Analyzing Agamemnon: conversation analysis and particles in Greek tragic dialogue

The aim of is this paper is to demonstrate the utility of Conversation Analysis (CA), a strand of sociolinguistics, for the appreciation of ancient Greek dialogue texts, with a particular view to the use of Greek particles. Since CA appears to be largely unknown within classics,1 I will begin by providing a basic outline of its principles and methods. The heart of my discussion, however, is formed by a contrastive analysis of two dialogue scenes from Greek tragedy—Aeschylus Agamemnon 931–44 and Sophocles Ajax 1346–73—both featuring a recalcitrant Agamemnon as the object of a delicate piece of persuasion. I hope to show that an analysis along the lines proposed below may shed new light not only on the workings of several Greek particles whose functions are sometimes still poorly understood (notably καὶ μήν, μέντοι, ἀλλά, and γάρ), but also on the dynamics of Greek tragic dialogue more generally