Cover not available

In:Pragmatic Approaches to Latin and Ancient Greek
Edited by Camille Denizot and Olga Spevak
[Studies in Language Companion Series 190] 2017
► pp. 83–110

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 5
Quapropter, quaeso? ‘Why, for pity’s sake?’

Questions and the pragmatic functions of quaeso, obsecro, and amabo in Plautus

 | University of Genoa
Published online: 1 November 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.190.05fed
Abstract
This contribution aims to shed further light on some well-studied deverbal Latin Pragmatic Markers (PMs), that is, procedural elements originally derived from verbs which become frozen in form and acquired new intersubjective meanings. In particular, I will focus on quaeso, obsecro, and amabo ‘please’ in Plautus, which have been widely discussed in the relevant literature above all with regard to their primary function, namely that of politeness markers softening the illocutionary force of orders and requests, and in relation to their sociolinguistic distribution. In this study, I shall focus rather on the less widely studied values developed by quaeso, obsecro, and amabo when used in questions in Plautus. The data show that these markers express a range of meanings which go far beyond politeness and the illocutionary functions of mitigation, coming to convey a variety of personal stances, strengthening of pragmatic force and even (mock) impoliteness, thus realizing a sort of “pragmatic reversal” (in the words of Mazzon 2007).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Object of investigation
    • 1.2State of the art and aims of the present study
    • 1.3Pragmatic markers and their analysis in a classical language
  • 2.Theoretical framework: Speech Acts and Pragmatic Macrofunctions
    • 2.1Speech Acts
    • 2.2Pragmatic macrofunctions
  • 3.A functional account of quaeso, obsecro, and amabo in questions
    • 3.1Subtypes of questions
    • 3.2Referential questions
    • 3.3Directive interrogatives
    • 3.4Expressive interrogatives
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
References
Adams, James N. 1984. Female speech in Latin comedy. Antichthon 18: 43–77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003. Bilingualism and the Latin Language. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aijmer, Karin. 2013. Understanding Pragmatic Markers: A Variational Pragmatic Approach. Edinburgh: EUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Will you fuck off please”. The use of please by London teenagers. Sociocultural Pragmatics 3(2): 127–149.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anipa, Kormi. 2012. The use of literary sources in historical sociolinguistic research. In The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy & Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre (eds), 170–190. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barrios-Lech, Peter G. 2016. Linguistic Interaction in Roman Comedy. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barron, Anne. 2008. The structure of requests in Irish English and English. In Variational Pragmatics. A Focus on Regional Varieties in Pluricentric Languages [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 178], Klaus P. Schneider & Anne Barron (eds), 35–67. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boyce, Bret. 1991. The Language of the Freedmen in Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 1996. Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Paul, Joseph, Brian & Wallace, Rex. 2009. Questions and answers. In New perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax, Vol. 1: Syntax of the Sentence, Philip Baldi & Pierluigi Cuzzolin (eds), 489–530. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cabrillana, Concepción. 2004. Forma lingüística y tipo de personaje en la comedia terenciana. In Registros lingüísticos en las lenguas clásicas, Antonio López Eire & Agustín Ramos Guerreira (eds), 11–31. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Vocativo y participantes en el acto de habla en la comedia latina y la novela de Petronio. In Latin Vulgaire – Latin Tardif VIII, Roger Wright (ed.), 69–77. Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan & Archer, Dawn. 2008. Requests and directness in Early Modern English trial proceedings and play-texts, 1640–1760. In Speech Acts in the History of English, Andreas H. Jucker & Irma Taavitsainen (eds), 45–84. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dickey, Eleanor. 2002. Latin Forms of Address: From Plautus to Apuleius. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. How to say ‘please’ in Classical Latin. Classical Quarterly 62(2): 731–748. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. How to say ‘please’ in post-Classical Latin: Fronto and the importance of archaism. Journal of Latin Linguistics 14(1): 17–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dutsch, Dorota M. 2008. Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy. On Echoes and Voices. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elspass, Stephan. 2012. The use of private letters and diaries in sociolinguistic investigation. In The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy & Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre (eds), 156–169. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fedriani, Chiara & Ghezzi, Chiara. 2014. The pragmaticalization of verbs of movement and exchange in Latin and Italian: Paths of development from lexicon to pragmatics. In Studia linguistica et philologica in honorem Prof. Univ. Dr. Michaela Livescu, Ilona Badescu & Mihaela Popescu (eds), 116–139. Craiova: Editura Universitaria.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferri, Rolando. 2008a. Politeness in Latin comedy: Some preliminary thoughts. Materiali e discussioni 61: 15–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008b. Il latino dei Colloquia scholica. In Aspetti della scuola nel mondo romano, Rolando Ferri & Franco Bellandi (eds), 111–177. Amsterdam: Hakkert.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fraser, Bruce. 1996. Pragmatic markers. Pragmatics 6(2): 167–190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ghezzi, Chiara. 2014. The development of discourse and pragmatic markers. In Discourse and Pragmatic Markers from Latin to the Romance Languages, Chiara Ghezzi & Piera Molinelli (eds), 10–26. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ghezzi, Chiara & Molinelli, Piera. 2016. Politeness markers from Latin to Italian: Periphery, discourse structure and cyclicity. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 17(2): 307–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gilleland, Michael E. 1979. Linguistic Differentiation of Character Type and Sex in the Comedies of Plautus and Terence. PhD dissertation, University of Virginia.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Jon. 2009. Politeness and Politics in Cicero’s Letters. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofmann, Johann Baptist. 2003. La lingua d’uso latina. Introduction, translation and notes by Licinia Ricottili, 3rd edn. Bologna: Pàtron (= Lateinische Umgangssprache, Heidelberg, 1951, 3rd edn).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karakasis, Evangelos. 2005. Terence and the Language of the Roman Comedy. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maltby, Robert. 1976. A Comparative Study of the Language of Plautus and Terence. PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzon, Gabriella. 2017. Paths of development of English DMs: (Inter)subjectification, deontic reversal and other stories. In Pragmatic Markers, Discourse Markers and Modal Particles: New Perspectives [Studies in Language Companion Series 186], Chiara Fedriani & Andrea Sansò (eds), 289–304. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molinelli, Piera. 2015. Dialoghi a distanza e pragmatica: Marcatori funzionali e lettere private in latino e in greco. In Lingue e contesti. Studi in onore di Alberto M. Mioni, Maria Grazia Busà & Sara Gesuato (eds), 609–621. Padova: CLEUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Cicli di pragmaticalizzazione tra latino e lingue romanze: la formazione di marcatori interazionali. In Actes du XXVIIe Congrès international de linguistique et de philologie romanes 289–304 (Nancy, 15–20 juillet 2013), Éva Buchi, Jean-Paul Chauveau & Jean-Marie Pierrel (eds), 149–160. Strasbourg: Société de linguistique romane.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. Marcatori pragmatici richiestivi in Plauto: Una sfida per la traduzione in francese, italiano, rumeno e spagnolo. In Di tutti i colori. Studi linguistici per Maria Grossmann, Roberta D’Alessandro, Gabriele Iannàccaro, Diana Passino, Anna M. Thornton (eds), 217–229. Utrecht: Utrecht University Repository.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Müller, Roman. 1997. Sprechen und Sprache: Dialoglinguistische Studien zu Terenz. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Núñez, Darmstadt S. 1995. Materiales para una sociología de la lengua latina: Terencio y los modificadores de imperativo. Florentia Iliberritana 6: 347–366.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pinkster, Harm. 2015. The Oxford Latin Syntax. Vol. 1: The Simple Clause. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Risselada, Rodie. 1993. Imperatives and Other Directive Expressions in Latin: A Study in the Pragmatics of a Dead Language. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Particles in questions. In Latina Lingua! Proceedings of the 12th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Gualtiero Calboli (ed.), 663–679. Roma: Herder.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosén, Hannah. 2009. Coherence, sentence modification, and sentence-part modification: the contribution of particles. Syntax, sociolinguistics, and literary genres. New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax, Vol. 1: Syntax of the Sentence, Philip Baldi & Pierluigi Cuzzolin (eds), 317–442. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John. 1975. Indirect speech acts. In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (eds), 59–82. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Dasher, Richard B. 2002. Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Unceta Gómez, Luis. 2009. La petición verbal en latín, Estudio léxico, semántico y pragmático. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Sobre el proceso de subjetivación de algunas formas verbales en la lengua de la comedia romana. In Latin Linguistics in the Early 21st Century, Gerd Haverling (ed.), 468–479. Uppsala: Uppsala University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Schneider, Stefan
2024. Construct types in language change. Journal of Historical Linguistics 14:2 ► pp. 304 ff. DOI logo
Fedriani, Chiara
2021. Conditional clauses as polite modifiers in Latin:si placetbetween pragmaticalization and language contact. Transactions of the Philological Society 119:3 ► pp. 346 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue