ДИСКУРСИВНІ ФУНКЦІЇ ДАВНЬОГРЕЦЬКИХ ФОРМУЛ ПРИСЯГАНЬ У КОМЕДІЯХ АРІСТОФАНА

Abstract

Background. This paper investigates the pragmatic and sociolinguistic features of oaths in the corpus of Aristophanes' comedies, with a particular focus on "Acharnians" and "Lysistrata." From a communicative perspective, oaths are part of a complex ritual that combines verbal and non-verbal actions to confirm the truthfulness of a declaration and ensure the fulfillment of promises through an appeal to a deity. Typically, concise formulas invoking higher powers generally introduce the declaration and only occasionally specify sanctions for breaking the oath. Thus, oaths function not only as commissives, expressing promises and commitments, but also as representatives, focusing on the truthfulness of statements; expressives, enhancing the emotional background; and declaratives, performing speech acts. Methods. This article employs structural and corpus methods, functional and discursive analysis, conversational analysis, and hermeneutic techniques. Results. Using constructivist approaches to language study, the article analyses multifunctional idiomatic units, considering their structural elements such as particles, theonyms, noun case forms, articles, and sentence position. The analysis reveals that variations in these elements create pragmatic and sociolinguistic implicatures related to the presence or absence of propositional or presuppositional negation, focus of attention, modification of the illocutionary force of the utterance, and representation of the speaker's socio-cultural identity. Specifically, gender, dialectal, thematic, and genre-stylistic markings of the formulas are identified. Conclusions. The application of constructivist and hermeneutic methods allows for the examination of idiomatic oath formulas on both the local and discursive levels, uncovering implicit meanings essential for comic effects that cannot always be reflected in translations. A corpus analysis of formula variability in dramatic genres highlights their stylistic predominance in comedy and conversational style in particular. The study concludes with a comprehensive examination of a fragment from "Lysistrata" (78-89) to reveal the contextually driven dynamics of the oaths.