According to the data this conversational move is used almost exclusively by male speakers, which seems to be a rule also for the Terentian corpus (Müller , 1997: 102). Supposedly heus still is associated with a high volume, unarticulated, exclamation that reappears in the pulsatio scenes. Even its “civilized” use in the conversation opening may be considered aggressive if not mitigated by a personalized address form. Be-tween two male interlocutors it functions as a token of social dominance and hierarchy 20 , being used mostly in the interactions which imply marked differ-ences of status (e.g. master-slave summons – Curc. 303, Mil. 178, Rud. 97, Trin. 1059) 21 or which display a certain amount of linguistic impoliteness (e.g. Curc. 391, Most. 939, Pseud. 967). This rule seems to be applicable also to heus on various positions inside the dialogical structure (see 2.2 and 2.3). (Meta)discoursive Uses of Latin HEUS 11 On the other hand, a coarse type of exclamation is not considered appropri-ate for a woman in the world of Roman comedy 22 . The only cases of heus -summons employed by a female character is the wife Myrrhina ( Cas. 163-164) calling a slave from inside the house or a young girl Ampelisca ( Rud. 413) in a pulsatio scene. It seems, thus, very significant that both examples are no face-to- face situations and the “masculine” exclamation is justified either by a demonstration of power over a servant (Myrrhina) or by a conventional formu-la which accompanies knocking (Ampelisca) 23 .