Verbal politeness in sophocles: Analysis of the potential optative in directive speech acts

Abstract

This paper, focused on the complete tragedies of Sophocles, analyses the use of potential optative in directive speech acts. Grammars analyse the potential optative in this type of speech acts as a politeness strategy. They do not determine, how-ever, if it displays an identical functioning in all contexts. The analysis of the selected material al-lows to conclude that the use of the optative in the second person generally reflects a politeness strategy different from the strategy displayed both in the first and third person. In fact, in the second person the optative functions in most cases as a conven-tional expression of politeness. On the contrary, in the first and the third person the optative should be analysed as an off-record politeness expression that reduces the implication of the addressee in the fulfillment of the propositional content of the speech act.