The potential optative as a female hedging device in Aristophanes

The study of female speech in Greek has seen a remarkable upsurge of interest seen the pioneering article by Bain (1984), published in parallel with Adams’s article on Latin (1984). Not surprisingly, the bulk of the research is on the representation of female speech in comedy, both old and new. The most detailed studies on Aristophanes are, in chronological order: Sommerstein (1995), Willi (2002) and Duhoux (2004). The most comprehensive of these is Willi (2002), who presents a catalogue of gender-preferential features classified under the headings Politeness, Colloquialisms and Innovations. Most of these features are lexical and only a few grammatical. Among the latter should be mentioned the use of particular particles such as γε and ‘doubled’ ἄν and a preference for the ‘subjective’ final conjunction ὅπως/ὡς (ἄν) and the ethical dative. Many of these gender-preferential features are hedging devices which intend to mitigate the force of a given utterance. This paper discusses another female hedging device which has gone so far unnoticed: the potential optative which, by its very nature, would seem to lend itself very well for hedging purposes: “The optative with ἄν … is used to describe actions that might occur, or to cautiously state something (to make an assertion, weaker than with the indicative)” (van Emde Boas et al. 2018: §34.13). Especially in the first person, the use of the potential optative is described by Goodwin as “expressing a future act as dependent on some future circumstances or conditions, which may be more or less distinctly implied” (1893: 78) or simply as a “weak future” (1893: 77). The data for this preliminary research are taken from Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, which contains numerous examples of ‘weak’ potential optatives in used by women. References: Adams, John N. (1984) “Female Speech in Latin Comedy”. Antichthon 18: 43-77. Bain, David (1984) “Female Speech in Menander”. Antichthon 18: 24-42. Duhoux, Yves (2004) “Langage de femmes et d’hommes en grec ancien. L’exemple de Lysistrata”. In: J.H.W. Penney (ed.) Indo-European Perspectives: Studies in Honour of Anna Morpurgo-Davies. Oxford: Oxford UP, 131-145. Goodwin, William W. (1893) Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb. Boston: Ginn & Company. van Emde Boas, Evert-Rijksbaron, Albert-Huitink, Luuk-de Bakker, Mathieu (2018) Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, forthcoming. Sommerstein, Alan H. (1995) “The Language of Athenian Women”. In: F. De MartinoA.H. Sommerstein (eds.) Lo spettacolo delle voci. Bari: Levante, 61-85 [reprinted with addenda in: Talking about Laughter and Other Studies in Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009, 15-42]. 105 Willi, Andreas (2002) The languages of Aristophanes. Aspects of Linguistic Variation in Classical Attic Greek. Oxford: Oxford UP