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
The paper analyzes the function of the prefix inter-, which allows to reduce the 15 main senses (described in the OLD) to the basic two. The sense of the prefix depends on the situation described with the compound: a) the situation of dividing space: ‘a border between two or more points disconnecting them’ (inter hostes flumen erat). Most of the verbs in this group are transitive and accompanied by a countable object: intercalare ‘to insert a day or month into the calendar’; interloqui ‘to interrupt, to speak between’. b) the situation of connected space: ‘all the space (or time) between two points connecting them within the same situation’ (inter arma tacent musae). The majority of these verbs are transitive and are used with an uncountable object: interbibere ‘to drink dry, drain’; interlegere ‘to pick off here and there, to thin’. Some verbs can have either sense depending on the context (interesse: a. ‘to lie between, intervene’ modo inter me atque te murus intersit (Cic. Cat. 1. 10.), b. ‘to be in the company of, to take part’ legit scripta de se carmina, legit historias, et posteritati suae interfuit (Plin. Ep. 2.1.2). On the basis of this classification principle four verbs are analyzed in which the meaning of the prefix inter- is unclear: interire, interficere, interimere, intellegere. Three of them have the prefix inter- in the sense of division and form pairs of compounds (an intransitive verb of state interire — a verb of action interimere, interficere). The verb intellegere has two senses as different stages of its semantic development: 1. ‘to choose between’, ‘to notice, discern’ and 2. ‘to collect together (all the parts)’ > ‘to grasp, understand (the whole picture of an object or a situation)’.
The article examines two expressions for the new moon in Latin, luna silens and luna sicca (or sitiens). Despite the unusual imagery behind the choice of these epithets, the expressions appear in unremarkable, technical contexts (mostly, in works on agriculture by Cato, Columella, Pliny the Elder) and denote this particular phase of the lunar cycle without any indication that the metaphors were perceived by speakers. The paper aims at explaining this paradox. It is shown that neither of these expressions was based on superstitions or popular lore. They reflected, in fact, an attempt to present the phase of the lunar cycle when the moon is invisible in contrast to other visible phases, which are easier to identify. Thus, luna silens was created by opposition to luna crescens “the waxing moon”, as denoting the moment before active, visible growth will begin. Luna sicca, on the other hand, was created by opposition to luna plena, “the full moon”, where the moon would be imagined as a vessel, gradually filled to its fullness by white light. Finally, luna sitiens was an expression, synonymic to luna sicca, created by analogy with luna silens. While these expressions were used as terms without any artistic effect, Augustan poets seem to have recognized their poetic potential and, on some occasions, put it to use (in particular, Verg. Aen. 2, 255 and Prop. 2, 17, 15).
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
One of the most famous academic conflicts in 17 th century Sweden was a quarrel between Johannes Schefferus and Olof Verelius in the 1670s concerning the original position of the city of Uppsala and its heathen temple, mentioned by Adam of Bremen. After a series of publications with mutual attacks Verelius published in 1678 a document entitled Annotationes ex scriptis Karoli Episcopi Arosiensis excerptae, pretending to go back to a lost medieval source. Schefferus answered with an analysis of the document, proving it to be a forgery. Despite Schefferus’ brilliant and convincing philological investigation, Annotationes have often been regarded as a genuine medieval source, especially after the publication of a monograph by the Swedish historian Kjell Kumlien in 1967. Recently, several historical and philological surveys have opposed Kumlien’s views, providing additional arguments in favour of Schefferus’ claims. This article aims at adding one more: an odd juncture in the text of Annotationes — ‘opus trium deorum’ that is to be understood as ‘a temple of three gods’ — can be explained by an ambition of the forger to imitate Adam of Bremen, whose text belonged to the central ones in the controversy.
The goal of the article is to review Dariusz R. Piwowarczyk’s recent works (2016; 2017; 2017 [bis]; 2019) on the origin of the Latin fifth declension, as well as to demonstrate the correctness of the dual explanation (Witczak 2015) not discussed or even mentioned by Piwowarczyk. The author is convinced that Latin, like other Indo-European languages, once had a separate dual number which disappeared in the pre-literary period. The loss of the dual number disturbed the declension system existing at the time and caused the need for the creation of a new declension class (the fifth declension). The laryngeal phoneme *h1 formed the basic dual ending in the Indo-European languages. Proto-Indo-European animate nouns of consonant stems created a strong form in the dual number, demonstrating the ending *-eh1 (hence IE. *-ē and Latin *-ē-), whereas inanimate nouns had a weak form (PIE. *-ih1, hence Lat. -ī in vīgintī ‘twenty’ and the oblique stem *-iē-, attested in Lat. aciēs, māteriēs etc.). Proto-Latin dual forms ending in *-ē (< PIE. *-eh1) referring to animate nouns, as well as dual forms ending in *-ī (< PIE. *-ih1) referring to inanimate nouns, underwent the process of collectivization and singularization: most of them gained the status of typical singularia tantum and then formed a separate class of nouns which had -ē- as the common feature. It is finally suggested that a large group of originally dual nouns (especially the so- called dualia tantum) formed the Latin fifth declension
In this article, twelve new emendations are offered on the text of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. At 1.454 non tactus is proposed for the unparalleled intactus; at 2.99 et partim is suggested for the awkward pars etiam; at 2.258 quomque (late-Republican cumque) is advanced for quemque; at 2.615 the metrically problematic inuenti sint is altered to inueniantur; at 2.733 the unique use of nigrant is dispensed with by reading the expected nigra sunt; at 3.267 et tamen is made more naturally adversarial as at tamen; at 3.774 ne fessa is altered to the more Lucretian defessa (reading ne for et earlier in the line); at 4.160 the unusual feminine celer (his) is altered to (his) celeris; at 4.306 (331) the difficult gerund insinuando is changed to the gerundive insinuandis; at 4.318 (343) multisque is replaced with the more idiomatic multoque; at 5.323 the stark phrase deminui debet recreari is reordered as debet deminui et recreari; finally, at 6.266 uementes is read for the otiose uenientes. The discussion proceeds on the basis of the universally accepted stemma, namely that the three Carolingian manuscripts (O, Q, S) are the sole manuscripts with textual authority. The more than fifty surviving Renaissance manuscripts ultimately derive from O, but they remain a fertile source for conjectures
Im Folgenden werden die Satzlehre-Bände der „Ausführlichen Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache“ von Raphael Kühner, die 1878/79 zuerst erschien und in ihrer Bearbeitung durch Carl Stegmann 1914 bis heute eine verbreitete Lateingrammatik ist, mit der neu erschienenen „Oxford Latin Syntax“ von Harm Pinkster in der Konzeption verglichen. Zwischen beiden Satzlehren aus sehr unterschiedlichen Zeiten und sprachwissenschaftlichen Kontexten gibt es natürlich deutliche Unterschiede: zunächst die andere Gesamtkonzeption, ferner die Art des Korpus, den Satzbegriff, die Stellung der Kasussyntax, nicht zuletzt die Behandlung infiniter Konstruktionen und schließlich den Geltungsbereich der Syntax. Von diesen Unterschieden abgesehen finden sich aber auch einige Gemeinsamkeiten: zunächst eine korpusbasierte Form, wonach beide Satzlehren ihre Ausführungen auf zahlreiche sprachliche Belege stützen. Zweitens steht die Einzelsprache des Lateinischen im Vordergrund und es bleibt wenig Raum für sprachliche Vergleiche. Drittens sind beide Satzlehren rein deskriptiv, was im Falle des Kühner-Stegmanns das Gegenteil zu normativ, im Falle der OLS aber zu formallinguistisch oder theorielastig bedeutet im Sinne formaler Ansätze der neueren Linguistik, womit etwa die verschiedenen Movement-Regeln der generativen Theorie gemeint sind. Ein wichtiges Ergebnis lautet, dass beide syntaktischen Ansätze legitim sind und beide mit wachem Methodenbewusstsein weiter gebraucht werden sollten, um Probleme der lateinischen Syntax zu lösen
This article attempts to provide an interpretation of a passage on the noun number written by the 5th-century grammarian Cledonius who composed a lemmatised commentary on Donatus’ Ars minor and Ars maior. The passage discussed here is a part of the explanation regarding the noun categories in Ars minor: Numerus, qui unum et plures demonstrat: et communis est numerus, qui et dualis dicitur apud Graecos, ut species facies res. (GL V 10. 19–20). Cledonius’ text confuses two terms dualis and communis, which normally signify different linguistic phenomena. Tim Denecker, whose article covers the history of the term dualis in Latin grammatical treatises, argues that dualis in this passage is indicating a pair and is equated to communis. The aim of the present work is to explain why these two terms have been confused. When comparing Greek and Latin, the Roman grammarians Charisius, Diomedes, Priscian, and Macrobius highlighted the absence of the dual number from Latin, whereas Donatus added it to the singular and plural exemplifying it with two nomina — duo and ambo. Having analysed all of Cledonius’ passages on dualis and communis and compared them with the original text of Donatus, one may notice that Cledonius did not make comments on Donatus’ observations concerning the dual number of duo and ambo. In the author’s view, the grammarian may have opined that the Latin language had no dual number at all, so that in his commentary Latin communis is juxtaposed to Greek dualis and both are opposed to singular and plural
The article addresses the pragmatic and sociolinguistic constraints of interrupting in Roman comedy. It starts with a redefinition of the phenomenon informed by the methods of Conversation Analysis (CA): apart from syntactically incomplete utterances (as a result of interruptions by others), the analysis also includes the cases of interruptions reported by the characters. Furthermore, a distinction is made between intrusive (disaligning) interventions and other forms of competitive turn encroachments. The term ‘interruptions’, however, has been reserved only for the former, antagonistic type which serves to express disagreement and disinterest or to usurp the speaking turn. Using the revised criteria, the article proceeds to comment on quantitative data extracted from all the extant plays by Plautus and Terence. Accordingly, interruptions are viewed in relation to gender, age and status of the speakers, whereas some more detailed analysis concerns male and female citizens, prostitutes and servants. After comparing every character’s share of talk with their proportional use of turn incursions (both collaborative and disruptive), it is argued that the violation of the turn-exchange system is significantly associated with some interlocutors and less so with others. The last section presents interrupting as a pragmatic means of exerting power in interaction while discussing the phenomenon also from a (sociolinguistic) cross-gender perspective
This article aims to put Latin impersonal passive into the context of covert categories, specifically pluractionality. I try to reanalyse six passages from the Roman grammatical texts, mostly compiled in Heinrich Keil’s Grammatici Latini, in which the meaning of Latin impersonal passives is considered. There are two groups of evidence. The first one (passages from Diomedes, Priscian, and frg. Bobiense de verbo) presents the impersonal passive as a linguistic strategy that shifts focus from an agent to a situation, while the second one (Diomedes and two excerpts of Servius’ commentaries on Virgil) concentrates upon the number of agents. In the last case, a verbal action is considered to be a collective one involving many people, and therefore, in my opinion, falls into the category of pluractionality. Being a diverse phenomenon, the term pluractionality includes participant plurality, which is realised either in a subject or in an object depending on whether the verb is intransitive or transitive. Intransitivity of the Latin impersonal passive forms, as it seems, may imply agent plurality rather than subject plurality, since impersonal passive constructions are subjectless. Furthermore, in my opinion, the evidence provided by Latin grammarians demonstrates a contraposition of the 1 st person singular, 1 st person plural and 3rd person singular passive forms
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