= Paper =

 

This paper aims to show the conditions under which alliterations and assonances appear in the Homeric epos. One has intentionally restricted the corpus to the close context of impressive verbs denoting a noise, in order to determine by what the presence of such sound effects could have been conditionned : contrary to the expectations, the associations of such verbs and such sound effects are absolutely not systematic, but they are concentrating only when the dramatic tension in the narration reaches a peak, as if the drama of the situation had to be heightened by the accumulation of expressive devices involving the signifier. Along the same lines it has been observed that the expressive hapax crovmado" appears to be brought about by an alliterative context.