INTERACTIONAL PARTICLES AND NARRATIVE VOICE IN APOLLONIUS AND HOMER Martijn Cuypers 1. Introduction Apollonius of Rhodes is in many ways a typical epic narrator. He relates a story about the remote past, at length, in hexameter verse; he is omni- scient, omnipresent, and anonymous; he uses virtually every narrative technique found in the Iliad and Odyssey. Yet on closer inspection, the Argonautica’s narrative voice differs from that of the Homeric epics in important ways. Notably, whereas ‘Homer’ operates largely in the back- ground, Apollonius directs his narrative in an overt and self-conscious manner, and engages in a pervasive and variegated dialogue with his nar- ratees, his sources, the Muses, and other divinities.1 In this paper I will explore this crucial difference from a linguistic perspective. Starting from a survey of particle usage in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Argonautica which distinguishes between words spoken by the narrator (‘narrator-text’) and by characters (‘character-text’), I will analyze how the micro-level of the text reflects the covertness and ‘monophonicity’ of Homer and the overt- ness and ‘diaphonicity’ of Apollonius. My emphasis will be on those particles which are primarily concerned with the interactional level of discourse, i.e. particles which (besides the grammatical and [re]presentational functions which they may also have) address the intentions, beliefs, attitudes, emotions, expectations, commit- ment or knowledge (general and contextual) of the speaker and/or his addressee (in epic: the narrator and his narratees) with respect to the mes- sage exchanged, and so modify the communication between them. I will refer to these particles as ‘interactional particles’.2 In epic, they include pou (poyi), mÆn/mãn/m°n, ∑, dÆ (d∞yen), toi, and yhn.3 These particles have no clear semantic meaning and can only be satisfactorily described in terms of pragmatic or conversational primitives, such as ‘calling for special attention’, ‘expressing commitment’, ‘assuming common ground’ or ‘anticipating disbelief’. Some primarily pertain to the position of the 1. See Berkowitz (2004); Clare (2002); Cuypers (2004); Hunter (2001; 2002), all with references to earlier literature. 2. Other terms in use are ‘modal (situating)’, ‘attitudinal’, ‘pragmatic’, and ‘phatic’. 3. The list at Cuypers (2004: 56 n.25) requires correction. 36 MARTIJN CUYPERS speaker with regard to the utterance (‘speaker-oriented’), others to the expected or desired reception by the addressee (‘addressee-oriented’); a third group affects both parties (‘bidirectional’). My descriptions of individual particles are based on Sicking (1993), with the silent assumption that their value in epic is basically the same as in Attic.4 The analytical model which these descriptions presuppose has been set out most elaborately by Kroon (1995), and is rooted in functionally oriented linguistics (pragmatics, discourse linguistics). With Bakhtin and the ‘Geneva school’ of linguistics (e.g. Roulet a.o. 1985), it regards the words of the central reporter of a narrative as a ‘move’ in a fictitious ‘exchange’ or dialogue, which is mostly implicit but can become visible on occasion. The monological sections of an epic (narrator-text, narra- tive) may display a greater or smaller number of dialogal features, i.e. signs of a communicative exchange between the narrator and an addres- see. In the terminology of Kroon, monological passages which contain signs of the presence of a silent interlocutor, i.e. a ‘you’ who is addressed but does not actively participate in the discourse (narratees, characters, Muses and other divinities), are “diaphonic discourse”; signs of inter- action between the narrator and such a second party are “signs of dia- phony”. These signs include first and second person verbs and pronouns, present and future tense verbs, questions and directives, exclamations and vocatives, and metadiscursive and evaluative expressions of all kinds, including interactional particles.5 We will see that these particles (like other signs of diaphony) are far more common in the narrator-text of the Argonautica than in that of the Homeric epics, where some of them are virtually absent, others restricted to a small number of contexts. 2. The Table The table on pp. 38-40 shows: N1, C1, total: the number of instances of each particle (in the Argonau- tica, Iliad, and Odyssey) in narrator-text, character-text, and the poem as a whole; 4. This assumption is shared by Denniston (1954). 5. See Kroon (1995: 7-125, esp. 43-4 [semantic approaches to particles], 61-2 [levels of discourse], 89-95 [interactional level of discourse], 97-102 [descriptional model for par- ticles], 109-15 [discourse types, diaphony]; also 1994: 304-9). Pragmatic descriptions of Greek interactional particles are offered by Sicking (1993: 51-66); van Ophuijsen (1993: 71-88); Wakker (1994: 308-64; 1996: 247-51; 1997). On particles as a word-class see Denniston (1954: xxxvii-xlii); Sicking (1993: 5-8); Wakker (1996: 247-9). On discourse markers in general see Roulet a.o. (1985); Schiffrin (1987); Fraser (1990); Jucker and Ziv (1998). For a narratological approach to discourse types see de Jong (1987: 29-40, 136-47; 2004: 1-10). INTERACTIONAL PARTICLES AND NARRATIVE VOICE 37 N2, C2: the frequency of each particle in narrator- and character-text (e.g. éllã Arg. N2 = 271 means ‘once in every 271 words’); N3, C3: the relative frequency of each particle in the Iliad and Odyssey in narrator- and character-text as compared to the Argonautica (> 1 more frequent, < 1 less frequent); N : C: the comparative frequency of each particle in narrator- and character- text (e.g. éllã Arg. 1 : 2.12 means ‘2.12 times as frequent in character- text’). The particle and word counts provided for the Homeric epics are those of Duhoux (1998), unless otherwise indicated in the discussion below. Those for the Argonautica are based on an electronic version of Vian’s edition (1974-96) and have been checked against Campbell’s index (1983). Frequencies under N2/C2 are based on the following word totals: words in: narrator-text character-text total N : C Arg. 27,900 70.4% 1,1729 29.6% 39,629 2.38 : 1 Il. 60,773 54.3% 5,1088 45.7% 111,861 1.19 : 1 Od. 27,120 31.4% 5,9240 68.6% 86,360 1 : 2.18 The three poems have a very different ratio of narrator- and character- text, and (as one glance at pp. 38-40 will show) only very few particles are equally frequent in both discourse types. Therefore it seems pointless to calculate particle frequencies for the poems as a whole or to compare the three works in absolute numbers.6 The frequencies that are given should also be handled with extreme care. First and foremost, the data do not take into account the presence of different discourse types within the categories narrator- and narrator-text. Most importantly, they neglect that characters’ speeches may include narration.7 In such embedded narratives characters speak more like (though not exactly the same as) the primary narrator than they do in dialogue.8 Other factors which may create a mis- leading picture include the use of particles in fixed, repeated expressions (formulas), the low frequency of many particles, and numerous issues of inclusion/exclusion and distinction, such as widely different uses of one and the same particle, textual variants, and differences between editions in word-division and spelling. Where relevant, such problems are indicated 6. In his overarching argument, Duhoux (1998: 19-20) does not consider the differences between the Iliad and Odyssey with respect to discourse types nor does he distinguish between different types of particles. Blomqvist (1969: 132-47) does not distinguish between narrator-text and character-text at all. In both cases this leads to unhelpful conclusions. 7. It is mainly to keep this problem in view that I will steer clear of the shortcuts ‘narra- tive’ and ‘speech’ and use the terms ‘narrator-text’ and ‘character-text’ throughout. 8. This caveat is especially relevant for the Odyssey, which contains long narratives by Odysseus, Nestor, and Menelaus (Od. 9-12, 3, and 4). 38 MARTIJN CUYPERS text N1 N2 N3 C1 C2 C3 total N : C éllã Arg. 103 271 1.00 92 127 1.00 195 1 : 2.12 Il. 227 268 1.01 548 93 1.37 775 1 : 2.87 Od. 66 411 0.66 588 101 1.27 654 1 : 4.08 êra Arg. 137 204 1.00 13 902 1.00 150 4.43 : 1 Il. 590 103 1.98 64 798 1.13 654 7.75 : 1 Od. 420 65 3.15 89 666 1.36 509 10.3 : 1 =a Arg. 96 291 1.00 9 1303 1.00 105 4.48 : 1 Il. 331 184 1.58 70 730 1.79 401 3.98 : 1 Od. 139 195 1.49 76 779 1.67 215 4.00 : 1 êr Arg. 2 13950 1.00 2 5865 1.00 4 1 : 2.38 Il. 9 6753 2.07 20 2554 2.30 29 1 : 2.64 Od. 3 9040 1.54 21 2821 2.08 24 1 : 3.20 étãr Arg. 15 1860 1.00 6 1955 1.00 21 1.05 : 1 Il. 32 1899 0.98 47 1087 1.80 79 1 : 1.75 Od. 7 3874 0.48 44 1346 1.45 51 1 : 2.88 aÈtãr Arg. 83 336 1.00 18 652 1.00 101 1.94 : 1 Il. 257 236 1.42 104 491 1.33 361 2.08 : 1 Od. 148 183 1.83 255 232 2.80 403 1.27 : 1 aÔ Arg. 24 1163 1.00 5 2346 1.00 29 2.02 : 1 Il. 38 1599 0.73 38 1344 1.74 76 1 : 1.19 Od.