Piera Molinelli

Ut ita dicam and cognates: a pragmatic account

Abstract This paper deals with the Latin functional marker ut ita dicam ‘so to speak’ and argues that its function is pragmatic in essence, since it operates both as a discourse marker, namely an interpretative device favoring the cooperative construction of the contextual meaning, and as a pragmatic marker capable of modulating the force of a potentially face-threatening statement or the employment of a daring term. Other formally related markers such as ut non dicam and ne dicam ‘not to say’ are also considered. Drawing on the Antiquitas section of the Bibliotheca Teubneriana Latina, a corpus-based approach is employed to integrate both quantitative and qualitative observations with a view to providing a semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic account of these markers as they were used across different texts and genres of the Latin language. Sociolinguistic remarks are offered as well. The paper closes with a reassessment of the status of ut ita dicam and cognates as functional markers and the implications for a functional-based approach to the pragmatics of Latin.

From verbs to interactional discourse markers: the pragmaticalization of Latin rogo, quaeso

Il volume appartiene ad una serie dedicata alla linguistica del latino, a cui hanno collaborato studiosi provenienti da tutto il mondo, sotto la direzione di Gualtiero Calboli.