Egreso y seguimiento

A second important contribution of coherence approaches to the study of connective particles is the notion of hierarchical organization. A coherent text is not just a chain of equally important discourse segments – some are communicatively more important than others. A given text, then, can be structured hierarchically: central discourse segments are ‘on top’, and can give rise to lower-order (i.e., less important) discourse segments which are communicatively dependent on these central segments. Kroon (2011: 189-90) provides an example from Latin (I only give her English translation and indicate where the particles are located):

26 _{See also Brinton (1996), who assumes that particles can function at a ‘textual’ or an ‘interpersonal’ level – cf.}

Brinton (2008: 17-18) for a short overview.

(18) 1. But during these events [i.e. the attack on the fortress] the quaestor L. Sulla arrived in camp with a large force of cavalry, which he had mustered from Latium and the allies, having been left in Rome for that purpose.

2. But since the event has brought that great man to our attention, it seems fitting to say a few words about his life and character;

3. for we shall not speak elsewhere of Sulla’s affairs, and Lucius Sisenna, whose account of him is altogether the best and most careful, has not, in my opinion, spoken with sufficient frankness.

4. [Igitur] Sulla, then, was a noble of patrician descent, of a family almost reduced to obscurity through the degeneracy of his ancestors. He was well versed in Greek and Roman letters … And, before his victory in the civil war the most fortunate of all men, his fortune was never greater than his deserts, and many have hesitated to say whether his bravery or his good luck was greater.

5. [Nam] as to what he did later, I know not if one should speak of it rather with shame or with sorrow.

6. [Igitur] Sulla, as I have already said, after he came with his cavalry to Africa and the camp of Marius, soon became … (Sallust, The Jugurthine War 95-96.1)

This fragment is divided into six discourse segments (‘units’ in the figure which follows). The further indented these are, the less important they are from a communicative point of view. This leads to the following hierarchical structure (see also Kroon 2009: 148-149):

Figure 1.1 Hierarchical structure of (18) (from Kroon 2011: 190)

Different units can be grouped together in larger groups (a ‘move’, here), but the most important part of the figure for our purposes is the distinction between ‘central’ and ‘subsidiary’ units, which is recursive – a central unit (let’s call it ‘central unit A’) is central vis-à-vis a subsidiary unit (let’s call it ‘subsidiary unit A’). This subsidiary unit here consists of several smaller units which can, for instance, comprise another central unit (‘central unit B’) and another subsidiary unit (‘subsidiary unit B’). Central unit B is located on a lower level than central unit A, while subsidiary unit A is located on a higher level than subsidiary unit B. In Figure 1.1, subsidiary unit 5 is communicatively less important than the subsidiary unit comprising units 2-5, while central unit 1 is communicatively more important than central unit 4.

Particles (especially connective particles, i.e., those concerned with the organization of discourse or, in Kroon’s (1995) terms, the presentational level of discourse – see (17)) can indicate whether a given discourse segment is communicatively as important, more important, or less important than the surrounding (usually preceding) discourse segments. In this case, nam in unit 5 points to a subsidiary discourse segment, while igitur in units 4 and 6 marks a return to a discourse segment which is higher up (i.e., more central to the narrative; see Kroon 2011: 190). Similar functions have been proposed for γάρ and οὖν respectively (see e.g. Wakker 2009: 67; Slings 1997: 101; Bakker 2009: 41; Sicking 1993: 20, 27; van Ophuijsen 1993: 91; Bakker 1993: 308; Thijs 2012: 18; Allan 2009: 191; De Jong 1997: 184): (19) 1. μάλιστα δὲ αὐτῶν ἓν ἐθαύμασα τῶν πολλῶν ὧν ἐψεύσαντο, τοῦτο ἐν ᾧ ἔλεγον ὡς χρῆν ὑμᾶς εὐλαβεῖσθαι μὴ ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ ἐξαπατηθῆτε ὡς δεινοῦ ὄντος λέγειν. 2. τὸ γὰρ μὴ αἰσχυνθῆναι ὅτι αὐτίκα ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ ἐξελεγχθήσονται ἔργῳ, ἐπειδὰν μηδ’ ὁπωστιοῦν φαίνωμαι δεινὸς λέγειν, τοῦτό μοι ἔδοξεν αὐτῶν ἀναισχυντότατον εἶναι, εἰ μὴ ἄρα δεινὸν καλοῦσιν οὗτοι λέγειν τὸν τἀληθῆ λέγοντα· 3. εἰ μὲν γὰρ τοῦτο λέγουσιν, ὁμολογοίην ἂν ἔγωγε οὐ κατὰ τούτους εἶναι ῥήτωρ. 4. οὗτοι μὲν οὖν, ὥσπερ ἐγὼ λέγω, ἤ τι ἢ οὐδὲν ἀληθὲς εἰρήκασιν, ὑμεῖς δέ μου ἀκούσεσθε πᾶσαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν (Plato, Apology 17a1-17b8)

[Socrates begins his defense, and immediately accuses the plaintiffs of lying:]

1. “But I was most amazed by one of the many lies that they told—when they said that you must be on your guard not to be deceived by me, because I was a clever speaker.

2. [Gar] I thought it the most shameless part of their conduct that they are not ashamed because they will immediately be convicted by me of falsehood by the evidence of fact, when I show myself to be not in the least a clever speaker, unless indeed they call him a clever speaker who speaks the truth;

3. if [gar] this is what they mean, I would agree that I am an orator—not after their fashion.

4. They [oun], as I say, have said little or nothing true; but you shall hear from me nothing but the truth.” (tr. Fowler 1914)

A coherence analysis of (19) would go something like this. The first γάρ would introduce a discourse segment in which Socrates delves deeper into his accusers’ assumption that he is δεινὸς λέγειν (a ‘clever speaker’). The second γάρ marks unit 3 as being subsidiary to unit 2, which was introduced by the first γάρ – it goes into more detail about a part of the previous segment, namely the possibility that his accusers equate a ‘clever speaker’ with ‘a speaker who speaks the truth’. On the other hand, οὖν in unit 4 marks a transition to the highest discourse level (i.e., on a par with unit 1), where Socrates recaps his point that his accusers “have said little or nothing true” and adds that he himself will speak the whole (πᾶσαν) truth.

(20) 1. ἐν δὲ τῇ παρακομιδῇ τῇ ἐς τὴν Σικελίαν καὶ πάλιν ἀναχωρήσει καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰταλίᾳ τισὶ πόλεσιν ἐχρημάτισε περὶ φιλίας τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις, 2. καὶ Λοκρῶν ἐντυγχάνει τοῖς ἐκ Μεσσήνης ἐποίκοις ἐκπεπτωκόσιν, 3. οἳ μετὰ τὴν τῶν Σικελιωτῶν ὁμολογίαν στασιασάντων Μεσσηνίων καὶ ἐπαγαγομένων τῶν ἑτέρων Λοκροὺς ἔποικοι ἐξεπέμφθησαν, καὶ ἐγένετο Μεσσήνη Λοκρῶν τινὰ χρόνον. 4. τούτοις οὖν ὁ Φαίαξ ἐντυχὼν τοῖς κομιζομένοις οὐκ ἠδίκησεν· 5. ἐγεγένητο γὰρ τοῖς Λοκροῖς πρὸς αὐτὸν ὁμολογία ξυμβάσεως πέρι πρὸς τοὺς Ἀθηναίους. 6. μόνοι γὰρ τῶν ξυμμάχων, ὅτε Σικελιῶται ξυνηλλάσσοντο, οὐκ ἐσπείσαντο Ἀθηναίοις, οὐδ’ ἂν τότε, εἰ μὴ αὐτοὺς κατεῖχεν ὁ πρὸς Ἱππωνιᾶς καὶ Μεδμαίους πόλεμος ὁμόρους τε ὄντας καὶ ἀποίκους.

7. καὶ ὁ μὲν Φαίαξ ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας χρόνῳ ὕστερον ἀφίκετο. (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War V.5.1.1-V.5.3.5)

[The Athenian statesman Phaeax has been travelling through Sicily, trying to gain support for a war against the Syracusans:]

1. On his voyage, both to and from Sicily, he made proposals of friendship to several of the Italian cities.

2. He also fell in with some Locrian settlers who had been driven out of Messene. 3. After the agreement between the Sicilian towns, a feud had broken out at Messene, and one of the two parties called in the Locrians, who sent some of their citizens to settle there; thus Messene was held for a time by the Locrians.

4. They [oun] were returning home after their expulsion when Phaeax fell in with them, but he did them no harm;

5. [gar] the Locrians had already agreed with him to enter into a treaty with the Athenians.

6. They alone [gar] of the allies, at the general reconciliation of the Sicilians, had not made peace with Athens. And they would have continued to hold out had they not been constrained by a war with the Itoneans and Melaeans, who were their neighbours and colonists from their city.

7. Phaeax then returned to Athens. (tr. Jowett 1900)28

As in the preceding example, οὖν, in unit 4, marks a return to a higher level after a digression about how the Locrians (i.e., Greeks) came to be in Sicily (see Slings 1997: 101- 102; Bakker 2009: 41). The first γάρ (in unit 5) explains why Phaeax did them no harm, and is located at a lower discourse level, while the second γάρ (in unit 6) explains how the Locrians had already entered into a treaty with the Athenians.

Δέ, by contrast, is often analyzed as ‘marking off’ different discourse segments from each other at the same level of the discourse hierarchy (Martín López 1993: 230; Bakker 1993). This explains why it is one of the most commonly used particles (George 2009: 157; Martín López 1993: 223) – its function is ‘neutral’ in that it does not mark subsidiarity or centrality, but ‘just’ marks a transition to a new discourse segment at the same discourse level (see also Klein 1992: 33). Kroon (1995: 218) points out that, traditionally, δέ’s meaning has been taken to be very close to that of Latin autem; in fact, George (2009: 167) argues that Bakker’s (1993) seminal treatment of δέ is very close to Kroon’s analysis of autem (see also Bakker 1993: 305). As outlined above, Kroon (1995: 250) assumes that autem marks its discourse segment as being a “discrete” unit “in relation to its preceding verbal or non-verbal context” – which is indeed quite close to how both Bakker and Stephanie Black (2002) analyze δέ. Bakker (1993: 293) sees δέ as “a boundary-marking element” in Homer, i.e., an element which marks the boundary between two different discourse segments; Black’s analysis (2002: 153) of δέ in the Gospel of Matthew ends with the conclusion that it is “a signal of low- to mid-level discontinuity”, for example in cases where the narrator makes a “temporal shift” (id.: 166) or a shift in perspective to a different discourse participant (id.: 177). As such, Black’s approach is very close to that of both Kroon and Bakker, although her framework is less coherence-oriented than that of others cited in this paragraph.29

Let’s take an example:

28 _{Note that larger segments, like unit 6 above, could be split further into subsidiary and central segments}

within that unit; however, for our purposes here, which is to demonstrate how γάρ and οὖν seem to indicate transitions to a lower or higher level of the discourse hierarchy, the above structure is detailed enough.

29 _{This point will be taken up again (and in more detail) when I discuss the existing body of research on δέ, γάρ}

(21) Ὣς ἔφατ’ εὐχόμενος, τοῦ δ’ ἔκλυε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων, βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων χωόμενος κῆρ, τόξ’ ὤμοισιν ἔχων ἀμφηρεφέα τε φαρέτρην· ἔκλαγξαν δ’ ἄρ’ ὀϊστοὶ ἐπ’ ὤμων χωομένοιο, αὐτοῦ κινηθέντος· ὃ δ’ ἤϊε νυκτὶ ἐοικώς. ἕζετ’ ἔπειτ’ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν, μετὰ δ’ ἰὸν ἕηκε· δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο. (Homer, Iliad 1.43-49)

[The priest Chryses is asking Apollo for retribution against the Greeks for taking his daughter.]

“So he spoke in prayer, [de] Phoebus Apollo heard him.

He came [de] down from the peaks of Olympus, angered at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and covered quiver.

[De] The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god as he moved, he [de] came like the night.

Then he sat down apart from the ships, [de] he let fly an arrow. Terrible [de] was the twang of the silver bow.” (tr. Murray 1924)

The first δέ indicates a transition from Chryses speaking his prayer (not quoted here) to Apollo hearing Chryses’ prayer; the second δέ is the next step in Apollo’s reaction – his decision to stride down from Olympus with his bow. With the third δέ, there seems to be a ‘low-level discontinuity’, in Black’s terms, in that the narrator is dealing with the same scene, but has ‘zoomed in’ on a specific aspect of Apollo’s striding – namely, the rattling of the arrows. With the fourth δέ, there is again no sharp discontinuity: the previous context remains important, as we get a simile (‘his coming was like the night’). The fifth δέ again marks a transition: having sat down, Apollo now releases an arrow. The last δέ focuses on one of the consequences of Apollo’s letting fly the arrow.

This is a very basic description of what δέ does in (21) – however, it demonstrates (a) that δέ occurs quite often, at least in this fragment of Homer, and (b) that δέ often occurs where no subsidiarity or ‘return to a higher discourse level’ occurs. Instead, δέ indeed seems to be able to mark a ‘neutral’ transition between discourse segments (especially so in the case of the first, second and last δέ). However, examples like the fourth δέ (introducing the simile) indicate that matters might not be so straightforward – a simile could be considered to be subsidiary to the segment which induces it. The last segment, which is marked by δέ, also seems to be less important than the preceding one, which is also marked by δέ – the fact that Apollo is firing an arrow (μετὰ δ’ ἰὸν ἕηκε ) is more relevant to the narrative than the sound his ‘silver bow’ is making (δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο). In the same vein, the fact that Apollo listened to Chryses’ prayer (τοῦ δ’ ἔκλυε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων) seems to be more relevant than the fact that Chryses asked him for something in prayer (ὥς ἔφατ’ εὐχόμενος) – we were already aware of the latter, as the narrator has just presented Chryses’ prayer in direct speech.

Yet the former, more relevant segment is marked by δέ, not οὖν. Seeing that δέ seems to be able to mark both more relevant and subsidiary discourse segments, it would seem as if its contribution to the discourse lies in a different direction than the central/subsidiary dichotomy proposed for γάρ and οὖν – but it does not lie in the direction of a simple, neutral transition either. More needs to be said here, of course, and I will do so in my discussion of the particular semantics of δέ.