Terms of Address on Right Periphery in Greek Tragedy

What is it about?

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the position of a given term of address (TAd) bears any meaning for the understanding of the utterance and the context to which it relates (Dik 2007: 253). The idea that the placement of TAds can be meaningful has been considered under the framework of Conversation Analysis (Sidnell 2010: 261-264). As will be seen, CA has provided many clues as to how this research on Greek drama is to be conducted. There are obvious limitations. For instance, stand-alone items are rarely found due to formal constraints, such as the metre (Shalev 2003: 359 n. 12). Accordingly, the focus of this paper will be on TAds at the end of a clause, i.e. on the right periphery (RP). RP-TAds are rare compared to the frequency with which TAds appear at the start of a clause (left periphery [LP]) or in the middle (M). LP-TAds (266) are, in fact, more than twice as frequent as RP-TAds (125) in the sample. The question arises as to whether there are differences concerning the distribution of RP-TAds and that of the other positions, and what implications this may have. The distribution of LP-, M-and RP-TAds from a selected sample of Greek drama will be examined in accordance with the same range of parameters.

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Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash