Научный архив: статьи

The article attempts, firstly, to critically analyze the traditional order of cases in Latin, secondly, to discover an internal mechanism that brings the elements of a paradigm together, and thirdly, to present a new model of the nominal and pronominal case paradigms in Latin. The authors develop the idea that the crucial role in structuring a case paradigm belongs to morphemic syncretism. The syncretism is treated as a systemic phenomenon of morpheme neutralization rather than a result of phonetic reduction. In the paradigm built on this principle, the cases marked with the same endings necessarily take adjacent positions. There is a certain correlation between the morphemic syncretism and the semantics of cases extensively exemplified in the Latin literature. Taking this as reference point, the authors establish a formally motivated paradigmatic order of cases and single out a set of semantic features that shape the case paradigm. This method enables authors to find the non-contradictory paradigmatic positions for both the core and the “marginal” cases (vocative and locative). Applied to the pronominal cases, however, it reveals the significant discrepancy between the nominal and pronominal paradigms concerning two cases — nominative and genitive. The pronominal nominative’s special status is determined by its pragmatic rather than syntactic functions, which is typical for pro-drop languages. The genitive case appears in three different forms that originate from the possessive pronouns and correspond to the three basic functions of the genitive — possessive, objective, and partitive ones. Such transparadigmatic syncretism brings together the paradigms of personal and possessive pronouns, which are related by nature. The ORBIS ROMANUS approach suggested in this study makes it possible to present in a new way the nominal and pronominal case paradigms, to demonstrate in what points they differ from each other, and to highlight some functional and semantic features of the particular cases

The article concerns the semantic nuances of the verb faxo in the Plautus’ language. The vast majority of the occurrences demonstrate causative semantics, but there are a few cases where such a meaning can hardly be seen. De Melo singled out the two occurrences in which faxo can be treated as either an adverb similar to forsitan or a parenthetical expression with the meaning “I assume.” The author of the article has found some more examples of the non-causative use of faxo and tried to find out which of De Melo’s suggestions is preferable. On the grounds of the grammaticalization principles suggested by Hopper and Heine, there has been traced the stages of grammaticalization of faxo in the language of Roman comedy, with particular attention to the broader context. It is demonstrated that the causative meaning which transpires in many examples tends to emerge in the “bridging contexts” of grammaticalization, while the transition to the semantics under consideration occurs at the following stage, i. e. in the “switch context”. Having analyzed all the occurrences of faxo against the broader contexts and comparative data from other languages, the author concludes that the rare sigmatic future faxo had over time become a semi-grammaticalized marker of the speaker’s stance, which allowed both evidential (inferential) and modal-epistemic interpretation

This article offers a linguistic commentary on the verse Verg. Aen. 9. 427 me, me, adsum qui feci, in me conuertite ferrum, in which the personal pronoun in the accusative needs interpretation. Since the time of Servius and Donatus, the opinions of commentators have been divided. Servius and his followers believe that the pronoun in the accusative is a direct complement that depends on an implied (omitted) verb like interficite, occidite, or petite, and consider this place as a rhetorical figure of aposiopesis. Donatus, on the other hand, argues that the accusative me, me is independent, while discontinuous intonation with which the whole verse must be uttered emphasizes the extreme degree of despair of Nisus, who cannot prevent the death of his beloved friend Euryalus. A review of the commentaries on the Aeneid shows that there are slightly more supporters of Donatus’ hypothesis than that of Servius’, but all of their reasoning is intuitive and does not explain why it is the syntactically independent accusative that gives the agitated sounding to Nisus’ last words. The author of the article applies the pragmatic approach to the interpretation of this place, analyzing similar examples of “non-syntactic” use of the accusative and considering both traditional and modern views on this phenomenon. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that the verse under consideration corresponds to what in modern linguistics is called “cleft construction”. Such constructions exist in different languages and serve to express the focus of contrast. At the end of the study, the author attempts to answer the question of why Latin employs the accusative as a tool to express intense emotions

In this paper, the Latin language is analyzed in the context of typology of object incorporation. The authors draw on the research of Mithun, who considers incorporation on the basis of two obligatory conditions: first, the noun must be embedded in the verb, and second, the language must have parallel syntactic paraphrases with non-incorporated noun. The second criterion is so important that the phenomenon of incorporation is acknowledged to exist even in those languages where there is no complete integration of the noun into the verb, but only a certain syntactic compactness, provided there are parallel constructions. The latter type has been coined “noun stripping” and has launched the division of incorporation into two types, viz. “strong” and “weak” incorporation. Another important point of divergence between the incorporating languages is the change of the argument structure of the source verb, namely, the preservation or loss of transitivity of the incorporated complex. Taking all these parameters into account, the authors propose a new typology of object incorporation, including languages that have not previously been considered in the context of this phenomenon. This typology is not based on a strict opposition of incorporating and non-incorporating languages, but represents a kind of continuum in which the place of a language depends on whether it demonstrates: 1) full incorporation or only a close syntactic Noun–Verb compactness; 2) the presence of parallel syntactic paraphrases; 3) the detransitivisation of the resulting compound verb. The authors examine each criterion in detail as applied to Latin and show the place of Latin in this typology