In this paper, a methodological issue is considered concerning the corpus of texts bearing witness to “spoken Latin”. Within this corpus there are also some texts that have been neglected up until now, stemming from shorthand records of spoken utterances: all of them — either dialogal or monologal — share a conversational allure, that allows the singling out of both universal and historical features of spoken (late) Latin. One of these texts, the Gesta concilii Aquileiensis, is then examined: the shorthand report of a Church council summoned in AD 381, where a lively debate is recorded among bishops supporting opposite views — Catholic vs. Arian — of the divinity of Christ. The survey on the universal traits of orality surfacing in the Gesta focuses on the textual-pragmatic, the syntactic and the semantic levels. It leads to interesting results, concerning above all syntax (prominence of parataxis, and of descendent order of the phrasal constituents within the complex sentence, i. e. independent clause > dependent clause) and semantics (lack of lexical innovation; inclination for expressive words). Despite the undeniably formal — and sometimes even formulaic — character of the dialogue, I would argue that the Gesta allow us to listen as it were to the voices of a group of cultured bishops animatedly discussing subtle theological matters
This present paper is concerned with the causal/instrumental uses of faciente + (pro)nominal head within an ablative absolute. We only examine the instances in which the participle does not govern a direct object and is not accompanied by further arguments and/or satellites, as in Jer. In psalm. 89 l. 28 qui per peccatum cecidit, diabolo faciente, rursum per Christum resurgat ad gloriam (“he who fell through sin under devil’s influence, shall soon be reborn to the Glory through Christ”). The analysis is restricted to the imperial and late period because the construction is not attested until Ovid (Met. 2, 540–541 lingua faciente loquaci / qui color albus erat, nunc est contrarius albo “through his tongue’s fault the talking bird, which was white, was now the opposite of white”, transl. Loeb). The discussion consists of four main sections. After a short survey of the main studies on the topic, we introduce the analysed corpora, the selection criteria of the data and the overall results. In section 5 we discuss some possible reasons behind the origin of the syntagm. Subsequently, the use and expansion of the syntagm in later centuries is analysed in the light of recent studies on the reanalysis of participles as prepositions. We show that faciente began a categorial shift into the class of causal/instrumental prepositions, but for reasons that shall be explained, this process remained unaccomplished. In the last section, we make a brief comparison with other absolute ablatives that include semantically related participles (operante, instigante, praestante), pointing out the main differences between them
In her critical edition of the Passio Nazarii, Celsi, Geruasii et Protasii (BHL 6043), a text dated to the 6th or 7th century AD and probably translated from Greek, Cecile Lanéry introduces several conjectural changes aimed at language standardization. The author of the present article takes issue with several of her conjectures and suggests that in each case the transmitted text actually stands criticism and should probably be left unchanged. At 2.3, the transmitted alapas is not to be changed to alapis with percutio, since percutio with both the accusative of direct object and the accusative of a word meaning “blow” is several times reliably attested in the Vetus Latina, and in one of these instances the word used for “blow” is actually alapa. At 5.1, et in the expression uocans Nazarium et dixit ei should not be deleted, since there are numerous parallels for this syntax in Late Latin. At 8.2, in carcerem is to be retained as a possible way to describe position in Late Latin, whether confusion of expressions denoting position and direction or hypercorrect graphic -m is at issue. At 12.1, the form imperatori is to be retained as a possible orthographic variant for the ablative in Late Latin
This piece studies the Portuguese version of the so-called Notarial Latin, the Latin of medieval documents. The author briefly overviews the reasons why these written records have been scarcely explored — the low availability of texts, the unreliability of existing editions and the perception of Notarial Latin as a corrupted language. The chronological framework of Notarial Latin, its correlation with Late and Medieval Latin and its sociolinguistic peculiarities are described. It is suggested to primarily focus on the morphosyntax of Notarial Latin. The results of the analysis of eighteen texts created between 1033 and 1183 are then presented followed by the analysis of various deviations from the grammatical norm of Latin caused by the interference of Galician-Portuguese. In nominals, there is a violation of the norms for the use of some prepositions (foremost, the preposition de). The case system generally remains. In the verb system, the regular use of Latin Futurum II in the function of the Portuguese Futuro de Conjuntivo which developed on its basis is evident. However, contrary to expectations, there are practically no traces of Romance verb analyticity. On the syntactic level, there is a tendency towards the SVO word order. The frequent cases of Romance interference indicate supposedly the most profound transformations that took place during the formation of Galician-Portuguese from vernacular Latin. It is concluded that the study of Notarial Latin is promising for a contrastive typology of Latin and Romance languages