American Philological Association

Guslar and Aoidos: Traditional Register in South Slavic and Homeric Epic
Author(s): John Miles Foley
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 126 (1996), pp. 11-
41
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 Transactionsof the AmericanPhilological Association 126 (1996) 11-41

Guslarand Aoidos: TraditionalRegister in South

Slavic and HomericEpic*

John Miles Foley

University of Missouri

For us Homer lives only in manuscriptsand fragmentsof papyrus. We cannot

record his songs, interview his colleagues or pupils, or even "page through"a
sound archive of his or peer poets' disembodied performances.Thus, however
much scholarsmay be able to derive analyticallyaboutthe oral traditionin which
those textual remnantsare rooted, there has long been a need to consult a living
witness, one that can testify firsthand about the real-life workings of this
unfamiliartechnology of communication.It was for this reason that MilmanParry
and Albert Lord first journeyed to the former Yugoslavia, in an attemptto test
Parry's textual theories about Homeric oral traditionin the living laboratoryof
South Slavic oral epic, to learn aboutthe ancientaoidos throughon-site study of
the guslar. From that pioneeringeffort has emerged a comparativefield of vast
proportions,affecting scores of culturesall over the world and throughouthistory,
and shedding new light on longstanding problems of genesis, transmission,
structure,and interpretation.1At the same time, there have also been reasonable
objections raised--most fundamentallyto the very applicabilityof the "Yugoslav
analogy"itself, and thereforeto all that stems fromit.
The present essay seeks to embrace not just one but both sides of the
argument by carefully considering what the analogy can-and also what it
cannot-tell us about Homer's and his tradition'sepics. Ourparticularfocus will
be the distinctive poetic language employed by the South Slavic guslar and his

*This article was preparedduringa 1995-96 fellowshipfrom the AmericanCouncil of

LearnedSocieties, whose supportI gratefullyacknowledge.I also wish to thank TAPA's
editor, the two anonymousreaders, Ronelle Alexander,Egbert Bakker, Thomas Butler,
CarolynHigbie,AhuviaKahane,RichardMartin,andKurtRaaflaubfor theirextremelyhelpful
commentsandsuggestions.
1Fora historyof the so-calledOralTheoryandits spread,see Foley 1988;for bibliography,
Foley 1985, with updates in Oral Tradition, now available electronically at
http://www.missouri.edu/-csottime.With specific referenceto Homer, see Edwards 1986,
1988, 1992.
12 JohnMiles Foley

epic tradition,and the extent to which it mirrorsthe equally distinctive Homeric

koine. We will, in otherwords, be concernedwith examiningthese special idioms
as what linguists call registers, or "majorspeech styles associated with recurrent
types of situations."2To put the matteras directlyas possible, we shall be asking:
Is the South Slavic epic register a useful, apposite comparisonfor the Homeric
register? And, perhapsnot surprisingly,the answer will necessarily be: "Yes, it
is; and no, it isn't." In other words, the major goal will be to move past the
oversimplificationof yes or no, right or wrong, all or nothing, to the kind of
reasonablecalibrationand balanced explanationthat will supportthe weight of a
serious inquiryinto Homerictraditionalart.3
Towardthat end let us proceed by posing a series of questions.
I. Is Homeric formulaicphraseologysimilarto the formulaicphraseology
of South Slavic epic?
II. Does enjambementfunctionsimilarlyin the two poetries?
III.Do metrical irregularitiesof the Homeric type also characterizeSouth
Slavic epic?
IV.Is South Slavic epic composed in an "artificiallanguage"like Homer's?
Along the same lines, do dialect variation(IVa) and archaisms(IVb)
play a role in the guslar's languageas they do in Homer?
Carefullyconsideredanswers to these questions will help Homeriststo judge the
extent to which, and the ways in which, the guslar's epic dialect comparesto that
of the aoidos.4
An importantcaveat must precede our deliberations.Overgeneralizationis
always a danger in any analyticalexposition, especially a comparativeanalysis,
but perhaps nowhere does it loom so threateninglyas when that study involves
the verbal arts of the former Yugoslavia. Even before the current hostilities

2Hymes1989: 440. For a discussionof "register"as appliedto the speciallanguagesof oral

traditions,see Foley 1995:49-53.
30n the necessityof Parryand Lord's initial"strongthesis,"which had to be generalized,
forceful, and substantiallyunqualifiedin order to break new ground, and of its equally
necessarymodificationin lightof furtheranalysisandreportsfromthe field, see Foley 1996.
4We shouldalso note those importantrelatedareasthat lie beyondthe scope of our present
focus on the phraseologicalaspectsof the epic register:the two historiesof transmissionand
the various media of preservation;the comparisonof typical scenes and narrativepatterns
languagewithinthe
in the two epic poetries;the levels of idiolect,dialect,and pan-traditional
epic idiom;and,most significantly,the implicationsof the specializedepic registerfor meaning
(on all of which,see Foley 1990, 1991, 1995).
 Guslar andAoidos 13

furtherfragmentedlinguisticand culturalgroups,the tangledhistory of the region

over many centuries had translatedto a forbidding complexity of ethnicities,
language groups, and therefore oral traditions. Especially under the present
conditions, the term "Yugoslav" no longer has any meaning, and "Serbo-
Croatian"is useful only as a blanket designation that may speak to a shared
culturalhistory but obscures many differences in the process.5 I will therefore
limit my remarksto two bodies of collected oral traditionfrom the South Slavic
region:chiefly the Moslem epic songs recordedby MilmanParryand AlbertLord
in the 1930s, far the largest available collection of epic performancesfrom the
formerYugoslavia; and, in a supportingrole, the Christianepic narrativestaken
down throughdictation by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic and his co-workers during
the first half of the nineteenth century. Since it is exclusively on the Moslem
songs that the comparison with Homer has been based, this focus seems
heuristically sound. Additionally, since research has revealed that within the
larger epic dialect both regional and individual varieties exist,6 I will further
restrict the sample to songs recorded in the region of Stolac in central
Hercegovina.7In this way we can be assured of basing our investigationon a
reasonablyhomogeneoussample.

51 thus choose to call the languageof the epics "South Slavic,"ratherthan "Serbian,"
"Croatian," or "Serbo-Croatian."Although"SouthSlavic"is employedby linguiststo denote
the languagefamilythat also includesBulgarian,Slovenian,andMacedonian,it seemsbest to
erron the side of inclusivenessratherthanof parochialismor segregation.Moreover,manyof
the songs andcharactersreferredto below also populatethe unprinted"pages"of otherSouth
Slavicoraltraditions.
6SeeFoley 1990: 158-200, 278-328.
7TheunpublishedMoslemsongs cited or analyzedhereinwere all recordedin the regionof
Stolac in 1934-35; italic numbersindicateacoustic recordings,Roman numbersmarkoral-
dictatedtexts. They include four performancesby Mujo Kukuruzovicof the Captivityof
Ograscic Alija / Alagic Alija (ParryCollectionnos. 6617 [sung, 2180 lines], 6618 [sung,
1422 lines], 1287a [dictated,1288 lines], and 1868 [dictated,2152 lines]);threeperformances
by Ibro Basi6 of the Alagic Alija and Velagic Selim (291b [sung, 1360 lines], 6597 [sung,
1558 lines], and 1283 [dictated, 1403 lines]); two performancesby Halil Bajgoric (The
Weddingof Mustajbeg'sSon Becirbeg, 6699, sung, 1030 lines;Halil RescuesBojicicAlija,
6703, dictated,637 lines);and a singleperformanceby Salko Mori6(Hrnjicic OmerRescues
His Fatherand Uncle, 892, sung, 727 lines). This amountsto a total of 13,473 decasyllabic
lines, with all but Bajgoric'sand Moric's narrativesbelongingto the ReturnSong subgenre
(essentiallythe story of the Odyssey).The examplesfrom Karadzic6's collectionof Christian
epic are drawn from volume 2: Tesan Podrugovi6's performanceof Marko Kraljevic
RecognizesHis Father's Sword(no. 56, 141 lines);the same song by an unknownsinger(no.
57, 114 lines);and TheDeath of KraljevicMarko(no. 73, 166 lines).I will quoteandcite lines
fromboth sourcesaccordingto performanceor text numbers.Translationsfrom South Slavic
aremy own (withthe historicalpresenttense renderedin the usualfashionas a simplepast).
14 JohnMiles Foley

Any responsible comparison depends upon an acknowledgment of both

similaritiesand differences, and the special poetic registers of guslar and aoidos
are certainlyno exception. In that spirit I turn now to an examinationof South
Slavic epic diction in terms of a series of questions that must be answered both
"yes" and "no." To settle for either answer alone would be, as we shall see,
actively distorting:Homer's poems and the South Slavic performancesare indeed
very much alike in some ways, and in some other ways they are quite disparate.
Hopefully, the process of sorting out differences and similaritiesin their special
languages will help us to gain a clearer idea of how each idiom functions in
relation to oral tradition, and to construct a sturdier because more realistic
foundationfor their comparativestudy as verbalart.

Question I
Is Homeric formulaic phraseology similar to the formulaic
phraseology of South Slavic epic?
Answer #1: Yes, it is.
The poetic language of the guslar exists in symbiosis with the epic decasyllable
(epski deseterac) line that shares some features with the Homeric hexameter.8
Becausethe metersare similar,so arethe phraseologies.The most importantof these
common metrical characteristicsis colonic structure,that is, regular, constituent
subunitswithin the line. This phenomenonleads in both cases to an encapsulated
phraseology,a diction consistingof verbatimand substitutablephrases that Parry
called "formulaic."Thus both dictions demonstratesystems of noun-epithet and
noun-adjectiveformulas;for example,
nTrO8acOKUS'AxitXXEJ swift-footedAchilleus
olvorra Tr6VTov wine-darksea

alongside
Musakesedzija Musathe highwayman
knjigagarovita multicoloredletter.

8To the question of priorityof meter or formulaI plead agnosticism,recognizingthe

persuasive argumentsfrom diachronicanalysis (espec. Nagy 1990: 48-51). All that is
necessaryfor the presentcomparisonis to recognizethatformulaicphraseologyandmeterare
inextricablylinked in both Homeric and South Slavic epic. In the examplesused below,
Homericquotationsare takenfromMonroeandAllen(II.) andAllen (Od.). For the sourceof
the SouthSlavicquotations,see n. 7 above.In orderto emphasizetheirtraditionalnature,I do
not restrictformulaicphrasesfromGreekor SouthSlavicby assigningthema singlecitation.
 Guslar andAoidos 15

Both traditionsalso show a large numberof phrasesthat can vary by one or more
words, providing compositional flexibility in these specialized languages.
Examples include certain introductionsto speeches; for instance, consider the
following partiallines, each of which is completedwith a varietyof subjects:
TOV 5' 6rTTCaELPaE36EVOSFrrpooE(pr But answeringhe addressedhim
TOV 8' &p'uior6opai8c?v TrpooapE But lookingdarklyhe addressedhim

alongside
I besjede And[he/she]spoke
A besjede But[he/she]spoke
Alirece But[he/she]said
I recemu And[he/she]saidto him

Many more illustrationscould be of course summonedfrom both poetries, along

the whole range from exact to highly variable repetition, but the point is that
encapsulatedphraseology,a reflectionof colonic meter,is typical of them both.
One way to underline this basic correspondence is to let the guslari
themselves contributeto the discussion. Time and again during conversations
with Nikola Vujnovic, Parry and Lord's native assistant, the singers construed
their performancesin terms of reci, "words."But these were not at all words in
our sense of lexical entries or root morphemes,a presumptionthat has caused
seriousmisinterpretationof what the singerswere saying abouttheir art and craft.
What they meant by a rec, it becomes clear from repeated exchanges, was an
incrementthat satisfied two majorrequirements:(1) it must be at least a metrical
unit in length (a minimumof a colon or line) and (2) it must constitutea speech-
act.9 In fact, singers used this ethnolinguisticterm rec to designate units of
utteranceas extensive as speeches, scenes, and even whole tales. The necessary
quality of rec'i, whatever their size, seemed to be their identity as complete,
unitaryspeech-acts. At the level of phraseology,this has the effect of raisingthe
thresholdon what a "word"could be.10For example, when pressed to subdivide

90n speech-actsin Homer and oral poetry, see espec. Martin1989 and Reynolds 1995:
espec. 207-12.
10Iemploythe conventionof"word"-in quotationmarks-to distinguishthe South Slavic
singers'rec, a unit of utterance,fromour own morpheme-andtypography-based conceptof a
word. Withthis distinctionin mind,we shouldnote that the singers'frequentclaimthat they
composeda given song "wordfor word"(recimapo recima, pl. in original)is fullyjustified.
Pace Kirk (1960: 100), e.g., they did proceed on each occasion one traditionalunit of
16 JohnMiles Foley

the rec to take account of its constituent parts, singers resisted doing so,
maintainingin effect that the special language of epic performancehad its own
rules and definitions. Thus, when challengedto explain how a four-wordpoetic
line could actuallybe a single "word,"Mujo Kukuruzovicresponded:"It can't be
one in writing. But here, let's say we're at my house and I pick up the gusle-
'Pije vino licki Mustajbeze' ['Mustajbegof the Lika was drinkingwine']-that's
a single rec on the gusle for me."1 Kukuruzovicwas describingan entry not in
LSJ but in the lexicon of traditionalidiom.
Another guslar from the Stolac region, Salko Moric, responded to the
challenge of defining a singer's "word" in a similar way. Here is a series of
questionsposed by Parryand Lord's native informantNikola Vujnovic (himself a
singer),togetherwith Moric's answers:12
N: For example, "pije vino" [he/she was drinkingwine]-is that a rec?
S: Yes.
N: So then is "Salko,""Salko,"is that a rec? S: Yes.
N: It too? S: Yes.
N: But what would this be-"Na Hudbini u pjanoj mehani / Sjede age,
redom pije vino" [At Udbina in a drinkingtavern / Sat the agas, they were
drinkingwine one afteranother]?Whatis this?
S: "Svi ukupnoredompiju vino" [They were drinkingwine all together,one
afteranother].
N: So that's a rec too? S: Well, it's also a rec, yes.
This exchange provides telling evidence of how a guslar views the special
language of epic singing from an insider's perspective. To begin, Vujnovic asks
whetheran extremelycommonformulacan be construedas a "word."Moric says
that it can. Next the interviewer-singerselects an example from outside the epic
register, where the rules for "words"are different.Is "Salko,"the guslar's own
name, a "word"?Yes, he is told, althoughwe should emphasize that the target
has shifted:the context is now everydayconversationallanguage,and not the epic

utteranceafter the next, moving along a story-patternvia deploymentof typical scenes and
formulaicphraseologyand expressingthemselvesthroughan idiomaticway of speaking.The
fact that a textualtranscriptionof any two performancesrevealsdiscrepanciesbased on our
own sense of word-for-wordliteralityis irrelevantto the dynamicsof the traditionalregister.
I Parryno. 6619.Forsimilarremarks by the Stolacguslar IbroBasic, see Foley1990:44-45.
'2Parryno. 6612.
 Guslar andAoidos 17

koine. On these grounds"Salko"qualifies.Finally, Vujnovicposes what is for us

the most interesting of the three questions. He recites two common formulaic
lines from the South Slavic epic tradition and asks Moric whether this entire
phrase-fully two decasyllables and a total of ten lexical units in the original
language-is also one "word."Moric respondsnot only by confirmingthat these
two poetic lines amountto a single "word"or speech-act, but also by translating
the two decayllables into a single line of his own. By renderingthe two-line rec
with a "word"of his own, he illustratesthe pliabilityand multiformityof the epic
language.
From an internal, "emic" point of view Kukuruzovic, Moric, and their
colleagues from the Stolac region were articulatingsomething very similar to
what Parry and Lord discovered through external, "etic" analysis. The South
Slavic epic language,as opposed to the everydayidiom in which four words were
still four words, featured phrases in capsule form, both exact repetitions and
variable patterns, that functioned as larger "words."'3Singers did not think of
them or utilize them as collections of parts but ratheras indissolubleunits, muc:h
in the same way that we lear to interpretlexical entries as meaning-bearing
wholes ratherthan collections of phonemes.Because Homer's formulaic"words"
seemed very similarto these reci, it was naturalto compare,and even to equate,
the poetic languagesthey constituted.Homericformulaicphraseologyis in some
ways quite similarto South Slavic epic phraseology.
Answer #2: No, it isn 't.
Althoughthe hexameterand decasyllable share a numberof properties,they are
far from identical, and their differences are reflected in the two phraseologies.
Most basically, the deseterac is made up of only two possible cola, one of four
and one of six syllables, accordingto the following scheme:
1234 5678910
s s s S
s s
S

The caesura occurs between syllables 4 and 5 with virtuallyabsolute regularity,

dividingthe line into two unequalparts. Thus only four- and six-syllable cola are

13Cf.also the openingreci in Avdo Medjedovic's1935 performanceof The Weddingof

SmailagicMeho (SCHS, vol. 4, lines 1-2): "Prvarijec: 'Boze, nam pomozi!' / Evo druga:
'Hoce, ako Bog da"' ["Thefirst rec: 'O God, help us!' / And the next: 'It will be as God
grants"'].
18 JohnMiles Foley

permitted.'4On the other hand, the hexametercomprises four cola per line; with
variable caesura positions, cola can take a total of twelve different individual
shapes.'5 This disparityalone means that formulasand formulaicphrases can be
encapsulatedin significantlymore ways in the Iliad and Odyssey than in South
Slavic epic. Or, to put it anotherway, there are more differentkinds of metrical
sites in ancientGreek epic.
Other consequences of the decasyllable's simpler constituent structure
include the segregation of syntactic features and a complete lack of metrical
"thrift"in the guslar's diction. The first segment in the line is customarily
devoted to short verb phrases, adverbialand prepositionalphrases, echoes from
the latterpartof the precedingline, and the like. A good rule of thumbis that this
opening colon, limited to only four syllables, houses the syllabically shorter
grammaticalincrementsof the sentence, includingfunctionwords and proclitics.
The second colon, by contrast, offers a roomier six-syllable capsule, and
thereforeserves as the naturalsite for longer verb and noun phrases, includingall
but a very few noun-epithetcombinations.To borrow the guslar's own term,
differentkinds of reci tend to occupy the first and second cola in the decasyllable.
Furthermore,disparity in colonic structuremakes for one of the sharpest
divergencesbetween the two traditionalphraseologies.Among Parry's strongest
arguments for the utility of Homeric diction was the doctrine of thrift, the
considerabledegree to which the language of the Iliad and Odyssey tends to be
"free of phrases which, having the same metricalvalue and expressing the same
idea, could replace one another"(1971: 276). In respect to noun-epithetformulas,
he showed, Homerusually has only one phraseologicalsolution for each metrical
problem.'6Poets were thrifty,Parryargued,because they were composing orally
in performance;more than one solution to a problem would only prove a
hindrance to fluent composition. Significantly, however, since virtually every
noun-epithetformula in South Slavic epic must be precisely six syllables long,
exactly fitting the second colon in the line, no such feature as metricalthriftcan
exist. Different appellations for a character cannot be selected by differing

14On colonic structurein the decasyllable,see Foley 1990: 94-106; on hypersyllabismand

hyposyllabism,88-94, 104.
15Oncolonicstructurein the hexameter(theoriesfromFrankelonward),see Foley 1990:73-84,
withthetwelvecola diagrammed on 84. It shouldbe emphasized revealsother
thatthe decasyllable
kindsof complexitiesnot a partof Homericprosody(Foley 1990: 85-106), and that it would
thereforebe reductiveto describethe SouthSlavicline as "simplerthanthe hexameter."
160nthe extentof Parryaneconomy,cf Shive 1987.
 Guslar andAoidos 19

metricalextent, since they all occupy the same slot.17On this point Homeric epic
and South Slavic epic are wholly at odds, with thrift plainly a feature of
hexameterdiction in particularratherthanof "oralpoetry"in general.
In summary,if we are willing to view each formulaicphraseology on its
own terms, remarking differences alongside similarities and avoiding
generalizationsnot supportedby analysis, a trueranalogy will emerge. Both the
hexameter and the decasyllable are founded on colonic structure, and their
dictions are thereforecomparable.But comparabledoes not mean identical, and
they diverge on a numberof points, most significantlythe natureof that colonic
structureand the issue of thrift.18

Question II
Does enjambement function similarly in the two poetries?

Answer #1. Yes, it does.

The additive nature of the South Slavic line, which is well marked by syllabic
definitionand a typical closing rhythm,19makes for enjambementmuch like that
foundin the Iliad and Odyssey. Just as Homertends to avoid periodic (necessary)
enjambement,whereinthe sentence is incompleteat hexameter'send and must be
finishedin the following line, so the guslar shows a markedpreferencefor either
unperiodic(unnecessary)or no enjambement.Lord's and my analyses of songs
by three differentsingers from two regions-Salih Ugljaninfrom Novi Pazar and
Mujo Kukuruzovicand Halil Bajgoric from the region of Stolac-measured that
preference at between 85% and 93%, respectively, leaving only 7-15% of the
deseterac lines that overranthe end of the verse by necessity.20If anything,the

17PaceLord(1960: 52-53), I do not find"acousticalcontext"a consistentbasis for thriftin

South Slavic epic. Note that acoustic patterningin the decasyllabicdiction is an occasional
aspect of prosody ratherthan, like colonic structure,a fundamentaland definingfeatureof
eachline.
18Thedifferencesin colonic structure-at the level ofproduct-are traceableto a difference
in the rule-governedprocesses that underliethe two registers.On the traditionalrules for
ancientGreekepic phraseology,see Foley 1990: ch. 4; for South Slavicepic phraseology,ch.
5. In lieu of explainingformulaicelementsas a systemicinventoryof items (Lord 1960, etc.),
as "flexible"structures(espec. Hainsworth1968), or as quantitatively
significantcombinations
(Sale 1989, 1993), I advocate understandingsuch structuresas manifestationsof a rule-
governedlanguage,as a mathematicsratherthana collectionof integers.
190n syllabicdefinition,see QuestionIII below; on the "quantitativeclose," see Jakobson
1952:25 andFoley 1990:95-96.
20SeeFoley 1990: 163-64.
20 JohnMiles Foley

tendency to avoid necessary enjambementis somewhat strongerin South Slavic

epic than in Homer; Parry's and Carolyn Higbie's figures for the Iliad are
between 73% and 76% with eitherunperiodicor no enjambement.21 Althoughthe
guslar very often does continue his thoughtbeyond line-end in a supplementary
clause, there is seldom the absolute syntacticneed to do so. This paratacticstyle
of South Slavic epic goes hand in hand with the vocal and instrumental
dimensions of performance:the two melodic lines, described as "heterophonic"
by George Herzog, reveal a regularformularityand whole-line integrityof their
own that reenforce the decasyllabic diction.22The primacy of the line as a self-
contained,additiveunit is evident in both traditions.

Answer #2: No, it doesn't.

Of course, the precise figures for enjambementpreferenceare in part a function
of the individualtraditionand thus not subjectto some universal,archetypalratio.
The tendency toward completenesswithin a single line may well be characteristic
of many oral traditions,but once again linguistic diversity should caution against
expecting absolute quantitativeequivalence. Likewise, exactly how and under
what conditions the thought and sentence are continued beyond a single line
varies from one traditionto the other.23In South Slavic variouskinds of appositive
constructionsregularlyserve as vehicles for incremental,unperiodicextension.Such
constructionsmay entailiterationsof nouns,verbs,or otherelements:

1. Oj!RanoraniDjerdjelezAlija,
vEj!Alija,carevagazija, (6699: 1-2) Noun

Oj!DjerdjelezAiljaaroseearly,
Ej! Alija,the tsar'shero,

2. Kad sve beze knjigerasturijo,

Rasturijona cetiristrane, (6699: 369-70) Verb

Whenthe beg sent out all the letters,

Sentthemout in the four directions,

21See Higbie 1990: 82, Table 3.1. More generally,see her ch. 1 for a helpfulhistoryof
enjambement studies.
22Herzog1951. On musicaldimensions,see espec. Erdely1995;also Bart6k 1953-54, Lord
1960:37-41, andBynum1979: 14-43.
23See Higbie 1990: espec. chs. 2 and 5 for an excellentanalysisof the various types of
and
enjambementand their interplaywith other aspects of Homericdiction.On other poems
traditions,cf. the sourcescited by Higbie(14); on Old Foley
English, 1990: 204.
 Guslar andAoidos 21

3. Morebiti neko vod Stambola,

vOd Stambola,stojnaCarigrada. (6699: 165-66) Prepositionalphrase
It mustbe someonefromIstanbul,
FromIstanbul,Carigradthe capitalcity.

In addition, each of these examples features the typically South Slavic

characteristicof terracing. Also called pleonasm, this rhetorical and tectonic
figure involves partialor complete repetitionof a phrasefrom the precedingline:
Alija for the full noun-epithetformulaDjerdjelezAlija in #1; rasturijofor the full
verb phrase"sent out letters"(knjige rasturijo)in #2; and the entireprepositional
phrase in #3. None of these continuationsis syntacticallynecessary; rathereach
one of them glosses what precedes with what amountsto an optional enrichment
of the main thought.24Fromthe point of view of traditionalpoetics, both the style
and the individualphrasesused as optionalcontinuationshave the effect of slotting
the particularinstances along familiar expressive tracks.25In such cases the
functionof enjambementis not to fill out incompletesyntax,nor simplyto conformto
a stylisticor compositionaldesideratum,butto invoketraditionalreferentiality.

Question III
Do metrical irregularities of the Homeric type also characterize
South Slavic epic?
Answer #1: Yes, they do.
The epskepjesme contain numerousinstances of so-called metricalirregularities,
some of them similarto phenomenathat Parryobserved in Homer and linked to
compositionalstyle as early as his supplementarydoctoralthesis (1928b). Farthe
most common such phenomenonis vowel hiatus, which may occur in as many as
25-50% of the lines in a given guslar's performanceand occasionally more than

24Althoughthe SouthSlavicepicusespleonasmmorefrequently thantheHomeric,it is of

coursenot unknownin theIliadandOdyssey(see Higbie1990:34-35). Note thatin these
examplesandelsewherethe relationship
betweensuccessivelinesin SouthSlavicepicis not
alwayswell symbolizedby conventional whichis afterall intendedfor textual
punctuation,
deployment.Thisamountsto an interesting
problemin ethnopoetics,
accordingto whichthe
transcriptionof oral narrativesmust be tailored to representthe non-textualreality of
oralperformances.
25Iwould distinguishthis phenomenonof slottingfromconventionalanaphoraandepiphora,
which privilege the linear correspondenceof individualinstances over the resonance of
traditionalreferentiality.
22 JohnMiles Foley

once per line.26Most often, vowel hiatus coincides with the break between lines
or, as in Homer, with the juncture between formulaic phrases, which in the
deseterac always occurs between the fourth and fifth syllables. Consider the
following examples, drawnnot from the Stolac songs but from a transcribedand
edited text, The Death of Marko Kraljevic, collected and published by Vuk
Karadzic in the mid-nineteenthcentury (vol. 2: no. 73), with points of hiatus
underlined:

1. pokrajmoraUrvinomplaninom (3)
on MountUrvinabesidethe sea.

2. posrtatii suze roditi (6, 14)

to stumbleandto shedtears.

3. sto je njimaostalo od Marka (85)

whichwas left to themby Marko

All three first cola and all three second cola recur with alternate partners
throughoutthe tradition,in some cases avoiding and in some cases engendering
hiatus. Thus it appears that Parry's theory-namely, that hiatus marks points of
linkage between phraseologicalunits that have lives of their own in the tradition
at large-certainly applies to the epske pjesme as well. As in Homer, hiatus
indicates compositionalseams where smallerwords have been combinedto form
larger"words"withintraditionaldiction.
Answer #2: No, they don't.
Unlike the manuscript records of traditional oral poetry from the former
Yugoslavia or ancient Greece, however, acoustic records of South Slavic epic
reveal a compensating strategy for handling vowel hiatus. As part of the
specialized languageof verse-making,the guslar in performanceis able to deploy
a selection of non-lexical and otherwise meaningless consonantal sounds that
bridge the gap between vowels and thus avoid interruptionby an intervening
glottal stop. Here are some examples of hiatus and its bridging from Halil

26Theonly other metricalirregularitiesencounteredwith any frequencyat all in the Stolac

andhyposyllabismof the line as a whole. But these are still extremely
songs arehypersyllabism
rare:within the performancesexamined,11- or 12-syllablelines amountto 1.2% of sung
performancesand 0.13% of oral-dictatedtexts, while 8- and 9-syllablelines accountfor only
about0.5%in both categories.See furtherFoley 1990:88-94.
 Guslar andAoidos 23

Bajgoric's The Weddingof Mustajbeg's Son Be6irbeg (6699), with the inserted
consonantsitalicized:27

# 1. Prijezore vi bijeladana- (4)

Before dawnandthe whiteday-

# 2. Samosebeji svoga dorata. (18)

Onlyhimselfandhis horse.

# 3. Cebepreze,bojnosedlo baci,
vA po sedlu6etirikolana,
hi peticusvilenukanicu. (30-32)

He hitchedthe blanket,threwon the war-saddle,

And on the saddlefourgirths,
Andthe fiftha woven sash.

# 4. Dok se svanevi suncevograne, (6)

Whenit dawnedandthe sunrose,

As we can appreciatevisually, Bajgoric uses [v], [j], and [h] to smooth the aural
pathwayover these few lines, most often at the main caesurabetween formulaic
line-partsor cola (example # 1 above, from zore to i; also examples # 2 and 4).
The same device is also enlisted to avoid hiatus between whole lines (example
#3) and even within cola (example #4, between sunce and ograne). As would be
expected, the interlinearbridges appear only when a line both begins with a
vowel and immediatelyfollows a line that ended with a vowel.28The reason for
such "performatives,"as we may call these bridging consonants, is simply to
allow the guslar to maintain a steady stream of vocalization as he sings the
melodic phrase.Insteadof havingto interruptthe flow of song with a glottalstop,

27Bajgoricemployedan unusualvarietyof consonants(h, v, j, m, and n) as hiatusbridges.

The repertoireof actualsounds,thoughnot the placementor frequencyof their deployment,
variesconsiderablyeven withinthe groupof Stolacguslari.
28Notall of the Stolacguslari employinterlinearbridges,presumablybecausethe vocal rest
after the ten-syllableline (an instrumentalinterludeusually equivalentto two syllablesin
duration)providesenoughof a breakthat hiatusis not sensedas acutely.See furtherBart6k's
transcription(1953-54).
24 JohnMiles Foley

he can maintain spoken and sung continuity from the end of one unit to the
beginningof another.
At least three characteristicsof such performativesshould be emphasized.
First, they tend to mediate breaks between cola or whole lines; hence the
instances of hiatus they markare usually diagnosticof formulaicphraseology.To
put it anotherway, performativesvery often delimita metricaland phraseological
unit of utterance,a "word." Second, they are features of performance-created
for fluent sung delivery and meaningfulonly within that context. For this reason
they translatepoorly if at all to textual transcriptions,and indeed virtually all
publishedcollections of South Slavic epic silently eliminatethem from the textual
representation.29 Taken together, these first two characteristicsbeg the question
of whetherHomer and his traditionmight have employed a similarphonological
strategyto bridge hiatus between formulaicelements that, like the guslar's larger
"words,"also had lives of their own in the poetic traditionat large. The question
is probablyunanswerable,since we cannotreconstructthe editorialhistory of the
Homeric poems with any certainty,30but it does suggest how much can be lost
when we move from the aural experience of a performanceto the silence of a
textual libretto.31Third, performativesare one of the tell-tale signals that the

29Thepublicationsof the MilmanParryCollection(SCHS),committedto representingepic

performancesas they actuallyoccurred,are the exceptionto this rule. Interestingly,Nikola
Vujnovic,Parryand Lord's native assistantwho transcribedmanyof the sung performances
and took down most of the dictatedtexts in 1933-35, omitted most of these non-lexical
elements.These omissionsarethe moreintriguingin view of the fact thatVujnovicwas himself
a guslar.
30Althoughevidence exists of the Alexandrianscholars'interestin metricalstructureand
editing principles,it is impossibleto say precisely how that interest affected the actual
transmissionof the text that has reachedus (see furtherFoley 1990: 20-31, Janko1992). For
that reasonI refrainfrom attemptingto estimatethe contributionof editorialmanipulation to
the metricalstructureof the receivedHomerictext. Two lines from the Iliad illustratethe
rangeof metricalirregularitybeyondvowel hiatus(cf also Parry1928b) and its solutionby
ancientandmoderncritics:3.172, where EKupErepresentsan originalCf:EKUpE (the aspiration
derivingfrom a geminateddigammaand initial sigma [Kirk 1985: 289]) and thus makes
positionfor the preceding(pL,E;and9.394, with Aristarchus'widelyadoptedemendationfrom
yauaooErTaL to yE aXooEcTaL,which occurs in none of the manuscriptsbut avoids
compromisingHermann'sBridge (the emendationmademorejustifiableby the collocationof
ywvaTKd plus enclitic [ye/TE]at four additionalsites [II. 3.72, 3.93, 24.58, Od. 14.123; cf.
yUvaTKa iEV at II. 7.362] and that combination'scolonic form u - u u] at position 8 in the
hexameter,a 95.6% word-typelocalizationby O'Neill's figures [1942: 143; cf Foley 1990:
chs. 3-4]).
31Cf.the role of the (transcribed)nu-moveableandthe (untranscribed) digamma;see espec.
Horrocks1996: sectionF.
 Guslar andAoidos 25

poetic transactionis taking place in a special register, a dedicated koine, and

thereforethat a certainkind of compositionand receptionare mandated.

Question IV
Is South Slavic epic composed in an "artificial language" like
Homer's?
Answer #1: Yes, it is.
Like the aoidos, the guslar employs a specialized idiom marked not only by
formulaic phraseology and metrical irregularitiesbut also by multiple dialects
(IVa) and archaisms (IVb). Together such features alert the audience or reader
that the singer is using a particularversion of the South Slavic language devoted
solely to the performanceof epic poetry, one among a sizeable culturalrepertoire
of registers.I have measuredthese dimensionsof the epic registerin South Slavic,
by contrasting the song-performancesof four singers from the Stolac region
(Mujo Kukuruzovic, Ibro Basic, Halil Bajgoric, and Salko Moric) against the
speech they employed during their conversationswith Parry and Lord's native
assistant Nikola Vujnovic. By this measurement,the traditional epic register
departssignificantlyfromthe unmarkedconversationalstandard.32
Answer #2: No, neither of these specialized languages is "artificial."
As comparedto registers used by individualsfor casual conversation,scholarly
exchange, or reading and writing in modem media like newspapers, books, and
most other printed sources, the guslar's languagemay sound "artificial,"just as
Homer's distinctive, multi-dialectal, archaized language has often been
characterized.33 But South Slavic epic diction is no more inherentlyartificialthan
those otherregisters;it is simply differentlyconfiguredbecause it has a particular
history and social function.In fact, one could say with as muchjustice that, from
the viewpoint of the epic phraseology, many of the quotidian registers seem
artificial.The truthis that each idiom plays its own role in the overall ecology of

32Especiallyin the mid-1990's, with fragmentationof the former Yugoslavia on an

unprecedentedscale, the notionof an "unmarked conversationalstandard"mustbe understood
as no morethana convenientgeneralizationthat allowsus to highlightcertainunusualaspects
of the poetic register.This is the logic behindmeasuringthe guslars' epic languageagainst
theirown conversationalregistersinsteadof a (mythical)regionalor nationalstandard.
33Foran elegantpresentationof the majorfeaturesof Homer'sdialect,see Horrocks1996. I
owe the followingperspectiveon artificialityto a questionposed by KurtRaaflaubduringa
papersessionat the 1995 meetingof the AmericanPhilologicalAssociation.
26 JohnMiles Foley

discourse, as reflected in their divergentcombinationsof verbal signs.34Each way

of speaking is a viable linguistic instrumentin its own right, and to understand
any of them as artificialor eccentric is to dilute its expressive force. If the South
Slavic and Homeric epic registersdemonstratefeaturesatypical of dialectallyand
chronologically streamlinedversions of the language, then their very linguistic
constitutionis making a statementabout how they are to be interpreted.Within
the specialized arena designated by these "unusual"varieties of language, a
certain kind of transaction is licensed. Homer and the guslar speak to their
audiencesin a uniquelyempoweredidiom, not an artificialdialect.
As both South Slavic and Homeric epic illustrate,the traditionalnature of
this kind of register-its usage over time and place as a dedicated expressive
medium-exerts at least two trademarkinfluenceson a system of diction. First, it
acts as a selective brake on linguistic change within its domain.35Indeed, both
archaic features themselves and analogical adaptationsor extensions based on
archaisms characterize these two traditional registers. Second, they tolerate,
preserve, and, at least in the case of South Slavic epic, even promote dialect
mixture, which is also the result of a register's life-history. On the one hand,
South Slavic shows that a conversational standardused in a given area, for
example, or even one of the perhapsmore cosmopolitanregistersof novel-writing
or scholarship, participates in a feedback loop of usage that continuously
"updates"the phonology, morphology,and lexicon, subjectto the requirementsof
the genre. On the other hand, both epic dictions demonstratethat traditional
idioms necessarilyharborindividualwords and formsthat eitherhave long passed
out of everyday currency and are therefore perceived as obsolete, or which
cannot be justified in terms of a homogeneous, synchronicallydefined dialect.
These features of the two dictions could be seen as symptomaticof an artificial
language, somethingunrealor aberrant.But oral epic traditiondoes not share our
frame of reference. What we choose to call "wrong" dialect and "archaic"or
"borrowed"words and forms (basing ourjudgmenton impertinentstandards)are
simply verbal signs that performa function;indeed, their continuedusage is the

34Foranotherexample,cf. the specializedidiom employedin performingSerbiancharms,

which depend on "nonsenselanguage"as well as multipledialects, archaisms,and lexical
borrowings.See furtherFoley 1995: 110-15.
35Witnessthe Homeric-Mycenaean correspondencesdiscussedby Horrocks(1996: section
D). Speaking of tmesis in Homer, Horrocks had earlierobserved(1980: 5): "It can now be
demonstratedthatthe preservationof these archaicrulesof syntaxin the languageof the Epic
is due entirelyto the fact thatthey are absolutelyfundamentalto the artof oral compositionof
dactylicverse."
 Guslar andAoidos 27

clearestpossibleevidencefortheirfullpartnership
in a highlyidiomaticmedium,
in whatMaximilianBraun,referringto the languageof the guslar, has called
"eineSchriftsprache fiirAnalphabeten"(1961:49). Regardlessof theircurrency
outsidetheepic, these formsandwords are uniquelyfunctionalwithinit.
In questionsIVa (dialect) and IVb (archaism)immediatelybelow, I
concentratechiefly on the South Slavic registerin an attemptto familiarize
Homeristswith some parallel(but not absolutelycongruent)featuresin the
specializedlanguageof theguslar.
QuestionIVa
Are the South Slavic and Homeric epic registers actually mixtures
of geographically defined dialects?
Answer #1. No, they aren't.
I beginin this instancewith the negativeresponse,in orderto emphasizethat
withinthe epic registerguslarikeep mainlyto the geographicaldialecttheyuse
for everydayspeechtransactions. Nonetheless,departuresfromthe usualhome
dialect,althoughmuchless numerousthan"appropriate" wordsand forms,are
bothrecurrentand systematic:they participatecrucially,as we shallsee, in the
creationandmaintenance of formulaicphraseology.Thissituationseemsdirectly
to
parallel Homeric wherein"Ionicprovidesthepredominant
diction, dialectbase
and the Aeolic forms appearroutinelyonly where they offer an alternative
metricalshape to their Ionic equivalents."36 Once again, we gain a true
perspectivenot by referringto lexicons and grammarsthat epitomize a
historicallyandgeographically thinversionof the language,but by focusingon
thespecialdynamicsof theepickoine.
Answer#2. Yes,theyare.
For a start,considerthe analogousmixturesof geographicallydefineddialects
that constitutethe poetic diction.Just as Homer'smainlyIonic languagealso
draws from Aeolic Greek to answer compositionalneeds, so the guslar's idiom
combinestwo more or less distinctdialectsourcesto meet the challengeof
compositionin performance.When making their songs, as opposed to
anyotherspeech-act,SouthSlavicsingersuse bothijekavski(chiefly
undertaking
Bosnian and Croatian)and ekavski (chiefly Serbian) forms, not seldom in the

36Horrocks1996: sectionF. On Ionic andAeolic forms,andthe varioustheoreticalmodels

for explainingtheirsequenceanddeployment,see sectionsF andG of the sameessay.
28 JohnMiles Foley

very same line.37 The major phonological difference between these dialects
amountsto the ijekavskipreferencefor ije where ekavski favors long e, andje for
shorte. Thus, the ijekavskiword for "child,"for example, is dijete as opposed to
ekavski dete. Another such pair would be the words for "milk": mlijeko as
opposed to mleko.38The two dialects are of course mutually intelligible, since
neitherthis nor any other differencebetween them constitutesa true impediment
to understanding.But although native speakers normally use only the forms
appropriateto theirparticulargeographicalcontext in most registers, South Slavic
singers customarily and systematically have recourse to forms and syntactic
featuresfrom both dialects when they code-switch to the traditionalperformance
idiom. Moreover, trying to explain the diction used in their songs as either
ijekavski or ekavski runs roughshod over the inescapable fact that, strictly
speaking,it is neither.
In many cases, as with the examples of dijete/dlte and mlijeko/mlekocited
just above, one form is a syllable longer than the other-a negligible
considerationin everyday spoken or written languagebut often a crucial matter
within a diction that cooperates symbioticallywith a ten-syllable poetic line.39
From a synchronic, compositionalperspective, the flexibility afforded by being
able to turn to either form (here dijete or dete) can be very useful to poets
employing a metricalidiom. From the complementarydiachronicperspective, an
encapsulatedformulathat dependson eitherdijete or dete is unlikelyto substitute
one dialect form for the other, since the new unit would immediatelybecome
unmetrical.One is remindedof built-inHomericoptions like the genitive singular
-oio endingfor o-stem nouns, once understoodas an Aeolicism but now shown to
have a parallel in the Mycenaean dialect of the Linear B tablets.40This two-
syllable inflection provides an option for the monosyllabic -ou and thus a

37Magner(1972: 245) furnishesthis basic breakdownof geographicaldialects in South

Slavic:"Ingeneral,ekavskiis spokenin Serbia,while ijekavski(also referredto as jekavski)is
spoken in Montenegro,Herzegovina,Bosnia, Croatia,SouthernDalmatiaand Lika; ikavski
dialectsare spokenin WesternBosnia,in Slavonia(Posavina),in northwesternDalmatiaandin
the archipelagonorth of Peljesac."The ikavski dialect does not enter the picture to any
appreciableextent with the Moslem epic collectedby Parryand Lord, our majorfocus here.
See furtherBraun'ssimilarremarkson the generalSouthSlavic"epicdialect"(1961: 47-49).
38 Onthis phonologicalcontrastandits history,see espec. Vukovic(1974: 66-85).
39Thereare of course othercontrastsbetweenthese two dialects,andbetween Serbianand
Croatianat large-in accent, noun gender,word formation,syntax, meaning,alphabet,and
otherphonologicalfeatures(see Magner1972:247-50)-but none of these seemsto have any
systemiceffect upon the constitutionof the epic diction.Differencesin lexicon,whichdo have
suchan effect, aretreatedbelow in IVb.
400n which, see Chadwick 1958, Palmer 1962: 99, 108; Janko 1982: 50-53; Horrocks
1996:sectionD.
 Guslar andAoidos 29

compositionalflexibility. In fact, a well-known formulain the epics and hymns

that features this option alongside a quite differentending memorablyillustrates
the principleof metrically selected forms: rrouqpXAoio3poo OaXdoorls ("of the
loud-soundingsea"), which combines an earlier adjectival ending with an Ionic
noun ending.41
To illustratea similarkind of mixturein the South Slavic register, consider
two examples, both of them drawn from the Stolac singers' performances.The
first involves the deploymentof the doubletdijete/dete, the ijekavski and ekavski
forms of the word for "child" discussed above. Within the sample of six epic
songs, Kukuruzovichas occasion to use this word 14 times, and the dialect form
he employs depends strictly on the metrical environment.That is, when he is
naming the hero Halil, he turns to the ijekavski form dijete, fashioning a six-
syllable noun-epithetformula, dyiete Halile ("child Halil"). This rec or larger
"word"thus consists of the three-syllableversion of "child"accompaniedby the
vocative inflection of Halil, constituting a relatively common phrase that can
serve as either a pseudo-nominativeor the vocative that it is.42 In all other
instances, however, Kukuruzovicresorts to the two-syllable ekavski dete, as in
phrases like "A sjede mu dete besjediti"("But the child began to address him")
or "Dete, si mi rezil ucinijo" ("Child, you have shamed me"). None of these
phrases, neitherthe six occurrencesof dijete Halile nor the eight occurrencesof
various other patterns,will tolerate substitutionof the alternateform. The singer
speaks the poetic languagefluentlyby speakingit multidialectally,and according
to the metricalrules.
The second example involves the other of our doublets, mlijeko/mleko.In
this case Kukuruzovicemploys only the shorter, two-syllable form within his
recordedrepertoire.But alongside the ekavski mleko he uses adjectives inflected
as ijekavskiforms, as in the following two lines:

Ovcijemte zadojilamlekom 1868.1279

She beganto nurseyou with sheep'smilk

A tvojijemmlekomzadojila 1287a.638
But you nursed[him]with yourmilk.

41I1. 1.34, 2.209, 6.347, 9.182, 13.798, 23.59; Od. 13.85, 13.220;h. Mere. 341; h. Ven. 4;
cf also Hesiod, Op. 648. The combinationof eaA6aorli with *rouvq(Xo{o[3ou would make
thishemistichphraseunmetrical anddissolveits identityandusefulnessas a formulaicelement.
42Asexplainedbelow (this section),the vocativecan serveas a bi-formfor the nominativein
orderto eke out a coloniclength.
30 JohnMiles Foley

Although one would never find such concatenations as ovcijem...mlekom or

tvojijemmlekom in conversationalspeech or any other register of South Slavic,
they are perfectly naturaland unartificialin the epic diction. Indeed, because the
variant dialect forms occur in the very same line, as partnersin a single noun
phrase,there can be no questionof "differentsources"or imitationof an alternate
geographical dialect.43In both lines, and in epic performanceas a whole, the
dialect that the guslar speaks is neither true ijekavski nor ijekavski with
occasional ekavski forms, but ratherthe traditionalregister.
Of course, such "decisions"-as well as other kinds of adjustmentslike
those examinedbelow-are based on options inherentin the registerand are thus
no more "conscious" or strategic than making subjects agree with verbs. It is a
matterof what linguistscall "competence,"44 or simplyfluency in the koine. What
is more, many such combinationscome to the guslar as encapsulatedphrases-as
reci or larger"words,"in the singers' own conceptionof the items that constitute
their register. Especially given the contemporarypolitical situation in which
ethnicity has become cause for outrightwar, it must be stressed that the South
Slavic epic register can and does supervene ethnic or geographical affiliation.
While ekavski or ijekavski speakers naturallyfavor their "home" dialect to a
large degree, traditionalphraseology always and everywhere entails a utilitarian
mixtureof forms, sortednot accordingto the singer's individualspeech habitsbut
rathermetri causa.45
Closely allied to the matterof dialect is the set of syllabic adjustmentsused
by the guslar and his poetic traditionto mold and maintainthe ongoing symbiosis
between prosody and phraseology.46These adjustments do not stem from

430ne could arguethat tvojijemrepresentsa formationby analogywith ijekavskiinflection,

ratherthan an exampleof that inflectionitself. But the point remains,and is perhapseven
strengthened:the poetic languageprovidesa metricalbi-formas necessary,and within the
occurringandanalogousforms.
poeticregisterthereis no absolutedividinglinebetweennaturally
44Cf, e.g., Briggs 1988.
45ThusBraunobserves(1961: 48) "dassSanger,die an sich eine andereMundartsprechen,
beimLiedvortragdiesen'epischenDialekt'nachzuahmen suchen";cf. Palmer(1962: 98), who
understandsthe Homericregisteras "theproductof a long traditionof oral poetry."This was
of course Parry'sbasic argument(1932) aboutthe Homericlanguageas the languageof an
oralpoetry.Cf. also Horrocks1980:4-5; 1996. Althoughit is beyondthe scope of the present
essay, I should like to emphasizethat ultimatelyI agree with those who view Homericand
othertraditionalregistersnot metricausa, but ratherartis causa; for supportingevidence,see
espec. Foley 1991, 1995 forthcoming.
46Theseare synchronicadjustmentsused by the Stolacguslari and can be distinguished,in
theoryif not in practice,fromthe dialect-basedalternativeformsdiscussedimmediatelyabove.
Given the uncertaintyof the editorialhistoryof the Homerictexts, it would be difficultto
locate unambiguousexamplesof the same (performance-based) phenomenonin our Iliad and
 Guslar andAoidos 31

alternate dialect forms, but they do provide the same kind of compositional
flexibility. For descriptive purposes, and again basing our distinctions on the
language used by guslari in conversation, we can separate strategies that
"subtract"from those that "add" syllables to the expectable form.47On the
subtractionside of the ledger we list those features that entail compression:
aphaeresis, dropping an initial syllable; syncope, suppressinga medial syllable;
andapocope,deletinga finalsyllable.Commonexamplesinclude:

Aphaeresis-ovako > 'vako[thus]:

Pa mu 'vakomladagovorila(6617.134)
Thenthe youngwomanspoketo himthus

Syncope-obecao > obec'o [promised]:

Obec'o samnebrojenoblago(6617.404)
I promiseduncountedwealth

Apocope-evo > ev' [here]:

Ev' zemanadvadesetgodina(6617. 73)
Hereit's beentwentyyears'time.

Adjustmentslike these can become institutionalizedfeatures of the epic register

for an individualsinger, for a region, or more widely. Some are linked to specific
words, such as ovako and evo in the first and third examples above, and some
affect a whole class of words or forms, like the generalized reduction of the
masculinepast inflectionfrom the disyllabic-ao to monosyllabic-o in the second
example.48These and many other elements, like the personal pronouns and
function words that can occur as disyllables, monosyllables, or unvocalized
phones,49offer compositionalplasticity. Diachronically,many of these reduced
words and forms are alreadypart of encapsulatedphrases learned as reci by the

Odyssey.Note, however,the opinionof G. Edwards,who observesthat "Hesiodis not averse

to ekingout a word artificiallywith an extrasyllable"(1971: 104).
47Of course, this descriptiveconvenienceprivilegesthe unmarkedlanguage,viewing the
epic registeras somehowaberrant-wantingin regularity,unstable,and so forth. The present
essay aimsat a moredemocraticview of registersandspeech-acts.
480therfrequentreductionsof this type includeisao/is'o ("[he]went")anddao/d'o ("[he]
gave").In South Slavicepic the past participleis very often used withoutthe copularauxiliary
typicalof the standardlanguageto expressa simplepast action.This is anotherfeatureof the
epic koine.
49Forexample,the genitivesingularof the secondpersonsingularpronouncan be tebe, the
encliticte, or the elided t'; this last possibilityis effectivelyzero syllableslong, since it must
cooccurwith a followingvowel to yieldeven a singlesyllable.
32 JohnMiles Foley

singers, so that metricalaccommodationhas become part of a unit that functions

at a higher level. Additionally, a guslar may apply the principles of variation
derived from "regular"syllabic reductionto a "new" situation,thus generatinga
formthat may not alreadybe common coin in the traditionalregister.Aphaeresis,
syncope, and apocope greatly smooth the singer's-and the tradition's-
compositional path, providing malleable constituents with which to construct
encapsulated formulas as well as set phrases that exist within the register as
larger"words."
The same is true of strategiesfor syllabic flexibility that "add"to standard,
expectable forms. Of the corresponding modes for syllabic expansion-
prosthesis, epenthesis, and proparalepsis-only the last occurs with any
regularity.That is, at least within the Stolac songs syllables are never added to
the beginning of a word in the South Slavic koine, and very seldom do they
expand a word from within. But proparalepsisis a relativelycommon adjustment
that as a rule operates on the level of the rec, or larger"word,"adding a syllable
to the end of a colonic or linearunit. A case in point is the frequentand systemic
strategythat substitutesa vocative for a nominativeinflection,with no change in
overall sense or syntax. Since the vocative of many nouns, especially proper
names, is one syllable longerthanthe nominative,the alternateinflectionprovides
a metricalbi-form,just as "foreign"items from the Aeolic dialect conventionally
offer alternativemetricalbi-formsfor the basically Ionic dialect of Homer. This is
the situationwith two of the most famous, and infamous,heroes in South Slavic
epic, Mustajbeg of the Lika and Prince Marko. The simple nominativeforms of
these names, licki Mustajbeg and Kraljevic Marko, both produce five-syllable
increments,one syllable shy of fittingthe assigned slot for noun-epithetformulas.
One of the tradition's solutions to such quandaries-and the regularityof the
"irregularity"ensures that it is genuinelya propertyof a register sharedby many
individuals-is to press the vocative inflections into service as the conventional
subjects of sentences:thus the six-syllableforms licki Mustajbeze and Kraljevicu
Marko. To these vocative names, which fimction precisely as if they were
nominatives, the singers customarily prefix four-syllable verb phrases, with
results like the following:50

SejircinilickiMustajbeze oftheLikagazedaround
Mustajbeg 6699.532

50Anotherway in whichthe Parry-Lordsingersfromthe Stolacregioneke out Mustajbeg's

nameinto a six-syllableformis by repeatingthe beg morphcontainedin his simplexnameand
reversingthe orderof the otherelements:thus, beg Mustajbeglicki, an apparentlyredundant
phrasethat nonethelessproves more popularthan the vocative expansionin our sampleof
Stolacperformances(46 to 18).
 Guslar andAoidos 33

Progovara oftheLikaspokeforth
lickiMustajbeze Mustajbeg 6703.417
Marko When
KadtozacuKraljevicu PrinceMarkoheardthis 57.90
Marko
PoranioKraljevicu PrinceMarkoaroseearly 73.1

Question IVb
Does the South Slavic epic register, like that of the Homeric
poems, depend upon archaisms?
Answer #1: No, it doesn't.
Far the greater part of the traditionalregister, both lexicon and morphology,is
coincidentwith the speech used by the Stolac guslari in their conversationswith
Nikola Vujnovic. In that sense the words and syntax used by the singer in
performanceare largely"contemporary."
Answer #2: Yes, it does.
Because the koine used by South Slavic singers operates accordingto traditional
rules, it includes phrases inheritedfrom earliertimes, phrases with features that
have not survivedin more streamlined,thoroughlycontemporaryregisters.Again
like the aoidos, the guslar thus dependsupon a certainnumberof archaisms,both
words and grammatical forms, that are no longer a part of the singers'
conversational language but remain an integral feature of their traditional
register.51In most such cases "modernizing"the lexicon or morphologywould
destroy the integrity of the unitary phrases so vital to fluent communication
between singer and audience. Even when modernizationdoes not simply render
the "words" unmetrical and thus compositionally useless, it reorganizes or
replaces their internal architecture. In those cases where archaisms are
constituentsof reci, they are unlikelyto be replaced.
One of the most common sources of archaicwords in South Slavic Moslem
epic is the extensive inventoryof Turkicisms.Duringthe 500-year Ottomanreign
over the Balkans, from the fourteenthcenturyonward,Turkishwords enteredthe
general language in significantnumbers, and many of them became part of the
specializedpoetic languagestill employedby the Stolac singers in the 1930's and

51Inadditionto lexicon and morphology,the decasyllableprosodyitself has been shownto

be of considerable seeJakobson
antiquity; 1952,Vigorita1976.
34 JohnMiles Foley

beyond.52Today some of these earlier borrowings remain part of the singers'

conversationalregister, but most seem to be confined to the epic register. For
example, Turkishterminologyassociatedwith wedding ceremoniespersists in the
highly conventional scenes of ritual bride-stealingand procession traditionally
associatedwith marriagein the epic (6699.549-56, 563-67):

Kad su bili dobropodranili, Whenthey hadrisenearly,

Sve naprijedcarevagazija, Thetsar'sherowas aheadof themall, 550

vEj,gazijaDjerdjelezAlija, Eh, the heroDjerdjelezAlija,

Pa za njimeSilanOsmanbeze, AndafterhimOsmanbegthe Powerful,
vOsmanbezestarosvatsvatovim', Osmanbegeldestwitnessamongwitnesses,
Pa za njimeMujobuljubasa- And afterhimcommanderMujo-

Buljubasabjese selambasa- The commanderwas the greeter- 555

Pa za njimapasa sa Budima.... Andafterthemthe Pashaof Budim....
Kad su bili do Kanidzebili, Whenthey were at whiteKanidza,
vA dobroji tamo docekase, Theyawaitedthemtherefor a while,
Docekalikanidzkivajane Awaitedthe leadersof Kanidza 565

Na valajui turskomselamu, Witha troop anda Turkishgreeting,

Poglavarena gornjevahare. Chieftainsin the upperrooms.

Aside from the sheer density of Turkicismsin this passage, most of them not in
commonusage in everydayvocabulary,theirfossilization in largerphraseological
"words" provides an interesting parallel to archaisms in Homeric diction. For
example, fully ten of the seventeen occurrencesof gazija ("hero")in the Stolac
sample are lodged in the colonic formulacareva gazija ("tsar's hero"), and the
remainingseven all participatein figures of leonine rhyme.53When one adds the

52Turkicismsare numerousenough in the South Slavic epic songs, especially but not
exclusivelythe Moslem epics, to requirea speciallexicon (Skalji61979). In the Stolac songs
manyof the Turkicismsare lodged in a second-colonformula,"X uciniti," where X = the
borrowedTurkishword; frozen within this general-purposephrase,which means "to do or
performX," they take on the identityof a larger"word"andresistinternalchange.Cf. Skendi
1953 on the influenceof Albanianlanguageand epic phraseologyon South Slavicepic nearer
the Albanianborder.
53Eitherwiththe propernameAlija(6) or anotherTurkicism, jabandija ("foreigner,stranger").
 Guslar andAoidos 35

terraced repetition at lines 550-51, it becomes clear that the network of

traditional structure makes "updating" of this Turkicism difficult if not
impossible. The same is true of the noun-epithetphraseMujo buljubasa in line
554, the rhymingand terracedTurkicismsin 555 (Buljubasa / selambasa), and
the noun-epithetphrasepasa sa Budimain 556.54Especially telling in this regard
is the colonic formulakanidiki vajane: althoughwe find four additionalinstances
of the whole phrase in the Stolac performances,the Turkicismajan ("leader")
never occurs outside the context of this composite "word."The epic registerhas
constructeda rec that contains this archaic item, and in preserving the whole
phraseit also preservesthis otherwiselong-outdatedconstituent.
But not all archaismsin the South Slavic epic registerare lexical. One of the
more widespreadanachronismsis morphologicalin nature:the frequentusage of
the aorist verb tense, largely outmodedin present-dayconversationaland written
genres.55 Again our primary comparison is with the Stolac singers' own
conversationswith Nikola Vujnovic, and in this unmarkedregister-so different
on many scores from the epic "way of speaking"-the aorist is almost non-
existent. Many instances of the aorist in the Stolac performancesclearly reflect
the principleof syllabic diversity and metricalbi-forms examined and illustrated
above. Here is a set of examples from Bajgoric's The Weddingof Mustajbeg's
Son Becirbeg (6699.804-9):

vA zavikalickiMustajbeze: AndMustajbegof the Likabeganto shout:

"Svijimamina dovu stanite, "Allyou imamsstartup in prayer, 805
vA kurbanesinuvoborite." And slaughterthe animalsfor my son."
Tadanjemupadosekurbani, Thenthe animalswere felledfor him,

54Notethat of 69 total instancesof buljubasa(in variouscases) in the Stolac sample,58 are

involvedin this same noun-epithetformula,Mujo buljubasa,or its metathesizedequivalent
buljubasaMujo; cp. the cognateformulasbuljubagaTale (3) and buljubasaIbro (1). On the
rhymein 555, cf. 6699.582:"Buljubasa turskiselambasa,"whichamountsto the sameline with
the (inessential)copuladeletedandreplacedby the adjective"Turkish."
55SeeBenson (1980: 774). Magner(1972: 322) observesthat"theaoristis sometimesused
in speech, but its usage is usually limitedto storytelling."Other South Slavic folk genres
employ the aorist with some regularity,such as the metricalcharms,or bajanje;cf Foley
1995: 118, lines 26-28 (versionA3), 25-27 (versionB1). On usage in proverbs,see below the
discussionof proverbialexpressionsin the epic. Also pertinentis the fact that the literate
Montenegrinpoet and archbishopPetar II Petrovi6Njegos (1813-51), composinghis poems
pen in handbut also very muchin the traditionalregisterof South Slavicepic, makesfrequent
use of "words"involvingthe aoristtense and other archaicfeatures.See furtherLord 1986:
espec. 30-34 andHaymes1980.
36 JohnMiles Foley

vA na dovu stadosejimami, Andthe imamsstartedup in prayer,

Becirbegumoliseza zdravlje. Prayedfor Becirbeg'shealth.

In this brief passage Mustajbegordersthe Moslem priests, or imams, to slaughter

the kurbani, the sacrificial animals, for his son's sake just as the young man is
aboutto enter a life-or-deathduel with a certainBaturicban. In all three cases the
underlinedaorist verbs describe the actions taken in response to Mustajbeg's
orders, and each occupies a unique phrase in the sample of South Slavic epic
from Stolac. Nevertheless, although we cannot point to recurrence of these
particularphrases for prima facie evidence of traditionalcharacter,we can note
that the aorist forms offer a metricalalternativeto either the historicalpresent or
simple past forms that might have been used.56Leveling the inflections to agree
with the conversational standardwould thus make these lines unmetricaland
compromise their integrity as larger "words,"just as replacing the Turkicisms
would have done. It thus seems safe to interpretpadose, stadose, and molise as
archaicverb forms frozen inside reci. The fact that they occur together and in a
unifying ritual context, again in parallelwith the group of Turkicismsexamined
above, strengthensthat interpretation.
Aorists can also be frozen into other contexts, one of the more common of
which is the leonine or in-line rhyme that matches the two colon-ends in the
decasyllable. This aspect of acoustic architecturetends to fix phraseology and
limit variation;because the lines it undergirdsare more tightly organized,both by
sense and by sound-patterning,they tend to resist change even more stubbornly
than other "words"in the traditionalregister.Additionally,in-line rhyme is often
the site for proverbialphraseologyof one kind or another,maxims that may alsd
be free-standingproverbsoutside the epic and that index traditionalideas of wide
applicability.57Such is the case with the following example, which combines the
stabilizinginfluenceof leoninerhymewith a unifyingsemanticidea (6699.519-20):

56Thehistoricalpresentformswould be, respectively,padnu (imperfectivepadaju unlikely),

stanu, andmole, all two ratherthanthree syllablesin length.The simplepast inflectionwould
yield, respectively,su pali, su stall, and su molili. Whiletwo of these latterverbs are three-
syllableforms,the fact is that the auxiliarysu is customarilysuppressedin the epic register,
causinga deletionof one syllable;even if it were not deleted,the auxiliaryis encliticandwould
cause a revisionof orderamongthe constituentsof the phrase.In short, modifyingthe verb
fromaoristto eitherhistoricalpresentor simplepastmeansa majorrevisionof the phrase.
57AnexamplefromMoslemepic wouldbe: "Sanusnila,pa se prepanula" ("You'vedreamed
a dream,so you're frightened").In additionto offeringcomfortfor a nightmare,this proverbial
expressionguaranteesthatthe nightmare-customarilydismissedas the sillynotionof a young
 Guslar andAoidos 37

atetheireveningmeal,
vondavecerage, E, theyprayed,andafterward
vEjklanjage,
PalegoseTurcidaspavaju. ThentheTurkslaydownto sleep.

The ritualistic connection between praying and eating meshes with the sound-
patterning in klanjase / vecerase, and the sleep that follows can also be
understood as semantically linked. Like free-standingproverbs, this grouping
indexes a culturalidea. The same combinationof acoustic design and proverbial
meaning underlies another phrase that depends on in-line rhyme of aorist
verbs (6699: 549):
Tunocise,dobropodranige. Heretheyspentthenight,theyaroseearly.
It is significant that all other usages of the verb podraniti in the Stolac sample
employ the simple past to indicatethat a certainperson "arose early."58Only this
particularinstance, because of the stabilityimposed by the morphologicalrhyme
of forms in -ise, retainsthe aorist. In short, as these examples illustratein various
ways, the aorist, while moribund in the singers' conversational register and
elsewhere, seems alive and well in the traditionalidiom.

Conclusion
To summarize,the analogy between the special epic registers employed by the
guslar and the aoidos presents a viable avenue for investigation:upon careful
examinationtheir similar features bear out the original comparison forged by
MilmanParryand AlbertLord and carriedforwardby others.59At the same time,
it would be an error-in both philology and comparativeresearch-to assume
simple congruency between the two traditions.As we have seen, each register
manifestscertainidiosyncrasies;each exhibits characteristicfeaturesnot found in
the other. To put the matter telegraphically,each register constitutes a living,
functionalvariety of language with its own rules for composition and reception.
Because these two languages serve parallel compositional and communicative
purposes, it can prove profitableto set them side by side and observe how they

girl-will in fact come true, bringingdestructionupon those who ignore her warning.See
furtherFoley 1994: 85-86.
58Examplesinclude "Pa je Pero rano podranijo"("Then [General]Pero arose early,"
1868.1642) and "Pabanicaranopodranila"("Thenthe banicaarose early,"1287a.23,etc.). A
similarobservationmay be made of the line examinedjust above: the only other uses of
klanjati ("to pray")are the two occurrencesof the following line, with a historicalpresent
tense: "Pred dzamijomdje klanjajuTurci" ("Before the mosque where the Turks were
praying,"1287a.866,6617.1769).
59Seethe bibliographicalmaterialscitedin n. 1 and4.
38 JohnMiles Foley

mutuallyilluminateone another.In this way the living traditioncan in some ways

help us better understandthe traditionthat survives only as texts. Nonetheless,
part of that illuminationmust always consist of an unblinking awareness of
differences as well as similarities.In fact, the entireSouth Slavic analogyis most
helpfulto Homeristsonly when it is properlyattenuated,only when we are willingto
move beyond reductiveclaims of absolutecongruencyor incongruencyand toward
the kind of detailed,nuancedcomparisonthat both poetic languagesand both epic
poetriesdeserve.60
More precisely, we have identifieda numberof similarities,all of which can
be traced to the fact that the Homeric and South Slavic epic registers represent
traditional ways of speaking. Both demonstratea formulaic phraseology that
follows traditionalrules for the formation and maintenanceof large "words,"
unitary speech-acts that the South Slavic singers refer to as reci. Likewise, we
find similar patterns of enjambementand metrical irregularityin the two epic
poetries, patterns directly traceable to the incrementalnature of their dictions.
Finally, while not really "artificial," each idiom juxtaposes archaisms and
alternate(geographicallydefined) dialects alongside expectable forms. But the
two registers are by no means wholly congruent.Theirformulaicstructuresdiffer
because of disparities in meter and traditionalrules; perhaps the most dramatic
consequence of these disparities is the complete lack of thrift in South Slavic
epic. Additionally,necessary enjambementis if anythingmore strongly avoided
by the guslar, who has his own repertoireof interlinearstrategies.Likewise, the
major metrical irregularityin South Slavic epic, vowel hiatus, is mitigated by
consonantal bridges or "performatives."And, when examined closely, each
poetry demonstratesits own particularmixtureof dialects and archaisms.
At a functionallevel, traditionalregisters enable the guslar and the aoidos
to compose fluently in a coherent idiom. But these specialized languages are
extraordinaryin anotherway as well. Both the ancient Greek of Homer and the
South Slavic sung and spoken in performance by the Stolac bards depart
significantlyfrom the kind of languageto which we are accustomed, and indeed
from the language used by those same bards in conversations with Nikola
Vujnovic. It is precisely those regular and expectable departuresthat serve a
crucialfunctionfor the audienceand laterthe reader:they signal the natureof the
poetic event, prescribingthe communicativechannel and keying response. Since

60See further Foley 1990 on distinguishingamong ancient Greek, South Slavic, and
medievalEnglishnarrativeon the basis of mediumor document,phraseology,typicalscenes,
andstory-pattern.
 Guslar andAoidos 39

accordingto Mujo Kukuruzovic,Salko Moric, and their peers the "words"they

employ are also speech-acts, we may conclude that every act of composition
implies a correspondingact of reception.61The challengeissued to us by both the
guslar and the aoidos is clear enough: nothing less than fluency in their
traditionalregisters.

61Foran attemptto restorethe balancebetweencompositionandreceptionin oral andoral-

derivedtraditionalverse, see furtherFoley 1991, 1995.
40 JohnMiles Foley

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