标签： 索福克勒斯 语言风格 Sophocles

THE LANGUAGE OF SOPHOCLES 
Luigi Battezzato

Andreas Markantonatos (eds.), Brill's Companion to Sophocles, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012.

1. Introduction

The case of the language of Sophocles is especially complex in that, in his plays, deception, interpretation, and identity are crucial themes, and moreover themes which exist only through language: ‘Sophocles makes the ambiguity of language impinge inescapably on the ambiguity of personal identity’. (p305)

2. Words: Phonology and Morphology

As for Attic tragedy, sung passages show a clear diference in phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary from formal spoken and written Attic, as far as we can reconstruct it, but even spoken passages of tragedy present distinctive features, even if these are less frequent or striking. The following paragraphs draw attention to some of the most notable features. (p306)

The spoken lines of tragedy include certain words which retain the common Greek phonology; note for instance [¯a] (written α) in linguistic contexts where Attic would normally change this into [¯e] (written η), (p306)

Tragedy took these words from linguistic and poetical traditions that were expressed in a non-Attic dialectal ‘colouring’. (p307)

Moreover, ‘in those aspects in which the everyday Attic dialect is most “provincial” (different from common Greek or Ionic), tragedy favours a common Greek or Ionic (or old Attic) colouring in the dialogue’. (p307)

Lyric passages of tragedy have a markedly non-Attic colouring; in particular we find [¯a] (written α) instead of Attic eta [¯e].

This [¯a] represents the original common Greek sound, modified by Attic and Ionic; it is conventionally considered a ‘Doric’ trait, recalling the language of choral lyric.

As for morphology, in the dative plurals of α- and ο-declensions, both lyric and non-lyric passages of tragedy use longer forms [-αισι(ν) and -οισι(ν)] alongside the usual -αις and -οις. (p307)

The dual is another feature where Attic tragic language difers from ordinary Attic. (p308)

Sophocles, however, uses dual forms more frequently than Aeschylus and Euripides, mixing the colloquial and the sublime.

• For instance, Oedipus often uses dual forms when affectionately addressing or mentioning his daughters.

The colloquial tone of the dual is also well suited to aggressive language.

Tragic morphology, unlike standard Attic, may omit syllabic and temporal augment.

The omission is common in lyrics, and occurs sporadically in messenger speeches, where it was probably felt to be an epicizing feature. (p308)

Articles are often used as demonstratives and occasionally as relative pronouns, and are often omitted in places where Attic prose would need them. (p309)

3. Words and Sentences: Syntax and Vocabulary

Diferences from non-poetic Attic are much in evidence also in the area of syntax. (p309)

Among the distinctive characteristics one should note the lack of prepositions accompanying, among other syntactic structures, the genitive of separation, the locative dative, and the accusative of direction.

Moreover, almost all disyllabic prepositions can be placed after a noun or pronoun (Ant. 73, φίλου μέτα ‘with a person from the family’) or a noun phrase (e.g. El. 700, πολλῶν ἁρματηλατῶν μέτα ‘with many charioteers’).

The preposition may be separated from the noun or pronoun it governs by a number of words:

This type of postposition is called anastrophe; when it occurs, the accent is moved to the first syllable.

Anastrophe occurs in 15.9% of the occurrences of ἀπό, ἐπί, κατά, μετά, παρά, ὑπό, διά, περί, ὑπέρ €in the iambic trimeters of Sophocles, roughly the same percentage as in Aeschylus (16.3%), whereas in Euripides the  
gure rises sharply (26.3%). (p309)

Note also the ‘internal acc[usative] (of the kind often called ‘in apposition to the sentence’), specifying that in which the action of a verb consists and results’, a structure typical of poetry and of tragedy in particular (p310)

Other traits that differentiate the syntax of Sophocles, and of tragedy in general, from formal Attic prose (historiography, orators, Plato, inscriptions) include the infinitive of purpose or result, the preference for ὡς, ὡς ἄν and ὅπως ἄν over ἵνα for introducing final clauses, and the avoidance of ὅτι introducing causal clauses. (p310)

A final area where the language of Sophocles is markedly different from formal Attic is the choice of vocabulary.

Sophocles uses several ‘poetic’ words from the epic and lyric tradition. (p310)

Sophocles also coins new words (especially compound adjectives, see e.g. OT 510 ἡδύπολις, 866 ὑψίποδες, Ant. 370 ὑψίπολις).

A notable category is the group of abstract nouns ending in (p310) 
-σις, -μα, -ία, -εία: Sophocles uses them with increasing frequency in his last works, echoing the contemporary linguistic trends of scientific, historical, and philosophical prose. (p311)

4. Words and Speakers: Pragmatics and Word Order

Pragmatics, broadly defined, is a promising tool for research on the language of Greek drama. (p311)

The pragmatic study of Greek word order started in the 1990s. (p312)

Two key concepts in this respect are ‘topic’ and ‘focus’:

‘Topic is what the sentence is about;

focus is what is predicated about the topic’. (p312)

Ancient Greek, like many other languages, marks topic and focus elements prosodically.

Dik (1995) argued that, in Greek sentences, topic, if not implicit, always comes first; it is then followed by the focus element, by the verb, and (if present) by the rest of the sentence.

Topic is fronted in the case of the so-called prolepsis,

As Fraser (2001) 33 notes, ‘the proleptic element has a double function, as a regular object in the main clause, and as a co-referent with the infl?ection of the subordinate verb. The construction is, in structural terms, overlapping, with a prosodically and communicatively emphatic element in common’. (p312)

The interpretation of what in any given sentence is topic or focus may also be controversial. (p313)

In spite of these problems, the application of pragmatic concepts, especially topic and focus, to the study of Greek word order has provided a new and convincing interpretation of some syntactic features, as in the case of prolepsis, discussed above, questions, and hyperbaton. (p314)

In questions, as a rule, interrogative adjectives, pronouns, and adverbs come first.

In a substantial number of clauses, however, a new topic or a contrastive focus takes first position, forcing the interrogative word to a later slot in the sentence.

Another area where a pragmatic approach to word order is fruitful is hyperbaton: (p314)

Finally, a pragmatic approach explains a number of constructions that were traditionally classified in the category of ‘anacoluthon’ such as the pendent nominative. (p315)

5. Words and Meaning: Pragmatics and Rhetoric

Sophocles often manipulates the meaning of usual words by synecdoche or metaphor: e.g. λέχος (literally ‘bed’) can mean ‘marriage’ or even ‘wife’; ‘wind’ may indicate passionate emotions (Ant. 929–930); song and music ‘shine’ (OT 186 Παιὰν δέ λάμπει ‘Loud rings out [literally: ‘shines’] the hymn to the Healer’). (p316)

6. Words and Speakers (2): Politeness Theory

A final area related to pragmatics of special interest for the study of Sophoclean language is politeness theory. (p317)

The seminal work of Brown/Levinson (1987) has advanced the concept of ‘face’ (as in ‘losing face’): ‘positive face’ ‘is the want to be approved of or admired’ while ‘negative face’ ‘is the want not to be imposed upon or impeded’.

Speakers intending to be polite normally avoid ‘face-threatening acts’, or try to minimize the ‘threat’, e.g. by choosing an indirect formulation of an order (which would threaten the ‘negative face’ of the addressee) or toning down criticisms (which poses a threat to the ‘positive face’ of the addressee).

This set of conceptual tools is especially useful for understanding the pleonastic or elliptical nature of some tragic dialogues. (p317)

Related to politeness theory is the field of sociolinguistics, that is, the study of how speakers of diferent genders and social classes use language. (p320)

It is very likely that in actual spoken classical Greek, even among people living in Attica, sociolinguistic diferences would be apparent in phonetics, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. (p320)

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