Caesurae, Cola, and Discourse Acts: A Functional Discourse Grammar Approach to Homeric Colometry

One of the most influential colometric models of the Homeric hexameter is that of Hermann Fränkel (1926). Fränkel’s model revolves around the idea that each hexameter is divided into four cola, separated from one another by three caesurae that were audible in performance as intonational boundaries, and that were, at the same time, sense boundaries (“Sinnesfuge”). A shortcoming of Fränkel’s intuitively attractive approach is that it does not formulate explicit linguistic criteria that can be used to determine caesura positions. I argue that a Functional Discourse Grammar approach is able to provide these missing linguistic criteria, by treating caesurae as discourse-pragmatic boundaries. With this approach, most caesurae can be analyzed as boundaries between extra-clausal constituents (expressing Subsidiary Discourse Acts, such as Themes, Settings, Elaborations, and vocatives) and their host clause (Nuclear Discourse Act). I also postulate the existence of cola with the pragmatic function of Left-dislocated Focus. A discourse-pragmatic approach along these lines by and large confirms Fränkel’s central claim: the vast majority of the hexameters can indeed be divided into four cola. However, such an approach also provides evidence for a more flexible view, usually associated with Kirk’s approach to colometry, that not all word divisions at regular caesura positions are sense boundaries, resulting in two or three-colon lines. These exceptional cases, however, are less frequent than Kirk claims.