Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Congratulations in Latin Comedy Types A PDF
Congratulations in Latin Comedy Types A PDF
Abstract: This paper contributes to the study of linguistic politeness in the Latin
language, through the analysis of the speech act of congratulation. Taking the
comedies of Plautus (ca. 254184 B.C.) and Terence (ca. 185159 B.C.) as the
corpus, the present study analyses both the possibilities that the speaker has
at his/her disposal to express this communicative intention, and the interferen-
ces that are produced with other speech acts that are conceptualised in a simi-
lar way in the corpus. The article also discusses some of the sociolinguistic
distribution tendencies at play.
1 Introduction
This work offers a pragmalinguistic analysis of the expressive speech act of
congratulation in the period of Archaic Latin represented by the comedies of
Plautus (ca. 254184 B.C.) and Terence (ca. 185159 B.C.). It will take into ac-
count both the possibilities of expression and the overlaps that this communi-
cative intention has with others, and it will also assess the possible differences
that may be provoked by the speakers individual profile. Given the implica-
tions that this speech act can have on the expression of linguistic politeness,
this study aims to contribute towards the analysis of (im)politeness1 phenome-
na in Latin. This language has recently become the subject of various studies
from this perspective, but there is still much work to be done, and many
spheres deserving detailed research remain unexplored.
1 As Kdr and Culpeper (2010: 2324) propose, in this article the term (im)politeness is used
to describe (im)polite phenomena from the researchers perspective, leaving native expres-
sions that were available in the period studied to illustrate lay perspectives.
1. Politeness of respect: which implies linguistic and ceremonial coding of the relative
distance and hierarchy between the interlocutors; that is the respect owed to individ-
uals according to their age, gender, wealth, political position, and so on (Hall 2009:
15). This kind of politeness has a clear link with the Roman concept of dignitas [excel-
lence, rank, status], a distinctive feature of the upper classes, which, like face, is
not a stable reality and must be continually revalidated in each interaction (Hall 2005:
200; 2009: 12).
2. Affiliative politeness: which, contrary to the above, aims to reduce the sense of dis-
tance between the interlocutors, a category mutatis mutandis close to that of Brown
and Levinsons (1987) positive politeness.
The division of negative politeness into two categories is similar to the one
proposed by Andreas Jucker in various publications (see, for instance, Jucker
2011). The names given to these two categories are deference politeness,
which Jucker explicitly connects with Watts (2003) politic behaviour, and
non-imposition politeness.
Acording to Norrick (1978: 286), the act of congratulating allows the speaker
to share in the experience and feelings of the addressee. In this altruistic sense
congratulating is a cordial gesture which strengthens ties between individuals
and makes life more pleasant. In her definition of this speech act, Wierzbicka
(1987: 229) places emphasis on the fact that the addressee must be responsible,
at least in part, for the positive situation that leads to the congratulations. Her
description of this speech act is as follows:
Nevertheless, many languages allow the speaker to refer this speech act to
situations for which the recipient of the congratulations is not responsible, or
situations that are perhaps the result of sheer luck (Makri-Tsilipakou 2001: 143
144).
As opposed to other speech acts, such as requests and apologies, congratu-
lations have not received much attention from scholars and there are not many
publications dedicated exclusively to this topic. From a cross-cultural perspec-
tive Coulmas (1979: 246251) offered for the first time a comparative analysis of
the routine formulae Eng. congratulations! and Jap. o-medet gozaimasu, and
found some differences in the conditions of use of both.
Studies on congratulations in other languages also exist. Yiman (1997) anal-
yses from a formal point of view the expression of greetings, felicitations and
condolences in four Ethiopian languages (Amharic, Oromo, Wolayita and
Nuer), listing expressions that are highly conventionalised for specific recurrent
situations (recovering from a long illness, good news, maternity). Similarly,
Emery (2000: 209212) studies expressions of greeting, congratulating and com-
miserating in Omani Arabic. This paper analyses the linguistic formulas used
in weddings, births, religious festivals, and the arrival of rain, and concludes
that there is a marked generational difference in the use of these kind of formu-
las: the elderly old women in particular tend to be more conservative, while
the young again particularly young women are more open to standard and
pan-Arabic norms.
Makri-Tsilipakou (2001) studies the Modern Greek approbatory expressions
[bravo] and [congratulations], when used to convey
congratulations. The latter is part of a more formal register and thus can be
considered as a conventional expression, while the former seems to be more
of an exclamation done on the spur of the moment, in recognition of some
minor or major achievement or skill, physical or otherwise, agreeable behaviour
or service rendered, all of which require personal agency (Makri-Tsilipakou
2001: 149).
2. Expression of happiness
a) Expression of personal happiness (Im so happy for you)
b) Statements assessing the situation positively (Thats great!)
4. Expressions of validation
a) Statements indicating the situation was warranted (You deserved it)
b) Praise (Great job)
c) Statements of prior certainty (I knew that you would get it)
5. Self-related comment
a) An expression of envy, longing, or chagrin (Hopefully Ill be next)
b) A comment on ones future effort (Ill do my best)
c) A prediction of ones own future success (The next promotion is my turn)
7. Other types (a prediction regarding the promoted persons future, a request for advice,
an offer of good luck, a related comment, a suggestion to celebrate, an expression of
surprise, an expression of pride, a joke, an offer of help)
Finally, Kochovska (2013) has also recently carried out a study on congratu-
lations in Latin, focused on Ciceros letters (see also Roesch 2004: 149150; Hall
2009: 4749). Kochovska finds that there are only two expressive means for
giving congratulations in the corpus explored: expressions with an illocution-
ary force indicating device and expressions of joy for the success of the address-
ee or someone related to him. Both strategies vary in the degree of the speakers
commitment to the propositional content. From her analysis, Kochovska con-
cludes that a congratulatory intention was a usual motive for writing a letter,
and to congratulate was a kind of ethical obligation, expected from someone
considered a friend.
Given that, in Leechs (1983: 106) words, the congratulations illocutionary
goal coincides with the social goal, this speech act has been considered within
the classical politeness models as being intrinsically polite or a face flatter-
ing act (the positive counterpart to face threatening acts, as proposed by Ker-
brat-Orecchioni 1992), a position thoroughly contested in the literature later on.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 102103), congratulations are directed
towards the hearers desire to be valued, that is, towards his/her positive face
and, as a result, are expressions of positive politeness. In accordance with
Leech (2014: 208) again, congratulations, as commiserations, and good wish-
es expressions of fellow feeling with another person form part of the
Sympathy Maxim, which is the emotive strand of his General Strategy of Polite-
ness. This kind of expressions manifests positive politeness, since the H[ear-
er]s feelings, they imply, are important enough to be a matter of concern and
sympathy for S[peaker].
They are both examples of pos[itive]-politeness, but a theoretical, rather than practical,
distinction can be drawn between them. One of them, a compliment, is a manifestation
Congratulating and thanking share some common properties in general: the illocutionary
point of both is to express a positive psychological state; the object of both may refer
only to an act related to or performed by the hearer in the past; and they both protect
the needs of the positive face of the hearer. The key difference is in the way they relate
to the interests of the speaker and the hearer: congratulation is an expression of pleasure
at something that is beneficial to the hearer and thanking is an expression of gratitude
for something that has been done by the hearer and is beneficial to the speaker. (Kochov-
ska 2013: 30)
sung, is even more pertinent in the case of Terence, who uses more stylised
language.
In addition to these formal aspects, there are two structural elements that
are in line with our aims here. Firstly, the plots of these plays are very straight-
forward, despite the complexity that may unfold on stage (Sharrock 2009 96
162). Secondly, the comedies also present a series of strongly stereotyped char-
acters the loving young man (adulescens), the astute slave (seruus), the maid-
en (uirgo) and so on (see Duckworth 1994 [1952] 236271; Della Corte 1973;
Petrides 2014: 433440). These characters are especially discernible because of
their behaviour, but also because of the language they use. Social relationships
(symmetrical and asymmetrical) arise between these characters and, although
hierarchical relationships are subverted for comic effect, they are very clearly
demarcated. For this reason, it is relatively easy to identify in these plays fac-
tors such as age, sex, and the relative hierarchy and degree of familiarity be-
tween two characters in a conversation. Thanks to this, we are able to recover,
albeit in part, certain information about the extra-linguistic circumstances be-
hind the utterances of the characters.
The data used in this research were collected through the direct reading of
the Latin texts, with the help of translations into English, French and Spanish.
although this is not necessary, since it is obvious from the context, as we can
see in (2):3
3 The Latin texts and translations reproduced in this study are borrowed from the editions
by Wolfgang de Melo (Plautus) and John Barsby (Terence) for Loeb Classical Library, except
for the translation of example (7), which is borrowed from the edition by John Sargeaunt
belonging to the same collection.
4 Reference to the interlocutors luck is found on other occasions: Plaut., Mil. 1223; Most. 159
160.
In this last example, which appears in the conversation between the two senes,
old men from the higher class, the stratagem behind the congratulations bene-
fits both the speaker and the addressee. This leads to a partial overlapping of
this speech act with that of thanking (see Section 1.3).
Although in Ciceros letters the most common form of expressing congratu-
lations is the performative use of the verb gratulari (Kochovska 2013), in Come-
dy we find just one example,5 in which the idea of happiness is noted due to
a fortunate event for the interlocutor, in this case a birth:
5 This points to a later specialisation of the verb with this function. Nevertheless, several
examples of the non-performative use of the verb are documented in which the meaning to
congratulate is clear (Plaut., Capt. 501, 504; Rud. 1270; Stich. 567; Trin. 579; Truc. 512; Ter.,
Eun. 255). We also seem to have examples of a more general meaning of to be happy, glad
(Plaut., Rud. 1178; Stich. 386).
STRATOPHANES. On his arrival from abroad, Mars greets his wife Nerio.
I congratulate you on pulling through well and being blessed with a child,
and on having given birth to a great distinction for myself and you.
3.2 Praise
As already mentioned (see Section 1.3 above), in certain contexts, an expression
of approval can be interpreted as a congratulation, especially if with this utter-
ance the speaker refers to an action that was accomplished successfully by the
recipient, a mechanism that is also at work in modern languages such as Japa-
nese and English (Elwood 2004: 363, 377). In Comedy, the expression bene
factum [well done] appears often, although with some variants such as sapi-
enter factum (Plaut., Bacch. 295) [wisely done], lepide factumst (Plaut., Mil.
1091) [charmingly done], optume factum (Ter., Andr. 593) [perfectly done]
which might show that the formula is not fully conventionalised for expressing
congratulations at this period.6 However, it does seem to be in the process of
becoming a routine formula, as can be seen in (7), where the courtesan Bacchis
congratulates Pamphilus because recent events will mean that his wife forgives
him and will allow him to return home with her. Since the young man Pamphi-
lus is not responsible for this event in reality, as it is rather down to sheer luck,
it seems that the expression is at least in the process of becoming conventional
for expressing this notion and is, to a certain extent, formulaic in nature. Simi-
lar suggestions could be made for example (8), since in ancient Rome marital
ties and the identity of the bride and groom were not usually decided by the
couple themselves:
6 One of the reviewers of this article correctly notes that speakers can play with a routine
formula for an extra effect, and that these variations can be expected in literary authors and
particularly in Roman Comedy. For this reason, variation should not be considered definite
proof of the non conventionalisation of a formula. Even so, and despite the fact that the
number of examples we have at our disposal means that we cannot draw definite conclusions,
variation in this case is much more pronounced than in other routine formulae, such as bene
facis to say thank you (Unceta Gmez 2010: 633).
In addition to this formula, on occasion we also find the personal form of the
verb, but always in the perfect tense, as example (9) illustrates:
Even so, it is more usual to find specific references to the action that has led
to a character deserving congratulations, also in the perfect tense:
7 Both the pragmatised expression ita me di ament [so may the gods love me], and the
particle hercle [by Hercules!] (examples [13] and [18]), are oath formulas that allow the
speaker to reinforce the sincerity of his/her speech act. See Ashdowne (2008).
which can also be used to transmit the idea of congratulation. Showing happi-
ness is also very automatic in Latin as an expression of positive politeness in
greetings (see Unceta Gmez 2014a: Section 5.1 and n. 38).
Of the two Latin interjections, the first (12) appears most often, and is fre-
quently repeated (13) and combined sometimes with other mechanisms (14),
although there are also examples of the second interjection with this function
(15):
The expression of happiness can also take on lexical forms, such as the verbs
laetari [to rejoice, be glad, be delighted] and gaudere [to be glad, be pleased,
rejoice],8 which can appear alone, as in (17), where a slave congratulates his
master for the positive resolution of the dramatic conflict, or in combination
with other forms of expression, like in (18), where the two senes discuss the
state of health of one of them:
4 Discussion
In light of the examples provided, which are listed in Table 1, and despite the
fact that we do not have an excessively large number of utterances that can
be unequivocally interpreted as congratulations to work with, the following
assumptions can be made.
Although it is possible to identify some undeniable examples of congratula-
tion, it is firstly important to note that the Latin of the 2 nd century B.C. does
not have any forms of expression that we might consider as a specific and
exclusive illocutionary force indicating device for this communicative intention.
Put another way, all forms of expression analysed allow speakers to transmit
more than one illocutionary force. This situation is especially evident in praise,
which, in addition to that particular function, can be used to transmit congratu-
lating and thanking illocutionary forces. Even if for expressing thanks more
routinized and conventionalised formulas can be found such as bene facis,
8 A similar situation is found in the letters of Cicero, where laetitia affici [to be affected by
joy] is also frequent (Kochovska 2013: 3335).
Speaker Speaker
Addressee Addressee Addressee Addressee
IFID Laudo
4 2, 3, 14 1
Collaudo
DE GRUYTER MOUTON
5
Gratulor
6
Praise Bene factum and
variants 8 18 7
Bene fecisti
9
Other possibilities
4, 11, 15, 16 3, 10, 14 5, 13
happiness Eug(a)e
and surprise 12
Eug(a), eug(a)e
14 13
Eugepae
15
Eu
Authenticated
4, 11, 16
Laetor
Congratulations in Latin Comedy
17
Gaudeo
as opposed to bene factum and its variants (Section 3.2 above) for congratulat-
ing a number of overlaps are also documented between these illocutionary
functions and their mechanisms of expression. On the contrary, throughout its
history, Latin (and Archaic Latin is no exception) is immensely specific, rich
and exact in some expressions of negative politeness, such as the softening of
the quintessential face threatening act: requests (see Risselada 1993, Unceta
Gmez 2009, Dickey 2012, amongst others).
From a sociolinguistic point of view, bearing in mind that female characters
are granted far less verses in Latin Comedy (around a 13 % of the total amount
in both Plautus and Terence; see the figures in Dutsch 2008: 50), women con-
gratulate just as much as males (around 11 % of the examples studied), but do
not make use of expressions of happiness or surprise. This is of interest, since
females are supposed to be more likely to express positive politeness, by means
of mechanisms such as the use of the possessive adjective mi [my] alongside
a vocative (Dutsch 2008: 11; on feminine language in Latin, see also Gilleland
1979; Adams 1984; Fgen 2004). Neither do we find many examples of congrat-
ulations being offered by a male character towards a female, suggesting an
unequal relationship that we should consider as descending (Roman society is
deeply patriarchal).
Only in conversations between male characters do certain tendencies ap-
pear. In such cases, the quoted examples show that, alongside a small number
of expressions of congratulations between characters of equal status, most
cases are of inferior characters congratulating a superior. The few examples
found of the opposite situation specially (2), (3), (10) and (12) are easily
explained by the common inversion of hierarchies that occurs in the comedies
(McCarthy 2000), which is justified by the fact that the clever slave (seruus
callidus) helps his master with his problematic love life and manages to ensure
that matters are resolved in a positive manner. Thus those instances should be
better understood as examples of the first column in Table 1. Therefore, and
despite the fact that here our generalizations are less certain, we should high-
light that in Roman comedies, the expression of congratulations reveals a level
of hierarchical inferiority towards another character, to a certain extent.
The situation is clearly different by the end of the Republic. As Kochovska
(2013: 29) notes giving congratulations was obviously a kind of ethical obliga-
tion and, in Ciceros letters, congratulations appear before all else. But in this
case, communication in the form of epistolary exchanges occurs between citi-
zens of the elite (and therefore in social relationships that are hierarchically
equal), with the aim of strengthening social ties within this group. As Hall
(2009: 47) stresses, we should not dismiss congratulating letters as bland and
meaningless social ritual. These letters possessed a special significance because
When politic behaviour is governed more by social distance and dominance than by
exchange in intimate stuff, grammaticalised honorifics and address forms, formulaic
expressions, ritualised and semi-ritualised indirect speech acts, conventionalised means
of face-threat minimisation and the maximisation of the positive face, solidarity display,
etc., will be explicit in language usage. However, only when such structures represent
the attempt by ego, for whatever reason, to enhance her/his social standing with respect
to alter may they more profitably be called realisation of politeness. (Watts 1992: 57)
analysts could base their assessments with a bottom-up approach that would
allow for the emergence of im-politeness phenomena as constructed in interac-
tion. This need is all the more pressing when it comes to the historical lan-
guages. Despite the fact that linguistic politeness is far more than a particular
speech act or a linguistic routine, given our lack of full linguistic competence,
these expressions must be analysed correctly and thoroughly so that we are
able to reach a general framework of politeness phenomena in ancient Rome.
5 Conclusions
This paper has presented an approach to linguistic politeness in the Latin lan-
guage through the analysis of a particular speech act: congratulations. Despite
the restrictions posed by the data we have at our disposal, three means of
expressing congratulations (which are not exclusive to this illocutionary force)
have been identified in the corpus studied: performative expressions with the
verbs laudo and gratulor, expressions of praise, and expressions of happiness
and surprise. This is therefore a far more limited inventory to the one proposed
by Elwood (2004) based on English and Japanese. Analysis of the data has also
shown that this speech act is used primarily by individuals with an inferior
social position to their interlocutor. Traditionally, congratulation has been clas-
sified as an act mainly used to strengthen social ties and considered a positive
politeness strategy (Makri-Tsilipakou 2001), an affiliation strategy (Garca
2009), or an affiliative politeness strategy (Hall 2009). Nevertheless, congratula-
tions in Roman Comedy can be seen, fundamentally, as an expression of polite-
ness of respect. Finally, this work has also shown that frequency and contexts
of use can be used as criteria to determine the politic or polite nature of an
expression. This paves the way for a combination of top-down and bottom-up
analyses for politeness phenomena in ancient languages.
References
Adams, James. 1984. Female speech in Latin Comedy. Antichthon 18. 4377.
Ashdowne, Richard. 2008. E-vocative invocation: on the historical morphosyntax of Latin
oaths. In Roger Wright (ed.), Latin vulgaire Latin tardif VIII. Actes du VIIIe colloque
international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif (Oxford, 69 septembre 2006), 1325.
Hildesheim, Zurich & New York: Olms-Weidmann.
Allamy, Hamid & Maryam Nekouzadeh. 2011. Congratulation and positive politeness
strategies in Iranian context. Theory and Practice in Language Studies 1(11). 16071613.
Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca. 2003. Face and politeness: new (insights) for old (concepts).
Journal of Pragmatics 35. 14531469.
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Some universals in language
usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coulmas, Florian. 1979. On the sociolinguistic relevance of routine formulae. Journal of
Pragmatics 3. 239266.
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Its not what you said, its how you said it! Prosody and
impoliteness. In Linguistic Politeness Research Group (eds.), Discursive Approaches to
Politeness, 5783. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2010. Conventionalised impoliteness formulae. Journal of Pragmatics
42(12). 32323245.
De Vaan, Michiel. 2008. Etymological dictionary of Latin and the other Italic languages.
Leiden & Boston: Brill.
Della Corte, Francesco. 1973. La tipologia del personaggio della palliata. In Actes du IX e
Congrs Association Guillaume Bud, 354395. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Dickey, Eleanor. 2012. The rules of politeness and Latin request formulae. In Philomen
Probert & Andreas Willi (eds.), Laws and rules in Indo-European, 313328. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Duckworth, George. 1994 [1952]. The nature of Roman Comedy. A study in popular
entertainment. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Dutsch, Dorota. 2008. Feminine discourse in Roman Comedy. On echoes and voices.
Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Elwood, Kate. 2004. Congratulations! A cross-cultural analysis of responses to anothers
happy news. The Cultural Review. Waseda Commercial Studies Association 25. 355386.
Emery, Peter. 2000. Greeting, congratulating and commiserating in Omani Arabic. Language,
Culture and Curriculum 13(2). 196216.
Escandell-Vidal, Victoria. 1996. Towards a cognitive approach to politeness. Language
Sciences 18. 629650.
Ferri, Rolando. 2008. Politeness in Latin Comedy. Some preliminary thoughts. Materiali e
Discussioni per lAnalissi dei Testi Classici 61. 1528.
Fgen, Thorsten. 2004. Gender specific communication in Graeco-Roman Antiquity.
Historiographia Linguistica 2(3). 199276.
Garcs-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar. 2010. A genre approach to the study of im-politeness.
International Review of Pragmatics 2(1). 4694.
Garca, Carmen. 2009. Qu::? Cmo que te vas a casar? Congratulations and rapport
management: A case study of Peruvian Spanish speakers. Pragmatics 19(2). 197222.
Gilleland, Michael E. 1980. Female speech in Greek and Latin. American Journal of Philology
101(2). 180183.
Hall, Jon. 2009. Politeness and politics in Ciceros letters. Oxford & New York: Oxford
University Press.
Hall, Jon. 2005. Politeness and formality in Ciceros letter to Matius (Fam. 11.27). Museum
Helveticum 62. 193213.
Haugh, Michael. 2007. The discursive challenge to politeness research. An interactional
alternative. Journal of Politeness Research 3(2). 295317.
Hidalgo Navarro, Antonio & Adrin Cabedo Nebot. 2014. On the importance of the prosodic
component in the expression of linguistic im/politeness. Journal of Politeness Research
10(1). 527.
Jucker, Andreas H. 2011. Positive and negative face as descriptive categories in the history
of English. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 12(12). 178197. [reprint in Marcel Bax &
Dniel Z. Kdr (eds.), Understanding historical (im)politeness, 175194. Amsterdam &
Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012.]
Jacobs, Andreas & Andreas H. Jucker. 1995. The historical perspective in Pragmatics. In
Andreas H. Jucker (ed.), Historical Pragmatics. Pragmatic developments in the history of
English, 333. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kdr, Dniel Z. & Jonathan Culpeper. 2010. Historical (im)politeness: An introduction. In
Jonathan Culpeper & Dniel Z. Kdar (eds.), Historical (im)politeness, 936. Bern,
Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford & Wien: Peter Lang.
Karakasis, Evangelos. 2014. The language of the palliata. In Michael Fontaine & Adele C.
Scafuro (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, 555579. Oxford &
New York: Oxford University Press.
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine. 1992. Les interactions verbales II. Paris: Armand Colin.
Kochovska, Svetlana. 2013. Expressing congratulations in Latin: The case of Ciceros
correspondence. Literatra 55(3). 2737.
Kruschwitz, Peter & Alicia Clary-Venables. 2013. How to apologise in Latin: A case study. In
Timothy J. Moore & Wolfgang Polleichtner (eds.), Form und Bedeutung im lateinischen
Drama/Form and meaning in Latin drama, 5386. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
Krylov, Barbora. 2015. Latin directives and (im)politeness: how do modifications of
illocutionary force (not) modify the (im)politeness status of directives. Paper presented
at the 18 th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, University of Toulouse,
10 th June.
Leech, Geoffrey. 2014. The Pragmatics of Politeness. New York: Oxford University Press.
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Locher, Miriam A. & Richard J. Watts. 2005. Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of
Politeness Research 1. 933.
Makri-Tsilipakou, Maria. 2001. Congratulation and bravo! In Arn Bayraktaroglu & Maria
Sifianou (eds.), Linguistic politeness across boundaries: The case of Greek and Turkish,
137176. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
McCarthy, Kathleen. 2000. Slaves, masters and the art of authority in Plautine Comedy.
Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moussy, Claude. 1966. Gratia et sa famille. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Nasri, Najmed, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdy & Momeneh Ghadiri. 2013. Congratulation across
cultures: English versus Armenian and Persian speakers. Procedia. Social and
Behavioral Sciences 70. 6773.
Norrick, Neal R. 1978. Expressive illocutionary acts. Journal of Pragmatics 2(3). 277291.
Petrides, Antonis K. 2014. Plautus between Greek Comedy and Atellan Farce: Assessments
and reassessments. In Michael Fontaine & Adele C. Scafuro (eds.), The Oxford
handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, 424443. Oxford & New York: Oxford
University Press.
Poccetti, Paolo. 2010. Greeting and farewell expressions as evidence for colloquial
language: Between literary and epigraphical texts. In Eleanor Dickey & Anna Chahoud
(eds.), Colloquial and literary Latin, 100126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Risselada, Rodie. 1993. Imperatives and other directive expressions in Latin. A study in the
pragmatics of a dead language. Amsterdam: Brill.
Roesch, Sophie. 2004. La politesse dans la correspondance de Cicron. In Lon Nadjo &
Elisabeth Gavoille (eds.), Epistulae antiquae III: Actes du III e colloque international
Lpistolaire antique et ses prolongements europens, 139152. Leuven: Peeters.
Schlund, Katrin. 2014. On form and function of politeness formulae. Journal of Politeness
Research 10(2). 271296.
Searle, John R. 1976. A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5(1). 123.
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge:
University Printing House.
Sharrock, Alison. 2009. Reading Roman Comedy. Poetics and playfulness in Plautus and
Terence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2005. (Im)politeness, face and perceptions of rapport: Unpackaging
their bases and interrelationships. Journal of Politeness Research 1. 73144.
Terkourafi, Marina. 2008. Towards a unified theory of politeness, impoliteness and
rudeness. In Derek Bousfield & Miriam A. Locher (eds.), Impoliteness in language:
Studies on its interplay with power in theory and practice, 4574. Berlin & New York:
Mouton de Gruyter.
Terkourafi, Marina. 2005. Beyond the micro-level in politeness research. Journal of
Politeness Research 1. 237262.
Unceta Gmez, Luis. 2014a. La politesse linguistique en latin: Bilan dune tude en cours.
In Dictionnaire Historique et Encyclopdie Linguistique du Latin, Paris-Sorbonne:
http://www.linglat.paris-sorbonne.fr/encyclopedie_linguistique:notions_
linguistiques:syntaxe:formules_de_politesse (accessed 25 May 2015).
Unceta Gmez, Luis. 2014b. Pedir perdn en latn. El acto de habla de la disculpa en las
obras de Plauto y Terencio. Emerita 82(1). 6997.
Unceta Gmez, Luis. 2012. Cuando los sentimientos irrumpen: valores expresivos de las
interjecciones primarias en las comedias de Plauto. In Rosario Lpez Gregoris (ed.),
Estudios sobre teatro romano: el mundo de los sentimientos y su expresin, 347395.
Zaragoza: Prtico.
Unceta Gmez, Luis. 2010. La expresin del agradecimiento en la comedia latina. In
Peter Anreiter & Manfred Kienpointner (eds.), Latin linguistics today. Akten des
15. internationalen Kolloquiums zur lateinischen Linguistik, 625637. Innsbruck:
Innsbrucker Beitrge zur Sprachwissenschaft.
Unceta Gmez, Luis. 2009. La peticin verbal en latn: estudio lxico, semntico y
pragmtico. Madrid: Ediciones Clsicas.
Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Watts, Richard J. 1992. Linguistic politeness and politic verbal behaviour: Reconsidering
claims for universality. In Richard J. Watts, Sachiko Ide & Konrad Ehlich (eds.),
Politeness in language. Studies in its history, theory and practice, 4369. Berlin & New
York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1987. English speech act verbs. A semantic dictionary. Sydney: Academic
Press.
Yiman, Baye. 1997. The pragmatics of greeting, felicitation and condolence expressions in
four Ethiopian languages. African Languages and Cultures 10(2). 103128.