emphasis may lie on the addressee's involvement. The second person of the perfect subjunctive is exclusively used in prohibitive directives. The second person of the present subjunctive also displays a certain preference for prohibitive directives but is not exclusively used so. This expression form tends, furthermore, to be used in directives that are somehow dependent on their surrounding context, either because they are 'paratactically' dependent on a more general directive expression that occurs in the same utterance, or because they are closely connected with the preceding context. In the latter case they may be closely connected with a preceding supportive speech act by the speaker himself, or they may belong to a reactive move, which is 'invited' by the addressee. The imperative II, finally, is mainly used when the realization of the action specified is not presented as immediate but as taking place later and/or under particular circumstances only. Furthermore, the imperative II is used not only when its subject agent refers to ordinary definite second person addressees, as is always the case with the simple imperative, but also when it refers to indefinite addressees, i.e. to a particular subsection of a larger body of potential addressee's or to a general category of agents for whom realization is relevant. Contrary to what is generally claimed, however, the subject of the imperative II never refers to definite, individual third persons. For the reasons mentioned above the imperative II is a very suitable directive expression form for instructional texts or law texts.

6. DECLARATIVE DIRECTIVES

As was argued in chapter 3, the grammatical expression of directive speech acts is not confined to the imperative sentence type. The semantic features that together express the 'essential ingredients' of directivity (i.e. the active involvement of the addressee in the realization of a future state of affairs) may also be combined in other sentence types. Within the declarative sentence type there are two kinds of grammatical expression of directivity.! The first one, which is by far the most common, involves the future tense of the indicative mood of verbs that refer to a controlled state of affairs. The addressee's active involvement in realizing this state of affairs is usually expressed by means of a second person agent subject, cf. (1). In a small number of cases, the addressee's involvement as an agent is combined with the speaker's, resulting in proposal-like directives expressed by the first person plural of the future indicative (ct. 2). (1)

in Italiam euntibus omnibus ad me litteras dabis ('you will give all travellers to Italy letters to me', Cic. Fam. 16,6,2)

(2)

hac non successit, alia adoriemur via ('we've failed this road, we'll try another one', Ter. An. 670)

Contrary to the impression that is given for instance by Szantyr (p. 326-327), the second person present indicative seems not to have been a current directive expression in Early and Classical Latin? The only Early Latin example that is

1. In addition, there are a great number of lexical expressions of directivity within the declarative sentence type, such as performative expressions, modal verbs and predicates, evaluating expressions, etc. They will be dealt with in chapter 8. The present chapter is exclusively devoted to the grammatical expression forms of directivity that belong to the declarative sentence type. 2. In claiming the existence of present indicative directives in Latin, Szantyr (or the earlier authors of the manual, Leumann and Hofmann) seems to have been guided by his intuitions with respect to his own language rather than by the Latin data, as is suggested by his observation that" ... der befehlende Ind. Praes. (... ) eignet daher wie im Deutschen (... ) vorziiglich der Kommandosprache, ... " (p. 326-327, emphasis mine). Cf. also Petersmann (1977: 204) "Die Verwendung des Indikativs anstatt des Imperativs ist eine in der Volkssprache wurzelnde Erscheinung. Sie ist eben so im Deutschen anzutreffen, wo der Indikativ gegeniiber dem Imperativ oft als die energischere Ausdrucksweise erscheint (... )".

166

declarative directives

quoted by Szantyr (cf. 3) comes from a fragment, the context of which has been lost. (3)

itis, paratis arma ('you [plur.] go and get the weapons ready', Trag. inc. frgm. 34)

Szantyr as well as L6fstedt (1966: 176) think that it may have been a military command. Bennett (1910: 25), however, interprets this case as an interrogative utterance. These differences in interpretation make clear that a case like this without context cannot be used to draw any conclusions about a possible directive use of the present indicative.3 There are, furthermore, two much discussed instances, in Quintilian (Decl. 259) and in Petron (33,2; cf. Petersmann 1977: 204-205), where, however, the manuscripts readings vary.4 The second directive expression form within the declarative sentence type involves a gerundival expression in combination with copular esse 'to be'. This construction is a peril;'hrastic modal expression that has a general deontic value. 5 It can be used to express a directive speech act when it is combined with an agent expression that refers to the addressee. Such an agent expression usually takes the form of the so-called 'dativus auctoris'. An example is (4). (4)

(Cicero congratulates his secretary Tiro, who has bought a small estate, and teases him by saying that he will become a country man) deponendae tibi sunt urbanitates; rusticus Romanus factus es ('you must shed your town-bred ways: you're now a Roman squire', Cic. Fam. 16,21,7)

3. L6fstedt (1966: 176) cites another possible instance, which is found in a Pompeian graffito (elL IV 3494). Again, there is no context, so that the directive interpretation cannot be confirmed. A number of other instances that are quoted by Lofstedt involve uncertain readings or are from later stages of Latin (cf. Lofstedt, 1966: 176-183). 4. These cases are extensively discussed by Soffritti (1963), together with a number of allegedly directive instances of vides. I am, however, not wholly convinced of the directive nature of these vides instances, which usually occur in a subsidiary act that motivates another, often directive main act. The only indisputably directive cases mentioned by Soffritti are those found in the cooking manual by Apicius and in magic incantations, which constitute a rather uncommon type of language use. 5. The term notio necessitatis 'a sense of necessity' is commonly used to describe the value of this gerundival construction. I will not go into its specific semantic and syntactic properties, but cf. Roby (1882, vol. II, p. Ixxi-Ixxviii), Kiihner-Stegmann (I, 727-736), Szantyr (p. 369-374), and the more elaborate discussions in Lebreton (1901: 396-399; 414-415), Aa1to (1949), Bolkestein (1980: 135-145), and Heberlein (1989).

declarative directives

167

This directive use of a gerundival construction with an explicit addressee referring agent expression is, however, extremely rare. More often, but still not very frequently, we find a more implicit directive use without an explicit agent expression. This is exemplified by (5). The fact that the addressee is envisaged as the agent is clear from the context: both the preceding (mock) threat and the following directive refer to the addressee's actions. (5)

(Cicero reprimands Tiro teasingly for sending something without an accompanying letter) non potes effugere huius culpae poenam te patrono. Marcus est adhibendus, isque diu et multis lucubrationibus commentata oratione vide ut probare possit te non peccasse ('you cannot hope to escape punishment for this offence if you conduct your own case. you must call Marcus in and see whether he can prove you innocent with a speech long pondered in the watches of many a night', Cic. F am. 16,26,1)

The nature of these two declarative directive expression forms, viz. the future indicative and the gerundival expression plus copular esse, differs. The difference lies, among other things, in the way in which the future realization is envisaged: whereas the expression involving a gerundival construction has a non-specific deontic value which expresses in a general way that the state of affairs involved 'should be realized', the future indicative presents the future realization as virtual (cf. section 4.2). As a result, the latter predominantly expresses binding types of directives, whereas the general deontic value of the former can in principle be used for all types of directives. Secondly, because the gerundival construction is, in fact, a rather general kind of deontic expression, it can also be used in speech acts that support other directive main acts rather than being directive main acts themselves, whereas the future indicative is only used in directive main acts. The use of these two expression types will be discussed in more detail below in sections 6.2 and 6.3, respectively. First, I will discuss their distribution in comedy and correspondence.

168 6.1

declarative directives Distribution

An impression of the frequency of future indicative and gerundival directives in comedy and correspondence can be gained from the figures under (6). They represent the number of instances that occur in 55 pages of Plautus, Cicero, and Pliny (cf. note 1 in chapter 4). The figures given in (6) clearly illustrate the low frequency of gerundival constructions that are used to express directives. There is only 1 fully explicit case among the 651 directives that are covered in (6), and there are 12 more implicit cases, which lack an overt reference to the addressee as the agent of the action involved. (6) grammatical directives in the declarative sentence type PLAUTUS

CICERO

PLINY

- second person

5

35

6

- first person plural

no cases in this corpus

future indicative:

GER plus esse - with agent expression

-

I

-

- without agent expression

3

6

3

8

42

9

355

229

67)

TOTAL number of declarative expressions (TOTAL number of directives

The situation of the future indicative, on the other hand, is quite different. Although at first sight this directive expression form seems also to be rather marginal, this holds only for comedy where there are 5 cases among 355 directives. In correspondence, and in particular in the letters of Cicero, we find more cases. If it is taken into account that in the letters of Cicero on which the figures in (6) arc based there are no more than 61 non-periphrastic imperatives (cf. section 5.1), the 35 future indicative directives constitute a major group of grammatical directive expressions in Cicero's correspondence.

future indicative

6.2

169

The future indicative

The future indicative in a declarative utterance presents the realization of a future state of affairs as virtual. If the state of affairs referred to is controlled, and the agent refers to the addressee, the utterance usually constitutes a directive. Because the realization is presented as virtual, the future indicative directive expression form does not leave any room for optionality. Peripheral expressions that would add a sense of optionality, such as sis 'if you want', amabo 'please', or parenthetic quaeso 'I request', are rarely found in combination with the future indicative. 6 General (i.e. not specifically directive) reinforcing expressions, on the other hand, such as herde, edepol 'by gad', etc. (cf. examples 12, 14, 15 below), are quite common, as well as expressions that reflect the speaker's confidence with respect to the realization of the state of affairs involved (cf. certe in example 14). In view of the fact that they present the future realization of the action involved as virtual, future indicative directives are predominantly used in situations in which the speaker has reason to be confident that the addressee will comply.? This confidence may be based on various grounds. First, it may be based on the authority which the speaker has (or assumes himself to have) over the addressee; this authority may be based on the speaker's social position, but it can also be the result of the circumstances. Secondly, the addressee may have agreed beforehand, explicitly or implicitly, to comply. A third situation in which future indicative directives may be used is when they constitute a continuation, a specification, or a repetition of a previous directive, which itself need not be binding. In these cases only, the future indicative may also be used to express non-binding directives. I will discuss the use of the future indicative on the basis of these three situations.

6. One example in a letter by Cicero to Tiro (Fam. 16,5,2) is: et facies si me diligis ut cotidie sit Acastus in portu ('and you will, if you love me, daily send Acastus to the port') 7. Comparable observations are made in most studies in which this expression is discussed, cf. e.g." ... indem die Erfiillung des ausgesachten (... ) in der Form sicherer Erwartung ausgesprochen wird" (Kiihner-Stegmann I, 144); cf. also Szantyr (p. 311), and" L'ind. dans un ordre ou une defense implique I'assurance du locuteur qui s'attend 11 I'execution de I'ordre." (Uifstedt 1966: 146). Blase (1903: 116) and Bennett (1910: 39), on the other hand, claim that the future indicative is, just like the imperative, a neutral 'jussive expression' that does not have a particular peremptory force.

170

declarative directives

(i) The authoritative use of the future indicative is the most common type of use in comedy. It involves both directives whose content is in the interest of the speaker (i.e. orders) and directives whose content is in the addressee's interest (i.e. advice). Examples are (7) and (8), respectively. The authoritative nature of Pistoclerus' words in (7) is clear from his threat (tollam ego ted in collum 'I'll perch you up on my neck') which precedes his future indicative directive. (7)

PI:

postremo, si pergis parvom mihi fidem arbitrarier, tollam ego ted in collum atque intro hinc auferam MN: immo ibo, mane PI: non maneo, neque tu me habebis falso suspectum ('see here now, if you go on making light of my word, I'll perch you up on my neck and carry you off inside # no, no, I'll go: wait # I won't wait, and you will stop suspecting me falsely', PI. Bac. 570-572)

(8)

(Palaestrio thinks that he has seen his master's mistress embracing someone else; his fellow slave Sceledrus convinces him that this didn't happen) SC: ( ... ) quid propius fuit quam ut perirem, si elocutus essem ero? PA: ergo, si sapis, mussitabis: plus oportet scire servom quam loqui ('oh, wasn't I within an inch of being done for, if I'd told master? # well then, if you are wise, you will keep mum. a servant ought to know more than he tells', PI. Mil. 475-477)

In this type of authoritative directives, the peripheral expression si sap is/sapies 'if you are/will be wise' is very often added. Although this expression in its literal sense points to advice (as in 8), it is also quite often used in orders, adding a threatening tone and implying unpleasant sanctions in the case of non-compliance (cf.9). (9)

(a cook is giving orders to a group of slaves) Dromo, desquama piscis. tu, Machaerio, congrum, mumam exdorsua quam potest. (... ) tu iFtum gallum, si sapis, glabiorem reddes mihi quam vol sus ludiust. sed quid hoc clamoris oritur hinc ex proxumo? ('Dromo, scale the fish. as for you, Machaerio, you bone the conger and lamprey as fast as you know how. ( ... ). and you there! if you know what's good for you, you won't hand me back that rooster till it's plucked cleaner

future indicative

171

than a ballet dancer. but what's this noise coming from the house next door?', PI. Aul. 398-403) As is pointed out by Plantinga (n.d.), the typical conversational moves following 'authoritative' future indicatives provide a good indication of their binding and authoritative value. Often there is no reaction at all, because the speaker does not bother to give the addressee any room for reaction. The speaker simply goes on speaking, as in (9) above and in (10), or leaves the stage without bothering to wait for a reaction, as in (11).8 (10) (Daemones tries to get money from Labrax on behalf of his slave Gripus; when the latter interferes, he is told to shut up) DA: [to Labrax] quando ergo erga te benignus fui atque opera mea haec tibi sunt servata -GR: immo herc1e mea, ne tu dicas tua DA: [to GriPllS] si sapies tacebis -- [to Labrax] tum te mihi benigne itidem addecet bene merenti bene referre gratiam ('now then, seeing I've done the decent thing by you and all this has been saved for you through my assistence - # [interference by Gripus:] no sir, by gad, through my assistence! don't you say "yours" # [reaction to Gripus] if you're wise you keep your mouth shut - [turning back to Labrax] then you ought to do the decent thing by me also and return the favour of a man who has favoured you', PI. Rud. 1389-1392) (11) TR: molestus ne sis nunciam, i rus, te amove. ne tu herc1e praeterhac mihi non facies moram GR: satin abiit neque quod dixi flocci existumat? ('stop annoying me this instant! back to your farm! vanish! by Jove, you will not delay me furthermore # so he's gone, eh? and never cared a straw for what I said', PI. Mos. 74-76)

8. Cf. also example (8), which is immediately followed by the announcement of the speaker that he is leaving. Other instances of speakers leaving the stage are e.g. PI. Mer. 584, Bac. 402, and St. 324325.

172

declarative directives

It should be emphasized that these contexts of use are not specifically characteristic for future indicative directives, but for binding directives in general, as can be seen in (9) and (11), which both contain other directive expressions as well. The fact that future indicatives are so often used in these contexts is, however, an indication of the predominantly binding and authoritative nature of future indicative directives. In cases in which the speaker does leave room for a reaction to his future indicative directive, this reaction often constitutes a rejection of the directive, i.e. a 'problemizing reaction' (cf. section 2.4). The fierceness of some of these rejections provides another indication that the future indicative directives involved were felt to be binding and authoritative. Two examples are (12) and (13).

(12) (Libanus is teasing his master Argyrippus before handing over a sum of money which the latter badly needs; at a certain moment the slave demands a horseride on the back of his master) LI: ne istuc nequiquam dixeris in me tam indignum dictum, vehes pol hodie me, si quidem hoc argentum ferre speres AR: ten ego veham? ('not to have you saying such shameful things of me free of charge, you'll carry me on your back today, by gad, that is, if you count on getting this cash # I carry you on my back?', PI. As. 698-7(0) (13) (Lydus forbids his pupil Pistoclerus to have a mistress) LY: tu amicam habebis? PI: quom videbis, tum scies LY: immo neque habebis neque sinam. ituru's domum? PI: omitte, Lyde, ac cave malo ('you to have a mistress, you? # once you see her, then you'll know! # no, you shall not have a mistress; I will not allow it. go home # leave me alone, Lydus, and look out for trouble', PI. Bae. 145-146) More in general, the authoritative use of the future indicative lends itself quite well for directives in conflictive situations. In addition to those cases in which the speaker may confidently assume that he is in a position to issue binding directives in view of his 'social authority' (e.g. as a chief cook in (9) and as a tutor in (13)) or on the basis of the circumstances (cf. 12), there are also cases in which a

future indicative

173

speaker who has no particular authority attempts to 'claim' it by means of issuing a binding directive. In these latter cases the use of a particular expression form does not reflect the relationship between the speaker and the addressee but plays a role in its establishment (cf. also section 2.1.3 above). Cases like (8) and (11), in which both speaker and addressee are slaves and the speaker does not have 'situational authority', are examples of this phenomenon. Another example is Sosia's directive in (14). In this conflictuous scene Sosia and Mercury, who is disguised as Sosia, both claim the same identity. As Sosia's first utterance quoted here makes clear, Mercury has a situational authority which is based on physical intimidation. His use of the future indicative therefore reflects his relationship with Sosia. Sosia's directive on the other hand, constitutes an attempt to influence the relationship between them and to reject Mercury's authority at least with respect to his own identity. (14) SO: ut lubet quid tibi lubet fac, quoniam pugnis plus vales; verum, utut es facturus, hoc quidem hercle hau reticebo tamen. ME: tu me vivos hodie numquam facies quin sim Sosia SO: certe edepol tu me alienabis numquam quin noster siem; nec praesente nobis alius quisquamst servos Sosia ('suit yourself, do what suits you, seeing your fists are too much for me. but just the same, no matter what you do I won't keep that back, by gad, not that. # you shall never live to make me anyone but Sosia, never # and by thunder, you shall never do me out of being our family's servant, and I'm the only servant Sosia we have', PI. Am. 396-4(0) Again, it should be emphasized that this use of binding directives in an attempt to 'claim' authority is not confined to the future indicative, but may be shared by other binding directive expression forms as well. However, the fact that the future indicative is used a number of times in this way provides an additional indication of it having a binding, often authoritative value. Most of the 'authority claiming' cases exemplified by (14) are prohibitive in nature. These future indicative prohibitives often have an additional commissive connotation that can be paraphrased as 'I will not (never) tolerate that you do this to me'. Another example is (15). The cook Anthrax (jokingly) forbids the overseer Strobilus, who has to divide provisions over two households, to divide him as well in two parts. Here too, there is a commissive connotation in the sense of 'I will

174

declarative directives

not tolerate it', which is parallelled by the commissive following it si ... , operam dabo 'if however ... , I'll accomodate you'. (15) ST: postquam opsonavit erus et conduxit coquos tibicinasque hasce apud forum, edixit mihi ut dispertirem opsonium hic bifarium AN: mequidem hercle, dicam palam, non divides; si quo tu totum me ire vis, operam dabo ('after master did the marketing and hired the cooks and these music girls at the forum, he told me to take and divide all he'd got into two parts # by Juppiter, you shan't make two parts of me, let me tell you that plainly. if you'd like to have the whole of me anywhere, why, I'll accomodate you', PI. Aul. 280-284) This commissive element is sometimes explicitly expressed, as in (13) above, by means of the addition of neque sinam 'and 1 will not allow it'. The use of 'authoritative' future indicative directives is not exclusively confined to conflictuous contexts. There are a number of cases in correspondence, for instance in Cicero's letters to his secretary Tiro, where this expression form is used to give ordinary instructions. Three examples in one letter are quoted under (16). (16) Ego hie cesso, quia ipse nihil scribo; lego autem libentissime. tu istic, si quid librarii mea manu non intelligent, monstrabis. (... ) Demetrius iste numquam omnino Phalereus fuit, sed nunc plane Billienus est. itaque te do vicarium; tu eum observabis; (... ). sed tamen, si quem cum eo sermonem habueris, scribes ad me, ut ... ('I am idling here, because I don't write anything myself, though I am reading with great gusto. If the copyists up there can't make out my handwriting, you will put them right. ( ... ) That fellow Demetrius was never a Phalereus [i.e. a man of polish and wit, SB] but now he is an absolute Bellienus [i.e. an assassin: he could bore his company to death, SB] So 1 appoint you my deputy, you will show him the courtesies. (... ) Still, if you have any talk with him, you write to me, so that .. .', Cic. Fam. 16,22,1-2)

future indicative

175

Another example, in a letter to Atticus, is (17). Although Cicero usually issues his directives to Atticus in an optional way (e.g. by means of velim plus subjunctive or by adding quaeso), this letter is fonnulated rather curtly, and the directive, which is placed right at its beginning, is a binding instruction. An explanation can perhaps be found in the gloomy tone and the depressed mood that characterizes the letter as a whole. (17) # Apud Appuleium, quoniam in perpetuum non placet, in dies ut excuser videbis. (... ). secundum te nihil est mihi amicius solitudine. in ea mihi omnis senno est cum litteris. eum tamen interpellat fletus; cui repugno quoad possum, (... ) ('you will see that my excuses are made to Appuleius from day to day, since a once for all excuse does not seem advisable. (... ) next to you, solitude is my best friend. when I am alone, my conversation is with books, but is interrupted by fits of weeping, against which I struggle as best as I can', Cic. Aft. 12,15) (ii) However, in correspondence the use of future indicative directives is more often based on the second ground mentioned above, viz. on the fact that the addressee has agreed to comply beforehand, either explicitly or implicitly. Thus, in (18) Cicero explicitly refers by means of ut scribis to the fact that Atticus has promised in a letter to Cicero to realize the state of affairs mentioned. 9

(18) De Caelio tu quaeres, ut scribis ('you will make enquiries about Caelius as you promise', Cic. Aft. 12,5A,l) The directive in (18) is, in fact, a repetition of a directive that was issued in an earlier letter, cf. (19).10 Contrary to the directive in (18), this earlier directive is fonnulated as a request (vide quaeso 'please see about') because Atticus' compliance is here not yet sure. (19) de Caelio vide, quaeso, ne quae lacuna skt> in auro

9. A similar case is found in Cic. All. 12,14,2. 10. I follow Shackleton Bailey's arrangement of the letters. In his edition 12.6, from which (19) is taken, precedes 12.5A, from which (18) is taken.

176

declarative directives

('please see about Caelius and see that there is no gap in the gold', Cic. Aft. 12,6,1) The addressee's compliance is less explicit in the case of (20), which contains a binding directive to forward a letter from Cicero to Brutus; however, Cicero can be sure of Atticus' compliance, because it was Atticus' idea to write this letter, cf. ut tibi placuerat 'as you wanted'. 11 (20) Epistulam quam ad Brutum, ut tibi placuerat, scripsi misi ad teo curabis cum tua perferendam. ('I am sending you the letter which 1 have written to Brutus as you recommended. You will see that it is forwarded along with your own', Cic. Aft. 12,18,2)

Likewise, the future indicative is used in cases in which Cicero gives permission to Atticus to settle a particular matter 'as you think best', which guarantees Atticus' compliance. An example is (21). (21) (there have arisen some problems with Cicero's ex-wife about a testament; Cicero concludes his description of his side of the matter with:) hoc tu tractabis ut tibi videbitur ('you will handle this as you think best', Cic. Att. 12,18A,2)

(iii) The last type of context in which future indicative directives are used is when they constitute a continuation, elaboration, or (concluding) repetition of an earlier directive. Often this earlier directive is expressed in terms of optionality. Apparently, when this optionality has once been stated, further references to the addressee's realization of this (or a related) action can be made without repeating the optionality of the directive involved, even when the addressee has not yet expressed his compliance. Example (22) starts with the optional directive (vide

11. A similar case is the directive that is found at the end of the letter that was quoted under (17): Bruto, ut suades, rescribam. eas Iitteras cras habebis. cum erit cui des, dabis. # ('J have written to Brutus, as you told me to do. You will have this letter tomorrow. You will forward it to him, when you'll have someone to give it to', Cic. Au. 12,15)

future indicative

177

quaeso 'please see about... ') that was quoted under (19). This optional directive is repeated, after some considerations which Cicero himself cuts short with sed quid loquor 'but why talk?', by means of the future indicative tu videbis 'you will see to it'.

(22) # de Caelio vide, quaeso, ne quae lacuna skt> in auro. ego ista non novi, sed certe in collubo est detrimenti satis. huc aurum si accedit - sed quid loquor? tu videbis. ('please see about Caelius and see that there is no gap in the gold. 1 know nothing about these matters, but surely there's enough lost on the exchange. if the gold comes on top of that - but why talk? you'll see to it', Cic. Att. 12,6,1) Another example is (23), where an optional directive to write about how Cicero's wife is doing (scribe quaeso) is followed by another directive to write to her as well (ei scribes) ana to Pilia (nuntiabis Piliae) and a repetition of his first directive (scribes ad me). The latter three are all expressed in a non-optional way by means of future indicatives. Clearly the polite optionality of the first directive was taken to extend to these latter two directives as well. (23) atque utinam continuo ad complexum meae Tulliae, ad osculum Atticae possem currere! quod quidem ipsum scribe, quaeso, ad me ut, dum consisto in Tusculano, sci am quid garriat, sin rusticatur, quid scribat ad te; eique interea aut scribes salutem aut nuntiabis itemque Piliae. et tamen etsi continuo congressuri sumus, scribes ad me si quid habebis. ('I wish enough I could hurry straight to my Tullia's embrace and Attica's kisses. Do pray write me about her so that while 1 am at Tusculum 1 shall know what she is chattering about, or if she is in the country what she says in her letters to you. In the meanwhile you will give her my love by letter or word of mouth, and Pilia likewise. and, even though we shall be meeting presently, you will write to me any news you have', Cic. Aft. 12,1,1)

declarative directives

178

Similarly, in (24), a repetition of the optional directive hoc velim cures 'I would like you to take care of that', addressed to Cicero's wife, is repeated in a nonoptional way by means of the future indicative tamen curebis. 12 (24) de hereditate Preciana (... ) hoc velim cures, si auctio ante meum adventum fiet, ut Pomponius ( ... ) nostrum negotium curet; nos, cum salvi venerimus, reliqua per nos agemus. sin tu iam Roma profecta eris tamen curabis ut hoc ita fiat. (,about the Precius bequest (... ) I would like you to see that, if the auction takes place before my arrival, Pomponius (... ) looks after my interest. When I am safely back I shall see to the rest myself. If you have already left Rome, you will arrange this all the same', Cic. Fam. 14,5,2) To sum up, with the exception of this last group of continuative and repetitive directives, directives that are expressed by the future indicative are always binding. The characteristic contexts in which they are used provide a number of clear indications of their binding nature. Future indicatives are used when the speaker feels confident about the addressee's realizing the future state of affairs referred to. This confidence may be based on the speaker's authority, but also on indications which the speaker has with respect to the addressee's willingness to comply. In a small number of cases, speakers 'exploit' this binding value of future indicative directives in order to claim an authority which they do not have in view of the circumstances. This phenomenon provides a nice illustration of the fact that language use does not in all cases reflect the relationship between the speaker and the addressee but may also be used as a tool in the process of 'negotiating' this relationship.

6.3

The periphrastic gerundival construction

The second grammatical expression form within the declarative sentence type that can be used to perform directive speech acts consists of a gerundival form in the nominative case combined with the present (or future) tense of copular esse 'to 12. Two other examples can be found in Cic. Alt. 11,2,4 and 11,7,5-6.

periphrastic gerundival construction

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be'. This periphrastic construction has a general deontic value, expressing that the state of affairs referred to should be realized. It can be used both in the case of intransitive verbs, as in (25a), and with transitive verbs, as in (25b). In the latter case, the constituent that has the semantic function of goal (patiens) functions as the subject of the clause. (25) a. ambulandum est (,there should be walking', cf. PI. As. 682) b. haec res agendae sunt ('these things should be done', cf. PI. Mer. 118) This periphrastic gerundival construction in itself does not necessarily constitute a directive speech act. It merely expresses in a general way that the speaker considers the realization of the action involved as necessary, inevitable, desirable, preferable, etc. 13 This general deontic value can, however, be made more specific by the addition of an agent expression, most commonly a so-called dativus auctoris. 14 If this agent expression refers to the addressee, the utterance involved expresses that the addressee's realization of the state of affairs referred to is considered necessary, inevitable, etc. by the speaker, which amounts to a directive speech act. The general deontic value which underlies gerundival directives provides in itself no indication of the type of directive involved. This expression form is, however, mostly used in binding directives; the content may be either in the speaker's interest, cf. the order in (26), or in the interest of the addressee, as in the advice in (27). An example of a non-binding directive is given below under (31).

(26) Exi, inquam, age exi; exeundum hercle tibi hinc est foras, circumspectatrix cum oculis emissiciis

13. The value of this periphrastic construction is usually described in Latin grammars in terms of a 'nolio necessitatis', cf. note 5 and the references given there. 14. In a small number of cases the regular passive agent expression (alab plus ablative case form) is used, for instance when the utterance includes another dative case form which could cause confusion. There seems to be no difference between the two types of agent expression, cf. Bolkestein (1980: 136) and the references given there.

180

declarative directives ('out with you, I say, come now, out with you! By gad, you've got to get out of here, you snook around, you, with your prying and spying', PI. Aul. 40-41)

(27) (a slave reports to his master about an unsuccessful mission to retrieve an amount of gold; he concludes his report with:) nunc tibimet illuc navi capiundumst iter, ut illud reportes aurum ab Theotimo domum ('now you'll have to make a voyage there yourself, sir, so as to get this gold from Theotimus and to bring it back home', PI. Bac. 325-326) As was mentioned already in the introduction to this section, this explicitly directive use of the periphrastic gerundival construction is not very frequent. According to the data presented by Herkenrath (1894: 15-25), who gives a fairly complete list of gerundival expressions in Plautus, there are only 5 cases of this construction in main clauses that have an explicit agent referring to the addressee. IS In correspondence they are almost equally rare. 16 An example from Cicero's letters is (28); cf. also the example that was given under (4). (28) quem [scii. Faberianum] quidem negat Eros hodie, cras mane putat. te colendus est; istae autem KOA,