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Pragmatic Approaches to Latin and Ancient Greek
Edited by Camille Denizot and Olga Spevak
[Studies in Language Companion Series 190] 2017
► pp. 45–62

Chapter 3
Pragmatic functions of the Latin vocative

| Charles University (Faculty of Arts), Prague

This article explores pragmatic aspects of the Latin vocative. The vocative is taken as a syntactically independent utterance and independent speech act with its specific communicative functions (illocutionary force). The traditionally recognized functions of “call” and “address” are first defined and shown not to cover (contrary to the common opinion) the whole scope of vocative functions. Then, the other functions of the vocative in Latin and other languages are described. Finally, some space is given to a discussion about how such a pragmatic approach to the study of the vocative is related to the sociolinguistic approach of Dickey (2002).

Keywords: vocative, vocative-utterance, vocative-construction, vocative as a discourse marker, vocative of sincerity and guarantee, reduplicated vocative
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Vocative: Form, construction, utterance
  • 3.The traditionally recognized call and address functions and their definition
  • 4.Vocative as a marker of discourse structure
  • 5.Vocative of sincerity and guarantee
  • 6.Reduplicated vocative of discontent
  • 7.Functions of the vocative-construction and the lexical meaning of the words involved
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.190.03cti
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