L'excursus fonologico del Teeteto e la testualità platonica. A che cosa pensiamo quando parliamo di 'elementi' e 'sillabe'?

Abstract

The ''theory of the dream'' discussed in the final section of the Theaetetus is based on a proportion: stoicheion is to syllabé as onoma is to logos. The four terms indicate the simple and the complex in the two components, phonic and semantic, of language. More specifically, logos does not mean ''reason'', stoicheion does not mean ''letter'' and syllabé does not only mean ''syllable''. Logos does not mean ''reason''. In the final part of Theaetetus, logos is associated with ''lego'' (''to say''), and opposed to onoma (''name'', ''word''). In this context, logos thus means ''discourse'', ''speech''; and hence ''statement'' and ''definition''. Syllabé does not only mean ''syllable''. Deriving from syllambano (to take toghether), syllabé means first of all ''connection'', ''nexus'', ''bond''. As a phonetic term, syllabé points out the smallest unit of pronuntiation within which single sounds, represented by letters (grammata), are produced and perceived. Stoicheion does not mean ''letter. Stoicheion, from steicho (''move in well- ordered ranks''), stoichos (not ''alignement'' but ''progression'', ''order''), is a technical term of mousiké as a unit of rhythm, harmony and word. Stoicheion comes into being with the tripartite classifications of linguistic sound worked out by experts on metrics, and it indicates the smallest ingredient of pronuntiation, abstractable, not extractable, from its context of production, the syllable, which is the smallest unit of the rythmic progression of verse. Stoicheion is not the graphic character; it is the smallest ingredient of pronunciation, seen as a stage in the orderly succession of rules of formation of the syllable. The ''theory of the dream'', in actual fact, assimilates stoicheia to grammata, and, for this reason too, will be refuted. Starting from the Sophist, Plato was to work out an alternativ theoretical model, based on the metaphor of ''interweaving'' and the ''bond'', which makes it possible to define the syllable starting from the elements, and viceversa. In this new phase of platonic thought, stoicheion becomes a key theoretical term. The use of stoicheion in Plato reflects the procedures of reading scriptio continua aloud; and shows how in Greece orality and writing are practices that are not opposed but closely integrated.