As the recent hausse in pragmatic studies shows linguistic attention isincreasingly focussing on aspects of language use. Making use of recentinsights developed... » 

As the recent hausse in pragmatic studies shows linguistic attention isincreasingly focussing on aspects of language use. Making use of recentinsights developed within speech act theory discourse analysis andsociolinguistics this book deals with the various expressions that were usedin Latin to perform socalled directive speech acts i.e. orders requestsadvice proposals suggestions etc. On the basis of a large corpus of comedycorrespondence and instruction texts the expressions concerned imperativessubjunctives future indicatives as well as modal expressions and variousother lexical expressions of directivity are investigated against thebackground of the verbal interactions in which they typically occur. As regardsits contribution to Latin linguistics the present study adds a number of refinements to our knowledge of this welldocumented language for instance withrespect to the reference of the subjects of the socalled imperative II endingin to the conventionalized speech act functions of interrogative quid andquin directives and the diachronic process of conventionalization of velimrequests. «