Not Yes and Not No: μέση ἀπόκρισις and Other Forms of “Non-Polar Response” in Ancient Greek Sources: Part II

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Not Yes and Not No: μέση ἀπόκρισις and Other Forms of “Non-Polar Response” in Ancient Greek Sources: Part II
Shalev, Donna

From the journal Hermes Hermes, Volume 150, March 2022, issue 1

Published by Franz Steiner Verlag

article, 8320 Words
Original language: English
Hermes 2022, pp 37-53
https://doi.org/10.25162/hermes-2022-0003

Abstract Related content References

Abstract

In this paper I investigate responses to sentence (“yes-no”) questions in Greek dialogue which are neither a clear-cut ‘yes’ nor a ‘no’. I describe, classify, and discuss a range of patterns for expressing this strategy of indirectness, beginning with an example termed μέση ἀπόκρισις in the commentary of Olympiodorus to Plato Gorgias. Ancient rhetorical sources also discuss strategies for evading clear-cut non-polar responses to sentence questions in sections on the notion of ἀπόκρισις (and ἐρώτησις) without a fixed terminology. The fabricated and quoted examples which these ancient sources give, serve as a point of departure for my classification of patterns in occurrences collected from literary dialogues (selections from Plato, and a corpus study of the Greek comedies of Aristophanes and Menander). The analysis of mechanisms for these non-polar responses draws on philological as well as linguistic scholarship from Greek antiquity through contemporary dialogue analysis, and refers also to contexts and conventions of characterization in Ancient Greek sources.

Author information

Donna Shalev

Keywords

polarity | yes-no questions | non-polar response | Greek Comedy | Plato Gorgias | dialogue technique | πόκρισις

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