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University of Bologna
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Lidewij Van GILS, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Causal relations and point of view
An analysis of causality in the narrationes
of Cicero's Pro Archia, Pro Milone and Pro Rege Deiotaro
Narrative texts are generally characterized by their thematic development, in which coherence relations of the additive type play a prominent role. Not surprisingly, the narrationes in forensic speeches differ from this general pattern in that they display a higher frequency of causal relations, which can be explained by the fact that the narrationes are embedded in an argumentative text type.
Coherence relations have been the topic of much recent research. The theoretical notions in this paper derive mainly from the work on coherence relations of Sanders, Spooren & Noordman (1992), which benefited significantly from the ideas on relational coherence of Halliday & Hasan (1976), Mann & Thompson (1988) and Sweetser (1990). Causal relations are usually subdivided in four types: nonvolitional, volitional, epistemic and speech-act relations. Although this subdivision has proven to be linguistically very useful and relevant, it appears to lack the distinctiveness to explain the differences between certain Latin causality markers (for example, itaque, ergo, igitur). Another problem is that it does not take 'perspective' into account, a common and important feature of narrative texts which appears to correlate to the factor causality in an interesting way.
In my paper, I propose an approach which combines point of view and causality, and as such is able (i) to account for certain differences between three Ciceronian narrationes (Pro Archia, Pro Milone and Pro Rege Deiotaro); and (ii) to establish, for the entire corpus of Cicero's forensic speeches, some subtle differences between three frequently used causality markers (itaque, ergo and igitur).
References
- BIBER, D. 1988. Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
- GEORGAKOPOULOU, A. 1997. Narrative. Handbook of Pragmatics 1997. Verschüren, Östman, Blommaert & Bulcaen (eds. ). Amsterdam, Philadelphia. Benjamins: 1-19
- HALLIDAY, M. A. K. & R. HASAN. 1976. Cohesion in English. Longman. London, New York.
- KROON, C. H. M. 1995. Discourse particles in Latin. A study of nam, enim, autem, vero and at. Gieben. Amsterdam.
- KROON, C. H. M. 2000. Het ene verhaal is het andere niet: Een taalkundige kijk op teksttype in de Latijnse literatuur. Lampas 33.3: 211-238
- KROON, C.H.M.2002.Scales of involvement and the use of Latin causal connectives. Registros linguisticos en las lenguas clįsicas.A. Ramos Guerreira & A. Lopez (eds.)
- MANN, W. C. & S. THOMPSON. 1988. Rhetorical Structure Theory: A theory of text organization. Text 8(3): 243-281
- SANDERS, J. M. 1994. Perspective in narrative discourse. Enschede. Copyprint.
- SANDERS, T. J. M. , W. SPOOREN & L. NOORDMAN. 1992. Toward A Taxonomy of Coherence Relations. Discourse Processes 15: 1-35
Most recent modifications: February 18, 2003 – latling@classics.unibo.it
Source: Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Medioevale
No rights can be derived from the information on this Internet-page.
Coherence relations have been the topic of much recent research. The theoretical notions in this paper derive mainly from the work on coherence relations of Sanders, Spooren & Noordman (1992), which benefited significantly from the ideas on relational coherence of Halliday & Hasan (1976), Mann & Thompson (1988) and Sweetser (1990). Causal relations are usually subdivided in four types: nonvolitional, volitional, epistemic and speech-act relations. Although this subdivision has proven to be linguistically very useful and relevant, it appears to lack the distinctiveness to explain the differences between certain Latin causality markers (for example, itaque, ergo, igitur). Another problem is that it does not take 'perspective' into account, a common and important feature of narrative texts which appears to correlate to the factor causality in an interesting way.
In my paper, I propose an approach which combines point of view and causality, and as such is able (i) to account for certain differences between three Ciceronian narrationes (Pro Archia, Pro Milone and Pro Rege Deiotaro); and (ii) to establish, for the entire corpus of Cicero's forensic speeches, some subtle differences between three frequently used causality markers (itaque, ergo and igitur).
- References
- BIBER, D. 1988. Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
- GEORGAKOPOULOU, A. 1997. Narrative. Handbook of Pragmatics 1997. Verschüren, Östman, Blommaert & Bulcaen (eds. ). Amsterdam, Philadelphia. Benjamins: 1-19
- HALLIDAY, M. A. K. & R. HASAN. 1976. Cohesion in English. Longman. London, New York.
- KROON, C. H. M. 1995. Discourse particles in Latin. A study of nam, enim, autem, vero and at. Gieben. Amsterdam.
- KROON, C. H. M. 2000. Het ene verhaal is het andere niet: Een taalkundige kijk op teksttype in de Latijnse literatuur. Lampas 33.3: 211-238
- KROON, C.H.M.2002.Scales of involvement and the use of Latin causal connectives. Registros linguisticos en las lenguas clįsicas.A. Ramos Guerreira & A. Lopez (eds.)
- MANN, W. C. & S. THOMPSON. 1988. Rhetorical Structure Theory: A theory of text organization. Text 8(3): 243-281
- SANDERS, J. M. 1994. Perspective in narrative discourse. Enschede. Copyprint.
- SANDERS, T. J. M. , W. SPOOREN & L. NOORDMAN. 1992. Toward A Taxonomy of Coherence Relations. Discourse Processes 15: 1-35
Most recent modifications: February 18, 2003 – latling@classics.unibo.it
Source: Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Medioevale
No rights can be derived from the information on this Internet-page.