Latin linguistics

"Latijnse morfologie" bevat een volledige bespreking van de verbuigingen en vervoegingen van het klassieke Latijn. Ook talrijke relevante uitzonderingen en bijzonderheden die in vele schoolboeken onvermeld blijven, komen aan bod. Bijzondere aandacht wordt besteed aan de ontwikkelingen in het postklassieke Latijn.

Comparison of adjectives (and adverbs) is a grammatical category that has thus far received scant attention in Latin linguistics. Latin grammars (with few exceptions, cf. Pinkster, 2005, 47; Kühner/Holzweissig, 1912, 565-6; Neue/Wagener, 1891, 245-6) treat comparison as a category applicable to all adjectives and omit entirely the question of which adjectives can be compared and which cannot for semantic reasons. Nevertheless, data from modern languages show that the category of comparison of adjectives (and adverbs) is actually highly limited. Based on an extensive excerption of Latin texts (the employed corpus comprises more than 10,000 items marked as adjectives in the Oxford Latin Dictionary and all their occurrences throughout the database Bibliotheca Teubneriana Latina III), a rough estimate gives that comparative or superlative forms (synthetic and/or periphrastic) are attested in Latin in approximately 14% of adjectives, while both degrees are found in about 7% of adjectives. According to Pinkster and Kühner/Holzweissig, one of the semantic classes where comparison is excluded for semantic reasons is that of "adjectives with negative meaning". The Oxford Latin Dictionary contains 566 adjectives with the negative prefix in-. Of these 26.1% are attested to be gradable, which means that the proportion of attested gradable negative adjectives, contrary to the claims of the grammars, is actually higher than the proportion of attested gradable Latin adjectives in general. That being the case, this study aims to give a more convincing account of the gradability of negative adjectives than that afforded by the brief statements on this topic in Kühner/Holzweissig and Pinkster.

Se presenta una inscripción funeraria procedente del distrito minero de Almadén, con un nuevo cognomen greco-latino (Atota de Ἀτώτας) y perteneciente seguramente a una liberta. La adopción de nombres griegos para esclavos y libertos se trata de un fenómeno bien extendido por todo el Imperio. Las últimas investigaciones tienden a relativizar dicho fenómeno como prueba del origen real del personaje, de ahí que algunos no sean gentilicios reales y sean en realidad una simple moda de la época, especialmente a partir del último cuarto del siglo II d.C., por parte de los propietarios.

Pour nous, tessera ne peut être dérivé de  *τεσσαράγωνος puisque ce mot n'existe pas sous cette forme en grec. De plus, le diminutif tessella indique une formation plutôt d'origine populaire. Il faut dès lors chercher du côté de testa, tesson de bouteille. Le mot tessera, dont les premières occurrences sont des équivalents du grec ὅστρακον, se situe dans le même champ lexical que testa. Phonétiquement, l'assimilation régressive du groupe "rs" se retrouve dans quelques participes à partir du radical. Quant au suffixe -era, il se retrouve dans le latin hedera, lierre, ou de manière moins sûre, dans patera.

In this paper I investigate the diachronic development of the "fratris me pudet" (Ter. Ad. 391) construction type in Late Latin, with a view to exploring the factors that played a significant role in the analogical process that lead this impersonal pattern to be reinterpreted as personal and transitive over centuries. By comparing the kind of Stimuli typically associated with the pudet-type verbs and their specific meaning, I show that they differ in view of different degrees of agentivity, control and volitionality exerted by the Experiencer. Paenitet ‘to repent’ reveals itself as being the most agentive verb and this is why it underwent an early process of personalization, achieved only later by those verbs whose semantics implied a lower degree of rational involvement and control over the experience. This paper shows that semantic factors may influence the formal coding of a given verb and accelerate its syntactic reinterpretation, and explores in what terms such constructional changes took place in Late Latin.

Epigraphy is, in its essence, an act of writing, which implies the use of a specific alphabet and a codified language. The language of Latin inscriptions is often expressed in standard formulas, but it also shows different registers and variations owing to the communication goals of different epigraphic categories as well as to chronological and sociological variables Most of these aspects of the Latin Language do not emerge from the corpus of literary texts. Epigraphy thus represents an invaluable source for our knowledge of the evolutionary history, internal diversifications and the spoken dimension of Latin, an ancient corpus-based language. At the same time, philological knowledge plays a fundamental role in the editing of epigraphic texts This International Summer School aims to develop an awareness of the potential of the epigraphical evidence for philological and linguistic studies, without disregarding the archaeological and historical dimensions of inscriptions in light of sociolinguistic investigations. It provides participants with a basic knowledge in Latin Epigraphy and the main theoretical, methodological and practical tools for linguistic and philological research through epigraphic materials

(forthcoming publication)
The aim of this article is to show how statistical analysis can improve our knowledge of the language and style of the second book of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (astronomy). After a brief summary of previous studies on Pliny the Elder’s language and style, we introduce L.A.S.L.A. statistical tools and methods. In the second part we apply these tools to compare syntactically Naturalis Historia II and Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones VII, in order to highlight the main differences in the structure of the sentence, as well as pragmatic features which emerge on a statistical ground. In the last section, we proceed with a factorial correspondence analysis on a corpus of Latin texts, to show which texts are associated with Naturalis Historia II.

The paper provides the results of the historical and textual analysis of Carolingian glosses and corrections of Greek terms and sentences in the Ars Prisciani. Firstly, combining the increased know- ledge of the manuscript tradition of the Ars with research done on the study of Greek in learned (mostly Irish) Carolingian circles, it identifies both the manuscripts bearing glosses and conjectures on Greek words, and those containing the text for which those glosses and corrections were produced (the so-called recensio Scotica). Secondly, it clarifies the relationships between marginal annotations in Priscian’s witnesses and the collections of Graeca Prisciani, transmitted by mss. Laon 444 and Wien 114. Lastly it recognises different exegetical strands which can be traced back to John Scotus and other medieval scholars. This inquiry both reveals the limited reliability of some manuscripts for the recon- struction of Priscian’s text, and contributes new material to the long-debated issue of the knowledge of Greek in the Western Middle Ages.

The main objective of this paper is to elucidate within Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights which – and how many – different meanings both the adjective hūmānus, –a, –um and the substantive hūmānitās have. I also analyse if the author is always consequent with the definition he himself gives in Gellius 13, 17. Finally, I also try to elucidate, based on a lexicographic perspective and following the footsteps of Beall, Holford-Strevens and Marache, if it is possible or not to talk about a Gellian Humanism.

This Excel file is a WORK IN PROGRESS on Indo-European basic lexicon, aligning PIE reconstructions from IEW, LIV and Mallory-Adams with intermediate reconstructions of IE sub-families found in several other sources (mainly Brill / Leiden etymological dictionaries): see dedicated sheet for details on sources.
Reconstructions with a green background have more complete data than those with a white background.
This DRAFT database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to explore external genetic relationships between Indo-European languages and other language families.

Les Dialectes indo-européens sont un des ouvrages parmi les plus importants d'Antoine Meillet. Il y expose sa doctrine sur des points difficiles, parfois controversés et sur lesquels, dans certains cas, il n'y a pas encore de consensus. Tout étudiant en grammaire comparée doit l'avoir lu. Il retrace les apparentements au sein de la famille indo-européenne et les influences de contacts que les différentes branches ont exercé l'une sur l'autre à date ancienne : les archaïsmes et les innovations, les périodes intermédiaires de communauté et, à l'occasion, les évolutions parallèles suivies par des groupes distincts. On sait maintenant qu'à l'arbre généalogique vertical en deux dimension inauguré par August Schleicher, il faut substituer, ou plutôt il faut compléter par des coupes horizontales, à un temps donné, dudit arbre : des rameaux initialement divergents ont pu s'influencer plus haut dans la ramure. Cela est particulièrement vrai du groupe balte et du groupe slave. Le dialectologie qui s'occupe de phonétique, de morphologie et de vocabulaire est au coeur de la grammaire comparée puisqu'elle présente un panorama général des relations entre les langues d'une même famille, en montrant ce qui les rapproche et ce qui les distingue. La première édition des Dialectes date de 1908 et la réimpression augmentée, de 1922. Le texte présenté ici a été entièrement recomposé dans sa dernière version. Celle-ci était la reproduction telle quelle de la première édition mais contenait un avant-propos de vingt pages de mise à jour avec des remarques complémentaires données chapitre par chapitre. On a, dans cette édition recomposée, inséré les compléments et remarques finales de l' « Avant-propos de la réimpression » à la fin de chaque chapitre concerné, pour faciliter le suivi de sa démonstration sur un sujet donné.

Il lavoro indaga le possibili relazioni tra Parca Maurtia, attestata su un'epigrafe da Tor Tignosa, e Morta, divinità menzionata in un frammento dell'Odusia di Livio Andronico, proponendo una nuova etimologia per il teonimo Maurtia e una possibile spiegazione per Morta.

Based upon the corpus of Classical and Hellenistic Greek, the goal of this study is to analyze the lexicon of fraternity both in its diachronic evolution and from the point of view of linguistic typology. The lexicon of fraternity in Classical Greek and in non-semiticized Koine Greek can be compared to that of Classical Latin, where the word frater is free from any hyperonymical function and refers to the son of either one or both parents of the person one is referring to. The situation in Septuagintal Greek and New Testament Greek, by contrast, is similar to that of Vietnamese, where the word corresponding to ἀδελφός works as an hyperonym of the different "relatives" within the lexicon of fraternity.
Fondé sur le corpus du grec classique et hellénistique, cet article tente de préciser le lexique de la fraternité en grec, dans son évolution diachronique, en fonc-tion de la typologie linguistique. L'organisation du vocabulaire de la fraternité en grec classique et en grec koinè non sémitisé rapprochent ces états de langue d'un idiome tel que le latin classique où le terme frater, dénué de toute fonction hype-ronymique, désigne le fils de l'un ou des deux géniteurs de la personne de réfé-rence. Le grec de la Septante et celui du Nouveau Testament sont en revanche comparables à une langue telle que le vietnamien où le terme qui correspond à ἀδελφός assume dans la structure du vocabulaire de la fraternité la fonction d'hyperonyme de la proche parenté.

In this paper we investigate different types of argument-structure constructions associated with so-called experiential predicates in Early Vedic, Homeric Greek and Early Latin. We argue that the broad range of argument-realisation patterns associated with experiential verbs in these languages reflects the fact that experiential predicates differ in fundamental respects from prototypically transitive verbs which we take to represent the perhaps most salient verb type in natural language. We survey the most important construction types attested in the domain of experience in the languages under scrutiny with particular regard to recurrent paths of association between experiential verb classes and their argument-realisation options. Finally, on the basis of our data we provide some proposals regarding the main tendencies in the linguistic organisation of this complex functional domain in Proto-Indo-European.

This paper aims at describing the characteristics of the present participle structures depending on perception verbs in Latin. The functional development and the diffusion of these structures will be investigated in a corpus of Latin texts ranging from the times of Plautus to the tenth century. An overview of the characteristics of these constructions in medieval Italian, French, and Castilian will also be provided. Given the particular nature of the evolution of present participles in the transition between Latin and the Romance languages, in the sections of the paper devoted to the analysis of Italian, French, and Castilian, concurrent gerundival constructions will be taken into account as well. Within this framework, the relationship between the cultural, linguistic and stylistic reference models of the investigated texts proved to be of crucial importance for the analysis of the diffusion of present participle structures.

L'obiettivo principale di questo contributo è quello di proporre una descrizione dell’evoluzione dell'uso delle strutture con participio presente dipendenti da verbi di percezione in latino, seguendo un arco diacronico che va da Plauto fino al medioevo centrale. Sarà inoltre presentato un quadro generale delle caratteristiche assunte da queste costruzioni (e, date le peculiarità dell’evoluzione del participio presente nel passaggio dal latino alle lingue romanze, da quelle gerundivali loro concorrenti) in italiano, in castigliano e in francese medievali. In particolar modo, nell’analisi della diffusione delle strutture indagate, sono stati tenuti in conto aspetti come la tipologia testuale e il rapporto con i modelli culturali, linguistici e stilistici di riferimento, che sono risultati essere cruciali.

The article aims to answer the question of what evidence we have for the assertion repeated in modern textbooks concerned with Latin phonetics, namely that the Latin r was the so called alveolar trill or vibrant [r], such as e.g. the Italian r. The testimony of Latin authors is ambiguous: there is the evidence in support of this explanation, but also that testifying rather to the contrary. The sound changes related to the sound r in Latin afford evidence of the Latin r having indeed been alveolar, but more likely alveolar tap/flap than trill.

RÉSUMÉ.—Dans cette contribution, je propose une étymologie totalement nouvelle du mot cælebs adj. qui n’a – selon moi – rien à faire avec le skr. class. kevala- « seul, unique » et dont le second membre n’a rien à faire non plus avec le présent germ. com. *liƀ-ǣjanan « vivre » (classe III des verbes faibles), lequel repose sur un étymon i.-e. *lip-eh1-yé/ó- « rester collé, se trouver ». Je propose de voir dans le lat. cælebs l’avatar d’une forme ‘plébéienne’ *cæ=libet (= lat. stand. quæ=libet), attendu que cælebs quælibet facit. Ce serait en propre une sorte de dérivé délocutoire, à la manière du fr. je-m’en-foutiste ou du skr. aham-uttara-tva- n. « égoïsme » (formé sur *aham uttaraḥ « moi d’abord, moi en premier »). La délabialisation de qu- en c- s’explique par l’analogie des formes à voyelles arrondies (soit lat. quōs prononcé [kōs] et non pas [kwōs] dans la langue parlée). Précisons que cette forme de n. pl. *cæ est l’ancêtre de l’italien che, qui est non-élucidé à ce jour.

EPITOME.—In hoc articulo, nouissimam ἐτυμολογίαν Latini adiectiui cælibis proponi mihi uisum est, neganti id cognatum habendum esse Sanscriti adiectiui kevalasya « unici », ac reputanti secundam partem illius falsi compositi nihil ad uerbum *liƀ-ǣjanan « colere, uiuere » Germanici Communis pertinere, quod uerbum classis tertiæ uerborum debilium est : etenim id ab Indo-Europæo uerbo essiuo *lip-eh1-yé/ó- « adhærendo, manendo », prius quam colere aut uiuere ualeret, exstitisse constat. Propositum igitur nostrum in eo continetur, ut Latinum illud uerbum cælebs ad plebeianum sermonem quondam pertinuisse uideatur, et e locutione *cæ=libet (quod urbane quæ=libet recte dicitur) ortum sit, quia cælebs quælibet facit. Quod uerbum adfirmauerim e locutione cum uerbo finito factum, uelut Gallice je-m’en-foutiste aut Sanscrito sermone ahamuttara-tva- « amor sui » dici solet (nam istud ex *aham-uttara- « ego primus » factum esse uidetur). Non dubitandum autem quin littera qu- in uulgari sermone in c- corrupta sit, per ἀναλογίαν aliarum formarum uocales anteriores exhibentium : etenim accusatiuum plurale quōs [kōs] pro [kwōs] plebeiano ore sonabat. Hoc denique addendum sit, quod eo pronomine neutro plurali *cæ Italicum uerbum che, cuius origo adhuc non patet, explicari possit.

This article presents an assignment in narratological analysis and interpretation
of short narrative texts in Latin and Greek. Students analyze the use
of four narratological techniques in a narrative text. Their analysis results in a
tension graph, which is meant to facilitate their interpretation of the narrative.
Moreover, this tension graph presents them with a formal scheme of short narratives,
which will help them to read texts that are similarly structured. In this
assignment, the text is presented to students both in the original language and in
translation. Using this didactic form, pupils who are able to skim and scan a text
in Dutch will learn how to skim and scan a text in Greek or Latin.

The present chapter is devoted to the analysis of syntactic peculiarities found in the corpus of Latin tabellae defixionum, especially the use of the names of cursed persons in the nominative or accusative. In this kind of epi-graphic material related to magical practices, we find Vulgar Latin spelling and morphosyntactic features as well as deviations in the syntactic structures, which are variously combined and interfere with one another. These peculiarities are often caused by specific rules that are based on the magical character of the texts and their use during cursing rituals. The education of the practitioners may also have played a role. The main goal of this chapter is to provide some possible explanations for the deviations in Latin syntax and the strong tendency to use the proper names of the cursed persons in the nominative, apparently without any regard to the syntactic requirements of the predicate. In the first part of the chapter (Section 1), a basic description, a taxonomy, and cursing "rules" are provided; in the second part (Sections 2-2.3), the syntax of the curse texts is discussed-the occurrence of the nominative and the accusative in name lists as well as irregularities caused by Vulgar Latin development. Finally, I discuss the tendency to isolate proper names, sometimes also in the layout of the tablets, likely occasioned by "magical" requirements (Sections 2.4-2.7).

Oratory and rhetoric are the most appropriate fields to test the lexical specialization of the verbs declamo and recito: declamo describes preparatory exercises of oratory itself; on the opposite hand, recito is referred to the reading of speeches, which are definitely fixed in a written version. Indeed recito always presupposes the presence of a written text. The exam of the occurrences of the phrase orationem (et sim.) recitare provides a sample not only of the evolution of the meaning of such verb but also of the changes that oratory underwent.

The Manuscript and the Meandering Mind.
This article answers frequent inquiry about how the solutions were found for the writing system and language of Medieval manuscript MS408, as described in the peer-reviewed Romance Studies journal paper titled: The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained. (Cheshire, 2019) As finding the solutions was largely intuitive, then explaining how it was done is something of a challenge in and of itself. The first detail is that no effort was invested in researching previous attempts by other scholars, working on the simple logic that they must already have covered all possible combinations of potential letter symbols and languages, given that so many had tried over so many years. It was therefore possible to reason that the solution required an intuitive approach. So, the starting point was to consider the manuscript afresh, with an open mind, unpolluted by the ideas of others or any prior linguistic rules. The metaphorical canvas was left entirely blank to allow complete freedom and flux in ideas and thought experimentation. The methodology was initially straightforward. All manuscript symbols were recorded, by examining every page, until no new symbols could be found. Relative counts of the symbols were then made, by using a couple of pages, in order to get an idea of their likely correspondence with letters in the Italic alphabet, based on the notion that the manuscript was probably southern European, given the visual information provided by the manuscript illustrations, such as the human figures, their clothing and their material culture. It was found that some of the symbols had far higher frequencies of occurrence than others and were therefore likely to be the vowels. They were also diminutive is size, suggesting vowels. However, there were more than five, so it was postulated that they probably represented pronuncial variants that are now distinguished by accents. Thus, it made sense to have two letter 'a' variants and three letter 'e' variants, with letters 'i', 'o' and 'u' as single symbols. It also became apparent that one symbol combined 'ae', which logically represented