Abstract EN:

This work aims to describe and explain the different linguistic forms used to express orders and prohibitions in ancient Greek, from a synchronic point of view. The main perspective is a pragmatic one : the notion of command (a binding form of directive act) is the basis of the study, which follows a morpho-syntactic order. The corpus contains literary texts from archaic and classic period (Homeric poems, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Lysias, and several dialogues of Plato). First, we try to find the linguistic characteristics of every directive act ; then we study the typical verbal forms of orders (imperative, subjunctive and infinitive), which directly express the directive act. The reasons why these different forms are employed are examined from several points of view (syntactic, aspectual, semantic and pragmatic ones). Finally, our work deals with indirect forms of order, which introduce a further factor in the typology of linguistic expression of order, politeness.