Pragmatic Use of Personal Pronouns in Ancient Greek comedy
What is it about?
This paper deals with personal pronouns pragmatic use in Ancient Greek comedy. The work shows how male characters use more 1° person singular pronoun "I, me", whereas female characters prefer plural pronouns like "we, us". Moreover, personal pronouns can be used in a pragmatic way, to show the affiliation within characters or to emphasize a contrast among them. These results are similar to what we know of personal pronouns' use in other (modern) languages (e.g., Spanish, English, etc.).
Why is it important?
This is the first work to investigate pragmatic use of Ancient Greek personal pronouns. Giving that Ancient Greek survives only in written text, it is important to highlight many similarities with other modern languages in pragmatic use of small discourse particles such personal pronouns.