Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Volo Command in Roman Comedy

The Volo Command in Roman Comedy The contribution aims to show how commands and requests with volo (and nolo ), e.g. volo te facere , “I want you to do (this)”, are constrained by social variables, specifically the relationship of hearer to speaker. There are 181 relevant tokens gathered from the corpus of extant Roman comedy. First, three kinds of volo command are distinguished and discussed: volo +bald infinitive, volo +accusativus cum infinitivo, and volo +finite clause with subjunctive. Second, the following are demonstrated: (1.) volo +AcI and volo +subjunctive typically convey peremptory commands; (2.) volo +bald infinitive “prefers” requests compared to the former two expressions; (3.) all three expressions tend to be used in contexts where the speaker enjoys greater authority than the hearer. To conclude, it is suggested that Plautus may use the form to support the authoritative stance of characters in Amphitruo, Casina and Captivi. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Mnemosyne Brill

The Volo Command in Roman Comedy

Mnemosyne , Volume 69 (4): 628 – Jun 23, 2016

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/the-volo-command-in-roman-comedy-WewcS1W30X

References (16)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0026-7074
eISSN
1568-525X
DOI
10.1163/1568525X-12341827
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The contribution aims to show how commands and requests with volo (and nolo ), e.g. volo te facere , “I want you to do (this)”, are constrained by social variables, specifically the relationship of hearer to speaker. There are 181 relevant tokens gathered from the corpus of extant Roman comedy. First, three kinds of volo command are distinguished and discussed: volo +bald infinitive, volo +accusativus cum infinitivo, and volo +finite clause with subjunctive. Second, the following are demonstrated: (1.) volo +AcI and volo +subjunctive typically convey peremptory commands; (2.) volo +bald infinitive “prefers” requests compared to the former two expressions; (3.) all three expressions tend to be used in contexts where the speaker enjoys greater authority than the hearer. To conclude, it is suggested that Plautus may use the form to support the authoritative stance of characters in Amphitruo, Casina and Captivi.

Journal

MnemosyneBrill

Published: Jun 23, 2016

Keywords: Roman Comedy; Pragmatics; Latin Linguistics; Plautus; Terence

There are no references for this article.