Exclamative nominatives and nominatives pro vocatives in Greek and Latin: a possible distinction?

This paper aims at proposing a possible explanation for the so-called phenomenon of “nominative pro vocative”, namely the use of the nominative case in contexts where the vocative case is required. The hypothesis I examine here relies on the essential distinction between the concepts of neutralization and substitution. I would like to display that the origin of such phenomenon – a proper substitution – is to be found in a specific functional area in which the nominative and the vocative case overlap: the vague boundary between an address and an exclamation, where the distinction between neutralization and substitution is quite fine. The corpus selected for this purpose includes the comedies of Aristophanes, Plautus and Terence, which stand out for the large amount of addresses and exclamations.