Volition ascription to the addressee in a diachronic perspective

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>Pragmatic studies have recently shown that volition ascription to the addressee corresponds to specific strategies and deserves more attention. This paper discusses a series of post-volitional developments attested by second-person forms of the Latin verb <jats:italic>uolo</jats:italic> (‘I want’). Whilst these grammaticalisation phenomena — some of which are also attested cross-linguistically — have mainly been dealt with separately, this paper shows that they can be treated in a unified manner, as all originally employ volition ascription as a conversational strategy. In Latin, <jats:italic>uolo</jats:italic> constructions featuring the verb in the second person allowed the speaker to offer the addressee options to choose from or, in the case of prohibitive sentences, to preclude them from a specific choice. In this way, this paper sheds new light on volition ascription strategies as a pragmatic device and their diachronic developments in Latin as well as cross-linguistically.</jats:p>