Stoic Speech Acts and Moods

8/3/2019 Stoic Speech Acts and Moods

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Studies in the History of Ancient Linguistics: II. Stoic and Peripatetic Kinds of Speech Act

and the Distinction of Grammatical MoodsAuthor(s): D. M. SchenkeveldSource: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 37, Fasc. 3/4 (1984), pp. 291-353Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4431355 .

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Mnemosyne, Vol. XXXVII, Fase. 3-4 (1984)

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT LINGUISTICSII

STOIC AND PERIPATETIC KINDS OF SPEECH ACTAND THE DISTINCTION OF

GRAMMATICAL MOODS

BY

D. M. SCHENKEVELD*

1. This study is the result of an investigation into the history ofthe ancient theory of grammatical moods. It is self-evident that ac-cordingly attention will be paid to the Stoic theory on ?e?t?a?t?te?? and to non-Stoic thought on related notions, viz. Aristo-tle's s???ata ???e?? and the so-called Peripatetic five e?d? ????? ofAmmonius and other authors in late Antiquity. All these theoriesare concerned with the various ways in which complete and non-complex thoughts are expressed in speech, such as assertions, ques-tions and commands.

Because of a strong probability that the theory of moodsoriginated in Stoic thought I shall concentrate on the ?e?t?a?t?te??. A list of terms, definitions and examples, more completethan those given in previous studies, will help in reconstructing theoriginal list of these lekta. Although its authorship remains dubious,we know that Chrysippus had already occupied himself with mat-ters of non-assertoric lekta. This activity points to a rise of status incomparison with Aristotelian logic. For Aristotle mentions a fewnon-apophantic logoi but no more than this. For this reason it isworthwhile discussing why to Stoics these lekta are neither true norfalse and why, nevertheless, they were studied to a considerableextent.

* The abbreviations used in the text and the notes are explained at the end ofthe article.


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292 STOIC AND PERIPATETIC KINDS OF SPEECH ACT

If only for chronological reasons, it is right to start with a discus-sion of Aristotle's s???ata ???e??, and methodological motives leadto an exposition of the so-called Peripatetic e?d? ????? immediatelythereafter. Here, too, more sources are tapped and links withrhetoric examined. After the paragraphs on the Stoic lekta a com-parison of all these kinds of speech act will be embarked on. Thisis done firstly in the framework of ancient theory, then in terms ofSearle's modern theory of speech acts. These comparisons,especially the second, will show the fundamental differences be-tween the Stoic theory and the two others.

In order to find possible links between a theory of moods and theStoic one o? lekta I shall consider how the lekta come into existence,in particular, whether they are connected with movements/inclina-tions of the psyche and whether these movements vary in proportionto different lekta. Then the testimonies of a Stoic theory of gram-matical moods are examined. These will turn out to be morenumerous than is usually held to be the case. Finally, the possibilityis considered whether a Stoic theory of moods comprised gram-matical moods as well as a specific group of adverbs. The last sub-ject to be discussed is the influence of this theory on the school ofAristarchus.

To a lesser or greater extent, the subject of this study has beentreated by Prantl, Steinthal, Koller, Egli and Nuchelmans, to namethe foremost authors only1). Nuchelmans* book on theories of theproposition has especially been a great help.

2. When entering upon the matter of ????? as the last ????? oftragedy {Poet. 1456 b 8 ff.) Aristotle mentions the s???ata ???e??,only to dismiss them as irrelevant. Then he refers to Protagoras'stricture of Homer that in II. 1, 1 the poet had used a form of com-mand instead of a prayer. Protagoras is mentioned elsewhere (D.L.9, 53) as having divided ????? into four kinds, prayer, question,answer and command2). These kinds of speech he called p?????e?

1) Prantl I 440 ff. and 550 f.; Steinthal 1317-8 and II 273 f.; Koller 18 ff.; Egli36 f.; Nuchelmans s.v. kinds of speech.2) ??????, ???t?s??, ?p????s?? and e?t???. According to others (ibid.) Pro-tagoras distinguished seven kinds. For this matter see K. von Fritz, RE s.v. Pro-tagoras, 919, 19-32; Koller 19.


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STOIC AND PERIPATETIC KINDS OF SPEECH ACT 293

?????. With Gudemann and Lucas one may think that thesepassages testify to scholarly and systematic activities of Protagorasand that he was one of the founders of ancient grammar. But Feh-ling has shown that this credits him with having done too much andthat these passages are better regarded as a by-product of hiscriticism of Homer. In this framework Protagoras casually in-dicated ways of expressing oneself3).

Aristotle /. /. linked these ways of expression with the art of elocu-tions and delivery (?p????t???)4). Therefore, he does not discussthese s???ata ???e?? in his Poetics. He enumerates more kinds thanProtagoras had distinguished, viz. e?t???, e???, d????s??5), ape???,???t?s??, ?p????s??, and adds at the end ?a? e? t? ???? t????t??. Sohis list is not exhaustive.

A few pages later, 1457 a 18 ff., Aristotle gives pt?s?? as one ofthe ???? ???e?? next to s???a??, ????a and ???a etc., and in thispart he also puts ? ?at? ta ?p????t??? pt?s??, exemplified by twoverb forms, one an imperative, the other an indicative used as aquestion: ?at1 ???t?s??, ?p?ta??? t??a? ???d?se?; ? ??d??e pt?s?????at?? ?at? ta?ta ta e?d? ?st??.

However, Aristotle did not go into this matter in a systematicalway, and his terminology is not consistent. As we have seen, whathe calls s???ata ???e?? (Poet. 1456 b 8 ff.) seems to be classified aspt?s?? later on. In Topica and Soph. Elench. pt?s?? covers a muchwider field, whereas in Soph. Elench. 165 b 27 and 166 b 10 s???ata???e?? is used in connection with gender and diathesis6).

Language may also be looked at from a different point of view.Aristotle does so in De Interpr. 17 a 1 ff., when discussing the logicalstatus of ?????, meaningful group of words. In this context hedistinguishes between ?p?fa?t???? ????? and other ?????, such ase???, and describes the difference between them as that between

3) ?. Gudemann, Aristotelespe?? p???t????, Berlin 1934, 335 f.; D. W. Lucas,Aristotle's Poetics, Oxford 1968, 197 f.; D. Fehling, Zwei UntersuchungenzurgriechischenSprachphilosophie,RhM 108 (1965), 215. See also the cautious inter-pretation in J. Vahlen, Beitr?gezur aristotelischenPoetik, Leipzig 1914 (Hildesheim1965), 98 f.4) I. Bywater, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, Oxford 1909, 258. See alsoNuchelmans 30-1.5) Lucas a.l. "d????s?? rather Statement' than 'narration'."6) Cp. Vahlen /./. and Lucas o.e. 201 f.


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????? ?? f t? ????e?e?? ? ?e?des?a? ?p???e? and logos which is neithertrue nor false. The latter group is relegated to a treatment inrhetoric or poetics. We have already observed that in his Poetics thisgroup was mentioned in connection with elocution. Also, in Rhet.1418 b 40 ff. Aristotle discusses questions and answers in rhetoricalargumentation, but rather briefly.

All in all, he was not deeply interested in non-apophantic kindsof speech, nor did he offer at any time a definite list of them. Whendiscussing he looked at them from various points of view, and onlysuperficially. This lack of interest may explain why those in lateAntiquity who commented on the passage in De Interpr. nowhererefer to the passage in Poetics, although Ammonius, for instance,knows this work7).

3. After Aristotle elocutionary aspects of speech are studied to agreat extent in rhetorical handbooks (see p. 299), and a grammarof moods is founded, but we have no indication that the Peripateticscontributed anything to the latter subject, nor do we hear of theirbeing otherwise interested in a theory of kinds of speech. It is onlyafter many centuries that Aristotelian commentators take up thissubject again. Mostly they do so in the introductory chapters totheir commentaries on parts of the Organon. From these the theoryis transferred to the Prolegomena and commentaries on the CorpusHermogenianum. Ammonius, as well as others, usually speaks aboutta p??te ?at? t??? ?e??pat?t????? e?d?, which words imply that thetheory is already old. But this claim we shall examine later.

In the following list I enumerate all passages down to those inBoethius and late Byzantine commentators which I have found.Many of them are the same in wording and examples. Becauseseveral of these also contain information on the subject of Stoiclekta, which for my purposes are more important, I shall not discussthe examples here.a) Commentaries on De Interpret. Brackets indicate where only a

very short reference is found.Ammonius CAG IV 5, 2, 9 ff.; 5, 5 ff.; 64, 21 ff.Stephanus CAG XVIII 3 (16, 16 and 19, 11 ff.).

7) In Aristot. de interp. comm., CAG IV 5, 12.


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Anon. Coislinianus (a) CAG IV 5 (xxi); xxii.Anon. Coislinianus (b) Aristot. opera IV (Busse) 93 a 20 ff. (cp.

95 b 14 f. and 96 b 37 ff.).Anon. comm. on Ar. De Int., ed. L. Taran, Beitr. z. kl. Philol. 95,

Meisenheim-Hain 1978 (17).Boethius (ed. Meister) lib. I 9, 6 ff.; 35, 11 ff.; 70, 28 ff.

lib. II 95, 8 ff.b) Comm. on Anal. pr. I

Ammonius CAG IV 6, 2, 2 ff.; 26, 27 ff.c) Other comm. on AristotleSimplicius In Physic. II. IV (CAG IX) (91, 17 ff.).

d) Comm. on Porphyrius' IsagogeAmmonius CAG IV 3, 43, 4 ff. (cp. 11, 6).Ein unedierter Kurzkommentar, ed. P. Moraux, ZPE 35 (1979), 80,

III, 11. 90-96.e) Prolegomena and Commentaries on Aphthonius' p???????s?ata

and Hermogenes' pe?? st?se?? and pe?? ?de?? (W = Walz,Rhet. graeci, PS

=Prolegomenon Sylloge, ed. Rabe).1) on Aphthonius* p???????s?ata

Anonymus W II 21, 20 ff.id. W II 661, 25 ff.

Ioannes Doxopater W II 289, 5 ff.2) on Hermogenes' p. st?se??

Anonym. W VII 3 ff. = PS 186, 17 ff.3) On Hermogenes' p. ?de??

Ioann. Dox. (PS 421, 22 ff.).Excerpta Estensia, ed. H. Rabe, Rh. Mus. 64 (1909), 564a.

The same five kinds are always mentioned, ?p?fa?t????, e??t????,p??sta?t????, e??t??at???? and ???t????, sometimes very briefly, atother times a theoretical foundation of this number is given. Am-monius' discussion may serve as an example for the explanation ofthe system. In his commentary on De Interpret. (5, 1 ff.) he first com-ments upon the title (pe?? e????e?a?) and then argues as follows: Oursoul has two faculties, a? ???st??a? d????e?? and a? ??t??a?, whichare also called ??e?t??a?. The cognitive faculties produce t? ?p?fa?-t???? e?d?? t?? ?????, the only one which is capable of being true orfalse; the other four kinds of speech are summoned by the ap-petitive functions. In those cases the soul reaches out towards


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another person who seems to contribute to the realisation of thedesire, this being a wish for a ????? or a p????a. If a verbalresponse is asked for, we have to do with ? p?s?at???? ?a? e??-t??at???? ?a????e??? ?????, but if a thing is required, a seconddistinction enters: for either the listener himself is asked for, andthen ? ???t???? ????? is used, or the speaker tries to obtainsomething from his listener. This latter person may be eithersuperior or inferior to the speaker, and accordingly ? e??t???? or ?p??sta?t???? ????? respectively is used8). Schematically presented,the exposition runs as follows:

???st??a?-> ????? ?p?fa?t????????? d????e??.

??t??a? ? ?????-? ?. p?s?at???? ?a?(??e?t??a?) / e??t??at????????? ??t??s?? \ ? a?t?? e?e????-* ?. ???t????pa?* ?te??? ?

? ??e?tt????-? e???(?. e??t????)

?e??????-> p??sta???(?. p??sta?t????)

All these ????? are simple (ap???), self-sufficient (a?t?te?e??) andby themselves expressive of a complete thought (ib. 64, 30-2), forjust as ? ???? a???at?? ?st?? signifies something (?d???s? t?), so do??d?e? d??asta?, a??e f???s?f?sa???, p?te ???e?; or ?pe??e p??? t??de.In accordance with this statement ??d?e? d??asta? would be ana?t?te??? ?????, but elsewhere Ammonius seems to retract thisopinion. For on p. 60, 26 ff. he explains Aristotle, De Interpret. 16b 26 (????? d? ?st? f??? s??a?t??? ?at? s??????? ?t?.) and raises thequestion how in the lines "??t??, ?ta? s? ??? ess? ?t?. (//. 6, 429)and ???t??, a????? ???? (Od. 22, 208) the vocative forms can becalled ???t???? ?????, although consisting of one word (d???a). His

8) Cp. Nuchelmans 97 f.


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solution here is that in general the address is called ???s??, or??????s??, and may consist of one word, but that the ???t???? ?????must contain more words, such as ? ???a? ?t?e?d?, ??????e???,?????da???? (//. 3, 182) and ? ??st?? ??????d?, ???a ??d?? '??a???(Od. 3, 79)9). However, at 44, 2 ff. he admits of the possibility thatone ????a, or its case, without a verb is a ???t???? e?d?? ?????, andis, he adds, sufficient to elicit a response. Then he quotes again //.3, 182, a line with more than one d???a10), but not e.g. //. 6, 429("??t??).From these explanations of Aristotelian passages we must con-clude that Ammonius wavers between adhering to an Aristotelianposition (60, 26) and extending this view considerably (64, 32 ff.and 44, 2 ff.)11). It may be added that neither Ammonius noranyone else connects this system with the theory of grammaticalmoods.

Nuchelmans 97 rightly views the system of the five Peripatetice?d? ????? "as an elaboration of Aristotle's distinction between logosapophantikos and prayer in De int. 17 a 1", but seems to suggest thatit is an old one (see also note 21). As has been stated before, wehave no indications, except the vague term ?? ?e??pat?t???? of Am-monius c.s., that these scholars had already early on formulated thissystem. On the contrary, I believe that its origin is to be found inmuch later times.

Firstly, let me point out that no traces of this system are foundin Alexander of Aphrodisias. Ammonius proposed it as a well-known Peripatetic system in his commentary on Aristotle's defini-tion of the syllogism (Prior Analytics 24 b 18, s??????s??? de ?st?????? ?? ? te???t?? t???? ete??? t? t?? ?e?????? ?? a?????? s???a??e?t? ta?ta e??a?). When comparing Ammonius' comments (26, 28 ff.)with those of Alexander (CAG II 1 17, 4 ff.) we observe that Alex-ander says that not all ????? are meant but only those in whichsomething is posited; he ends by explaining this restriction thus: t?

9) Although Ammonius does not quote these lines in full, I take it that he ex-pects us to complete them. They are well-known cases of lines with vocatives only.10) For ???a? etc. are d???a ?p??et??,adjectives not being recognized by gram-marians as a separate word-class.11) Cp. Nuchelmans 98.


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?a? ?? t? e??? t??eta? ? ?? t? e?t??? ? ?? t? ???se?; Ammonius,however, has more to add: e?ta??a ??? t? ?e? ????? ?? ????? pa?e?-??pta? (...)? ta d? ???? ?? d?af??a?, t? ?e? ?? ? te???t?? ??a ????s?a?t?? ap? t?? ????? ?????, ???? t?? ???t???? ? t?? e??t???? ?a? t??????? ap???, e?te p??te a?t??? ????e? ???e?? e?te d??a* t? ?a? t??eta(t?? ?? e??? ? ?? ???se?;12). His final words are almost the same asAlexander's and point to a certain d?pendance, but the remark on5 or 10 kinds of speech is his own contribution. I may add that inhis introduction (2, 3 ff.) Ammonius had already spoken of the fivekinds of Peripatetics, but that Alexander in his introduction offersno similar comment13).

Another point to be made in this connection concerns the relationbetween the two d????e?? t?? ????? and the five e?d? ?????. In itselfa distinction of several d????e?? t?? ????? is already common inAristotle, and the Neoplatonists, as well as others, took over thisidea. G??st??a? and ??t??a? (??e?t??a?) d????e?? are then distin-guished besides other faculties, but it is not before Ammonius thatwe find this exclusive restriction to these two faculties. Proclus oftenuses a distinction between ???st???? and ??t????, e.g. in his In rempublicam 21, 20 (t?? ea?t?? te?e??t?ta t?? d?tt??, t?? te ???st???? ?a?t?? ??t????), but in his works I have not found the same distinctionbetween these two dynameis of the soul.

Before we find it in Ammonius' commentaries, there is no theoryof the existence of two faculties of the soul, viz. intellectual andvitad, which produce five kinds of speech. Therefore, I am inclinedto ascribe this theory to one of his immediate forerunners. Toascribe the origin of this theory to Ammonius himself seems to be

12) 'Here the word ????? is used generically, and the next words are employedas differentiae;thus the words ?? f te?. in order to separate this logos (viz. theapophantikos ogos) from the other, such as the kletikos or the euktikos,in short fromall the others whether you wish to say they are five or ten. For, what does one positin a prayer or in an address?'13) Also in his commentary on Topics 100 a 25, the definition of syllogismagain, Alexander has no reference to the system of five kinds, but only mentionsvarious meanings of the word ????? (CAG II 2, 7, 10 ff.) (Communication of J.Mansfeld).?The sequence of e???, e?t??? and ???s?? may have similarities withthe Peripatetic system but is no proof for its existence at the time of Alexander.A similarly vague trias is found in Augustinus De dial?ctica, ed. J. Pinborg,Dordrecht 1975, ch. 2.


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out of the question because of the way in which he speaks about itas being self-evident and common knowledge14).

At any rate, G. Lehnert is wrong in assuming a rhetorical originfor this system15), for the distinction already made between d????e?????st???? and ??t??a? precludes the view. Ioannes Doxopater hadalready seen with more insight the philosophical provenance of thesystem, when he compared the five ???a? t?? ????? of thephilosophers with the six ?d?a? of Hermogenes16). Another argu-ment for rejecting a rhetorical origin is found in the presence ofmuch more developed collections of kindred distinctions inrhetorical writings. For instance, in his treatment of witty sayings(dicta) Quintilian catalogues a number of their sources, amongwhich figurae mentis, (...) in quas nonnulli diviserunt species dictorum.Nam et interrogamus et dubitamus et adfirmamus et minamur et optamus;quaedam ut miserantes, quaedam ut irascentes dicimus (6, 3, 70). We findseveral similarities with the five Peripatetic species, but minamur,mirantes, and irascentes in particular, show that there is no longer aconcern with expressing a thought into a form, but with the waysof uttering these forms, i.e. elocutionary concern is foremost. Alsowhen we look at the theory of s???ata d?a???a? in Greek and Latinwe can find some similarities but still more divergencies17). Andfinally, under the headings o? species orationis and schemata dianoeas,Apuleius and Isidorus combine both lists in a confusing way18).The origin of this rhetorical system may be found in Aristotle's Poet.1456 b 8 ff. and similar texts, but this subject does not concern ushere19).

14) Boethius II 95, 8 ff. maintains that there are many species orationis andvarious systems of partition but that the Peripatetic system covers all kinds. Am-monius In de interp.65, 26 ff. leaves it to the students of other arts to decide whetherthe five kinds suffice or must be added to. Cp. Nuchelmans 128 f.15) Eine rhetorische(Quelle?r Boethius' Commentare u Aristoteles3pe?? e????e?a?,Philol. 59 (1900), 574-7.16) In Hermogenisde ideis, Prol. Syll. 421, 22 ff.17) See J. Martin, Antike Rhetorik, Hdb. Altw. 2, 3, M?nchen 1974, 275 ff.18) Apuleius Peri hermeneias, n OperaIII, ed. P. Thomas (BT), 176; Isidorus Derhetorica, n Rhet. lat. min., ed. C. Halm, Leipzig 1863 (Frankfurt am Main 1964),519, 16-520, 5.19) Cp. Martin 270 ff. As we shall see (? 5), Stoic influence too must be takeninto account.


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There is, however, another connection between the rhetoricaltheory and the Peripatetic system of speech acts. This becomes ap-parent when this system is discussed in prolegomena to or commen-taries on the Corpus Hermogenianum20). In the Byzantine rhetoricalProlegomena Hunger recognizes several groups, one of which "wareher von einem philosophischen Tenor beherrscht'\ The introduc-tion of this group he attributes to the intertwinement of philosophyand rhetoric in the fourth and fifth centuries. He supposes the??sa???? of Porphyrius to have been an attractive model to theseProlegomena21). Hunger*s views are right, but it must be added thatthe Peripatetic system of five speech acts stems from a period laterthan Porphyrius' (?232-305), probably about 450 A.D.

So far, our conclusions must be that at the time of Aristotle someattention had been paid to a classification of speech acts and thatthis classification may have helped the birth of the rhetorical theoryof figures of thought, which also influenced a subcategory of wittysayings. Many centuries later a new system of e?d? ????? is in-troduced in the commentaries on Aristotle, whence it is transferredto rhetorical handbooks of the Byzantine period. Finally, anydefinite link between these classifications and the system of gram-matical moods appears to be absent.

4. In the period between Aristotle and Ammonius the Stoictheory of lekta has come into existence. In his commentary on DeInterpr. Ammonius says, ?a???s? de o? St????? t?? ?e? ?p?fa?t????????? a????a, t?? de e??t???? ??at????, t?? d? ???t???? p??s-a???e?t????, p??st????te? t??t??? ?te?a p??te ????? e?d? ?t?.22)Thus to him the Peripatetic five kinds have a chronological priority.This claim is wrong, because we do not meet with clear statementsabout the Peripatetic kinds before the 5th cent. A.D. whereas a

20) This Corpus, consisting of Aphthonius' p???????s?ata, Hermogenes' p.e???se??, p. st?se??, p. ?de?? and p. ?e??d?? de???t?t??, was canonized in the 5/6thcent. A.D. See H. Hunger, Die hochsprachl.profaneLit. derByzant., Hdb. Altw. 5,1, M?nchen 1978, 77.21) o.e. 86 f.22) CAG IV 5, 2, 26 ff. (SVF 2, 188). 'The Stoics call the apophantikos ogosax-ioma, ..., thus adding five more kinds of speech to those mentioned.' This claimhas always been accepted from Lersch to H?rtung 302.


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Stoic list was in existence, if not in the third century B.C., at leastin the first century B.C.

This terminus ante quern is indicated by the so-called Fragment ofDiodes. In his exposition of Stoic philosophy Diogenes Laertius,from 7, 49 onwards, quotes from Diodes' Summary of the philosophers,a fragment which continues to par. 8223). This Diodes probablylived in the first cent. B.C. or somewhat earlier24). In this fragmentthe lekta are discussed and a list is given; this list, therefore, predatesDiodes.

In par. 63 Diodes starts the exposition of the Stoic theory on ?pe?? t?? p?a???t?? ?a? t?? s??a????e??? t?p??. To this locus belongthe lekta. Provisionally, lekta can be defined as 'the contents ofthought to be expressed in words'. The Stoa distinguished betweendefective and complete lekta, of which ?at??????a and a????a,respectively, are examples. This distinction runs parallel to thatbetween parts of sentences and whole sentences. Under completeand therefore independent (a?t?te??) lekta come a????ata,s??????s???, e??t??ata ?a? p?s?ata (par. 63 infine). From par. 68it appears that a????ata are either ?p?a (simple, atomic), or ????p?a (complex, molecular)25); to the latter group belong the well-known Stoic propositions such as ?? ??e?a est??, f?? ?st??. But adiscussion of these is not apposite here and I return to the non-complex lekta, treated in ?? 65-8. There Diodes informs us firstabout what an axioma is, then about e??t??a etc. At the end of thispart it is said that erotema, pusma etc. are neither true nor false,whereas only axiomata have these characteristics. The combinationof all this proves that ?? 65-8 deal with the simple and completelekta. One item in this group, axioma, receives a more extensivetreatment later on, for it is fit for logical analysis. We rememberthat the distinction of being true or false is identical to that ofAristotle (De Interpr. 17 a 1 ff.), but we should keep in mind thatthe Aristotelian ????? is different from the Stoic ?e?t??, as we shallsee later on (? 9).

23) F. H. Sandbach, Phantasia Kataleptike, 30 in Long (1971) doubts that thisfragment continues after ? 49, but see e.g. Egli 7 ff.24) H. D?rrie, dkP s.o. (10).25) Therefore s??????s??? is not discussed in parr. 66-8, although one wouldexpect so from ? 63. The terms 'atomic/molecular' in B. Mates, StoicLogic, Calif.Pubi. Philos. 26, 1953 (21961), 16.


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Apart from axioma, the list of autotele lekta in par. 66 f. compriseseight kinds (e??t??a, p?s?a, ?e?t?? p??sta?t????, ???????, ??at????,?p??et????, p??sa???e?t????, and p????a d????? ?????at?). Each kindis defined and exemplified but the definitions and examples of ?e?-t?? ??????? and ?p??et???? are missing due to a lacuna. At the endDiocles adds a ninth kind, ?pap???t???? t? p????a, so giving us alist often kinds of complete lekta. However, other sources mentionlists which differ to a greater or lesser extent from that of Diocles.Not all of these are quoted, or else they are quoted only partially,by von Arnim (SVF 2, nrs. 186-92). In order to reconstruct theoriginal list I shall therefore first tabulate here the texts which I in-tend to use:

Text (T) 1: Diogenes Laertius Vitae philosophorum 7, 65-8, ed.Long (OCT), together with some corrections made by Egli 7 (SVF2, 186).

? 2: Sextus Empiricus Adv. mathem. 8, 70-4 (=Adv. dogm. 2),edd. Mutschmann-Mau-Janacek (BT) (SVF 2, 187).

? 3: Ammonius In Aristotelis De Interpretatione commentarius, ed.Busse CAG IV 5 2,9-3,6 (from 2, 26 on omitting 3, 1-2, SVF 2,188).

? 4: Anonymus Coislinianus (a), ed. Busse CAG IV 5 xxii,3-xxiii, 9 (not in SVF)26).

? 5: Anonymus Coislinianus (b) in Aristotelis Opera IV Scholia, ed.Brandis, Berlin 1836, 93 a 21 ff.27) (not in SVF).

? 6: Prolegomena in Hermogenis ?e?? st?se?? in Prolegom. Sylloge,ed. Rabe, Rhet. gr. XIV, Leipzig 1934, nr. 13, 186, 17-188, 5( = Waltz, Rhet. gr. VII, 1, 3-5 (not in SVF).

? 7: Scholia in Aphthonium in Rhet. gr., ed. Waltz, II (1832), 661,25-662, 26 (not in SVF)28).Apart from these texts I use other passages, which, although not ex-

26) According to Busse xx this text dates from after Philoponus (s. VII A.D.).27) According to Busse xix the commentary in this codex Coisl. 160, f. 1-96 isalso found in cod. Laur. 72, 1 f. 123 r. ?149 r. (from which text 4 is taken), andin other MSS. However, ? 4, 11.20-36 are not found in ? 5, and other small dif-ferences occur. Therefore, I have made two items, 4 and 5.28) SVF 2, 189-91 are omitted here; they are very short and add nothingsubstantial, except that nr. 189 (Ammonius In Arist. Anal. pr., ed. Wallies, CAGIV 6, 2, 3 ff.) maintains that the Stoics had eleven kinds.


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plicitly mentioning the Stoa, contain relevant information. Theseare:

? 8: Theon Progymnasmata, in Rhet. gr., ed. L. Spengel, (M?n-chen 1855), II 87, 13-90, 1729) (not in SVF).

? 9: Dionysius of Halicarnassus De compos, verb., edd. Usener-Radermacher (BT), c. 8, 1 p. 32, 6-13 (not in SVF)30).

? 10: Philo De agricult. 139-40, in Opera, ed. Wendland, 2, 122,18-123, 4 (SVF 2, 182)31)?

Til: Simplicius In Aristotelis Categor?as comment., ed. Kalbfleisch,CAG VIII, 460, 6-28 from 1. 20 onwards = SVF 2, 192).

The texts 1-9 1 shall first use to put the information concerningthe number and names of the kinds of speech into the followingscheme (I). Column nr. 0 contains the five Peripatetic kinds. Inchoosing this order my aim was so to position the Peripatetic logosof question that its three parallels in the other columns are placedtogether.

Commentary on scheme I:1. According to e.g. Ammonius (T 3) the Stoic names differed from Peripateticones, viz. a????a for ????? ?p?fa?t????, ??at???? for ?. e??t????,p??sa???e?t???? for?. ???t????. From ? 2 (?a? ?p?fa?t??a (se. ?a???s?) ape? ap?fa????e??? fa?e?) agood case can be made for the thesis that t? ?p?fa?t???? ?e?t?? was the first Stoickind, which was to be equated with a????a ap????. See below.2. The Stoic names do not differ much, (e.g. ?p-/d?ap???t????), the greatest varia-tion occurs between p???? ? a????a (? 2), d??????????at? (? 1, 3-5) and p???? t?t?? ?p?f. (? 8). Diodes' definition (? 1) d t?? ??f??a? ???? ?????at???? pa?? t??????????p?e??as??? ? p???? shows the close relationship between d??????????at? andp???? ? a????a/p???? t? t?? ?p?f.3. Immediately after species 11 I put in nr. 11a t? ?a??ast????. ? 4 and 5 standalone in splitting up t? d??????????at? and t? ?a??ast????, whereas ? 6 and 7 givet? ?a??. only but add examples which elsewhere illustrate t? d?. ??. Diocles'definition, again, and his examples show why this division was possible. Egli 36wrongly reports ? 5 as ranking t? d?. ??., ?a??. and ?f????at???? together as onekind. Steinthal's report (I 318) is also wrong.

29) Aelius Theon of Alexandria probably lived in the first cent. A.D. See W.Stegemann, RE VA 2037 ff. and H. Gartner, dkP 5,713. According to G. Reichel,Quaest.progymn. (Leipzig 1909), 23 ff. Theon was a Stoic, but with Stegemann andG?rtner it is better to maintain that his work contains many Stoic elements. Thistext of Theon is not mentioned at all in the usual literature.

30) Used by Nuchelmans and Koller only.31) Cp. Decongr. erud.gratia 146 ff. (Opera3, 102, 15 ff. = SVF 2, 99), especiallyt? ?p?fa?t????, t? e??t??a, t? p?s?a, t? p??sta?t????, t? e??t????, t? ??at????;


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308 STOIC AND PERIPATETIC KINDS OF SPEECH ACT9. Simplicius (Til) reports criticisms of Nicostratus35) on Aristotle De Interpr. 17a 1. Nicostratus uses Stoic material but his distinctions do not all need to be Stoic,for in his polemics he needs a contrast between ???t???? and ?p???t???? ????? aswell as between ?a??ast???? and ?e?t?????????. Egli 36 wrongly says "In SVF 192( - second half of ? 11) ist die Gattung der psektikawohl interpoliert", but is rightin not admitting this type into the Stoic list.10. Ammonius' example for t? ???et???? e?d??(? 3) reminds one of EuclidesElementa 1, p. 10 Heiberg ?st? ? d??e?sa e??e?apepe?as???? ? AB. ? 4, however,says ???et?????? t?? e??es??fas?? ???e???t?a? for which definition see e.g. Proclusin Euclidis primumelementorumibrum commentarius. d. Friedlein, 203, 7, ? d? ???es??a?t? ?a?' a?t? t? ded?????? ?p?d?a?a???sa p??e?t?ep??e? ? ??t?se?56). Probably ?4 also means to refer to an example beginning with ?st? ? d??e?sa?t?., not to thevery definition.11. As to the examples of t? ?p??et????cp. Aristarchus of Samos De magn. ... lunae,ed. Heath, hyp. 2 t?? ??? s??e??? te ?a? ???t??? ????? e?e??p??? t?? t?? se?????sfa??a?, Theon Smymaeus, ed. Hiller, 120, Ptolemaeus Syntaxis mathem., ed.Heiberg, I 240, and Proclus Hypotyp. astronom.posit., ed. Manitius, 26, 26.12. The examples of Theon (? 8) are variations of Thuc. Hist. 2,2,1 (the captureof Plataeae). Of these the example for e??t??a is of interest (Is it true that theThebans ...? ?a? ??t?? ???t??at????ta ?et? ta?ta d?e?e?s??e?a), and also that forp?s?a (What kind of men were the Thebans, who ... ? ?a? ta ???p? p???a???e????p??s??e?). He refrains from exemplifying ?pap???s?? by a variation of the basictext, because e??t??a and ?pap???s??do not differ ?at? t?? p??f????, the only dif-ference being between a real question and a self-question. The latter hedemonstrates by Menander Sentent.53. His variation for ?p??et???? is: '?p????e?a???, that men of Thebes, ...'; for p???? t? t?? ?p?fa??es?a?: ?e????? ?? ????ep?a???t?? a?t?a?????e? ????a???? ... T??a??? e?????ta?a? af????.T??a??? ?a? ??-d?e? ?t?. ... ?a? ??t? ta ???p? t?? d????se?? s??????e?. For (p??s)d?a????????p?fa??es?a? see comm. nr. 4.13. Here I cannot resist quoting William van Moerbeeke's translation for the ex-ample of ?pap???t???? (???? p??est?; t? p?t* ?pa??e??? a?a;), viz. Deus adest, quidigitur angelorum;(Corp. Lat. Comm. in Aristot. graec. II (1961) 4, 54).

5. The foregoing surveys have shown the close relationship be-tween the texts 1-9, and in the commentary most difficulties in dif-ferences have been explained away. We have also seen that thekinds 11a, 12a and b are later developments. Yet some discrepan-cies still exist, viz. Diocles (Tl) does not list t? ???et????, which oc-curs in ? 3-5, and ? 3 (Ammonius) conflicts with his remarkelsewhere that there are eleven kinds (In Anal, prior. 2, 3 ff.) (seenote 28).

35) On Nicostratus (s. II A.D.) see J. Dillon, TheMiddle Platonists, Ithaca 1977,233-6 and Frede 42 f.36) G. Marrow, A Commentary n the First Book of Euclid's Elements, Princeton1970, translates: "the exposition takes separately what is given and prepares it inadvance for use in the investigation".


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To take this latter case first, it is important to notice that at onepoint at least ? 3 is an abbreviated version. After his exposition ofthe Peripatetic five kinds Ammonius comes to the Stoic additions.The first four (???t????, ???et????, ?p??et???? and t? d????? ?????at?)are classified under ????? ?p?fa?t???? because they are indicative oftruth and falseness, whereas t? ?pap???t???? belongs to ????? e??-t??at????. Now, he exemplifies the swearing type by Gst? ??? t?de?a?a (Od. 5, 184) but in his proof for reducing this kind to theapophantic logos he says: t?? ?e? ???t???? t? ?a?t???a t?? ?e???p?e???sa?t?? t?? ap?f??se??. Yet Od. 5, 184-187 does not containa divine name used in witness which can be omitted. Ammonius'explanation, however, does apply to the third quotation in ? 4, ???a ???' ... ??t? d?at???? (Od. 20, 339), in which text the first exam-ple is that of Ammonius. Thus Ammonius' text looks like an ab-breviated version. Furthermore, we do not find an explanation howt? ?p??et???? and t? ???et???? can be reduced to the apophantic type,and here too we have perhaps an indication of abbreviation37); hemay, however, have skipped this task to avoid embarrassment (cp.? 3). From these considerations I draw two conclusions, the first be-ing that the bulk of poetical quotations in ? 4 and 5 was presentin Ammonius' text too. The second conclusion is bolder, but to mymind we are justified in considering the possibility that Ammonius'source also had t? p?s?at???? e?d??. An additional argument for thisconclusion is that in this way we can reconcile Ammonius' conflict-ing statements on the number of Stoic kinds of speech38).As to the absence of t? ???et???? from Diocles' list, with Egli 36one may explain it as due to a lacuna in the text. He inserts ?a? t????et???? after ?p??et???? (? 66), and thinks that the lacuna in ? 67contained an example of this type too. The result of this insertioncoupled with that of t? p?s?at???? e?d?? in Ammonius' text (T3)would be a welcome and complete agreement between both lists.However, it is equally possible to view t? ???et???? as a laterdevelopment from a general type of supposition, which led to adivision of t? ?p??et???? into two kinds. Both types are exampled

37) Cp. J. Freudenthal, RE s.v. Ammonios (15), col. 1864.38) In de interpret.5, 10 he says t?? p?s?at???? ?a? e??t??at???? ?????; there theadjectives indicate the same kind, and 199, 19 ff. he explains the difference bet-ween ? d?a?e?t??? ???t?s?? and ? p?s?at??? ???t?s??.


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by mathematico-astronomical quotations, and in view of therelative lack of interest in mathematics on the part of the Old Stoa,together with the later tendency to institute new types (??at????/e??t????, ?a??ast????/?e?t????), I prefer the alternative solutionand do not assume that t? ???et???? has been omitted39).

Of course, the division between e??t??a and p?s?a is old andoriginal, as the titles of Chrysippus' works already testify, e.g.?p?t??? pe?? e??t?se?? ?a? pe?se?? (D.L. 7, 191). The Stoics seemto have been the first to make this distinction between yes-or-noquestions and wh-questions. In Topics 158 a 14 ff. Aristotle explicit-ly excludes wh-questions, such as t? ?st?? ?????p??;, from being ad?a?e?t??? p??tas?? because they do not admit of a simple 'yes' or'no', but neither here nor anywhere else in his works p?s?a, or asimilar term, is introduced as a different kind from yes-or-noquestions40).

From these considerations I conclude that the standard list ofStoic kinds of speech acts runs as follows (the order is debatable):1. ?e?t?? ?p?fa?t???? or a????a, 2. e??t??a, 3. p?s?a, 4. ?.?pap???t????, 5. ?. p??sta?t????, 6, ?. ???????, 7. ?. ??at????, 8. ?.p??sa???e?t????, 9. ?. ?p??et????, 10. ?. d????? ?????at?.

This list differs from Egli's (36) in that ?. ???et???? is omitted,and it differs also from that of Nuchelmans (67) by virtue of thesame omission and by the additional omission of ?. d?asaf?t????(cp. commentary nr. 4)41).

In agreement with Stoic practice the examples are mostly takenfrom poetry, and the prose illustrations are of the well-known Stoickind, ??e?a est??, ???? pe??pate?, a?? ?e ??e?a est??; p?? ???e? ????;The quotations from Demosthenes for t? ?p??et???? in ? 4-6 arelater intrusions. They all start with the conjunction e?, just as theexample of the Iliad (2, 123) in ? 7. All these quotations are non-simple lekta, and therefore not originally at home here. Probably we

39) This solution, too, is problematic because, as we shall see in par. 8,Posidonius perhaps made the division between the two kinds (a), and Dioclesrefers several times to Posidonius (b). Accordingly my solution leaves unexplainedwhy Diocles did not include ???et????in his list. However, Egli 12 f. convincinglyshows that the whole Fragmentof Diocles is based on different sources, among whichthe source of parr. 63 ff. is a work of Krinis, not of Posidonius.40) Cp. Eudemus of Rhodes fr. 25 W. and Wehrli's comments, 85.41) Prantl 441 f. classifies ?a??ast???? as a separate type, but see comm. nr. 3.


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are dealing with rhetorical influence. The same will be true for thequotations from Xenophon's Instit. Cyri in ? 4 and 542). Finally,the mathematico-astronomical examples of ?p??et???? and ???et????indicate a possible author for this distinction, as we will see par. 8.There, too, I shall discuss the problem of the authorship of thewhole list.

6. It may be argued, though with great hesitation, that the Stoicsused the term d?af??a? ?e?t?? a?t?te??? as a generic indication ofthe various kinds of speech act, in the same way as Ammoniusspeaks of e?d? ?????. This designation is perhaps found in Philo Deagrie. 189 (? 10) and Sextus (? 2). Philo somewhat deprecatinglylists several Stoic distinctions, including t?? ?e? as???t?? ta ?e?t??e?a, ta d' ate??. ?a? t?? te?e??? ta ?e? e??t??ata ?a? p?s?ata,??at??? te a? ?a? ?????? ?a? ?sa? a??a? t?? ?at' e?d?? ?? ta?? pe??t??t?? st???e??ses?? ('handbooks') a?a???f??ta? d?af??a?, ta d?p???? a d?a?e?t????? e??? est?? ??????e?? a????ata. Sextus' words p?????a??? ??s?? ?? t??? ?e?t??? d?af???? (? 2, ? 74) point, I think, in thesame direction. Therefore, in ? 71 (t?? de a?t?te??? p?e????(t??p???) (Kochalsky) e??a? fas?) I prefer Bekker's proposal fas?(d?af???? >.A final argument for this designation is Pap. Here. 307 (SVF 2,298a) containing a Chrysippean text43), where at col. 8, 1. 15 ff.(SVF 105, 11 ff.) we read d?t?? d? ?a? t???t?? ?e?t?? esta? ?p???te???at? t? ?s??ta? a? d?af??a? a?t??. However, d?af??? may be usedin a non-technical sense in all three texts.

Our main texts testify to the generic name of ?e?t? a?t?te?? incontrast with ?e?t? e???p?. These complete lekta are differentiatedby the addition of an adjective (p??sa???e?t???? etc.), as is done e.g.by Sextus in ? 2, ?? 71-2, the exception there being p?s?ata.Diocles starts with three substantival names (a????a, e??t??a,p?s?a) and continues with p??sta?t???? se. ?e?t?? etc. With this

42) Although according to K. M?nscher, Xenophon .d. griech.-r?m.Lit., Leipzig1920, 55 "die Stoa im ganzen X. hoch einsch?tzte". But see G. A. Kennedy, TheArt of Rhetoric in Rome, Princeton 1972, 554 and 616. Misunderstanding of?p??et????as 'hypothetical, conditional' probably caused the intrusion of examplesintroduced by t?. H?rtung 303 follows this error.43) See ? 8.


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method of distinction we can understand that Sextus (T 2, ? 71)speaks of ?p?fa?t???, and uses (? 73) the word a????a for the sametype. Indeed, one may consider the assertorie statement both as anassertion (ape? ap?fa????e??? fa?e?) and as a statement which iseither true or false (a????a)44). The same method of looking at a???-?a in two ways occurs in the definitions of Diocles (D.L. 7, 65)45).

All these lekta are self-sufficient, unlike deficient lekta such asG??fe? (7, 63). By means of this contrast we can accept the self-sufficiency of questions, for, although requiring an answer, inthemselves they are complete. Axiomata, however, do not require ananswer, and are, therefore, complete as well as independent(?p?fa?t?? ds?? ?f' ?a?t?, Chrysippus' definition in D.L. 7, 63)46).However, when we consider some examples for the lekta pro-sagoreutikon, horkikon and homoion axiomati, we must ask why e.g.?t?e?d? ??d?ste, ??a? a?d??? ????e???? is a lekton autoteles, and???fe? is not. The problem becomes more intricate when we takeinto account Diocles' definitions. These have the form of p??-sta?t???? ?st? p????a d ?????te? p??st?ss??e? or p??sa???e?t???? ?st?p????a d e? ????? t??, p??sa???e??? a?. From Diocles' survey of in-complete lekta in ? 64 it appears that pragma is identical with, or atleast correlate to, verb forms, such as pe??pate?. For the word is us-ed only in connection with ?at??????a (predicate) and not withpt?s?? ???? (subject). Accordingly from this interpretation ofpragma we run into difficulties when dealing with examples of com-plete lekta without any verb form at all.

To find a solution we must first remember that lekta and pragmatabelong to the topos of the incorporeals (as??ata) and meanings(s??a????e?a). This topos is the pendant of the t?p?? pe?? f????, towhich the corporeal words (?????) belong. Therefore, I have spokenof correspondence, not identity, between complete lekta and

44) Contra Egli 36.45) For the deletion there of ? ?atafa?t?? and ? ??ete?s?a?see Nuchelmans 59,Egli 36 and Frede 33 ff.46) In principle Frede 36 is right in translating "welches, so weit es an ihmliegt, ausgesagt werden kann", and in connecting the restriction ?crov?f* ?a?t?

with the presence or absence of external circumstances, such as the possibility ofdeixis. Nevertheless, the usual translation ('independent, by itself) expresses thesame idea. See also Nuchelmans 59 and Kerferd 266.


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sentences. In concentrating on the field of meanings Stoics avoidedthe pitfall of being guided by external signs only, and createdelbow-room for themselves. For instance, in abstracting from thephysical words they could connect an imperative form with dif-ferent lekta. I return now to the problem o? lekta without correspond-ing verb forms, which, nevertheless, are defined by means of theword pragma. Nuchelmans?who, as far as I can see, is the onlyscholar to discuss this matter?explains (64 ff.) the difficulty byassuming a gradual transition in the use o? pragma. At first this wordmeans "an action or passion thought" but later also "a thingthought" without restriction to verbal action/passion. In its firstusage "pragma stands for the neutral action or passion of the verb,viewed in abstraction from the different speech acts in which it canplay a role" (64), and thus, we may add, it is correlate to the in-finitive. In the second meaning the connection with the verbal ac-tion is left aside and pragma has the sense of what is merely thought(67). In particular Nuchelmans maintains that "when D.L. VII, 67says that an address such as "Most honoured son of Atreus, lordof the warriors, Agamemnon" is a pragma of such a kind that if aperson says it, he will address somebody, this must therefore meanthat it is a thought which a person expresses in the speech act of ad-dressing somebody, or that it is that which a person means whenhe addresses somebody in those words" (67).

However, I have the impression that in the latter caseNuchelmans has overlooked the possibility of a closer link between*a thing thought' and the action/passion of the various speech acts.For, if in the definition of e.g. p??sa???e?t???? (p????a d e? ?????t??, p??sa???e??? a?) pragma means only Something that is merelythought', the sense of addressing somebody is dependent upon theutterance of this *thing thought', and is not present already in the'thing thought'. This view runs counter to the whole Stoic theoryof s??a????e?a and s??a????ta. For this reason I assume that in thecases of examples without a verb form the pragma itself contains notonly the 'thing thought' (e.g. "Most honoured son of Atreus, ...,Agamemnon"), but also the thought of addressing, or, in othercases, that of swearing an oath etc. This means that the correlateof the physical sign ?t?e?d? ... ????e???? in the asomatic realm is


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the pragma 'ADDRESS (Atreus' son)', or to put it into anothernotational scheme, 'Atreus' son being addressed'47).

Corroboration of this interpretation is found in the fact that wenow understand why examples with imperative forms can indicatedifferent acts, viz. those of command and swearing etc. To take myargument further, it also explains why the axioma ???? pe??pate? canbe said to contain an assertion, not merely a piece of informationor a communication, D.L. 7, 65: ? ??? ????? ??e?a est?? ??????d??e? t? ????a? e??a?. It is true that our sources are not as explicitas my exposition. But this is due to the tradition of logical theory,which is focused on the true-/falseness of statements, and which, inthe case of Stoic logic, led to an almost exclusive discussion of ax-iomata and their combinations. Axiomata, however, are but one kindo? lekta which have to do with pragmata. In their discussion the Stoicsmostly equate 'expressing a pragma^ with 'making an assertionabout something', and so neglect to explain how the act of assertingis made48). Because of this concentration on axiomata it isunderstandable that the Stoics skipped this phase, but it would havebeen better if they had explained the expression ???? pe??pate? asbeing correlate to a thought about Dion (a), which thought has todo with his walking (b), and which contains an assertion aboutDion's walking (c). But in their well-known distinction of t???????(Dion), s??a???? (???? pe??pate?) and s??a????e??? ('Dion is walk-ing') they do not differentiate steps (b) and (c)49). Because,moreover, in the case of elliptic lekta they concentrated on the rela-tionship of these lekta to the axiomata, viz. a specific kind of completelekta, it was again easy not to differentiate between 'making

anassertion' and 'expressing a thought in whichever way'. The upshotof all this is that, as far as the non-axiomatic lekta are concerned,we have to explain the erotematic etc. pragma as containing the ideaof Question etc.

47) Cp. Zs. Telegdi, Zur Herausbildungdes Begriffes 'SprachlichesZeichen' und zurstoischenSprachlehre,ALingHung 26 (1976), 294 f.48) E.g. Seneca Epist. 117, 13; translation and discussion by Long (1971 art.),77 ff. See also ? 11 a.49) S.E. 8, 74 (SVF 2, 168) ??a t? a????? fj ? ?e?d??, de?a?t? p?? pa?t?? ?e?t??e??a?,e?ta ?a? a?t?te??? ?a? ?? ?????? ?p?????d?p?te ??? ???' a????a perhaps pointsin the direction of my exegesis.


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This explanation applies, I think, to all cases of non-axiomaticlekta, where the pragma contains the indication of various speech acts(Question, Order etc.), in the same way as the axiomatic lekton in-dicates that of Assertion50). But what about ?e?t?? ?????? ?????at??Which speech act is performed here? Now, Diocles does not definethis kind of lekton in terms of p????a d ?????te? we do '?', as is thecase with the other lekta, but he says only d t?? ??f???? ???? ????-?at???? pa?? t???? ?????? p?e??as??? ? p???? e?? p?pte? t?? ?????? t??a????at???? (Text 1). Sextus first defines various kinds and thencomes to the distinction between a????a and p???? ? a????a (? 2).Therefore, these sources give an indication that the class of ???????????at? does not differ from ?p?fa?t???? ?e?t??, in the same wayas e.g. p??sta?t???? ?e?t?? does. Rather the class looks like that of?e?t? ?p?fa?t???; however, by the presence of some words express-ing emotions it cannot be included in this latter category.

7. It seems easy to intuit why e.g. "How beautiful the Par-thenon is" cannot be classified as an Assertion, and it is a conse-quence of my previous exposition that a rational explanation wouldbe that this is so because a different speech act from that of assertingis performed. But though this explanation is ultimately on line withStoic thought, we have seen that the Stoics did not explicitly thinkthis way. Moreover, they bring other aspects to the fore when ex-plaining why an axioma is either true or false. These aspects nowdeserve our attention if we are to find points of contact for a Stoicargument why the non-axiomatic lekta are neither true nor false51).

As to the truth-conditions of an axioma, the relevant texts are:S.E. 8, 12 (SVF 2, 166) ?????? ?st?? d ?st?? ????e? ? ?e?d?? and 8,10 (SVF 2, 195) a????? ?st? t? ?p????? ?a? ??t??e??e??? t???, ?a??e?d?? t? ?? ?p????? ?a? ??t??e??e??? t???52), and the general d?fini-

50) For the problem of the copula see e.g. Nuchelmans 61 f.51) According to W. Detel etc., ?e?t? e???p? in der stoischenSprachphilosophie,AGPh 62 (1980), 276 ff., "gibt es keinen Beleg, der darauf hinweise, da? nureinige ?e?t? (etwa die ?e?t? a?t?te??) wahr oder falsch sind. Demnach haben auch?e?t? e???p? Wahrheitswerte". But D.L. 7, 68 and the text quoted in nt. 49 provethe contrary as far as the ?. a?t. are concerned. Kerferd's arguments (see n. 52)on the true-/falseness of the ?. ???. are more cogent than Detel's.52) It does not matter here whether ?e?t? e???p? can also be true or false, asKerferd 261 ff. and Detel (see note 51) argue.


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tion of ?e?t?? in 8, 70 (SVF 2, 187) ?e?t?? d? ?p???e?? fas? t? ?at???????? fa?tas?a? ?f?st??e???. It is not necessary here to explainevery detail of these and related texts53); it suffices to say that fromthese texts it follows that "when a Lekton is true, it is so becausewhat it expresses is the case ... In other words, a Lekton is true invirtue of something which is and this can only be something whichexists physically (corporeally), and so in the standard case54) exter-nally" (Kerferd 270).

From these texts we have to conclude that non-axiomatic lektacannot 'be the case' in relation to something external. To myknowledge, our texts nowhere explicitly state this for these lekta.However, Chrysippus restricts ??pa???? to present tense predicatesonly, excluding past and future tenses55), and the inference is easyto make that a fortiori ?pa???? is denied to those lekta which are ex-pressed by non-indicative moods. Lekta containing oaths and ques-tions as well as those similar to axiomata are a case in themselves,and this will be discussed presently.

When the non-axiomatic lekta cannot have ?pa????, and accor-dingly cannot be true, one might be inclined to think that they arefalse. However, falseness of lekta is inextricably interwoven withtheir trueness, in other words, if a lekton can be false, and by virtueof external circumstances is false, this means that it also can betrue, what, as we have seen, does not apply to the lekta underdiscussion. If the conclusion that I have just reached is right, name-ly that the lekta with non-indicative moods as their parallel in ex-pressions do not have ?pa????, those with indicative moods still haveto be accounted for. Here too our texts give no clear answers,although they give somewhat more answers than they did for theprevious lekta. First, Question-&/;ta such as p?? ???e? ????; do con-tain words referring to Dion as well as to an action ('living'), butas Diocles (D.L. 7, 65) puts it, it requires an answer in order to pro-duce a statement. Such an answer would be e?ta??a ???e? ????, in

53) See e.g. Nuchelmans 99 f., Frede 41 ff., Long (1971 art.), 100 f. andKerferd 270 f.54) The standard case is 'It is day'.55) Stobaeus Eel. 1, 106, 5 H. (SVF 1, 509). See A. C. Lloyd, Definite Proposi-tions in Brunschwig 294, and Kerferd 267.


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other words, the question-/*/:^ has no deictic component. FromS.E. 8, 97 (SVF 2, 205) and other texts it appears that thetrueness/falseness of a lekton is also dependent on the presence of thedeictic element, so that ??e?a est?? can be true or false (axioma), butis only true if we see that it is day56), or, to take ???? pe??pate?, thisaxioma is only true if we can point out Dion in the act of walking57).Such a deixis is impossible to find in the question-lekton.

As to the oath-lekton, the example that interests us here is not ?st???? t?de ?a?a, but those with indicative moods, such as ?a? ?a t?des??pt???, t? ??? ?? p?t? f???a ?a? d???? f?se? ?t?. (//. 1, 234) and?? ?a ???\ ????ae, ?a? ???ea pat??? ?????, ..., ?? t? d?at???? ??t????????, ???a ?e?e?? (Od. 20, 339-41). The first example might berejected as having a future tense, which according to Chrysippuscannot have ?pa???? (see above). Nevertheless, Stobaeus58) recordsChrysippus' view that an oath containing a statement with respectto the time of its being expressed is either true or false, epe?d? a???-?a t?????e? d?, whereas if a statement is made with reference to afuture time, it is neither, but only a case of swearing well (e????e??)or of perjury (?p????e??). This interpretation, which slightly deviatesfrom the usual59), does not necessarily mean that the oath of Od.20, 339-41 is either true or false, but may just imply that what issaid in the oath (t? ?????e??? in Stobaeus' text) is of such a nature,viz. the words ?? d?at???? etc. The latter exegesis accords withSimplicius' treatment of oaths in Text 1060), where, according tohim, it was a common Stoic tenet that in oaths only e?- or ?p????e??could be the case, not trueness or falseness. Then he offers his ownsolution of this problem and says that in ?? t?? ?????? ?p?a?a t?dethe words ?? t?? ?????? themselves are neither true nor false, butthat what follows61) (?p?a?a t?de) has these characteristics.Although Chrysippus has excluded sentences like ?p?a?a t?de fromhaving trueness, it is quite possible that later Stoics accepted these.

56) Cp. Kerferd 266.57) S.E. 8, 100.58) Anthol. 28, 17-8, vol. 3, 621 H. (SVF 1, 581 and 2, 197).59) The usual interpretation in Nuchelmans 100, Long (1971 art.), 100 andJ. D. G. Evans, The OldStoa on thetruth-valueof oaths, PCPhS 20 (1974), 45. Frede

42 f. explains this matter more in the manner accepted here.60) CAG VIII, In Aristot. Categ. 406, 22-32 (SVF 2, 192).61) Simplicius uses p??tas?? as an equivalent of a????a. See LSJ s.v. la infine.


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At any rate, I am inclined to interpret Diocles' statement (7, 68)that oath-lekta are neither true nor false in this way that what marksit as an oath (?? t?? ??a etc.) lacks these properties, but that whatis said thereafter may have these, if referring to the present time.

Finally the ?e?t?? ?????? ?????at? (p???? ? a????a). Diocles aswell as Sextus are explicit in their statement that this lekton falls out-side the group o? axiomata and cannot be true or false. Let us taketheir common example, ?? ???a??d?s?? ??fe??? ? ????????. Withoutthe particle ?? this line is an axioma, for we speak truly or falsely,Sextus says (8, 73). But the presence of ?? takes it out of the classo? axiomata. Diocles offers the same kind of explanation in his defini-tion of this lekton: d t?? ??f???? ???? ?????at???? pa?? t???? ??????p?e??as??? ? p???? e?? p?pte? t?? ?????? t?? a?????t?? (D.L. 7, 67).There are several possible explanations of why this is so; for eachchapter and verse can be quoted, but certainty is not attainable. Inthe first place, Simplicius /./. solves the problem by asserting thatin ?? ?a??? ? ?e??a?e?? ?st?? only the words after ?? contain whatmay be true or false, not the single word ??. This solution is a refor-mulation of Sextus' explanation and does not explain much. Asecond solution pays attention to Diocles' information that wordssuch as ?? are said to be superfluous (pa?? t???? ?????? p?e??as???),and, to use Sextus' designation, cause the sentence in which theyare to be p???? ? a????a. A connection seems suggested here withthe theory of expletive particles, s??des??? pa?ap?????at????, towhich according to ancient grammarians ?? and ?e belong, andwhich may convey an emotional value (see ? lid). A strict inter-pretation of the words pa?? t???? ?????? p?e??as??? leads to the viewthat to be an axioma is restricted to its basic components. We do notknow anything about such a view but it is a natural prerequisite forlogic62). Finally, and most probably, we may infer that the presence???e etc. introduces an element of emotion (p????), which is alien toaxioma and logic, and for this reason takes sentences with thesewords out of the class of axiomata. This opinion would be the conse-quence of Stoic view of emotions, in general, and of pathe in par-ticular. To Chrysippus pathe are judgments, but wrong, and at

62) In Theon's example (? 8, cp. comm. nr. 12): ?e????? ?? eotxe p?a???t??a?t(a ?t?., ?? eotxe serves as an equivalent of ?e and ?? in the examples discussed.But Theon has nothing to say about the trueness of these types.


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other times they are called an 'excessive impulse which is irrational,i.e. disobedient to the logos'63). For these reasons Stoics would notadmit of these lekta as being capable of containing logical truth. Inparticular, if in Diocles' definition p???? has the meaning of 'ex-cessive impulse', we can understand why these lekta may not beused in logical propositions, but the examples with ?? and ?e sug-gest that p???? here means any emotion.

The range of this lekton is considerable. It is a receptacle for allsentences which do not fall under other kinds. Although our textsdo not testify to it, one can imagine that many items on the exten-sive list of rhetorical figures of thought were reduced to this species,in the same way as later it was divided into smaller parts, such as?a??ast???? and ?e?t????.

8. Whereas Aristotle had relegated the study of non-apophanticlogoi to the realm of rhetoric and poetics, the Stoics put the studyof non-axiomatic lekta in the same place as that o? axiomata, viz. intheir dialectic (D.L. 7, 43 and 62), to be more precise, in the t?p??pe?? t?? p?a???t?? etc. (7, 63). Although the Aristotelian logoi,which are sentences, are not the same as the Stoic lekta, which areincorporeal and expressible by sentences, the place of treatment inthe Dialectics implies a raising of their status. Thus the questionnow is, why this rise of status? Can we detect some special reasonsfor this promotion?

Nuchelmans 62 f. is right in seeing the starting-point of the Stoicdoctrine of complete lekta in the study of yes-or-no questions andthe answers that are given to them. But when he continues 'Onceyes-or-no questions and answers had become the object of a specialbranch of study, it was only natural to pay some attention to othercomplete lekta as well, if only to contrast them with the two priv-ileged ones", one wonders how natural this process, in fact, is64).

63) SVF 3, 378 and 456. Cp. Long (1974), 175-8 and A. C. Lloyd, Emotion andDecision in Stoic Psychology n Rist 233 ff.64) Pinborg 90-1: "We do not know how [the Stoics] treated these other func-tions of speech. There is some indication that they elaborated a system of questionswhich were to be asked in connection with every subject and were perhaps

organized according to the categories. A reflection of this system can possibly beseen in the rhetorical doctrine of status (cf. especially Quintilian III, 6)". Here,too, I fail to see how a system of ten lekta could be produced.


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We know that Chrysippus maintained that only axiomata weretrue or false, we also know from Diogenes' bibliography thatChrysippus wrote treatises onprostagmata, questions, answers (D.L.7, 191) and also ????? ?p??et???? and pe?? e???se?? (7, 196) all ofthese in the t?p?? ??????? (7, 198). Moreover, we have seen that hewas also interested in the truth-value of oaths. All in all, though thecontents of these ????? ?p??. and pe?? e???se?? are unknown65), itseems that Chrysippus has gone deeper into the matter of non-axiomatic lekta and made up a list of these. One may wonder,however, whether there was a good reason for him to compose a fulllist of all non-axiomatic lekta, for he could have been satisfied withproving that many utterances did not relate to axiomata, but, con-sequently, to non-axiomatic lekta, without distinguishing betweenthese. But as we have seen, he must have gone into this matter agood deal. At any rate, Chrysippus has dealt with some non-axiomatic lekta. This fact also appears from the fragments of Pap.Here. 307 (SVF 2, 298a)66). Scholars have made little use of thistext, probably because of its fragmentary state and from hesitationabout its ascription to Chrysippus. As to the latter point, von Ar-nim has convincingly argued (SVF 1, p. VII) that Valerius Max-imus Fact, et diet, memor. 8, 7, 10 (SVF 2,19) alludes to a collectionof 39 ??????, which is the same number as the 39 ??t??ata men-tioned by Diogenes 7, 198 (SVF 2, p. 8, 27), and that our text isone volume of that collection. Notwithstanding a multitude oflacunae and uncertain readings the text gives an insight into theway Chrysippus tackled several problems, and it should have beenstudied more than is done up to now67). I shall not, however, dealwith the whole text, but single out what is of interest for our subject.

First, then, I must point to p. 106, 27, where von Arnim reads(Cr?nert rather differently (!)): (?) a? ?????s?? ??? ta p????ata (?) ais??a??(??)s?? ??te d(? d?)????s?? ??te p??st?tt??(s??) ??t' (??)??ta?

65) Cp. Frede 44.66) First published by W. Cr?nert, Hermes 36 (1901), 550-67. Von Arnimused Cr?nert's text and changed it at many places (SVF 2, 298a, pp. 96, 24-110,40). Cr?nert, Gnomon 6 (1930), 143 reminds us that this papyrus "ist noch immernicht mit Gr?ndlichkeit nachgepr?ft worden".67) This has been done by E. Br?hier, Chrysippeet l'ancien sto?cisme,Paris 1910(nouv. ?d. 1954), 24-9, and by P. Pachet, L'imp?ratifsto?cien n Brunschwig 361ff. Some references in Long (1974) and Frede 27 ff.


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(??t' ?)??t?s(?? ??t)e p???????(t)a^. The immediately precedinglines are extremely fragmentary, but, provided von Arnim's sup-putions are right, I would suggest, in view of the other problemsdealt with in the papyrus, that Chrysippus here is talking about ex-pressions which do not fall under question-, and other non-axiomatic lekta, and though they express pragmata, are neverthelessnot to be classified as axiomata, which is apparently the only remain-ing possibility. One is inclined to think about ?????? ?????at?-lekton6*).Another interesting problem is the extent of a command. On p.107, 35 ff. in a context of amphiboliai, double-sided expressions,Chrysippus discusses an expression such as pe??pate? ?pe? ??e?a?st??. Does the p??sta??? extend to pe??pate? only, or also to thethree other words? It is interesting to note that the two different in-terpretations lead to two lekta, one containing pe??pate?? epe?d?(Cr?nert) ??e?a est??, the other pe??pate?? only, whereas ?pe? ??.?st?? comes from the outside, does not fall under the command. Itis a pity that the following lines are again fragmentary, for wewould like to know what consequences these interpretations havefor Chrysippus.

In his next instance (p. 108, 17 ff.) he is not concerned withdouble interpretation of one expression, but seems to tackle theproblem which lekton, if any, corresponds to a specific order, suchas ??t?? pe??pate?, e? d? ?? ?????. The whole comes under the order(p??ta ?e? ?a? ?p? t?? p??sta??? p?pte?), but a comparison with ??t??pe??pate?, e? d? ?? ????ta? suggests that this command meansnothing because it is equivalent to an endless string of orders69).This opinion implies that an order must be executable, which pro-perty is absent from a string of orders, and that one who givesorders has the intention of ordering, not merely uttering a series ofwords in the form of a command.

A different case is an order of the following form, ? pe??pate? ?????? (p. 109, 11). These words mean 'either walk or sit down' or

68) But Long (1974), 135 may be right in suggesting that "Chrysippus seemsto have drawn a distinction between someone's thoughts or what he means to say,and the statement which a listener may take him to be making".69) 108, 35 ff. : ????sta p??e? ??t?, t? d? ??, t??t? p??e?,e?8? ??, t??t?, ?a? ??t??e???pe????.


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'walk or sit down, at any rate, do something'. In the first caseChrysippus seems inclined to accept the presence of a real order(pe??pate??, e? d? ?? ?a??s?a?, 25-6), but in the second case he thinksthat no real order is given (t? ??t???? ????? p??st?ttes?a?, 15-6).This case, I think, is linked with an even more vague order, d ?t??et??t?? ?a?e, for Chrysippus says that perhaps no real order isgiven, ??te ??? ?at??????a t? est?? e??e?? t? p??statt??e??? ??? ????t????t?? ????? (34-7). The explanation (???) brings us into prob-lems, because from 11. 23-25 it appears that by ?at??????a isunderstood the verbal action in itself without qualification as to per-son etc.70). In d ?t??e t??t?? ?a?e, consequently, we would take?a?e?? as ?at??????a t? p??statt??e??? and infer that it is unclearwhat object is meant, but Chrysippus explicitly says that nokategorema which can be ordered or something similar can be foundhere71). The explanation will be that ?a?e?? d ?t??e t??t?? (or evend t??e?? t??t??) and ?a?e?? ?p??????? do not mean anything specific,in the same way as ??t?? pe??pate? ?t?. (108, 17 ff.) was rejected forthis reason.

The upshot of Chrysippus' enquiries is that what seems to be anorder (??t?? pe??pate?, e? d? ??, ?????; ? pe??pate? ? ?????; d ?t??et??t?? ?a?e) does not relate to orders in the world of lekta. Theresults of this enquiry seem small but are important. For weobserve Chrysippus at work and look, as it were, over his shoulder.We see that he starts with the physical words, the ?????, and fromthese works backwards to the lekta. By this method he appears todissociate lexis from lekta, a factor of importance as we will see inparr. 9 and 10. Finally, Chrysippus pays serious attention to non-axiomatic lekta. This means that to him this field was importantenough to be investigated in the framework of Stoic logic. Ofcourse, because of the character of his enquiries (??t??ata) he doesnot come forward with clear solutions and often only defines theproblem.

Although it is certain that Chrysippus examined many non-axiomatic lekta and from the titles of his works we can compose the

70) Cp. SVF 2, 349 and 3, 91.71) Pachet o.e. 368 does not comment on the meaning of ?at??., but translates"car on ne peut y trouver de pr?dicat (de contenu) au commandement, ni m?merien d'autre qui ressemble".


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whole list of them as given in ? 5, we may doubt whether he is itsauthor. This doubt is a consequence of the authorship of the Stoicdefinition of dialectic. This definition (D.L. 7, 62, cp. 42) runs asfollows: d?a?e?t??? ?st? ep?st??? a????? ?a? ?e?d?? ?a? ???et????.From 7, 68 it appears that the non-axiomatic lekta are to beclassified under ????te?a72). This definition is ascribed not toChrysippus, but to Posidonius. Chrysippus does not seem to havegiven a true definition but only to have written that dialectic is con-cerned with s??a????ta and s??a????e?a (D.L. 7, 62). Posidonius'definition may be a correction of older ones in as far as he includedthe 'neuters', but this does not mean that he was the first to givethem his attention, for Chrysippus had already done this.Therefore, to ascribe to Posidonius the authorship of the list looksrather improbable too.

He seems to be a good candidate for a division inside the list, viz.between ?e?t?? ?p??et???? and ???et????, in that their examples aretaken from mathematico-astronomical works, and we know that hewas greatly interested in this subject. Kerferd has already made itplausible that because of his mathematical studies Posidonius madea contribution to logical analysis. Posidonius may have done thesame for the species mentioned73).

If he did indeed distinguish between these two kinds, he will havedone so in order to clarify the difference between their functions.For in themselves, ?e?t?? ?p??et???? and ???et???? do not differwhen put into speech, both using verb forms such as ?st? and?p??e?s??. But whereas the ecthesis sets out the mathematical pro-position, the hypothesis is the starting point of the proof. The distinc-tion in function is useful in a mathematical context, outside it,however, it has no value whatsoever74).

All in all, the most probable reconstruction of the history of thelist o? lekta autotele seems to be that Chrysippus discussed the various

72) Cp. Egli 32 ("Die Definition der Dialektik sagt eher aus, da? auchPr?dikate und autotel?behandelt werden, als da? Aussagen betrachtet werden, dieweder wahr, noch falsch sind") and Kerferd 276.73) Interalia I refer to fr. 195 ?.-?. where Posidonius asks for different expres-sions in the cases of ?e???t??? and p??????at??? p??tas??.74) J. Mansfeld suggests a possible link with the ?p??et???? t?p?? in Stoic ethics,but a consultation of M. Giusta, I dossografidi etica, Pubb. Fac. Lett, e Filos. 15,3-4, Torino 1964, esp. II 327-49 yields nothing.


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kinds, that he, or one of his pupils, put together the list often kinds,whereas later on Posidonius recognized their existence by includingthem in his definition of dialektike under the name of 'neuters'. Healso introduced a new kind, ?e?t?? ???et????.

To return to the question posed at the start of this paragraph,why was the rise in status of the non-axiomatic kinds effectuated bythe Stoics? A specific reason cannot be detected; we can only sur-mise that a great interest in language, together with an endeavourto cover the whole field of philosophy in one consistent system, ledthe Stoics to research into these kinds too.

9. Several times I have alluded to differences betweenPeripatetic eide logou and Stoic lekta autotele without going into thisin detail. It is time now to turn to this matter.

To Aristotle the relation between language and thought is mainlya one-to-one relationship, in the sense that spoken words are sym-bols of thought and represent exactly what one thinks75). It is truethat Aristotle is aware of ambivalence of language, and the distinc-tions of ??????a and s??????a, which is of great import in Topicsand Soph. Elench., points to this awareness, but in his few remarkson s???ata ???e?? he never exploits this awareness. By relegatingthese to the province of hypokritike, moreover, he only views at theverbal expression.

The latter aspect of intonation is left aside when we come to thePeripatetic eide logou, but these are verbal expressions too. It is notinsignificant that e.g. the Anonymous Coislinianus (a) (T 4) con-nects the Peripatetic five kinds with ? p??f?????? ?????. ThereforeAmmonius is able to reduce e.g. the d????? ?????at? to the ?p?fa?-t???? ????? because of the p?e??as??? of the intensifying adverb ??(? 3, 3, 2 f.), and to put the ?pap???t???? e?d?? under the headingof the question-Zo^oj (ibid.).

To the Stoics, however, the lekta were not the wordings ofthought, but the action and things thought which are expressed insentences. This means that these sentences are not identical withthe lekta, whereas the Peripatetic ????? are sentences. Theseasomatic lekta do not seem to have an unchangeable way of

75) Cp. Nuchelmans 38 f., who, however, is silent about ??????a etc.


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expression76). For the external signs of the various lekta (thesentences) may have the same verbal mood (?st?, ?p??e?s??), butrepresent different lekta. The same is true for the differences be-tween e??t??a and p?s?a which are not quite distinguishable bytheir moods. In this way we can also explain Plutarch, De Stoic,repugn. 1037 d77), ??t?? (se. ?? St?????) ?e ??? ?????s? t???apa???e???ta? ???? ??? ???e?? ???? d' ?pa???e?e?? ???? d? p??st?t-te??. ? ?a? ????? ?? ?????? ???e? ??? a?t? t??t? ?? ??????apa???e?e? d? ???pte?? p??st?tte? d? ?? ???pte??. Here, it is true, astrict application of the foregoing would lead to the distinction ofa new lekton viz. t? ?pa???e?t????, which is not found in our texts.But the principle is clear: the same wording may be brought backto different lekta. In this connection I refer to the Stoic studies ofambiguity, where starting from the actual utterances they point outthe various possible interpretations of one expression, i.e. thevarious lekta. In Galen, de capi. 4, 106, 16 ff. Edlow (SVF 2, 153)we find several Stoic classes of ambiguity, among which is a?-f?????a pa?? t?? p?e??as??? with its example ?p????e?se? a?t? ??p?e??. This example is ambiguous, t? ?a? ?? p??s?e??e??? ??f?d????p??e? t? p??, e?te t? p?e?? ?p????e?se? e?te t? ?? p?e??78). The sameidea underlies the definition of a?f?????a in D.L. 7, 6279), namelythat the same ????? may indicate two or more p????ata in conformi-ty with the wording, with their non-metaphorical reference andwith the same usage80).

76) Cp. J. Mansfeld, Zeno of Citium, Mnem. IV 31 (1978), 143-5.77) SVF 2, 171. Cp. Nuchelmans 65.78) In Plutarch's text Pachet o.e. 365 would like to do without Meziriac's inser-tion of ???pt. p??st. d?, in order to obtain a deliberate ambiguity, like the one inGalen's text. However, Plutarch's introductory words make the insertion

necessary; ?pa???e?e??+ infin. without ?? is Greek too, and, finally, why woulda Stoic be deliberately ambiguous in an explanation?79) SVF 3, 23, p. 214, 5-10, especially a?f?????a U ?st? ?????d?? ? ?a? p?e???ap????ata s??a????sa ?e?t???? ?a? ?????? ?a? ?at? t? a?t? ????.80) This translation I base upon that of Edlow's 426 (R. B. Edlow, The Stoicson Ambiguity, JHPh 13 (1975), 423-36), but I take ?????? as the opposite of

?etaf??????. ?at? t? a?t? ???? does not necessarily point to the same Stilgattungonly (so Egli 18), but may have a wider meaning, cp. D.L. 7, 59 ? ?a??a??s????? t?? ?a???? ??????st? p??a t? ???? t?? e?d???????t?? ???????. Edlow's inter-pretation of ?????? ('strictly') seems to be that the opposite of ?????? is 'due tomisunderstanding', which, however, comes too close to barbarismos.


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To return to the differences between Peripatetic logoi and Stoiclekta, it is clear that the main differentia is found on the level of verbalexpression versus that of things thought which are to be expressed.But the Aristotelian commentators overlooked this difference andso could reduce the surplus of Stoic kinds to their own Peripateticones.

10. We can get a deeper insight into the nature of these ancientdistinctions by applying a modern theory of speech acts, for thisprocedure has the advantage of detecting new aspects at oldmaterial81).

In his Speech Acts Searle82) has made a thorough study of speechacts, i.e. what one performs when one speaks a language. Hedistinguished four kinds of speech acts, (a) utterance acts, (b) pro-positional acts (of referring and predicating), (c) illocutionary acts(acts of stating, questioning, commanding, promising), and (d)perlocutionary acts (the effects of illocutionary acts on the actions,thoughts, or beliefs etc., of the hearer (24-5). These fruitful ideashave been thought through and developed by Mrs. Bolkestein,whose exposition (26-35) I take as my starting-point83). FollowingSearle she distinguishes two levels of meanings of a sentence in aparticular situation, viz. the semantic structure (a), which is "that partof the total information conveyed which is contributed by thelinguistic properties of the sentence", and the pragmatic level (b),those factors which have to do with the actual speech-situation.There we find the illocutionary force, i.e. the final function of thesentence in its situation. She illustrates the importance of thedistinction by two sentences: 'do you smoke?' (1), and 'take acigarette' (2). Sentence (1) may be uttered with two different illocu-tionary forces: it may function either purely as a Question for infor-mation, or as an Offer to the hearer to take a cigarette. On the otherhand, in order to perform the illocutionary act of offering a

81) See e.g. D. Cherubin, GrammatischeKategorien.Das Verh?ltnis von 'tradi-tioneller' und 'moderner' Sprachwissenschaft (Reihe German. Linguist. 1), T?-bingen 1975, 4 ff. Nuchelmans has already applied this theory, but not explicitly.82) J. R. Searle, SpeechActs. An Essay in the philosophy of language, Cam-bridge 1969.83) A. M. Bolkestein, Problems n theDescriptionof Modal Verbs.An investigationof Latin, Thesis, Assen 1980.


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cigarette the speaker can use both sentences (1) and (2). Now todetermine the illocutionary force of these sentences we have toknow the pragmatic factors, because although we have determinedthat sentence (1) can carry two different forces, in isolation from theactual situation this sentence does not indicate which force will becarried in that situation. This also means that on the level of thesemantic structure we may decide that in principle two forces areacceptable, in other words every sentence in principle has a certainillocutionary potential, determined by its syntactic and semantic prop-erties. These properties at beforehand exclude other illocutionaryforces. For instance, sentence (2) cannot be used in order to func-tion as an Assertion, because of the presence of a form of the Im-perative Mood. Similarly, in sentence (1) the word-order and otherlinguistic phenomena preclude this sentence from functioning as anAssertion. These elements may be said to function as indicators ofa possible illocutionary force, and among these word-order, stress,intonation, grammatical mood, and the so-called particles appear.

The presence of moods in sentences makes it possible to classifythose according to sentence-types, such as Declarative, and Im-perative sentences, whereas by this characteristic coupled withother indicators an Interrogative type can also be distinguished. Itis, however, important to see that on the level of semantic structurea sentence-type does not always stand in a one-to-one relation withillocutionary force.

How many illocutionary forces and sentence-types must bedistinguished is to some extent a matter of one's own liking, as wellas of one's capability of making distinctions. As I am not concernedhere with an exhaustive description of, say, Ancient Greek by thissystem, but only with several principles of it, I can leave the matterof the number of forces and types aside.

It is self-evident that because of the distance in time we do notknow the actual illocutionary force of spoken ancient Greek and canreach no further than its illocutionary potential, the possible forces.This restriction, of course, is no obstacle to the application of theseand related notions to the theories of speech of Antiquity, for therethe examples (simulated sentences and literary quotations) lack anactual situation, whereas what can be seen as such, together withits pragmatical factors, is not actual but literary and fictitious.


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I shall take Aristotle's s???ata ???e?? again as my starting point.These clearly can be described as sentences carrying illocutionaryforces of Commanding, Menacing, Question, Answer etc. Aristo-tle's description does not tell us anything about the forms of theses???ata ???e??. But Protagoras' problem about the form of ?????ae?de, ?e? with its Imperative mood, where he asks for an Optativemood because a prayer is meant, we now can solve by the explana-tion that though ????? ae?de represents the Imperative sentence-type, its illocutionary force is one of Request, to which we mayreckon that of Prayer. What we also deduce from Aristotle's wordsis that to him all this matter does not belong to the proper study oflanguage. His remark in De Interpr. 17 a 1 ff. that the study of e???etc. belongs to rhetoric (see ? 2) has been taken up by later rhetori-cians, who have developed a whole system of s???ata d?a???a?, i.e.the ways in which one shapes one's thoughts84).

As to the Peripatetic e?d? ?????, it is clear that most of thesesentences can be classified as sentence-types, which have,moreover, a one-to-one relation to illocutionary forces. The typesare Imperative, Optative, Declarative and Interrogative, for the ex-amples are to be arranged as such by their moods and other in-dicators. The illocutionary forces are their correlate, viz. ofCommand, Request, Assertion, and Question. The fifth e?d??, ????t???? ????? may be classified as a sentence-type of Apostrophe,and its force as one of Address, although, of course, by doing so webecome involved in the question of the definition of a sentence. Wehave already seen that Ammonius had a similar problem (? 3).

The one-to-one relation between sentence-type and illocutionaryforce is present everywhere, even in the following examples of???t???? ?????, de??' a?' ???, p???a??' ?d?se? (Od. 12, 184), for a?eis usually explained as an adverb of pa?a???e?s?? (cp. Uhlig onTechne p. 82, 1). It is true that in the next line an imperative(st?s??) occurs, but this fact is neglected in favour of the messageof the first line. The same explanation will suffice for a second ex-ample of a ???t???? ?????, (de??? p?????' ?????sa, f???? t????, ??e???e??, 77. 3, 182), where the imperative mood is neglected again.

84) See Dion. Hal. c.v. (T 9) and note 19.


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Because of this one-to-one relationship we can understand whythe surplus of Stoic lekta beyond the Peripatetic five was explainedaway as being in reality one of the five. The main reason was, ofcourse, that Ammonius and others based themselves on the ex-amples, i.e. the realisation in speech of the ?e?t?. Then, in the casesof p?s?at???? and ?pap???t???? ?e?t?? there was little problem, videthe examples t?? p??e? e?? a?d???; and ?a?? p??est?, t? p?t' ?pa?-?e??? a?a; The ?????? ?????at? was considered to be the apophantikoslogos with the surplus of an intensifying adverb, just giving adeclaration about something. For the examples of ???????,?p??et???? and ???et???? ?e?t?? it is more difficult to see why theseare to be arranged as apophantikos logos, for all of these contain anImperative mood (?st?, ?p??e?s?? and ?st?). Ammonius explainstheir reduction by saying that these all are receptive of truth andfalseness, and exemplifies this statement for t? ?????? ?????at? andt? ???????. The first case I have already dealt with, whereas Am-monius' explanation for t? ??????? refers to an example not foundin his text, but present in Anon. Coisl. (a) (T 4) (see ? 5): ?? ?a???' ????ae (Od. 20, 339). Its sequence contains the Declarativetype (?? t? d?at???? ?t?.) and thus Ammonius could say that t???????? is an apophantikos logos with the surplus of a ?a?t???a t?? ?e???(p. 2, 35 ff.). But he remains silent about the rest, and so do othercommentators. Therefore, this leger-de-main does not prove thatAmmonius took an Imperative sentence-type as carrying a force ofAssertion, and my conclusion about the one-to-one relationship stillstands. It is, moreover, quite understandable that we must use thisrelationship in order to explain Ammonius' system, for that is builtupon the assumption of ???st??a? and ??e?t??a? d????e?? with a finaland exhaustive partition of no more than five possibilities.

In the case of the Stoic lekta, too, we can apply the variouslinguistic notions, but with some differences. Firstly, the Stoics didnot have a framework which limited the number of possible lekta.Therefore, they were free in making their distinctions. Secondly,their lekta are to be seen as having the function of intended illocu-tionary acts (illocutionary potential), which are exemplified, butnot determined, by the actual sentences. Only when they are ex-pressed is the actual speech act carried out. However, pragmaticalfactors must be taken into account too, for the difference between


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?e?t?? ?p??et???? and ???et???? is exactly one of their functions ina geom

Stoic Speech Acts and Moods

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