The metaphorical pathways of performatives for intersubjective space : the evidence from Greek, Latin and Romance

In this paper, I trace the metaphorical origins of explicit performative predicates of commissives, polite begging, commands and requests. Though explicit performatives have a pragmatic meaning, I demonstrate that performative predicates in Ancient Greek and Latin originally had a literal meaning which diachronically mapped onto intersubjective space via similar metaphorical pathways: PHYSICAL SUPPORT IS SOCIO-PRAGMATIC SUPPORT, FORWARD MOTION IS PROMISE, TRANSFER IS PERMISSION, PHYSICAL PROXIMITY IS SOCIAL OBLIGATION, CAUSED MOTION IS COMMAND, TRANSFER IS COMMAND, and REACHING GOAL IS REQUEST. Though some of these performatives fell out of use in specific daughter languages or were replaced by other performatives, many were also retained, thereby testifying to the long diachronic tails of these performative pathways in the history of Greek and Romance.