Linguistic Interaction in Roman Comedy by Peter Barrios-Lech (review)

This book, based on a Brown University doctoral thesis, studies certain features of dialogue in the fabula palliata, namely: directives (that is to say commands, prohibitions, and requests) as well as equivalent expressions; qualifying and strengthening expressions occurring in the same; means to lessen the certainty of a statement (ut opinor, fortasse, and the like); interruptions of one speaker by another; means of demanding attention (heus, audin, etc.); greetings; leave-takings. The author’s interest lies chiefly in the correlation of linguistic patterns to the character-types of the genre palliata and to the distribution of power within it. Where he succeeds, the comic character-types gain life and clarity.

Much will repay the reader at a low rate of return, if at all. Some of the book’s topics have already generated a body of scholarship; this is summarized and a good deal of it confirmed. Among Barrios-Lech’s own results, some are negative (features turn out to be randomly distributed) and accordingly uninteresting, and many others could have been predicted. Nonetheless, there remain findings that are positive, new, and unexpected. Among them the following may be mentioned. The domineering, richly dowered wife is sharply distinguished from the gentle wife in her use of directives (44–46). Request-qualifications of the type si non molestum erit (termed “negative” in politeness theory) are much more frequent in the mouths of men than of women (54–56). Noli plus infinitive is more delicate than ne plus imperative or ne plus subjunctive (77). Requests using velim and nolim are rare (108). Citizen women utter prayers at a higher rate than others (129–33). When a woman interrupts a man’s speech, she is in some sense in a position of dominance (160). Women make little use of the attention-focusing expressions heus and quid ais, none of audin. When scio is said in answer to scin quid? it is always by a courtesan, as proof of her talent for pleasing (217–18).

A pair of chapters (235–66) treats three plays involving impersonation (Captivi, where slave and master swap roles; Eunuchus, where an upper-class youth passes himself off as a eunuch slave; and Adelphoe, where the gruff Demea suddenly makes a show of affability). Barrios-Lech analyzes the assumptions of identity in linguistic terms. He is best on Adelphoe, where, it turns out, Demea’s adoption of Micio’s methods leaves many linguistic traces, while Micio, in his final defeat, takes on a certain linguistic similarity to Demea. On the other hand, Barrios-Lech’s interpretations of Captivi and Eunuchus seem to me forced (among other things he bases much on a claim, undemonstrated, that hypotaxis characterizes upper-class figures, parataxis slaves).

Barrios-Lech usually backs his conclusions with figures and often applies statistical tests. Though he does not report exact z-values or chi-squared probabilities, he does give enough information for the reader to duplicate his calculation. When he bases himself on large numbers of passages (as he does in treating directives) he provides no repertory of them, an omission that limits the usefulness of the book as a tool for further inquiry. And for one who studies details of language, Barrios-Lech could do a better job of translating Latin. Hash is made of a bit from Quintilian (II.3.91) on page 10 (comoedi are actors, not poets); moods and tenses are mistaken in Pseudolus 657, and by de persona rustici the Latin grammarian Sacerdos 433 means “in the person of a rustic” (181); Donatus on An. 636 (quoted at 162) means by modo not “just” but “in this passage” (a standard usage among scholiasts); ne voluptati mora sit dum iubetur (Donatus on Eun. 179, quoted at 215) means “lest pleasure be delayed while the request is made of her.”