Schedule

• Monday 2^nd September
• Tuesday 3^rd September
• Wednesday 4^th September
• Thursday 5^th September
• Friday 6^th September

Monday 2nd September

from 14.00	Registration
15.30-16.00	Plenary room: Opening Session
16.00-16.30	Where you are: Lexicography at the BAdW: Thesaurus linguae Latinae TLL + Medieval Latin Dictionary MLW
16.30-17.30	Plenary room lecture: Galdi: On ‘manner of speaking’ verbs: how to prattle in (late) Latin (abstract) Chair: Selig
17.45-20.00	Opening Reception

Tuesday 3rd September

from 08.00	Registration
09.00-10.00	Plenary room lecture: Risselada: Conversational and reported storytelling in Latin comedy and beyond (abstract) Chair: Ottink
	Plenary room	Ludwig Traube room	Ida Kapp room	Library
	sociolinguistic perspectives Chair: Pocetti	lexicology Chair: García Leal	morphosyntax Chair: Haverling	Workshop The Latin of the Vulgate Chair: Tronci
10.00-10.30	Van Uytfanghe: La transition latino-romane, ou la guéguerre qui perdure entre ‘procrastinateurs’ et ‘précipitateurs’ (abstract)	Panagl: Zu einigen politischen Begriffen und Wertvokabeln in der späte(re)n Latinität (abstract)	De Gregorio: Nominal adjectives in -atus in Apicius’ De re coquinaria (abstract)	Bortolussi & Sznajder:Opening Quand le calque n'a pas d'équivalent en latin: les biblismes du type in saecula saeculorum (abstract)
10.30-11.00	coffee break
	sociolinguistic perspectives Chair: Pocetti	lexicology Chair: García Leal	morphosyntax Chair: Haverling	Workshop The Latin of the Vulgate Chair: Tronci
11.00-11.30	Cannata: Vulgo dicitur: latin or vernacular? Naming languages (VIXIIIth c.) (abstract)	Marchionni: For a new Edition of The Latin sexual vocabulary of J. N. Adams: Some suggestions (abstract)	Pultrová: Once again on periphrastic gradation in Latin: the case of plus (abstract)	Nuti: Some lexical and syntactic features of the Vulgata, compared to the Greek version and to Classical Latin: possessive sentences, situative verbs, motion verbs (abstract)
11.30-12.00	Kiss: Niveau de langue et technique du récit dans quelques textes latins du Haut Moyen Âge (abstract)	Jiménez & Melis: On the semantic space of mitto, iacio, pono and their compounds in Late Latin: history of a paradigm under reorganization (abstract)	Ceolin: Miximus in lecto – The extension of the nasal Present infix into the Perfect stem according to the evidence in the graffiti of Pompei (abstract)	La Roi: Insubordinate morphosyntax in the Vulgate: between contact and diachrony (abstract)
12.00-12.30	Sornicola: I papiri italiani relativi a donazioni. Strutture linguistiche e implicazioni sociolinguistiche (abstract)	Pompei & Pagliara: Use and disuse of ago in Late Latin (abstract)	Spieralska: Les «irrégularités» dans les syntagmes verbaux dans la chronique dite de Frédégaire (abstract)	Mikulova: Direct discourse marking in Jerome’s works (abstract)
12.30-14.30	Lunch Pfälzer Weinstube
	sociolinguistic perspectives Chair: Greco	lexicology Chair: Risselada	morphosyntax Chair: De Paolis	Workshop The Latin of the Vulgate Chair: Persig
14.30-15.00	Cennamo: Existential have in Late Latin in the passage to Romance (abstract)	Nuti: Andare (et sim.). A Romance etymological crux from a Late Latin perspective (abstract)	Dascalu: Aperçu sur le système prépositionnel dans l’œuvre de Grégoire de Tours (abstract)	Tronci: The translation of Greek substantival participles in the Vulgate (abstract)
15.00-15.30	Reichle:La concurrence entre le (pseudo-)réfléchi et le médio-passif dans le codage de la voix moyenne dans la latinité mérovingienne (abstract)	Dell’Oro & Magni: Licet sero: on narrow-scope licet in Late Latin (abstract)	Szlovicsák: The Effect of Other Linguistic Changes on the Transformation of the Vulgar Latin Gender System (abstract)	Dahl: The aspectual reference of the present participle in the Vulgate (abstract)
15.30-16.00	Ongenae: Anticausativization in Late Latin (200-600): semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic properties of its diachrony (abstract)	Shedd: The Long Conversation: Reconceiving re- in Late Antiquity (abstract)	Dalbera: Les marques de fermeture du Discours Direct dans le roman latin ; Le bornage terminal du Discours Direct dans la narration romanesque latine (abstract)	Zheltova: The imperfect of delayed awareness in the language of the Vulgate (abstract)
16.00-16.30	coffee break Guided Tours TLL library & archive: English + German (registration at conference desk)
	sociolinguistic perspectives Chair: Pieroni	lexicology Chair: Moretti	morphosyntax Chair: Spangenberg Yanes	Workshop The Latin of the Vulgate Chair: Dahl
16.30-17.00	Cañas Reíllo: El sistema deíctico en la Vetus Latina (abstract)	Beghini: The diminutive palmula and its uses in Latin language (abstract)	Vendel: Three forms of discontinuity and their use in later Latin (abstract)	Hoffmann: Support verb constructions in the Old Testament of the Vulgate (abstract)
17.00-17.30	Cuzzolin: Further reflections on the development of unus: from numeral to indefinite article (abstract)	Gordon: Lat. basilica in Late Latin Christian literature (abstract)	Barta & Urbanová: Domna Artemix … solbe katena tuas… Some remarks on the inscription of a magical nail from the British Museum (abstract)	Riesco Garcia: Credidi propter quod locutus sum. Crēdō´s predication(s) and alternation(s) in the Latin Vulgate (abstract)
17.30-18.00	Orlandini & Poccetti: À l’origine du mode conditionnel : un opérateur TAM (abstract)			Catalano: Latin Translations of Strong Causal Clauses introduced by יַַעַן in the Hebrew Bible. Standard Renditions and Variability (abstract)

Wednesday 4^th September

	Plenary room	Ludwig Traube room	Ida Kapp room	Library
	Grammarians Chair: Sornicola		Authors and their language Chair: Orlandini	Workshop The Latin of the Vulgate Chair: Nuti
09.00-09.30	Loporcaro & Onorato: Ancora sul collasso tardo-latino della quantità vocalica distintiva: un riesame delle testimonianze metalinguistiche (abstract)		Brembilla: The Gynaecia of Mustio - the linguistic challenges of a new critical edition. (abstract)	Galdi: The rendering of μέλλω in the Vulgate New Testament (abstract)
09.30-10.00	Pieroni: Nomen proprium as a metalinguistic term (abstract)		Di Marco: Biceps prolocutio. Innovazione lessicale e polemica filosofica nel De statu animae di Claudiano Mamerto (abstract)	Gordon: Rendering Gr. κτίσις and κτίσμα in Vulgate. The Curious Case of creatio (abstract)
10.00-10.30	Moretti: Nomina communia, nomina promiscua. Late Latin grammarians as taking advantage of ancient natural lore (abstract)		Pizzotti: Anonymi cuiusdam uox: per una caratterizzazione linguistica del cosiddetto Fragmentum Censorini (abstract)	Logozzo: Will and desire in the NT (abstract)
10.30-11.00	coffee break
	Grammarians Chair: Van Uytfanghe	Authors and their language Chair: Magni	editorial perspectives Chair: Zilverberg	Workshop The Latin of the Vulgate Chair: Nuti
11.00-11.30	Biville: ‘Pedo pedunculus’ (Priscien, Ars 2,108,12) - Une énigme lexicale et ses échos romans (abstract)	Duarte: From the language of Pliny the Elder to its reception in Late Latin language: the example of the Medicina Plinii (abstract)	Gașpar: Whose Late Latin? Recovering Late-antique Linguistic Data from Medieval Manuscript Evidence: The Case of the Versio Vetustissima of the Latin Vita. s. Antonii (abstract)	Persig: The Vulgate text of 1 Corinthians and its Greek source text (abstract)
11.30-12.00	Spangenberg Yanes: The Contradictions of the Grammarian: Priscian and the Ablative Singular of the Third Declension (abstract)	Wolff: Traits de latin tardif chez Fulgence le Mythographe (abstract)	Cioffi: Fra traduzione e tradizione: problemi filologici e linguistici ed elementi per la datazione di un testo geografico in doppia redazione

Excursion to Freising.

Thursday 5^th September

09.00-10.00	Plenary room lecture: De Melo: From final to causal: the genesis of a new type of subjunctival relative clause in Plautus and Terence Chair: Holmes
	Plenary room	Ludwig Traube room	Ida Kapp room	Library
	juridical latin Chair: Willms	corpus linguistics and digital methodology Chair: Cuzzolin	language contact Chair: Molinelli	Workshop Highlights of Barbarism Chair: De Paolis
10.00-10.30		Litta Modignani & Moretti & Passarotti: First Steps towards Interlinking the digilibLT in the LiLa Knowledge Base (abstract)	Bechet: Penser Grec, parler Latin. Phénomène délibéré ? (abstract)	Biville: Peut-on parler de barbarisme ‘énonciatif’? (abstract)
10.30-11.00	coffee break
11.00-11.30	Nemes: ‘Stibulacione subnexa’, not even a fossilized legal formula can withstand Vulgar Latin phenomena (abstract)	Greco & Cotugno & Giuliani: Nuovi strumenti per la lessicografia latina e romanza: la documentazione latina medievale di area italiana e il progetto MEDITA (abstract)	Goethals: Code-switching in Latin technical texts from the classical period:  intratextual and extratextual motivations (abstract)	De Paolis: Treatises on barbarism in Latin grammarians between literary examples and sub-standard language (abstract)
11.30-12.00	Lee: Pongo mea hereditate: The curious use of Romance pongo, and other curiosities, in an 11th century Iberian notarial document (abstract)	Korkiakangas & Valentini & Guardamagna: A corpus-based approach to grammaticalization and defunctionalization in late Latin: prospects and challenges (abstract)	Rochette: Les hellénismes syntaxiques dans l’Expositio totius mundi et gentium et l’enseignement du latin comme L² dans la Pars Orientis (abstract)	El Matouni: La trattazione del barbarismo nell’Ars grammatica di Carisio (abstract)
12.00-14.30	Lunch 12.30 Guided tours: - Monumenta Germaniae Historica (for registered persons only) - Residence (for registered persons only) - Coin Collection (for registered persons only) - TLL library & archive: English + Latin (registration at conference desk)
	latin inscriptions Chair: Adamik	corpus linguistics and digital methodology Chair: De Melo	language contact Chair: Arias Abellán	Workshop Highlights of Barbarism Chair: Rochette
14.30-15.00	Zair: Hyper-correct aspiration: evidence from the tablets of Caecilius Jucundus (abstract)	Longrée: Phrasème pragmatiques et expression de la défense dans la correspondance de Cicéron : des traces d'oralités (?) à l'aune de la textométrie (abstract)	Lavie-Driver: Translating Greek Particles in the Latin Josephus (abstract)	Morresi & Zago: Evoluzioni della dottrina tardoantica sul barbarismo (abstract)
15.00-15.30	Kunčer: Semantic Aspects of Latin Inscriptions in Dalmatia and Moesia Superior (abstract)	Lunardi: A computational approach to the study of semantic change in Latin: the case of Christian Latin vocabulary (abstract)	Glavan & Serreqi Jurić: Vulgar Latin Characteristics in the Works of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (abstract)	Müller: Hieronymus und das Konzept der latinitas (abstract)
15.30-16.00	Widzgowski: Afrae aures: Latin Inscriptions and Curse Tablets in Carthago with a Comparative Glimpse on the Province of Mauretania Caesariensis (abstract)	Schöffel & Wiedner: Simulating the development of Grammatical Gender in the transition from Latin to Old Occitan: Seq2seq-approach (abstract)		Merlin: The class of pronouns between barbarism and solecism (abstract)
16.00-16.30	coffee break
	latin inscriptions Chair: Zheltova	Romance and vulgar etymologies Chair: Tantimonaco	christian latin Chair: Pultrová	Workshop Highlights of Barbarism Chair: Galdi
16.30-17.00	Smith: How should women’s names decline in Latin inscriptions (abstract)	Calvo del Olmo: La denominación de los primeros cinco días de la semana en el latín de la Gallaecia: entre la emergencia del sistema portugués y la persistencia de los nombres paganos (abstract)	Zilverberg: Christus imago? Uses of Imago to Signify Imperfection and Perfection, in the Latin Fathers from the Third to the Fifth Century (abstract)	Biondi: Ortografia e ortoepia nel Medioevo grammaticale latino: alcune considerazioni (abstract)
17.00-17.30			Parkes: The Reception of Tertullian (abstract)	Cotticelli-Kurras: Perspectives on barbarism from Augustine to Petrus Helias (abstract)

Friday 6^th September

09.00-10.00	Plenary room lecture: Rosellini: Sordida verba in contesti retorici e letterari Chair: Schrickx
	Plenary room	Ludwig Traube room	Ida Kapp room	Library
	latin inscriptions Chair: Urbanová	Vulgar Latin Chair: Kiss	Early medieval latin Chair: Wehr	Workshop Current Challenges in Teaching LVLT Chair: Guardamagna
10.00-10.30	Muccioli: Latino su pietra : le testimonianze di Firenze e dintorni (abstract)	Jacob: L’esthétique «fractale» de l’Aube bilingue de Fleury (BAV Reg.lat.1462) (abstract)	Haverling: The language of Gregory of Tours and the manuscripts (abstract)	Cotugno & Cotticelli-Kurras:The borders of the adverbium between praepositio and coniunctio in Notker’s perspective (abstract)
10.30-11.00	coffee break
	latin inscriptions Chair: Galdi	Workshop Highlights of Barbarism Chair: Cotticelli	Early medieval latin Chair: Müller	Workshop Current Challenges in Teaching LVLT Chair: Sornicola
11.00-11.30	Tantimonaco: Uses and Notations of Z in the Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age (abstract)	Melazzo: Exploring Barbarisms in the Harley Glossary (abstract)	Fiedler: Spuren des Vulgärlateinischen in der Regula pastoralis Gregors des Großen (abstract)	Harjunpää: Teaching the government of nouns to L2 students in the Late Antiquity and in the early 12th century (abstract)
11.30-12.00	Willms: Durocortorum Vulgare: Linguistic Change and Cultural Integration in the Non-Standard Latin Inscriptions of Reims (abstract)	Paulus: Il cambiamento della quantità vocalica nei barbarismi secondo la tradizione grammaticale. (abstract)	Reisdoerfer: Gesprochenes und Geschriebenes Spätlatein in Arles während des V2. – VI1. s. PCN (abstract)	El Matouni: Teaching Latin in the Early Medieval Ireland: the case of the Anonymus ad Cuimnanum (abstract)
12.00-12.30	Tasso: I carmina epigraphica commatica nordafricani di IV-V secolo d. C.: fra prosa, prosodia classica e poesia accentuativa (abstract)	Schmauser: Der Barbarismus und seine Bedeutung für die volkssprachliche Grammatikschreibung in Italien. Aspekte der Rezeption lateinischer Vorbilder (abstract)	Raschieri & Cofano: Subordinate clauses with verba sentiendi et declarandi in Late Antiquity: the cases of Ennodius and Cassiodorus (abstract)	Korkiakangas & Alho: Teaching Vulgar and Late Latin in Finnish Universities: History and Current Challenges (abstract)
12.30-14.00	Lunch 12.45 Guided Tours TLL library & archive: English + Italian (registration at conference desk)
	latin inscriptions Chair: Longrée	medieval lexicology Chair: Kokiagangas	syntax Chair: Nuti	Workshop Current Challenges in Teaching LVLT Chair: Cuzzolin
14.00-14.30	García Leal: Una inscripción mitraica en el conventus Asturum: problemática sobre la reconstrucción e interpretación de un texto latino-vulgar tardío (abstract)	García Hernández: El origen latino del galorromace gauta > fr. joue ‘mejilla’ y su discutida relación con el lat. gabăta > fr. jatte ‘escudilla’ (abstract)	Mastriani: The (Didactic) Imitation Game: A Psychodynamic Practice (abstract)	Tantimonaco: Teaching LVLT: A new challenge for the secondary school? (abstract)
14.30-15.00	Papini: On the merger of the front- and back-vowels in the Latin of Rome. Relative chronology (abstract)	Maciag-Fiedler: Stella erratica or planeta? The Terms from Late to Medieval Latin (abstract)	Arias Abellán: Participio de presente en lugar de verbo en forma personal: análisis de esta innovación sintáctica. Su presencia en el Itinerario tardío y cristiano del Pseudo Antonino de Piacenza (abstract)	Aerts & Callens: Per varia ad classica: preliminary insights in attitudinal and didactic aspects of late Latin texts in the new Flemish curriculum (abstract)
15.00-15.30	Adamik: The transformation of the vowel system in Hispanic Latin with a focus on vowel mergers as evidenced in inscriptions (abstract)	Canin & Garnier: Sur les noms de la courtisane en latin médiéval (abstract)	Wehr: Word order in Merovingian Latin (abstract)	Guardamagna & Zambianchi: Is there an appetite for (Late) Latin in an English Catholic college? (abstract)
15.30-16.00	Plenary room: Ceremony 100th birthday of József Herman with presentation of the József Herman Award
16.00-16.30	Plenary room: Closing Session

Abstracts

For the full abstracts including references, please refer to the book of abstracts.

From final to causal: the genesis of a new type of subjunctival relative clause in Plautus and Terence

Wolfgang de Melo
University of Oxford

In classical Latin, relative clauses and cum-clauses that are to receive a causal interpretation are regularly put in the subjunctive. In early Latin, on the other hand, the subjunctive is not yet as widespread in causal relative clauses, and in causal cum-clauses it is virtually non-existent outside contexts that allow for attraction of mood. But how did the subjunctive, a mood with predominantly deontic and epistemic functions, come to be associated with causality? And why did this phenomenon start with relative clauses and spread to cum-clauses, rather than the other way round?

As Hornor observed already in 1913, in Plautine relative clauses the subjunctive is particularly common when the superordinate clause contains an evaluative adjective. But we can go further: the subjunctive is disproportionately frequent if the adjective indicates a negative evaluation ('stupid', 'insane'), while it is rare with positive evaluations, where the indicative predominates.

Our subjunctival relative clauses with causal meaning are the result of a reinterpretation of relative clauses expressing a purpose: you must be stupid to do this => you must be stupid because you do this. Purpose clauses following negative evaluations are common across languages, where they are not pseudo-final, but true purpose clauses (you are stupid insofar as it is your aim to do this). The purpose clause leads to a temporal restriction of the main clause: the addressee is not stupid in general, but is being stupid while carrying out a specific action. Temporal restriction is particularly relevant for negative evaluations, where it serves as a politeness strategy. The reinterpretation to causal relative clauses is unproblematic because purpose and cause are semantically close: purposes are conceived of as reasons formulated in terms of intended results.

This explains why the causal subjunctive started in relative clauses and not in cum-clauses; its spread to cum-clauses is still in its infancy in both Plautus and Terence.

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On ‘manner of speaking’ verbs: how to prattle in (late) Latin

Giovanbattista Galdi
Ghent University

The concept of ‘manner of speaking’ (MoS) verbs was first elaborated by Zwicky (1971), who defined them as “verbs referring to intended acts of communication by speech and describing the physical characteristics of the speech act” (p. 223) (cf. ‘whisper’, ‘mutter’, ‘yell’, ‘murmur’ etc.). Due to their specific nature, such verbs are situated in a “transition zone between speech and sound”, whereby “in the majority of cases … what is said is more salient than how it is said” (Faber - Mairal Uson 1999, 255). Since Zwicky’s pioneering study, numerous publications have appeared on the topic. The vast majority of them have focused on English verbs and have approached them from a cognitive point of view, in accordance with Talmy’s well-known distinction between Verb-framed and Satellite-framed languages (e.g. Rojo-Valenzuela 2021, Mastrofini 2014), and/or dealt with their semantic and syntactic properties (cf. Stoica 2021, Levin 1993, 205f, Lehrer 1988, Urban-Ruppenhofer 2001, among others). Other studies have analysed, from a contrastive prospective, how these verbs are rendered in various languages (see Martínez Vázquez 2005 for Spanish and English, Molés-Cases 2022 for Spanish and German, Mastrofini 2014 for Italian and English, and Pasenkova 2020 for Russian and English). Latin disposes of a relatively high number of MoS verbs, such as clamo, clamito, gannio, murmuro, strepo etc., but these have never been investigated systematically before. The current study constitutes a first step towards filling this gap by discussing a group of six ‘human-linked’ verbs, that is, verbs normally linked to a human subject, which display the general meaning of ‘chatter, prattle, babble’, i.e. garrio, blatero, deblatero, effutio, blatio and balbutio. The analysis consists of four main sections. After a short introduction, illustrating the diachronic and diaphasic distribution of these verbs, I attempt to assess their physical-auditory components, especially volume and pitch. In the third section, devoted to their syntactic configuration, a comparison is drawn with ‘standard’ verba dicendi (notably dicere), notably with regard to their argumental structure and clause complementation. The fourth and final section examines the semantic and pragmatic properties of the six verbs, particularly garrio, and the derogatory way in which they are mostly used. In the discussion of the data, I will (a) consider the diachrony of these verbs (especially with reference to their syntactic, pragmatic and semantic properties) and their expansion in Christian literature, and (b) draw a comparison with the ‘animal-linked’ MoS verbs latrare, oblatrare (‘to bark (at)’), which are often found in reference to human subjects with a comparable derogatory meaning, especially during the late centuries.

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Conversational and reported storytelling in Latin comedy and beyond

Rodie Risselada
University of Amsterdam

Storytelling does not take place in isolation, but is usually embedded in larger interactional structures. While narratologists focus, also in the case of embedded stories, primarily on structural aspects of the monological kernel (the ‘story proper’), Conversation Analysis (CA) deals with storytelling as a cooperative effort of the ‘teller’ and the ‘recipient’ of the story, who together ‘co-construct’ the story (Norrick 2000, 2007; Mandelbaum 2013; cf. Schuren 2015 for an application to Euripides).

In terms of conversational structure, storytelling requires the recipients’ agreement with a suspension of normal turn taking rules and their acknowledgement of the teller’s right to bring the story to completion by refraining from substantive contributions. Nevertheless, recipients contribute in crucial ways to the ongoing course and content of the storytelling by expressing their uptake and involvement (ranging from passive backchannelling sounds like ‘hmm’ and ‘yes’ to actively asking questions – for Latin, cf. Müller 1997) and by voicing their ‘stance’ towards the narrated events; and at the completion of the story some form of ‘uptake’ is typically due ̶ preferably in line with the teller’s stance ̶ and noticeably absent if not provided

In the first part of my paper, I will outline various forms of storytelling in Latin comedy, which are obviously quite unlike the spontaneous stories in informal contexts usually analysed in CA that are typically initiated by prefaces like “guess what” or “do you know what happened yesterday ?”. But some mechanisms in Latin storytelling are quite similar, such as e.g. the negotiations at the start concerning the topic of the story and its ‘tellability’ and interest for the recipients. Moreover, the conventional expression of recipient uptake and the moments in storytelling at which it is expressed coincide quite nicely, as was also pointed out earlier by e.g. Herman (1999) and Norrick , with the typical structure of natural spontaneous narrative, as proposed by Labov & Waletzky (1967).

In the second part of the story I will briefly explore some structural aspects of conversational storytelling in reported stories in Petronius and the letters of Cicero. Even if the conversational context is in these texts not quoted verbatim, we do find, as was shown already by Gaide (1995; 1997) and more recently by Fedriani & Van Gils (f.c.) and Dalbery & Fleck (f.c.), traces of the recipients’ contributions to the story in relation with the sconstruction of the story.

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Sordida verba in contesti retorici e letterari

Michela Rosellini
Sapienza Università di Roma

Dalla descrizione linguistica antica e in particolare dalla elaborazione tecnica dell’arte retorica del primo secolo d. C. (Seneca retore, Quintiliano, forse un po’ più tardi P. Lavinio), giunge a noi la definizione di una categoria di verba sordida e l'indicazione, purtroppo soltanto occasionale, di alcuni lemmi come appartenenti a questa tipologia. Dalle espressioni dei retori si ricava che ‘sordida’ è una parola logorata dall'uso, come un abito vecchio e consumato, tanto largamente e popolarmente usata da apparire trita, priva di colore e soprattutto di quel nitore (nitor, splendor) che è richiesto all'esposizione verbale, alla lingua che si espone al pubblico: sordidus è più volte sinonimo di vulgaris, o chiosato con l'espressione de trivio; i verba sordida sono il contrario di quelle ‘perle’ verbali, ricercate soprattutto nei testi dei veteres, di cui il retore adorna il tessuto del suo discorso (per Frontone, p. 57, 11-21, insperata atque inopinata verba). Si deve quindi supporre che l'effetto presso il pubblico di un termine ‘sordido’ fosse, in negativo, equivalente a quello, positivo, di una ricercatezza o un ornamento verbale: è probabile che proprio allo scopo di evitare che i letterati incappassero inavvertitamente in uno dei termini ‘sordidi’ sia stato composto il liber di P. Lavinio intitolato De verbis sordidis, citato da Gellio nell'ultimo capitolo conservato delle Notti Attiche. Dopo una disamina generale dei (relativamente pochi) termini qualificati esplicitamente, da varie fonti, come ‘sordidi’, in questa relazione vengono presi in considerazione alcuni contesti letterari, di vari livelli, in cui compaiono parole ‘sordide’, per valutare il probabile impatto dell'espressione creata dall'autore.

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The transformation of the vowel system in Hispanic Latin with a focus on vowel mergers as evidenced in inscriptions

Béla Adamik
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics – Eötvös Loránd University

Regarding the spread of vowel mergers in Hispania, the literature widely agrees that the mergers of back vowels occurred much later (in the 6th-7th centuries) than that of the front vowels, which was largely completed by the 5th century (cf. Díaz y Díaz 1998, 161). In line with this, the Latin texts of the Visigothic slates of the 6th and 7th centuries clearly show the intensive process of the development of the Western symmetrical system of merging both front and back vowels (see Herman 1995=2006, 22). At the same time, the process leading to this point has not yet been explored in sufficient detail with regard to Hispania. Moreover, the development of Hispania has not been sufficiently compared in this respect with the development of other provinces where a symmetrical type of vowel system also developed in the late Latin and then Romance languages of the area.

In this respect, only the brief but substantial analysis of Hinojo (1996) 720-722 is available, who examined the peculiarities of vowel mergers in Hispanic Latin in a single period (roughly the 5th-6th centuries) in comparison with material from other areas (Gaul, northern Italy, Rome, southern Italy, Dalmatia), building on data from Herman (1965=1990). By analysing the data of Herman (1965=1990), Hinojo found that Hispania was indeed underdeveloped in terms of back vowel mergers compared to the other areas studied. He also found that in stressed positions, back vowels might have been more resistant to merger than front vowels, as their confusion rate was significantly lower than that of the front vowels. He tried to find a correlation between this difference and his observations about how, in the data set available to him, back vowels had a higher incidence of closure (o > u) and front vowels had a higher incidence of opening (i > e), from which he concluded that stressed vowels might be more stable and resistant to merger in the case of closure than in the case of opening, cf. Hinojo (1996) 722.

It is definitely worth reviewing Hinojo's results, especially because the data set they relied on is now outdated and the use of the Computerised Historical Linguistic Database of the Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age () can remedy that. At the same time, it makes sense to analyse the complete material of the three Hispanic provinces (Baetica, Hispania Citerior and Lusitania) from the 1st through the 7th centuries by provinces and periods (splitting the examined time span in two-century-long periods), and to compare the results with the same data from other areas (i.e. the provinces of Gaul, Northern and Southern Italy and Rome and Dalmatia). Fine-grained structural analysis that includes a detailed examination of the E/I to O/U ratios and of the incidence of these confusions in stressed and unstressed syllables (front and back vowels separated) can reveal the territorial and/or chronological differences in the development of the three Hispanic provinces with regard to vocalism, especially regarding the course of vowel mergers. It can also position Hispanic development in relation to other relevant areas of the empire.

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Participio de presente en lugar de verbo en forma personal: análisis de esta innovación sintáctica. Su presencia en el Itinerario tardío y cristiano del Pseudo Antonino de Piacenza

C. Arias Abellán
USE, España

Como es sabido, la construcción sintáctica de participio de presente en lugar de forma personal de verbo -observable en ejemplos tipo si credentes…, festinate, EPIPHAN. in euang. 52, p, 132, 3; habentes (sc. puellae) unum asellum …, et nutrieban leonem, Itin. Anton. Plac. 34)- - es ajena, hablando estrictamente, a la norma clásica de la sintaxis latina.

Basándome en el análisis de textos que documentan su presencia en la historia del latín (mayoritaria pero no exclusivamente cristianos), y, en especial, en el Itinerario del Pseudo Antonino de Piacenza, abordo en este trabajo su examen con el objetivo de aclarar las siguientes cuestiones:

a) origen y explicación de su aparición;

b) caracterización (es decir, si es estricta o exclusivamente cristiana o no; si se localiza en el nivel escrito y hablado, o solamente en el escrito; si es vulgar o no);

c) evolución ulterior o intensidad de adopción en el sistema de la lengua latina;

d) pervivencia en las lenguas romances.

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Domna Artemix … solbe katena tuas …
Some remarkson the inscription of a magical nail from the British Museum

Andrea Barta
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics
Daniela Urbanová
Masaryk University

For almost two hundred years, a unique magical nail with a six line long Latin inscription on its four sides, currently in the care of the British Museum, has attracted the attention of scholars who either focused on its religious aspects or, less often, on the substandard and non-classical linguistic features. Discovered in the first half of the 19th century, the nail immediately became a focus of scientific interest. Yet, the absence of details regarding its archaeological context, coupled with the uncommon nature of the object itself, has hindered a clear interpretation. Consequently, numerous readings and interpretations have been published since then. Despite their abundance, many questions remain unanswered.

As part of our research, we initially conducted an on-site examination of the object, supplemented by the use of high-resolution images to establish the still available reading. This proved that previously published drawings may not be entirely accurate in every instance. However, the poorly readable letters and the seemingly hapax word-forms have gained meaning through vulgar Latin phenomena. Our presentation will explore how words like TRASA, KRNE, REZAN, REAZAND, BAQVI, SIGNV DE DOMNA can be explained in the context of vulgar Latin processes such as the loss of final consonant, b~v fusion, syncope, and palatalization.

Our findings make a fresh contribution to the field of the so called chiodi magici to which the nail in question belongs. The purpose and function of this group of objects have long been debated; furthermore, it is not even certain whether it is uniform, given that, with few exceptions, they lack inscriptions. Nevertheless, the linguistic approach has contributed to a refined and more accurate reading and interpretation.

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Penser Grec, parler Latin. Phénomène délibéré?

Florica Bechet
Université de Bucarest

Penser dans une langue (maternelle, apprise bien antérieurement, mieux connue) et s’exprimer dans une autre (récemment acquise, imposée par un certain milieu d’expression orale ou écrite) est un fait bien connu et unanimement reconnu et démontré par les linguistes pour les milieux au moins bilingues. C’est surtout le cas des inscriptions, où ce phénomène, pleinement illustré, est sûrement involontaire, inconscient. Nous pouvons le démontrer, par exemple, comme nous l’avons déjà fait, pour les inscriptions de la Scythie Mineure, habitée, successivement, pas les grecs et par les romains, ou comme l’a fait M. Giovanbattista Galdi pour la Mésie Inférieure.

Pour que ce phénomène soit délibéré il doit être une stratégie littéraire mise en œuvre par un auteur très appliqué et subtil. Un tel auteur peut être Pétrone qui, dans son roman picaresque, fait distinguer les personnages par leur niveau d’éducation, par leur couche sociale, par leur origine, tout en réussissant à mettre en évidence même une marque d’expression personnelle pour la plupart des individus qui peuplent les pages du Satyricon. Dans ce contexte, nous pouvons croire qu’un affranchi d’origine orientale, qui forge ses pensées mieux et plus vite en Grec qu’en Latin, surtout quand il est irrité, mais qui est obligé de s’exprimer en Latin, utilise des mots latins avec une signification que ces mots n’ont qu’en Grec.

C’est ce que nous essayerons de démontrer dans notre intervention.

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The diminutive palmula and its uses in Latin language

Giulia Beghini
University of Verona

Diminutives have often been considered as a mark of colloquial Latin, as they are perceived as belonging to familiar and affective language. Unsurprisingly, epic language lacks diminutive forms, which do not seem suited for the gravitas of the genre. In line with this, Virgil too uses very few diminutives in the Aeneid, significantly fewer than in the Bucolics and the Georgics.

This article examines an interesting unicum in Virgil’s poetry: palmula in Aen. 5.163. It seems to be a synonym of remus, which is used on all other occasions (35 times in Aen.). The base noun palma, conversely, never indicates the ‘oar’ in Virgil’s works, but rather ‘the hand’, ‘the palm’, ‘the palm leaf’ and therefore ‘the prize’ and ‘victory’. Moreover, the diminutive palmula does not seem to signify diminution, as it refers to the most imposing ship of the race, the Chimaera.

This paper would like to explore the possible motivations of the presence of palmula: a technical term, a colloquialism, a literary resumption, a device for sound effectiveness …? The method combines a linguistic and stylistic approach with a pragmatic and sociolinguistic one. Obviously, the parole is always connected to the langue: palma, palmula, remus, and remulus will be studied and discussed in their uses and lexical meanings in the testimonia latina of Antiquity.

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‘Pedo pedunculus’ (Priscien, Ars 2,108,12)
Une énigme lexicale et ses échos romans

Frédérique Biville
Paris - Lyon

Que signifie pedo, qui figure, au VIe siècle, dans la Grammaire de Priscien ? Comment s’explique le diminutif pedunculus ? Et comment les deux formes s’articulent-elles ? Ce couple lexical est inclus dans une séquence de neuf formations diminutives en -unculus /-uncula, associées à des mots en -ō, -ōnis (tiro tirunculus, uirgo uirguncula), et participe à l’illustration de la règle morphologique selon laquelle, à un mot latin en -ō(n) correspond un diminutif en -unculus (-a), qui conserve le genre du mot primitif. Priscien ne s’intéresse qu’aux aspects formels de la question, sans se préoccuper de ses implications sémantiques.

Or, si les huit autres couples cités sont parfaitement clairs, dans leur forme comme dans leur signification, et reçoivent l’appui de citations d’auteurs classiques, le couple pedo pedunculus, qui figure en milieu de liste, non seulement n’est illustré par aucune citation d’auteur, mais pose de surcroît différents problèmes d’attestation et d’interprétation. Pedo, en dehors de son emploi classique comme anthroponyme, est un mot de grammairien et de glossateur, d’attestation tardive et rare, et il en est de même de pedunculus, qui côtoie un diminutif de forme voisine, pedic(u)lus (pedu-), d’usage courant. S’agit-il de dérivés de pes, pĕdis, ‘pied’, ou de pēdis, pēdis, ‘pou’ ? et quelles relations entretiennent-ils avec des formes romanes telles que le français pion et pou ?

Le laconisme de Priscien (en partie compensé, dans deux manuscrits, par l’insertion d’une glose grecque d’un commentateur ultérieur), et la complexité de l’exégèse dans laquelle il contraint son lecteur à entrer, semblent n’avoir jamais retenu l’attention des chercheurs, en dépit de l’intérêt que la question présente pour la connaissance du latin parlé (‘vulgaire’) et de ses continuateurs romans. Notre enquête, lexicographique dans un premier temps, nous entraîne dans l’examen des structures formelles et sémantiques du lexique latin et de ses réalisations dans les textes, dans des domaines d’expérience aussi divers que l’armée, les jeux de société, la zoologie et la botanique, et nous amène à nous interroger sur la nature des sources utilisées par les grammairiens et sur la transmission des textes grammaticaux latins.

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The Gynaecia of Mustio - the linguistic challenges of a new critical edition.

Micaela Brembilla
Uppsala University

The Gynaecia of Mustio is a medical text about gynaecology; the German scholar Valentin Rose edited the text in 1882 for Teubner, and his publication is the only complete critical edition available to date. The merits of the work of Rose are countless: for example, he suggested the 6th century AD and the Roman province of Africa as date and place of the production of the Gynaecia based on linguistic evidence and connection with other late medical texts. However, his approach to the language of the text made him choose to follow the most classical and normative manuscript among the main witnesses of the Gynaecia, and to give a general patina of classical Latin to the text.

In this paper, I would like to present an attempt to reconstruct a less classical and more typically late Latin for the Gynaecia, which may have been closer to the original language used by the author; I will then analyse some of the most interesting features of this new language of the text, against the background of the studies on late technical Latin, as for example the role of Greek loanwords and their writing, the use of case vs prepositions, of conjunctions, and of tense and aspect of the verb in the descriptions of the various steps of a preparation or a therapy.

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La denominación de los primeros cinco días de la semana en el latín de la Gallaecia: entre la emergencia del sistema portugués y la persistencia de los nombres paganos.

Francisco Calvo del Olmo
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität

Es bien sabido que el portugués es la única de las lenguas neolatinas que usa numerales para denominar a los días de la semana a partir del domingo: segunda, terça, quarta, quinta y sexta-feira. En contraste, los demás miembros de la familia románica han mantenido el sistema del latín clásico en los primeros cinco días, estando dedicado cada uno a una divinidad del panteón romano, cuyo planeta es visible en el cielo, además de la luna. La cristianización originó este cambio al condenar los antiguos nombres de los días por considerarlos vestigios paganos. Hecho que se impuso, además de en portugués, en otros idiomas europeos como el griego o el eslavo. Dentro del ámbito gallegoportugués, encontramos la formulación de la propuesta para las nuevas denominaciones en el De correctione rusticorum (c. 574)de Martín de Braga; documento que tomamos como terminus post quem en nuestra investigación.

A partir de esta constatación, asumimos la hipótesis de que los nuevos nombres de los días se habrían irradiado desde las altas instancias eclesiásticas – comprometidas con la eliminación de referencias paganas – hacia los usos vernáculos. Asimismo, suponemos que este cambio se reflejó primero en las fuentes escritas, documentos emanados de la pluma de los clérigos, y que solo más tarde se habría implantado en el romance en gestación. En este sentido, vale recordar que, muchas variedades diatópicas del gallego mantuvieron las denominaciones paganas en los dos primeros días (luns y martes) mientras que las promovidas por la Iglesia las sustituyeron en los tres siguientes (corta, quinta y sexta feira), originando así un paradigma mixto. Los Corpus Documentale Latinum Gallaeciae (CODOLGA) y Corpus Documentale Latinum regni Legionis (CODOL-LEG) nos ofrecerán la base empírica para confirmar o refutar nuestra hipótesis mediante la consulta de las atestaciones de los nombres de los cinco primeros días de la semana. Además, el Corpus Informatizado del Português Medieval (CIPM) nos permitirá examinar la consolidación del sistema de denominación cristiano en el romance naciente. De esta forma, nuestro estudio se sirve de las herramientas metodologías que la lingüística de corpus ofrece para, desde un punto de vista cuantitativo, observar el volumen de ocurrencias y, desde un punto de vista cualitativo, examinar las implicaciones de las mismas. Esperamos por último que nuestra investigación arroje luz sobre esta parcela del patrimonio lexical de las lenguas románicas y muestre la importancia de las transformaciones culturales – en este caso religiosas – como motores o catalizadores del cambio lingüístico.

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El sistema deíctico en la Vetus Latina

José Manuel Cañas Reíllo
Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo

La difusión del Cristianismo en el Imperio Romano fue acompañada de la disposición de textos bíblicos y litúrgicos en latín. Puesto que el medio de penetración del Cristianismo fueron clases bajas de la población, fue necesario adaptar el registro lingüístico del latín utilizado en estas traducciones a su auditorio. La VL presenta influencias del griego e, indirectamente, del hebreo, pero afloran rasgos identificables con fenómenos catalogados como propios del “latín vulgar”. Un ejemplo es la reconfiguración del sistema deíctico clásico. Väänänen (p. 211-214) expone cómo el sistema deíctico clásico (hic, iste, ille, el anafórico is, e ipse) se había reestructurado en latín hablado, con la reducción de uso de hic y de is, la potenciación de ille e iste, la incorporación de ipse como demostrativo y la incorporación de otras formas demostrativas, como ecce, eccum. Adams (pp. 453 ss.) estudia esta cuestión, confirmando esta tendencia desde época republicana hasta las lenguas romances.

La VL confirma también esta tendencia en el cambio del sistema deíctico. En este estudio tomo como muestra dos textos de libros diferentes: Jueces 1-4 (ed. de Robert) y 1 Macabeos (ed. de De Bruyne). En ellos hic ha reducido uso, e ille ha ocupado gran parte de su espacio. Ille es traducción habitual de αὐτός en lugar de is, que sería la equivalencia esperada, y refuerza su función deíctica. Otras veces, is es suplantado por ille y por ipse con valor demostrativo; hic reduce su uso, pero en dos casos se usa con función de artículo determinado: fecit huic Istrahel (Jueces 2,7.10) - ἐποίησε τῷ Ἰσραὴλ. La misma tendencia se encuentra en 1 Macabeos. En los testimonios más antiguos αὐτός se traduce en unos pocos casos por hic, mayoritariamente por ille, en menor medida por ipse y aproximadamente en una cuarta parte de los casos por is. La evolución de estos textos muestra que en el siglo IV una revisión ha tendido a sustituir casi sistemáticamente hic, ipse e is por ille, que parece ser entre los demostrativos el que amplía considerablemente sus funciones en esa época. Además de cubrir funciones de hic como demostrativo, asume valores anafóricos y, en ocasiones, presenta usos que se pueden identificar como precedentes de los artículos determinados en las lenguas romances.

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Sur les noms de la courtisane en latin médiéval

Maxime Canin
Université de Limoges
Romain Garnier
Université de Limoges

On propose dans cette communication d’effectuer, à partir du Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinatis de Du Cange, une étude lexicographique des noms désignant les prostituées en latin médiéval. Il s’agit d’explorer les étymologies d’un peu moins d’une centaine de lexèmes en adoptant une approche taxonomique. Deux axes d’analyse sont ainsi proposés. Premièrement, une enquête sur les origines linguistiques des divers termes sera menée, permettant de mettre à jour des étymologies grecques (apodix « exposée au dehors, prostituée », porna « fille vendue »), (pseudo-)hébraïques (cadesa « fille de Qadesh » vox nihili), germaniques (ribalda « ribaude, tribade », lit. « frotteuse »), occitanes (filhetta « fille »), anglaises (strumpet « suivez-moi ») ou celtiques (gadalis « femme lascive »). Deuxièmement, une investigation sur les nuances sémantiques des désignations employées sera entreprise. Il s’agira, dans une perspective sociolinguistique, d’établir une typologie des modes de désignation de la courtisane selon, par exemple, sa fonction dans les maisons de plaisirs (curia « patronne, maîtresse de maison »), son aspect plus ou moins lucratif (meraria, meritoria, soldataria, soldadera « gagneuse » ; obolaria « prostituée à une obole », *diobolaris « prostituée à deux oboles »), la spécialité de ses pratiques (leccatrix « celle qui pratique des fellations », quadrupus « celle qui se tient à quatre pattes »), le lieu où elle pratique son métier (bordelaria « fille de bordel », herbannum « prostituée qui officie dans les champs »). On ajoutera à cela une distinction entre les prostituées en propre et les dames aux mœurs légères, par l’emploi de ces termes injurieux pour invectiver la femme adultère.

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Vulgo dicitur: latin or vernacular? Naming languages (VI-XIIIth c.)

Nadia Cannata
Sapienza Università di Roma

As it is widely acknowledged ‘Vulgar Latin’ constitutes a very slippery notion, covering at least 13 different definitions (Lloyd 1979), when looked at from the vantage point of Romance philology. The notion still survives as a blanket embracing (if not defining) the origins of Romance languages. ‘Sermo vulgaris’ is, however, a linguistic category widely used also in Classical times by Cicero, Ovid, Seneca, Quintilian, Pliny the Elder and many other writers, rhetoricians and historians (Adams 2013). It had chiefly the meaning of ‘common’ i.e. ‘generally used’ and did not necessarily refer to language. In this case it would indicate ‘common language’, or the ‘language of use’, as opposed to literary and standard Latin; otherwise, ‘vulgare’ refers to something widespread and not necessarily too refined.

Across the centuries, as the gap between written language and speech widened, ‘vulgare’ slipped slowly from the meaning of ‘common, generally used’ to defining a spoken variety of Latin as opposed to the school variety and eventually it futher slipped to define new languages perceived as separate from Latin (but not different enough to acquire a name in their own right. (Banniard 1990, 2002, Jansen 1991, Cannata 2022).

The paper presents a survey of the uses of the term and of the transformations of its meaning from the VIIth c. to the XIVth c. (roughly 3500 occurrences), and aims at reconstructing the semantic area and the specific use of the adjective in this crucial period for the understanding of Europe’s linguistic culture, in both Latin and Italian vernaculars. ‘Vulgo’ or ‘vulgo dicitur’ might refer intercheangably to spoken or commonly used Latin or to what contemporaries also defined as ‘vulgare italico’, ‘gallico’, or simply ‘vulgare’, to the extent that it is often impossible to determine what exactly ‘vulgo dicitur’ might mean.

The question is not just nominal, but affects the issue of how we name, and therefore define languages, and reveals in turn interesting paths through the history of linguistics in its broader sense and of the perception across time and place of language, culture and identity.

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Existential have in Late Latin in the passage to Romance

Michela Cennamo
Università degli Studi di Napoli

This paper investigates the rise of existential have in the transition from Latin to Romance and its paths of development, providing Late Latin evidence for a different origin of the construction, usually viewed in the literature as stemming from the possessive scheme associated with the transitive verb of possession have in Latin (Ciconte 2015: 231, among others and references therein).

It is argued that existential have in Romance continues and further develops patterns which became available in Late Latin to ‘introduce a new entity or situation into the world of discourse’ within a spatio-temporal frame, starting from: (i) the stative-locative meaning of the verb have (‘being in a (physical/abstract) state/place, location’) (… ille geminus, qui Syracusis habet … (Plt. Men. 68-69) that.nom twin.nom who Syracuse.loc has ‘…that (other) twin, who is in Syracuse …’), (ii) its non-lexical uses, witnessed by existential-like ‘impersonal’ constructions consisting of an adverb+the 3rd singular of the verb alternating with the verb be, esse (e.g., bene habet/est, recte habet/est ‘it is good’, attested in Early (e.g., Plautus) and Classical authors (e.g., Cicero), (iii) its functional equivalence with the copula esse ‘be’, occurring in Early and Classical Latin (Baldi & Nuti 2010: 273, note 34; 278, 376; Pinkster 2015: 97; Ciconte 2015), attested also in equative clauses in Late Latin (ubi omnia aequalia habent (Orib. Syn. VII, 49, 10) where all.n.pl alike.n.pl have.prs.ind.3pl ‘Where all these are alike’(Luque Moreno 1998: 140).

Rare examples of existential-like have are reported for Early Latin (Cato, III-II BC) (2), with the verb in the active impersonal form and the nominal in preverbal position in the accusative case (Baldi & Nuti 2010: 275): … nisi calicem pertusum cauum habeat unless cup hole.acc hollow have.sbjv.prs.3s ‘… except that there is a bowl with a pierced hole’ (Cato, agr. 80,1).

Existential(-like) constructions with have are well attested in Late Latin, in 4th-6 th c. texts (e.g., Itinerarium Egeriae, Mulomedichina Chironis, Palladius, Oribasius, Anthimus), occurring with [–human], most typically inanimate, indefinite/non-specific pivots (e.g., ibi … altarium … habet (Itin. Eger. 4,4 ‘… there … there is an altar’) and are found also in spatial (inde ad sanctam Teclam habebat de civitate forsitan mille quingentos passus from-there to saint Tecla have.impf.3sg from city one thousand five-hundred.m.pl.acc steps.m.pl.acc ‘From that place to the mountain of God it was perphaps four miles’ (Itin. Eger. 23,2) and temporal constructions (Pater eius … ex quo hinc profectus est habet annos XIIII father.nom his.gen from which.ablfrom-here leave.pst.ptcp.m.sg.nom be.prs.ind.3sg have.prs.ind.3sg years.acc 14 ‘It has been fourteen years since his father left (from) here’ (Hist. Apoll. RA 31) (Svennung 1935: 475-477, 572-573; Pinkster 2015: 97 and further examples and further references therein).

It is shown that the Late Latin data investigated point to the presence of ‘impersonal’ have and lack of pivot agreement (in number /case) as the overt markers of a change in progress, leading to the subsequent (Romance) reanalysis of the locative argument as a non-referential, unspecified argument, the abstract spatio-temporal argument of predication (Parry 2013 for Italo-Romance).

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Miximus in lecto – The extension of the nasal Present infix into the Perfect stem according to the evidence in the graffiti of Pompei

Roberto Ceolin
University of Saint Joseph - Macau SAR (China)

The -n-infix is a morpheme for the formation of presents which is well represented in most branches of Indo-European (Meier-Brügger 2021:177). Thanks to the evidence in languages such as Old Indic (cf. 2nd pl. inīmási ‘we move’ RV.1.25.1c from IE h1e- ‘to go’) or Hittite (Luraghi 1992) or Greek (Ceolin 2013:261-263) an original causative or transitivizing function can be reconstructed to this morpheme (Meiser 1993:295).

In Latin too, there can be found infixed nasal presents, such as findō, -ere ‘to split’ or relinquō, -ere ‘to leave behind’, etc, though not all verbs which have a nasal in its stem(s) are infixed verbs; a few derive instead from roots which already had a nasal in them, e.g. frendo, -ere.

When the -n- represents indeed a present morpheme, often this nasal infix is not confined to the stem of the presentbut it gets analogically extended to the stem of the perfect particularly in the case of sigmatic perfects, cf. perf. iūnxī beside present iŭngō ‘to yoke’ (←*eg-), fīnxī beside fingō, -ere ‘to shape’ (←*dheh-). This analogical process probably started in sigmatic perfects built on roots which already had an -n- in them, such as tīnxī, the perfect of tingō, -ere ‘to dye’, derived from IE *teng-.

One of such analogical cases, and an interesting one too in view of its semantics, is the case of the perfect of mingō, -ere (←*h3meh- ‘to urinate’, cf. OInd. méhati ‘urinates’).In Cat.Carm.39,18 a form of this particular perfect appears as either minxit or mixit, depending on the manuscripts (Mynors and Bardon having preferred the infixed form in their respective editions) and in Mart.Epig.3,78 it appears as minxisti (apparently, with no alternative readings). A graffiti in Pompei, on the other hand, offers the form CIL IV 4957 miximus, where theinfix is clearly absent.

In Latin, apart from the general motivations which govern the mechanisms of analogy, the extension of the -n-infix into the stem of the perfect also follows a general tendency which Latin has to harmonize its verbal stems once its verbal system gets restructured around tow main stems, namely the stem of the present and the stem of the perfect. In the case of infixed presents, this harmonization between the stems is somewhat helped by the fact that, at some point, the nasal infix loses its original meaning and is no longer felt as a morpheme for the formation of presents, but just as part of the root/stem.

Now, given the nature of the evidence provided by graffiti, which being direct is more reliable, and, on the other hand, unlike that of the manuscripts, cannot be “corrected”, what picture would the graffiti of Pompey help us to draw on this analogical extension of the nasal infix into the perfect stem? Could the graffiti offer us enough evidence so as to shed some light into the actual state of affairs surrounding this particular analogical operation at around the 1st century BC/AD? Would we be able to deduce or infer any socio-linguistic conclusions on the basis of such evidence?

This paper aims at trying to see if the evidence in the graffiti of Pompey is able to respond to any of these questions–and others which may arise in the process–and to what extent it can do so.

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Further reflections on the development of unus: from numeral to indefinite article

Pierluigi Cuzzolin
Academia Europaea

The process by means of which the numeral unus ‘one’ developed the function and meaning of the indefinite article a/an has been frequently investigated and although some results have been solidly achieved, there are some points that still need further investigation.

In his important chapter on the numerals in Latin, Jesús de la Villa (2010) posed three crucial questions:

“Three questions must be answered to understand the process:

(i) What were the stages of the development and its chronology?

(ii) What were the conditions where the change took place?

(iii) What was the relationship to other Latin markers of indefiniteness: the specific quidam and the nonspecific aliquis?” (de la Villa 2010: 228)

The answers given are as follows:

as for (i) :

“The pattern of development would, then, be: indefinite, singulative, (mostly) specific quantifier > indefinite, nonsingulative, (±)specific determiner > indefinite determiner. Each step implies the elimination of a feature” (de la Villa 2010: 229);

as for (ii):

“… we reveal through analysis of the contexts where unus has totally or partially lost its features of singulativity and specificity” (de la Villa 2010: 231);

as for (iii):

“… considering that unus lost the singulative feature, its meaning should have become very close to that of quidam, which marked specificity and indefiniteness. In a similar way, once unus lost the feature of specificity it also became more like aliquis … Why unus finally became the normal form for the indefinite in all the Romance languages, and the cause of the differing historical result for quidam and aliquis, have not been clearly established. As a hypothesis, it is possible to relate it to the process of reinforcement of the feature “definite/indefinite” within Latin.” (de la Villa 2010: 232-233)

In my contribution I will briefly sketch what is known about the development of unus into the indefinite article showing that:

the cline of development as proposed by de la Villa, basically correct, can be revised and improved;

the singulative value of unus hardly disappeared in Latin until the late period at least;

syntax of unus provides hints at a correct analysis of its semantics;

beside quidam and aliquis also the development of ille must be taken into account (see Pinkster 1988):

some disputed examples (e.g. Plaut. Truc. 250: est huic unus seruus uiolentissimus; Ter. Andr. 118: unam adspicio adulescentulam; Cic. de orat. 1,132: non mihi modo, qui sicut unus pater familias, his de rebus loquor), supposedly representing the first stage of the development towards the change of unus from numeral into the indefinite article, will be revised in detail.

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Les marques de fermeture du Discours Direct dans le roman latin ;
Le bornage terminal du Discours Direct dans la narration romanesque latine

Joseph Dalbera
Università di Corsica Pasquale Paoli

Avec 307 et 354 occurrences de Discours Direct respectivement employées dans le Satyricon de Pétrone et les Métamorphoses d’Apulée, la parole directe constitue plus des trois quarts des formes de discours rapportés du corpus romanesque latin. Les deux œuvres donnent ainsi à entendre une véritable masse de paroles vives, orales, populaires, qui marquent de leur empreinte le genre romanesque. Jusque-là inouïe dans le cadre du récit, une telle fréquence du Discours Direct implique nécessairement l’émergence de techniques narratives nouvelles visant à introduire, identifier et délimiter ce mode de Discours Rapporté, dans une langue qui ne connaît à cette fin aucune des marques typographiques modernes (deux points, guillemets, tirets).

Si la question de l’introduction du DD et de son bornage initial a été récemment étudiée, cette étude vise à identifier les modalités de sa fermeture dans le récit romanesque latin. On s’intéressera ainsi à la clôture du Discours Direct, telle qu’elle se construit dans deux cas de figure distincts.

Il s’agira de mettre en évidence les modalités de cette fermeture de la parole directe dans les contextes d’oralité exclusive, dans le cadre d’échanges où alternent les tours de parole entre différents interlocuteurs : dialogues, conversations de groupe, véritables saynètes, parfois marquées par un vif enchaînement stichomythique. La parole d’un personnage se clôt sans retour à la narration, par l’ouverture de la parole d’un autre personnage, qui l’interrompt parfois. C’est ainsi cette ouverture d’une autre voix qui marque la clôture du discours direct, avec certains des moyens déjà identifiés pour le bornage initial du DD : marqueurs les plus visibles et souvent les plus ostentatoires de l’oralité (apostrophes, éléments interjectifs, éléments déictiques, modalités jussives, exclamatives etc.), incises verbales introductrices spécifiques et immédiatement identifiables comme telles, etc.

Mais le plus souvent, la parole directement rapportée se clôt par un simple retour au récit et à la voix narrative. On s’attachera donc à mettre en évidence quels termes et expressions sont employés dans le roman latin pour indiquer au lecteur cette clôture de la parole directe : on pointera ainsi le riche lexique métalinguistique et/ou les éléments déictiques qui désignent la parole qui se referme, dans une symétrie souvent frappante avec les termes annonçant l’ouverture du DD. Mais au-delà, on cherchera à voir si, face aux ‘marqueurs d’oralité’ qui actualisent le décrochage énonciatif et le passage du récit au discours direct, il existe des ‘marqueurs de littérarité’ clairs, susceptibles d’incarner ce retour au récit et le passage de l’oralité à une langue plus écrite, de la langue des personnages à celle du narrateur.

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Aperçu sur le système prépositionnel dans l’œuvre de Grégoire de Tours

Ioana-Rucsandra Dascalu 
Universitatea din Craiova

L’étude des prépositions dans l’œuvre de Grégoire de Tours soulève des questions de nature morphosyntaxique et lexicale.

Au niveau grammatical, c’est la confusion entre l’Ablatif et l’Accusatif qui prend le devant :

-soit l’Ablatif est utilisé au lieu de l’Accusatif :

Se infra murorum Avennicorum monitione concludit (Liber VI Historiarum)

Quia erat ei conca subposita, in qua oleum defluens decidebat (Liber in Gloria Martyrum)

In cubiculo suo inter manus fidelium deportatus (Liber in Gloria Martyrum)

-soit, au contraire, l’Accusatif pour l’Ablatif :

Ac devote in monasterium Pictavensim, quod studio suo constituit, collocauit (Liber in Gloria Martyrum

Cette hésitation à faire la différence entre les deux cas est peut-être causée par la confusion permanente entre ad et ab dans l’œuvre de Grégoire de Tours, constatée par Max Bonnet dans son livre.

Du point de vue lexical, nous avons remarqué le renforcement du système prépositionnel par l’emploi de prépositions plus développées (au moins disyllabiques) ; par exemple, la préposition super, qui est très fréquente, revêt des valeurs concrètes et abstraites ; elle est suivie même par le Nominatif, au lieu de l’Accusatif :

Tunc cum oleo benedicto super oculus eius crucem sanctam faciens (Liber VI Historiarum)

Tant super que iuxta sont convoitées en raison de leur corps phonétique plus développé, ayant des sens variés à partir de celui spatial jusqu’à des sens conceptuels :

Abierunt, non metuentes super sanctum sepulcrum pedem ponere (Liber in Gloria Martyrum)

Theodadum regem Tusciae invitantes super se regem statuunt. (Liber in Gloria Martyrum)

iuxta consuetudinem (Liber in Gloria Martyrum)

Nous nous proposons de rendre compte des changements survenus au niveau du système prépositionnel entre le latin classique et le latin tardif de Grégoire de Tours, qui nous paraissent importants pour la création du système roman.

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Nominal adjectives in -atus in Apicius’ De re coquinaria

Marilena De Gregorio
Ghent University

A large group of adjectives in Apicius’ De re coquinaria is formed with the suffix -atus. Although they contain a suffix which is typical of the perfect participle, their base is not verbal, but nominal: this is their peculiarity. They are all adjectives referring to food; their meaning is possessing ‘the quality/condition expressed by the base-noun’, as it happens for adjectives in -osus (Adams 1995, 537). Many of them (anethatus, coriandratus, cuminatus, garatus, laseratus, to mention just a few) are used by Apicius to describe a dish, emphasising its seasoning, i.e. the most pronounced flavour. In some other cases (isiciatus, omentatus) the adjective expresses the way a food is arranged and presented: it concerns the process of creating a dish by assembling its ingredients. Some of these adjectives in -atus are used in Apicius also like substantives: in this case they appear in the neuter form -um (coriandratum, cuminatum, iuscellatum, piperatum and others). In this last group the adjective iuscellatus has a peculiarity: it is made from a diminutive (iuscellum, from ius), which is very frequent in Apicius.

Adjectives in -atus are already used in Early Latin: sometimes they appear in the same author besides the adjectives in -osus, with a slight nuance of meaning, as in Cato, De agricultura: harenosus ‘full of sand’/harenatus ‘covered with sand’ (Rosén 1999, 54). In Apicius the adjectives in -atus do not have a corresponding in -osus: this fact would reflect a purely culinary use of the terms, i.e. the need for the concept of ‘seasoned with/prepared with’ and not ‘full of’. Moreover, many of the adjectives in -atus in De re coquinaria are Apicius’ creations and attested only in his cookingbook.

In this paper the semantic and pragmatic value of adjectives in -atus in Apicius is taken into account. When possible, their use is considered also in comparison with other similar adjectives and in other authors.

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Licet sero: on narrow-scope licet in Late Latin

Francesca Dell’Oro
Université de Neuchâtel
Elisabetta Magni
Università di Bologna

The impersonal form licet has its roots in the mercantile lexicon (Fruyt 2011: 831) and developed from the meaning ‘it is available (for sale)’ the deontic meaning ‘it is permitted’. From Early Latin onwards, the verb liceō is used in various constructions. In inflected form, it can combine with an infinitive or with a subjunctive. In uninflected form, licet can also be used alone in questions, in answers, and in juridical formulas, where it works as an assent marker (cf. Plaut., Cas. 421, Lex luci Lucer. CIL I2 401, 8). Among its modal values, epistemic (inferential) meanings (as in Rhet. Her. 4, 7) appear later. For a long time, licet remains ambiguous between verbal and conjunctional functions (cf. fremant omnes licet, dicam quod sentio Cic., De orat. 1, 195 and TLL 1364, 1 sqq.). The latter emerge through a slow and gradual process that seems to find stability in Apuleius (see, e.g., Purnelle 1998: 670, Bertocchi & Maraldi 2011: 178-181).

Besides the use with an indicative, Apuleius’ works testify to a further step, that is, the combination of licet with constituents below the clause level, such as serae in licet serae uindictae gratulabar (Apul. Met. 7, 26, 7, cf. TLL 1366 sqq.). This phenomenon of scope narrowing is relatively rare in the Classical period but becomes more frequent in later authors (Pinkster 2021: 357). While the overall evolution of licet from Early to Late Latin has been the object of detailed investigations (e.g., Purnelle 1998, Spevak 2000, 2005, Julia 2010), the behaviour of licet in concessive segments has not yet been studied in depth, and sources such as inscriptions have been neglected. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap.

Data gathered through a corpus investigation of Late Latin texts will be classified to assess the distributional features of licet, and analysed to answer research questions concerning:

i) the type of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic constructions in which narrow-scope licet occurs;

ii) their distribution in Late Latin (using the corpus Aetas Patrum I and II in the LLT-A database);

iii) the reconstruction of the diachronic pathway(s) leading to the grammaticalization of licet into a concessive adverbial.

This research will shed new light on the last steps of the evolution of licet in Late Latin.

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Biceps prolocutio. Innovazione lessicale e polemica filosofica nel De statu animae di Claudiano Mamerto.

Michele Di Marco
Università Roma Tre, Italy

Considerata l’opera filosofica di maggior rilievo prodotta in Occidente tra Agostino e Boezio, il De statu animae di Claudiano Mamerto (470 ca.) si segnala, non meno che per le sue problematiche storico-dottrinali (la confutazione delle tesi sostenute nell’anonima epistola Quaeris a me, 468 ca., attribuita a Fausto di Riez), anche per alcuni tratti della creatività lessicale del suo autore: appunto su di essi si concentra – a titolo necessariamente esemplificativo – il presente contributo, allo scopo di evidenziare soprattutto quei casi in cui la creazione di neologismi o di innovazioni semantiche rispetto al latino classico (si pensi, fra gli altri, a localis, localitas, localiter / inlocalis, inlocalitas, inlocaliter; secabilis, secabilitas / insecabilis, insecabilitas; partilis / inpartilis; formabilis, inluminabilis, ponderabilis; corporasco, incorporatio, incorporalitas) risulti funzionale a veicolare elaborazioni concettuali di particolare complessità, in un contesto in cui sapienza antica e credenze cristiane (per quello – s’intende – che l’autore ne recepisce) si intrecciano e interagiscono fra loro, nel tentativo – pur sempre limitato, provvisorio e non privo di aporie – di far luce sulla natura e sull’identità più profonda dell’essere umano.

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From the language of Pliny the Elder to its reception in Late Latin language: the example of the Medicina Plinii.

Pedro Duarte
Aix-Marseille Université

Recent studies have emphasised the importance of Pliny the Elder’s Historia naturalis throughout the ages, particularly in relation to medicine, as a source for treatises on euporista. In this respect, the so-called Medicina Plinii offers an interesting corpus for reflecting on a diachronic perception of technicism and technical literature, with pragmatic issues of clarity and availability at stake, since the Medicina Plinii should be a travel book for self-healing, a“Reiseapotheke”. The recent translation and commentary by Yvette Hunt (2020) reveal that this famous work, which was a major source throughout the medieval period, remains still insufficiently studied, in particular its language. Yet the Latin used by the author of the Medicina Plinii is interesting, although quickly dismissed as a “quite simple Latin” (Brodersen 2020: 4). V. Nutton (2004: 295) assumes that the importance of Pliny the Elder’s work–likewise that of Celsus for other late medical euporista treatises–lies not only in his conception of medicine, but also in his expression and style. Specifically, it is interesting to see the tension between the imperial technical Latin of Pliny’s and the choices made by the author of the Medicina Plinii. In the context of this contribution, we shall pay particular attention to technical words and lexical groups, such as compounds like excalfactoria, or prefixed verbs like adalligare–only attested in Pliny the Elder (about 150 times) and in the Medicina Plinii (15 times). Even if we must consider the tribute owed to Pliny, the Latin language of the author of the Medicina Plinii cannot be reduced to a submission to Pliny’s Naturalis historia. In this respect, in the Medicina Plinii the quotations from spoken Latin–allegedly from the fourth century CE–are of great interest because they reveal the complexity of a Latin language that combines imperial technical language and Latin language of the fourth century CE.

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Spuren des Vulgärlateinischen in der Regula pastoralis Gregors des Großen

Martin Fiedler
Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch - BAdW

Die maßgebliche Edition der Regula pastoralis aus den 90er Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts vermittelt den Eindruck, Gregor der Große hätte ein nahezu klassisches Latein geschrieben. Obwohl die Einleitung der Ausgabe bestimmte Phänomene aus dem Haupttextzeugen (Ms 504 der Bibliothèque municipale de Troyes) bespricht, der gemeinhin als Arbeitsexemplar des Autors gilt und zu den codices antiquiores zählt, so wurde der Text doch an unzähligen Stellen entgegen dem handschriftlichen Befund standardisiert.

Eine voraussichtlich im Herbst 2024 erscheinende kritische Neuausgabe, die nicht nur auf dem Haupttextzeugen beruht, sondern zum einen zwei unterschiedliche recensiones des Textes berücksichtigt und zum anderen mehr als ein Dutzend weiterer Handschriften zur Sicherung des überlieferten Textes heranzieht, führt deutlich vor Augen, dass in der Schreibstube des Kirchenvaters unterschiedliche Sprachniveaus greifbar werden.

Die erste Hand, die für die Urfassung (T1) sowie deren Überarbeitung (T2) verantwortlich ist, verwendet zahlreiche Vulgarismen, die von derselben Hand nachträglich verbessert wurden.

Der Schreiber von T verfügte zwar über eine grundlegende Bildung, aber erst durch die eingefügten redaktionellen Korrekturen des Verfassers bekommt der überlieferte Text eine weniger vulgäre Diktion, jedoch ohne erkennbare Systematik.

Als hauptsächliche Phänomene sind in diesem Zusammenhang u. a. lautliche Wechsel, Assimilationen, Dissimilationen, Monophthongierungen und Diphthongierungen zu nennen. Besonders häufig begegnen Rekompositionen von Verben, die in der Entwicklung vom Lateinischen zur Romania hin nicht selten begegnen, aber auch mitunter Genuswechsel.

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Una inscripción mitraica en el conventus Asturum: la lengua vulgar de la soldadesca

Alfonso García Leal
Universidad de Oviedo

El culto a Mitra está fuertemente enraizado con los soldados romanos. En el caso de Hispania, un territorio cuya conquista y posterior control requirió una importante presencia de soldados, encontramos testimonio de la introducción del culto a esta divinidad en zonas fuertemente militarizadas, como es el caso del Noroeste peninsular.

Esta área de Hispania, cuya conquista resultó particularmente ardua a las tropas romanas, fue la última en ser conquistada por Roma. Luego necesitó una importante presencia de soldados, con el objeto de asegurar la paz en el territorio, presencia que continuó después proteger y controlar la explotación de los riquísimos recursos auríferos de este territorio.

La pieza dedicada al dios Mitra en el conventus Asturum, a pesar de su breve extensión, tiene un elevado interés por los vulgarismos que presenta su lengua. Nuestro trabajo primero la estudia y después la compara con otras piezas similares, en particular con la expuesta en la domus del Mitreo de Lucus Augusti.

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El origen latino del galorromace gauta > fr. joue ‘mejilla’ y su discutida relación con el lat. gabăta > fr. jatte ‘escudilla’

Benjamín García-Hernández
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Del fr. joue ‘mejilla’, atestiguado desde 1080, suele darse como étimo más o menos seguro gauta; pero los etimólogos no han dejado de manifestar dudas sobre el origen de esta palabra. Diez (1969 [1887]: s. v. gota) afirma que «gauta ist lat. gabata, mlat. gavata, zsgz. gau’ta, wie parabola, parau’la erzeugte». En opinión de Meyer-Lübke (1929: 8), «was nun allerdings dieses *gauta ist, wissen wir nicht».

Hubschmid (1960: 140) incluye gauta entre los testimonios románicos de procedencia celta o gala y se limita a suponer “una raíz prerromana gav- o gab- completada con diversos sufijos”. En cambio, Bloch & Wartburg (1975: s. v.) consideran que joue deriva, muy probablemente, del «prélatin *gaba [‘gorge’]… L’it. gota, le prov. gauto, le franco-prov. dzouta font supposer, avec le fr. joue, un très anc. dér., aussi prélatin, *gábota ou gábuta». En el mismo sentido se manifiestan Dubois (1975: s. v.) y Guiraud (2006: s. v.).

Gauta es voz gallorrománica, que ha tenido continuación en prov. gauta, ocit. gauta y cat. galta; se halla también en sobreselvano gaulta y en it. gota (Meyer-Lübke 1972: 3706a). Coromines (1993: s. v. galta) le asigna una procedencia lejana: «antigament gauta, germà de l’oc. ant. gauta, it. gota, fr. joue, …, que suposen fonèticament una base comuna *gáṷota, d’origen pre-romà». Para Cortelazzo & Zolli (2008: s. v. gota), gauta es voz extranjera, propagada desde la Galia sobre varias regiones del norte de Italia. Gota es anterior a 1292 y sería reemplazada después por guancia (cf. al. Wange).

Desde Diez a Alibert (2002: s. v. gauta) no son pocos los que han dado por bueno el étimo latino gabăta. Sin embargo, a Ernout & Meillet (s. v. gabata) y a Walde & Hofmann (s. v. gabata) gauta les parecía una palabra diferente. Por nuestra parte, podremos confirmar que el punto de partida de gauta no está en gabăta.

La diversidad de opiniones sobre el origen de gauta es tal que no parece que una predomine sobre las otras. Al menos, se admite que gauta es la forma anterior al fr. joue, de manera que gauta se define bien por joue, por Wange, como gota por guancia o como galta traduce el lat. gena, esto es ‘mejilla’ (Coromines 1993: 312). Sin duda, la palabra ha desarrollado en cada lengua otros significados secundarios; en particular, ha pasado, por metonimia, a designar las partes de la cara contiguas a las mejillas.

Ahora bien, si se pretende averiguar el étimo de gauta, conviene atenerse a su significado primordial ‘mejilla’ compartido por sus variantes románicas. Trataremos de demostrar mediante los textos pertinentes que el origen de gauta radica en el étimo frasémico latino (gena) gavsapata ‘mejilla vellosa’.

Nunc primum opacat flore lanugo genas (Pacuv. Trag. p. 316, 34 W).

«Ahora por primera vez la floración del vello sombrea las mejillas».

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Whose Late Latin? Recovering Late-antique Linguistic Data from Medieval Manuscript Evidence:
The Case of the Versio Vetustissima of the Latin Vita. s. Antonii

Cristian Gaşpar
Central European University, Vienna

The earliest Latin translation of Athanasius of Alexandria's Vita Antonii, produced most probably for a Western audience in the late 350s CE, enjoyed a very brief and limited circulation before the early 370s CE, when it was supplanted by a new translation prepared by Evagrius of Antioch (ca. 320-ca. 395 CE). Surviving in a single eleventh-century manuscript and published in full only in 1939, for a long time this text has not enjoyed a great popularity or a very good reputation with scholars (historians and linguists alike) due to its author's excessively literal approach to translation and the sub-standard quality of its Latin. Recently, there has been a marked shift in scholarly opinion, with the latest critical editor of the text hailing the uersio uetustissima as a "remarkable example of early Christian Latin" and arguing that the "orthography and syntax of its vulgar Latin should be retained as much as possible" (Gandt 2018: 241*).

The present paper intends to suggest that, while the re-evaluation of the uersio uetustissima as a possible source for reconstructing various linguistic features of the Late Latin variety employed by the first translator of the Vita Antonii ca. 360 CE is welcome and certainly overdue, methodological optimism such as that displayed in Gandt's recent critial edition following earlier editors (Bartelink, Hoppenbrouwers) is both excessive and unwarranted. The crucial issue involved in such a recovery attempt is the extent to which specific Late Latin phonological, morphological, and syntactic features (could) have survived repeated copying by an unknown number of intermediary scribes before their final written attestation in the eleventh-century Vatican manuscript, the only extant textual source of the uersio uetustissima. This key problem was rarely and insufficiently addressed by earlier scholarship, which oscilated between excessive pessimism, lamenting the 'corrupt' state of the text, imputable to (the) inept medieval scribe(s), and heavy-handed editorial intervention, on one hand, and an equally excessive optimism about the value of the transmitted text for reconstructing 'Christian Latin' as a Sondersprache or fourth-century 'Vulgar' Latin usage tout court, on the other.

In my view, any attempt at data recovery must be preceded by a clear distinction between linguistic features characteristic of the Latin usage of the eleventh-century (Central) Italian's scribe and those that might be traced back to the usage of the late-antique translator, a bilingual speaker who acquired Latin as an L2 most probably through oral communication rather than in a traditional writing-based education system. Such a distinction, I believe, is feasible within the sizeable corpus of (mainly hagiographic) texts copied by the same scribe in the manuscript in question, i.e., 14 items of various chronological provenance covering 91 ms. folia.

Based directly on the manuscript evidence and informed by paleographic awareness, in order to avoid modern editorial bias / misrepresentation, an analysis of all these texts, treated as a synchronically coherent data pool, can idenitfy and quantify in terms of both absolute occurrences and frequency in individual texts a set of diagnostic features which, prima facie, emerge as significant features of the Latin of the uersio uetustissima. These include graphic oscilation (b vs. u) in the representation of Late Latin [B], graphic variation suggestive of a [P] / [B] merger (uidens for fidens), spellings indicative of the lenition of [g] in palatalizing contexts (e.g., ienere, coniesta for genere, congesta), vowel prothesis with initial consonant clusters (e.g., iscio for scio), and the evolution of consonant cluster [pt] (e.g., uoluntas for uoluptas). I have also surveyed the graphic presence / absence of -m (Acc. sg. marker) as a possible symptom of the breakdown of the locative / lative distinction in the Latin variety employed by the ancient translator.

The preliminary results of this investigation suggest that only some of these features ([B], vowel prothesis, locative / lative merger) can be ascribed to the late-antique linguistic layer of the text of the uersio uetustissima as extant today, while others, such as the lenition of [g], belong to the (graphic) idiolect of the Italian scribe. The treatment of [pt] and [P] / [B] should, probably, be regarded as a result of the translator's Greek-Latin bilingualism and of the specific circumstances in which he had acquired his Latin as an L2.

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Vulgar Latin Characteristics in the Works of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus

Maria Mariola Glavan
University of Zadar
Teuta Serreqi Jurić
University of Zadar

The focus of the discussion of this paper is loanwords and instances of code-switching of suspected Latin origin found in the four most important prose works attributed to Constantine VII Pophyrogenitus (De Administrando Imperio, Vita Basilii, De Thematibus and De Cerimoniis), which present elements characteristic of Vulgar Latin (e.g., certain lexical vulgarisms, monophthongization of diphthongs, syncope, vowel change, etc.). Taking into account previous studies on the Latinisms of Porphyrogenitus’ works, this study will expand upon the research of the emperor’s less-studied prose texts, the results of which will be presented as preliminary findings. The authors also discuss possible reasons for the lack of certain Vulgar Latin characteristics, which they had expected to find in the examined corpus, but which were either missing or very rare (e.g., the retention of initial /h/, the lack of palatalization, retention of the neuter gender, etc.). Seeing as the Vita Basilii and De Thematibus are written in an Atticizing style, and the De Administrando Imperio and De Cerimoniis are written using a colloquial style, the authors will also comment on possible differences in usage, frequency, and prevalence of the so-called Vulgar Latinisms.

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Code-switching in Latin technical texts from the classical period: intratextual and extratextual motivations

Quinten Goethals
Ghent University

This paper examines the functions and social significance of code-switching (i.e. the alternation between two or more languages in a single sentence by bilinguals) to Greek in the technical writings of Vitruvius (De architectura, bookI; ca. 30 BC), Celsus (De medicina, book I; ca. 45 AD) and Mela (De chorographia, book I; ca. 43 AD). Apart from more general research in the field of code-switching in antiquity (e.g. Adams 2003), its use in technical texts was previously studied by Fedriani, Napoli & Rosso (2019), albeit with a focus on late Latin. The classical period, however, offers a unique context for a study of code-switching, as technical texts in those days still relied heavily on models and terminology from their Greek sources (Fögen 2011), given the scarcity of Latin models. As our research shows, this form of language contact had considerable implications for the language of Vitruvius, Celsus and Mela.

In categorising the functions of code-switching, this paper follows Elder & Mullen’s classification (2019: 25-28). On the one hand, Vitruvius and Celsus generally switch codes for technical terminology, i.e. ‘citation of Greek word under discussion’ (Elder & Mullen 2019: 25). More specifically, our research reveals a rather consistent use of a formulaic expression in both authors’ writings: [Latin periphrasis] + [relative pronoun] + [Graeci/Graece] + [code-switching] + [verb meaning ‘to call’] (see example (1), cf. Nicolas 2005). Given the predominance of Greek sources available in their times, consistently referencing the terminology used in the available literature probably added to the clarity and precision required for technical texts.

(1) praeterea de rerum natura, quae graece φυσιολογία dicitur, philosophia explicat.

(Vitr. 1, 1, 7)

‘Philosophy, moreover, explains the “nature of things” (and this in Greek is physiologia)’

(trans. by F. Granger)

On the other hand, different strategies involving code-switching can be observed in Mela’s De chorographia. Toponyms, which belong to Elder & Mullen’s category of ‘Greek cultural sphere’ (2019: 26), are common in his treatise on geography. These Greek placenames are used to describe both relatively unknown (e.g. Metelin, in Mela 1, 51) and well-known (e.g. Europen, in Mela 1, 8) locations. In doing so, Mela’s extratextual motivations extend beyond the mere aim of scientific clarity and precision: our research shows that sociolinguistic factors play a role as well, such as the author’s education and a desire to evoke associations with the Greek culture (cf. Adams 2003: 300).

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Lat. basilica in Late Latin Christian literature

Octavian Gordon
University of Bucharest

A recent publication edited by the renowned Romanian publishing house Humanitas (Alexe 2023) has sparked public controversy on the alleged birth of Proto-Romanian exclusively at the south of the Danube. One of the author’s key points revolves around the common semantic evolution of Late Lat. basilica in both Romanian and Dalmatian. This paper aims to demonstrate that Late Lat. basilica with the meaning ‘small, ordinary church’ was spread outside the Balkans and the Danube region and that it was used as a synonym of ecclesia – ‘church, edifice’, until the dawn of the second millennium in the western Latin-speaking world, too. In order to achieve this goal, the paper shall investigate, on the one hand, the fragments of texts containing basilica from Lex Salica and Christian authors like Gregorius Turonensis and Isidorus, following word indexes and lexica (TLL, Blaise 1954, Niemeyer 1976 a.o.), and on the other hand, the occurrences of basilica in epigraphic databases. The investigation assumes that most of the fragments do not reveal whether it is a big church (a proper basilica) or a small, ordinary one. However, some literary contexts (for example, Gregory’s basilica paruula) could be relevant for the matter. In addition, the paper intends to draw a parallel between the more or less relevant examples and the French toponyms containing ‘basoche’, ‘baroche’ and other Old-French descendants of basilica. The dimensions of the churches and/or the ruins of the old churches from which these toponyms arose could be relevant to the question of whether or to what extent the meaning of ‘small, ordinary church’ was widespread in the western area of the Late-Latin speaking world (the area of the future group of so-called Western Romance languages).

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Nuovi strumenti per la lessicografia latina e romanza:
la documentazione latina medievale di area italiana e il progetto MEDITA.

Paolo Greco
Università di Napoli Federico II
Alessio Cotugno
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Mariafrancesca Giuliani
CNR – OVI, Firenze

In questo contributo sono presentati i primi risultati del progetto “MEDITA – La documentazione latina medievale e la lessicografia digitale italo-romanza. Risorse integrate per la nuova lessicografia storico-etimologica”. Il progetto, frutto della collaborazione tra l’Università di Napoli Federico II, l’Università di Venezia Ca’ Foscari e l’Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, ha come obiettivo principale la realizzazione di una serie di interventi integrati volti alla creazione di una base di conoscenza di testi non letterari mediolatini di area italiana interrogabile tramite la Biblioteca Digitale MED.ITA. Il progetto intende valorizzare la produzione documentaria mediolatina non letteraria sia come fonte per la ricostruzione di livelli di lingua che hanno svolto un ruolo centrale nei processi di formazione delle lingue romanze e della loro elaborazione, sia come fonte per la lessicografia romanza.

Sul versante latino il progetto si affianca ad altre esperienze, come, ad esempio, quella dell’Archivio della Latinità Italiana del Medioevo. In ottica romanza, opera invece programmaticamente in stretto collegamento con il Dizionario Etimologico Storico Napoletano, il Vocabolario Etimologico Veneziano e il Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini, e intende supportare e integrare lo sviluppo delle tre opere con una base documentaria complementare rispetto alla prima produzione volgare.

Il primo intervento previsto dal progetto riguarda la creazione del modulo MED.ITA-TXT: una vasta collezione di testi latini non letterari originali prodotti tra l’VIII e il XV secolo in area campana, toscana, e veneziana. I testi sono interrogabili attraverso un’interfaccia di consultazione per ricerche testuali basata sul software GATTO.

Proprio sulle caratteristiche di questo modulo della Biblioteca Digitale si incentra questo contributo. Ci soffermeremo in particolare sulle caratteristiche del corpus individuato per la costruzione della base di conoscenza testuale, sulla metodologia di acquisizione e di codifica dei testi e sulle questioni teoriche poste dalla costruzione di un corpus testuale diacronico di latino medievale come quello del progetto MEDITA.

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The language of Gregory of Tours and the manuscripts

Gerd V. M. Haverling
Uppsala University

The manuscripts in which the works of Gregory of Tours have been preserved are contradictory as far as regards the Latin of the author. There are differences between the manuscripts preserving the same text, the very popular Decem libri historiarum: the differences regard orthography (e.g. Greg. Tur. Hist. 5.2 paucus acc. pl. in mss. B1 and C1 and paucos in the other mss.), but sometimes also the case forms (e.g. Greg. Tur. Hist. 4.40 contemptor pauperorum in mss. B1 and B2 vs contemptor pauperum in the other mss). There are similar differences between the manuscripts preserving this text and those preserving his various other texts: spellings like sacerdus in nom. sg. and paucus in acc. pl. sometimes occur in the manuscript to the Decem libri historiarum, but not in the mss. to his other works (cf. e.g. Haverling 2008).

The impression that Gregory’s Latin was rather unorthodox is strengthened by the fact that he often excuses himself for his bad Latin (cf. e.g. Greg. Tur. Hist. praef., Hist. 10.31, Vit. patr. 2 praef., Glor. conf. praef.). The problem is, however, that such statements are very common in Late Antiquity and not rare in authors whose Latin is closely in agreement with the rules of the literary tradition (cf. e.g. Symm. Epist. 4.45, Sulp. Sev. Mart. prol. 1, Ven. Fort. Vita Albin. 4.9).

Different scholars have therefore arrived at different conclusions regarding Gregory’s Latin. Among others the scholars behind the current critical edition of the whole text (Krusch & Levison 1951), assumed that Gregory’s Latin was rather substandard, whereas others (e.g. Buchner 1955 and Hilchenbach 2009) have questioned this view pointing at the fact that texts are sometimes vulgarised in the subsequent manuscript tradition.

In this paper I shall take another look at this problem and the extent to which Gregory’s Latin reflects the current changes in contemporary Latin.

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L’esthétique « fractale » de l’Aube bilingue de Fleury (BAV Reg.lat.1462)

Daniel Jacob
Universität Freiburg i. Br.

Parmi les attestations les plus anciennes du vernaculaire roman, il y en a peu qui aient suscité autant de perplexité et de polémiques que le chant antiphonal connu sous le nom de l'Aube bilingue de Fleury. Les discussions portent sur le genre et le symbolisme de l'ensemble, ses relations intertextuelles (liturgie monastique, lyrique profane), sur la forme linguistique et, notamment, sur le sens des paroles du refrain non-latin, menant, entre autres, à non moins de 18 propositions différentes de traduction (cf. Lazzerini 2008 et Canettieri 2012 pour une vue d'ensemble).

Loin de prétendre donner des réponses à toutes ces questions, notre intervention se propose de déceler certaines structures textuelles qui semblent prouver l'étroite intégration du refrain dans son contexte liturgique: celle-ci s'établit au niveau des polysémies (vigil, tenebras, qui, outre leurs significations primaires, semblent renvoyer à la liturgie des Heures), des isotopies (lumière/ténèbres/matin, préparation à l'arrivée du rédempteur, cercle terrestre, etc.). Par sa structure interne, le refrain (triplement proféré) répète les motifs déployés dans les trois strophes latines, qui, à leur tour, semblent s'insérer à la structure multiplement triadique interne de l'officium tenebrarum, qui s'étend sur les trois derniers jours de la Semaine sainte (évoquée à son tour par la constellation astronomique décrite dans la 3ème strophe du chant, cf. Kaps 2005) et dont les composantes textuelles présentent aussi de nombreuses isotopies avec le texte latin et roman de l'Aube (cf. Cannetieri 2012).

Ainsi, on pourrait supposer une structure récursive, dans laquelle les éléments topiques et linguistiques du contexte se répètent aux niveaux inférieurs, pour trouver leur expression condensée dans le refrain. Une telle composition et intégration textuelle mettrait à l'écart une bonne partie des interprétations ayant été proposées pour le refrain dans le passé.

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On the semantic space of mitto, iacio, pono and their compounds in Late Latin: history of a paradigm under reorganization

María Isabel Jiménez
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Chantal Melis
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico

In the path that led the Latin verb mitto —whose classical meaning is 'to send' or 'to throw'— to occupy the semantic space of pono 'to put' in some post-classical and late Latin texts and, above all, in the different Romance languages since their first documents, the influence of the verb iacio 'to throw' and its compound conicio 'to throw' is essential, as Adams (1974) points out and as we can see in two sentences such as the following:

(1a) Idque mustum coicies in amphoram nouam et inplebis ad summum (Colum. 12,36,1)

(1b) Mittes uini ueteris decem sextarios in lagena (Pall.Opus, 3,27)

Likewise, the compounds demitto 'to let fall / drop' and depono 'to put under' are, in view of examples such as those given in (2) from Columella, also involved in theapproach of mitto to pono:

(2a) ac ne tinia molesta sit seminibus ficulnis, in imum scrobem lentisci taleam inuerso cacumine demittito (Colum. 5,10,9)

(2b) in scrobem deinde fici arbusculam deponito diligentiamque adhibeto, ut robusta et nitida fiat (Colum. 5,11,13)

Thus, our aim in this paper is to discuss how these three verbs and their compounds become intertwined in certain contexts from Postclassical Latin onwards and to what extent the relations between them paved the way for mitto to assume the values it has today in the Romance languages. To this end, we will analyze their behaviour in a corpus of Postclassical and Late Latin authors, especially in technical prose.

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Niveau de langue et technique du récit dans quelques textes latins du Haut Moyen Âge

Sándor Kiss
Université de Debrecen

Malgré une certaine uniformité apparente, les textes narratifs latins du Haut Moyen Âge permettent de découvrir des différences qui les caractérisent sur le plan du niveau linguistique ; ce niveau est souvent lié à des particularités du mode de raconter, de sorte que nous possédons une double grille de classement, utilisable du point de vue de la linguistique diachronique et de la linguistique textuelle. Naturellement, les distinctions que nous pouvons établir dépendent largement de l’attitude que les rédacteurs des textes manifestent vis-à-vis de la tradition du latin classique, d’une part, et envers la langue parlée de leur époque, d’autre part. Étant donné qu’à la période envisagée, la langue spontanée se transforme rapidement, on comprend que l’écrit subisse l’influence de l’oral dans une mesure grandissante ; néanmoins, la tradition affleure fortement dans certains textes et ouvre la voie à une expression narrative plus complexe. En même temps, le rétrécisement du code écrit favorise le récit de type annalistique, sans véritable arrière-plan historique et sans commentaires de la part du narrateur. La réforme carolingienne apporte un enrichissement dans le domaine des moyens linguistiques utilisés et dans celui de la technique narratoriale. Le corpus examiné comprendra des chroniques, des légendes et des récits de voyages, avec un coup d’œil sur certaines transcriptions de la généalogie biblique. Les problèmes linguistiques dont l’étude semble la plus prometteuse sont ceux posés par la phrase complexe (parataxe et hypotaxe), la liaison interphrastique (surtout le fonctionnnement de l’anaphore et de la cataphore), les particules discursives et la nature des interventions du narrateur. Au cours de l’investigation, nous cherchons une réponse aux questions suivantes : 1) Quels ont été les principaux processus diachroniques entre les IVe–VIIIe siècles dans l’emploi des moyens de cohésion textuelle ? 2) Comment peut-on caractériser les types de narration durant cette période, essentiellement du point de vue du comportement du narrateur ? 3) Comment les rédacteurs des textes ont-ils réagi à la situation linguistique très particulière de l’époque, notamment aux difficultés croissantes de la communication verticale ? Notre recherche porte ainsi sur la sociolinguistique historique et sur une narratologie appliquée à la transition latino-romane.

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A corpus-based approach to grammaticalization and defunctionalization in late Latin: prospects and challenges

Timo Korkiakangas
Academy of Finland/University of Helsinki
Cecilia Valentini
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics
Caterina Guardamagna
University of Liverpool

We propose to test corpus-linguistic metrics which measure productivity on linguistically annotated corpora of early medieval Latin notarial documents (charters). Our aim is i) to investigate whether productivity measures, designed for derivational morphology, can be meaningfully interpreted as a proxy for grammaticalization and defunctionalization of linguistic constructions in the Latin of charters (cf. Guardamagna (2018) for literary Latin), ii) to evaluate the potential of such metrics for (late) Latin linguistics in general, as well as iii) to discuss the restrictions that charter data poses to quantitative approaches. With this latter, we shall join in the discussion on the possibilities for (late) Latin corpus linguistics (see, e.g., Cuzzolin 2019).

Chronological change, in terms of emergence of new constructions and disappearance of old ones over time, is in the core of late Latin linguistics. The generic theoretical framework of our analysis will be construction grammar, in which a grammatical construction is seen as a syntactic template that is paired with conventionalized semantic content (Fried 2015). This allows a corpus-linguistically powerful operationalization to examine the changing productivity of constructions on the interface between morphosyntax and lexicon.

Measures, such as Type/token ratio (TTR), Baayen’s P (Baayen 2009), cumulatively merged P* (Gaeta & Ricca 2006), and the neologism-based productivity metric Pneo (Berg 2020), with their various modifications, are used to measure the productivity of morphemes and constructions in corpora (Zeldes 2012, ch. 2–3). When a certain construction becomes more and more productive, it is likely to be attested in an expanding range of lexical contexts; conversely, when a construction loses ground, it is likely to be gradually limited to a few petrified lexical contexts. We shall test different operationalizations of the metrics, paying due attention to their application to diachronic settings.

We shall focus on grammaticalization and defunctionalization processes that are generally assumed to have taken place in late Latin and early medieval Latin: i) grammaticalization of de + NP at the cost of genitival NP (Valentini 2018), ii) concomitant and partly related decline of genitival NP, ii) grammaticalization of da + NP in lieu of de + NP in spatio-temporal expressions (Giuliani 2017), iii) grammaticalization ofdeterminers ipse and ille towards articles (Selig 1992). The corpus is a morphologically and syntactically annotated corpus of 1,040 Tuscian charters from AD 714–897, the Late Latin Charter Treebank (LLCT) 1–2 (483,752 tokens; Korkiakangas 2021).

Our preliminary results suggest that, in charter corpora, where the same constructions are repeated from charter to charter, the metrics also capture diachronic changes of documentary practice, e.g., variation in formula use, which are difficult to distinguish from change in the system of the language. We propose adjustments to alleviate the skewedness caused by the documentary formulae. On the other hand, the metrics do seem to indicate whether a certain linguistic change was still going on or whether it was already completed by the time of LLCT (see, e.g., the graph below). Thus, corpus-linguistic measures can help us sketch a broader image of the chronology of certain grammaticalization processes of late Latin.

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Semantic Aspects of Latin Inscriptions in Dalmatia and Moesia Superior

Dragana Kunčer
Institute of History Belgrade

Given the pivotal role of epigraphic material in tracing the evolution of Latin in Dalmatia and Moesia Superior, the discovery of new inscriptions, coupled with the reevaluation of existing ones, underscores the need for a comprehensive reassessment of the semantic aspects of Latin in these regions. This paper aims to contribute to this crucial area of study through two primary lines of inquiry. The first involves compiling an exhaustive list of hapax legomena, rare words, and words whose meanings have recently become contentious, each presented within its epigraphic context. The second research strand seeks to determine if any of these terms could also represent dialectal usage.

The study will explore regional semantic peculiarities in Dalmatia and Moesia Superior, paying special attention to their origins. It will consider various historical and social factors. For instance, it hypothesizes that the differing trajectories of Romanization in these regions are reflected in their distinctive lexicons and semantic fields. Furthermore, the research will scrutinize the hypothesis that the region along the eastern Adriatic coast and northern Italy (Regio X and Regio XI) constituted a distinct linguistic area in Late Antiquity, a concept initially proposed and explored from a phonological perspective by József Herman. This hypothesis will be examined at the semantic level to determine its applicability to the lexicon.

Additionally, the unique historical and social dynamics of Salona, the Dalmatian capital, particularly its sustained existence into the seventh century and significant Christianization as evidenced by epigraphic and archaeological findings, necessitate an examination of the influence of religion on the local lexicon. Likewise, the notable military presence in Moesia Superior prompts an investigation into the sermo castrensis or the specialized language of the Roman army, and its influence on the lexicon as evidenced in Latin inscriptions from this province.

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Translating Greek Particles in the Latin Josephus

Shoni Lavie-Driver
University of Cambridge

The Latin translation of Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities and Against Apion, produced in sixth-century southern Italy under the auspices of Cassiodorus, has rarely been studied. This is despite the immense popularity of the text in the Middle Ages. In part this lack of scholarly attention is because the translation has not yet been edited in full: the only critical editions are of the first 7 books of the Jewish Antiquities (books I-V by Franz Blatt (1958), VI-VII in a recent publication (2022) of Randolf Lukas) and the two books of the Against Apion by Boysen in 1898. However, along with the other two late antique Latin translations of Josephus, it is experiencing a renaissance of late, spearheaded by Lukas’ efforts to finally edit it in full.

However, even in its current state, the translation rewards linguistic study greatly, as a creative work of translation and as a document of Late Latin. Of course, there are hazards in researching Late Latin from a text translated from a different language. However, its nature as a translation in fact also has important benefits. Significantly, as we still possess the Greek text of Josephus, we are able to compare the Latin with the Greek it is designed to reflect. This allows rare clarification of the precise sense in which Latin sentences are intended, which can often be difficult to identify in Late Latin. For example, phrases can frequently be interpreted plausibly either in the meaning they would have in Classical Latin or in a new, innovative sense; this at times makes it complicated to track precisely when developments have taken place.

Following my recent study (Lavie-Driver, 2023) of future expressions in this translation, I now propose to explore the thorny question of particles. Latin particles have not received the same attention as their Greek counterparts. This is understandable, but it should not be forgotten that words such as nam, enim, autem cover every page of (high-register) Latin texts. Diachronically, it has been noted recently that there is detectable change in the meaning and distribution of particles, but this requires further exploration. They generally do not, of course, survive into Romance.

In my study of the translation of Josephus, I shall show that the complex distinctions established by Kroon (1995) between enim and nam, vero and autem, and itaque and ergo, fell apart by the sixth century. Additionally, there is a curious rise in the use of namque, which has parallels in contemporaries of the translation such as Gregory the Great. My paper contributes to the study of the evolution of particles in Late Latin and helps to characterise the practice (and understanding of Greek) of Josephus’ late antique Italian translators.

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Pongo mea hereditate: The curious use of Romance pongo (and other curiosities) in an 11th century Iberian notarial document

Jesse Lee

Against a backdrop of latinate language, in an Iberian notarial document dated 1087, twice appears pongo (< pono), which does not emerge prior to that date, nor does it surface again in our corpus until the 13th century (when written Romance came into its own) – and only a few times at that. The appearance of this anomaly along with others in this medieval script of donation merits an investigation. Special attention will be paid to scribal practices and legal phraseology.

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First Steps towards Interlinking the digilibLT in the LiLa Knowledge Base

Eleonora Litta
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Giovanni Moretti
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Marco Passarotti
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

In the contemporary landscape of Latin studies, numerous textual and lexical digital resources are readily available, including digital libraries, annotated corpora, lexicons, and retro-digitized dictionaries. However, a critical issue facing scholars and practitioners is the imperative for interoperability among distributed resources, making their (meta)data interact. This challenge has found resolution through the LiLa project ( Passarotti et al. 2020). Leveraging the principles of the Linked Data paradigm (Bizer et al. 2009), LiLa has successfully addressed this issue. By employing a framework that fosters interconnectivity and accessibility, the project has effectively facilitated the seamless integration of diverse digital assets.

Within the LiLa project, the Lemma Bank serves as a cornerstone in establishing seamless connections among various digital resources. Specifically, the Lemma bank functions as a comprehensive database housing Latin reference forms. The pivotal role of lemmas enables the interlinking of diverse resources: given that texts are constructed from word forms, and lexical resources consist of lists of words, the LiLa Lemma Bank facilitates the dynamic and streamlined interaction between these components.

In this work, we want to document the process of connecting a new resource to LiLa, namely the Bibioteca Digitale di Testi Latini Tardoantichi (DigilibLT, ), a repository of secular prose texts written in Latin in Late Antiquity (from the second to the seventh century AD), annotated according to the XML-TEI standards and open to consultation, filling a gap left by existing proprietary databases and digital resources. All currently available 375 TEI XML files corresponding to the same number of texts have been downloaded from the digiliLT website. Annotations include metadata about the edition and the curation of the digital item, within a regular TEI header, and structural segmentation of the text (books, chapters, paragraphs, etc.) together with critical edition information such as deletions and expanded abbreviations.

The first steps towards the inclusion of the DigilibLT texts into LiLa consists in a) lemmatisation and POS tagging of all texts, through the employment of a trained model of UDPipe (https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/udpipe) , followed by a semi-automatic evaluation of the results of this process; b) first stage of linking consisting in assessing the results of 1:1, 1:0, 1:N matches between the output of the lemmatisation and the lemmas included in the LiLa Lemma Bank (1:1 will result in direct linking, 1:N will require disambiguation and 1:0 lemmas will be added to the Lemma Bank as new lemmas). Disambiguation will be executed on a text by text basis.

The presentation of this work will include examples of queries performed on the DigilibLT texts once they are linked to all the other resources connected to LiLa, to demonstrate how researchers can navigate and utilise multiple resources concurrently, fostering a more efficient and dynamic scholarly experience within the realm of Latin studies.

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"Phrasème pragmatiques et expression de la défense dans la correspondance de Cicéron : des traces d'oralités (?) à l'aune de la textométrie"

Dominique Longrée
Universitè de Liège

Il est généralement admis que dans le corpus littéraire latine classique (OLS I: 348-349), la défense à la seconde personne peut s’exprimer “régulièrement” de deux manières différentes, soit par la négation ne accompagnée du subjonctif parfait ne amaueris/ne amaueritis, soit par une tournure du type noli/nolite amare. De longue date toutefois (L. Löfsted, 1966), les latinistes ont noté l’existence de formes concurrentes, à savoir la négation pure et simple par ne de l’impératif, ou du subjonctif présent. La défense exprimée à l’impératif est particulièrement notable chez Plaute et Térence, chez qui, selon l’étude détaillée qu’en fait H. Vairel (1975: 192–213), se rencontrent, respectivement, 65 et 16 occurrences de cette tournure.

Se basant sur les données du LASLA, H. Pinkster (OLS, I: 348) considère que la défense au subjonctif présent disparait progressivement de l’usage courant au profit du subjonctif parfait. La défense à l’impératif ne serait plus utilisée après Plaute et Térence, sauf chez les poètes, la tournure devenant excessivement rare à partir du 2e siècle p.C.n. (OLS I : 517). Quant à la tournure noli/nolite + infinitif, attesté dès le latin archaïque, elle aurait un caractère moins autoritaire et plus formel que les autres tournures : ainsi Cicéron l’utiliserait plus fréquemment dans ses discours et mois souvent dans ses lettres à Atticus et Quintus (OLS I :352).

Depuis la publication d’OLS I, la LASLA a poursuivi le traitement des textes littéraires classiques et, en particulier, des comédies de Plaute et de la correspondance de Cicéron. Le corpus disponible comprend maintenant 10 comédies de Plaute, ainsi que les correspondances ad Quitum, ad Brutum et les 4 premiers livres Ad familiares. Ces textes ont été lemmatisés selon les méthodes du LASLA, chaque forme étant liée à un lemme, à un indice permettant de désambiguïser les formes homographes, à une analyse morphosyntaxique complète et, pour les verbes, à un code distinguant les prédicats d’une proposition principale ou ceux d’une proposition subordonnée (dans ce dernier cas, le code indique le type de proposition). Le traitement de ces nouveaux textes permet de réenvisager la distribution des différentes expressions de la défense, notamment pour préciser si les variations d’emploi relèvent bien essentiellement d’une évolution diachronique ou sont plutôt conditionnées par la nature des textes : ainsi, on se demandera si des différences statistiquement significatives se rencontrent entre les discours, les traités et les lettres de Cicéron. Il s’agira également de préciser si les variations rencontrées ne sont pas liées à des expressions semi-figées correspondant à des phrasèmes pragmatiques utilisés dans des conditions d’énonciation particulières. La question sous-jacente sera de se demander si l’emploi de tels phrasèmes ne correspond pas à des traces d’oralité que l’on pourrait également retrouver dans les inscriptions.

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Ancora sul collasso tardo-latino della quantità vocalica distintiva: un riesame delle testimonianze metalinguistiche

Michele Loporcaro
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
Luca Onorato
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa

Cronologia e modalità della defonologizzazione della quantità vocalica distintiva sono vexata quaestio degli studi latini e romanzi. Se Herman (1985: 88-9; 1998: 9, 21) la colloca entro la «seconda ondata di dialettalizzazione» del latino, entro la fine dell’Impero d’Occidente, vi è chi ritiene, con Pulgram (1975) e Vineis (1984), che già in età plautina la quantità fosse distintiva solo nel «literary register, adopted by the Roman élite» (Marotta 2018: 260; v. anche Marotta 2022: 187). Fra gli elementi di prova cruciali sono i testimonia metalinguistici dei grammatici, che di recente hanno ricevuto nuovi e più accurati trattamenti, invocati circa la questione se la defono- logizzazione della quantità si sia prodotta per il sorgere di un allungamento vocalico in sillaba tonica aperta, posizione tradizionale cui aderisce ad es. Loporcaro (2015). Contesta tale posizione Mancini (2019), la cui disamina dei passi pertinenti mira a sostenere che si determinò, in età imperiale, un generale allungamento delle toniche indipendente dalla struttura sillabica. Il saggio presente rilegge i passi dei grammatici nel tentativo di inserirli nella cornice della tradizione artigrafica cui pertengono (su cui v. almeno De Paolis 2014) e ne riasserisce in tal modo la compatibilità con l’ipotesi tradizionale. Quest’ultima è, infine, ulteriormente corroborata da alcuni testimonia prosodici tratti dalle Noctes Atticae di Gellio, già illuminati da Mancini (2015), che attestano, ad un’altezza cronologica anteriore ai testi grammaticali, lo sbiadimento, almeno incipiente, del contrasto di lunghezza vocalica in direzione della subordinazione di quest’ultima non solo alla posizione dell’accento, ma anche alla struttura sillabica.

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A computational approach to the study of semantic change in Latin: the case of Christian Latin vocabulary

Valentina Lunardi
University of California

This paper will employ computational methods (specifically, word embeddings) to implement the study of semantic change resulting from the spread of Christianity among speakers of Latin. The study of semantic change is notoriously fraught with difficulties. While linguists have been able to identify and classify the various types of semantic change, the phenomenon is often deemed too chaotic to investigate systematically. Because some of the catalysts of semantic change, such as sociocultural and historical events, are unpredictable, some scholars insist that semantic change is also unpredictable. This view has been challenged in the past few decades. Part of this effort is led by computationally-oriented scholars, who are taking advantage of the increasing availability of digital corpora to gather information about trends of semantic change (Tahmasebi, Borin and Jatowt 2021, 2). The digital corpora make it possible to conduct large-scale analyses of semantic change, which up until recently would have been considered extremely time-consuming. Among the methods used to run these large-scale analyses are word embeddings, a powerful tool which I adopt in this paper to upscale my own research on Christian Latin vocabulary

This talk is a development from my presentation at lvlt 14, where I aimed to quantify the extent of the role of Christianity in the development of Late Latin and Romance vocabulary. The Paradebeispiele for the influence of Christianity on Latin (Löfstedt 1959, 81), parabola and parabolare, respectively came to mean ‘word’ and ‘to speak’ in some Romance languages, substituting basic Classical Latin items such as verbum and loquor. These could therefore be seen as an indicator of the intensity of the influence of Christian culture on Latin. My initial attempt to quantify the influence of Christianity consisted of (i) the close-reading of a notable Christian text, the Itinerarium Egeriae, (ii) the gathering of lexemes I identified as having undergone a change under the push of Christianity, and of (iii) the cross-checking of these same items with their current Romance descendants to see if the Christian-led change had survived. But this approach can be challenged: who can guarantee that the meaning of those words was (un)stable between the spread of Christianity and today? Only though the close-reading of texts across several centuries can this question be answered.

The realisation that a manual analysis would only allow me to look at a restricted number of texts brought me to look for an answer in computational methods. This talk will offer the results of a study which started with the same lexemes identified in my previous study, but which instead adopts word embeddings to answer my original question. Embeddings (a.k.a. word vectors) can be obtained by inputting a large amount of textual data into a tool which converts words into vectors representing their meaning. My current working corpus consists of large selection of texts selected from LatinISE (McGillivray and Kilgairff 2013) ranging from 300 bce to 600 ce, although I plan to expand this with corpora of early Romance languages. The spatial representation of embeddings allows us to compare them with other embeddings representing the same word in different timeframes (to see how that word has changed over time). The latter is achieved by splitting the corpus into different chronological subcorpora. The separation I created for this purpose coincides with the first attestations of Christian Latin texts (ca. 200 ce). As a final step, I will provide a qualitative comparison between the results provided by the computational methods and those I found through philological analysis.

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Stella erratica or planeta? The Terms from Late to Medieval Latin

Agnieszka Maciąg-Fiedler
Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow

The term ‘planet’, which originates from Greek and became the basis for the term in all European languages, is the result of a long process of development of astronomical terminology. The term appears in Latin literature relatively late, in the book De astronomia, attributed to Hyginus (written probably in the first century AD): de stellis quinque, quas complures ut erraticas, ita planetes Graeci dixerunt (2, 42, 1). The Romans used the terms stella errans or erratica, stella vaga, sidus errans, error siderum. Later authors, e.g. Cassiodorus, Martianus Capella, Isidore of Seville increasingly used the term ‘planet’, but still in the Middle Ages the word did not become the only technical term. There was a great deal of synonymy, in addition to the word ‘planet’ and a vocabulary derived from classical Latin, new previously unknown terms were also created.

I would like to present the process of the consolidation of the word planeta, its use by different authors in different periods, the context, the frequency, and the collocations associated with it.

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For a new edition of The Latin Sexual Vocabulary of J. N. Adams: Some suggestions

Roberta Marchionni
Thesaurus linguae Latinae

In 1982 Adams published The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, a pioneer work, as a glance at its bibliography shows: Adams cites corpora of inscriptions, especially graffiti, editions or commentaries on authors who made frequent (Catullus and Martial) or sparing (Horace) use of sexual, often obscene words, and a very few articles, some of them his own, devoted specifically to this kind of words. To find, before Adams, a work with a lexicographical approach one has to go back to Pierrugues’ Glossarium eroticum linguae latinae (1826).

The uniqueness, but also and above all the quality of the 'Vocabulary', have made Adams a source of inspiration in the almost fifty years since the book's publication, and the most valuable contributions published in this period can be considered supplements to his 'Vocabulary'. This is also true of his own last publication, The use and meanings of Lat. exoletus, which appeared in Materiali and Discussioni in 2022.

This is one of the aspects that makes a new edition of Adams' work attractive, the possibility of updating it with a look at what research has produced in recent years. Equally pragmatic is the second reason: much of the material testifying to the use of sexual and/or obscene words in the Roman world comes from graffiti, and graffiti are one of the few genres of text that continue to be discovered. Some of the new testimonies can tell us more about the individual words treated by Adams, perhaps even adjusting the conclusions regarding usage.

Finally: research on sexual words, despite all efforts to be objective, is always a challenge for the scholar, who cannot avoid being a child of his time. It would be interesting to see how the changes of recent years, especially with regard to value judgments, can influence the treatment and perhaps even ferry the content of the 'Vocabulary' and Adams' immense work into a world that is increasingly sensitive to prejudice in language.

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Nomina communia, nomina promiscua. Late Latin grammarians as taking advantage of ancient natural lore.

Paola F. Moretti
Università degli Studi di Milano

The issue of grammatical gender has often drawn scholars’ attention, in that variation and oscillation, in texts ranging from early to late Latin, are much more copious than one might expect, and in most cases are difficult to account for satisfactorily (cf. Adams 2013, 383–452; see also Corbeill 2015; Loporcaro 2017).

Our investigation focuses on ancient grammarians’ reflections on the topic, and takes its cue from chapter VI of the early medieval ‘anonymus ad Cuimnanum‘ (Bischoff–Löfstedt 1992), that bears witness to a deep interest in the issue of genus as an accidens of nomen. In particular, the nomina communia and nomina promiscua are dwelt upon, the latter being accounted for in light of the ‘sexual diversity’ and the various kinds of generation that animals provide evidence for. Most of the natural lore displayed by the anonymous grammarian stems from the 8th book of pseudo–Clementine Recognitiones (Rehm–Strecker 1994; cf also De Nonno 1996). However, it is worth noting that exempla taken from the natural, i.e. other–than–human, world variously feature also in the earlier grammatical tradition, whenever the problematic issue of the genera nominis is dealt with. This paper focuses on Latin grammarians as taking advantage of – more or less commonly spread – natural lore, in clarifying the attribution of a grammatical gender to nouns.

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Latino su pietra: le testimonianze di firenze e dintorni

Benedetta Muccioli
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg

Le epigrafi del territorio fiorentino, datate tra il V e il XIII secolo, costituiscono una preziosa fonte per l’analisi del latino tardo, in particolare del latino ecclesiastico. Attraverso un approccio filologico e linguistico, questo intervento si propone di esaminare attentamente una selezione di testi epigrafici con l’obiettivo primario di analizzare la presenza e l’evoluzione di lessemi di origine non latina, con particolare attenzione ai contributi del greco e ai neologismi ecclesiastici.

Un esempio di analisi lo offre l’iscrizione proveniente dal battistero di San Giovanni di Firenze, conservata nel cortile interno del Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore nella stessa città, datata all’inizio del XIII secolo. In questo testo, caratterizzato dalla presenza di rime leonine, emerge il termine “baptizati”, un vocabolo tecnico della dottrina cristiana, sconosciuto al latino classico ma derivante dal verbo greco βαπτίζω, successivamente latinizzato in “baptizare”.

Un ulteriore esempio di analisi viene fornito dall’iscrizione della Pieve di San Severo, Liegri, datata a cavallo tra VI e VII secolo. In questa epigrafe compare il termine “martyris”, originariamente utilizzato nel greco classico per indicare testimoni nei tribunali. Con l’avvento del cristianesimo, il termine continua a indicare i testimoni, ma assume una connotazione diversa, non più giuridica ma riferita a coloro che testimoniano la fede. Nel contesto delle persecuzioni cristiane, i μάρτυροι, i martiri, indicano sempre più specificatamente quei testimoni della fede disposti a morire per essa. In latino e successivamente in italiano, il termine “martire” acquisisce appieno questa sfumatura, indicando chi difende il proprio credo fino alla morte.

In conclusione, questo intervento si prefigge l’obiettivo di contribuire alla comprensione della lingua ecclesiastica, aggiungendo importanti elementi sullo sviluppo del latino della chiesa, evidenziando le influenze greche e la formazione di neologismi legati alla dottrina cristiana.

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“Stibulacione subnexa”, not even a fossilized legal formula can withstand Vulgar Latin phenomena

Szilvia Nemes
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics – Eötvös Loránd University

In my paper, I intend to present through the analysis of the recorded data, ie. deviations from the classical norm recorded in the Computerized Historical Linguistic Database of the Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age (LLDB: ) of ChLA 1-2 (chartae from St. Gal), that not even a fossilized legal formula can withstand the changes of Vulgar Latin.

The legal formula is the so-called “cum stipulatione subnixa” (e. g. ChLA 1, 90), which usually can be found at the end of the penalty clause (poena conventionalis) of the legal documents from St. Gal. In these documents, we can find other variants of this clause like “Aquilianis Arcatianis leges estibulationis” (ChLA 1, 44); or “cum omni stibulacione subnixa” (ChLA 2, 113). The longer version of the formula proves that the formula was originally drafted according to lex arcadiana, which can be found in the Theodosian code. Moreover, the documents with the stipulatio arcadiana were also known, in Roman law, under the name of stipulatio aquiliana. As a matter of fact, the clause guaranteeing the validity of the document (which once had an important content in Roman law) lived on in a fossilized form in the contractual legal practice, so that the original Roman legal content behind it was already forgotten in the 7-8th centuries. The fossilized formula was preserved in the documents of the area of St. Gal; however, we do not find it in the Italian documents of the ChLA. Since its original meaning was forgotten, we would expect that Vulgar Latin did not influence the frozen formula, especially in lights of the general characteristics of legal documents in Roman law and Latin legal language, which have always insisted on the text being quoted as correctly as possible, in a linguistically normative form. Notwithstanding we observe the opposite phenomenon.

In my paper, I would like to present by this formula what linguistic peculiarities characterize the legal documents of the ChLA 1-2 of St. Gal, focusing on the problem that how the Latin texts of contractual clauses reflect the distribution of Vulgar Latin phenomena in their fixed parts and those adapted to the current legal transaction.

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“Andare (et sim.). A Romance etymological crux from a Late Latin perspective”.

Andrea Nuti
University of Pisa

The origin of Italian andare, linked to forms such as Occitan anar and problematically connected with the etymology of French aller, is easily the most difficult crux etymologica of Romance languages (cf. Mańczak 2009: “Problème numéro un de l’étymologie romane”) and it has been subject to innumerable explanations (for an extensive albeit not exhaustive list, see Mańczak 1974). Inevitably, recent and authoritative treatments such as LEI, Nocentini 2010, and Pfister 2010 still leave room for doubts. In this talk, which will not address directly the etymological issue and will restrain from any attempt to provide the “right solution”, I will approach the topic by looking at the “prehistory” of the elements involved, i.e., I will give an account of the systemic and functional relations of motion verbs in Late Latin, with special reference to the most likely antecedents of the Romance forms come into the picture(i.e., ambulo, compounds of ire etc.). I will therefore try to recognize which phenomena might turn out to be relevant in thedevelopments of later chronological stages. Among these, I will include the semantic characterization of motion verbs in terms of aspectual and deictic features (see, e.g., Nuti 2016a; b); the role of preverbation (see, e.g., the hypothesis andare < adire revived by Alinei 2009); the boundary between basic, contrastive meanings such as ‘go’ - ‘come’, (i.e., roughly, Late Latin eo / vado et al. - venio); and the extent of lexical suppletion affecting Latin motion verbs, which over time has stimulated penetrating analyses (see Rosen 2000; Adams 2013: 792-819) and which represents a factor to consider for the evaluation of the merging phenomena implied by the etymological explanations positing more than one lexical source for andare (i.e., an étymologie croisée; see again Pfister 2010; Prosdocimi 1993:298).The final task is to set some Late Latin coordinates that might be helpful for further etymological analyses.

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Anticausativization in Late Latin (200-600): semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic properties of its diachrony

Tim Ongenae
Ghent University

One of the most intriguing alternations within Latin and linguistics in general, is the causal-noncausal alternation, which refers to how languages can express the alternation between (externally caused) causal events (e.g. ‘John opens the door’) and (spontaneously occurring) noncausal events (e.g. ‘The door opens’). There is much crosslinguistic and even intralinguistic variation in the encoding of this alternation (Haspelmath et al. 2014). Anticausativization is the transformation of a causal event, as in (1), into a noncausal event. In (Late) Latin, there are three strategies for anticausativization, commonly referred to as the ‘anticausative alternation’. These include (i) the mediopassive strategy in (2), (ii) the reflexive strategy (with the reflexive pronoun and the active voice) in (3), and (iii) the labile strategy in (4) (the active intransitive or unmarked anticausative) (Cennamo 2022; Feltenius 1977; Gianollo 2014; Ongenae Forthc.).

(1) ne gulam aut gurgulionem rumpas “that you do not break the throat or the windpipe” (Chiron. 9)

(2) rumpitur totum corpus “the whole body breaks”(Chiron. 514)

(3) vitium (…) cum etiam ruperit se “when the disease will have broken” (Chiron. 384)

(4) quae collectiones per se rumpunt “which tumours break by themselves” (Chiron. 179)

This paper disentangles the different sociolinguistic, semantic, and pragmatic factors determining the choice between the three anticausative strategies in Late Latin. We have designed a corpus of Latin texts ranging from 200 to 600 AD in different genres and registers.

First, we discuss how our results can contribute to the sociolinguistic variation of the three anticausative strategies, stating that the labile and reflexive strategies are closer to the spoken variety Latin, while the mediopassive strategy is a more standardized anticausative strategy. The sociolinguistic variation reflects in a certain way the standardization of written Latin and the situation in the Romance languages, in which only the labile and reflexive strategies were conserved and the mediopassive lost its anticausative function. Considering the sociolinguistic variation of anticausativization, the paper explains the diachrony of anticausativization by means of the semantic and pragmatic factors of the predicates (telicity, durativity, stativity, volitionality and frequency of causal vs. noncausal use of a verb) in spoken Latin from 200 to 600 AD. Therefore, this paper aims to demonstrate how diachronic corpus linguistics on anticausativization in Late Latin can contribute to our understanding of language change.

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À l’origine du mode conditionnel : un opérateur TAM

Anna Orlandini
Centre A. Ernout, Paris-Sorbonne – Université de Rome 2
Paolo Poccetti
Centre A. Ernout, Paris-Sorbonne – Université de Rome 2

La naissance du conditionnel dans les langues romanes suit un parcours morphologiquement parallèle à celui du futur de l’indicatif. Ce parallélisme morphosyntaxique, issu, dans les deux cas, d’une tournure avec le verbe habere fléchi et postposé à l’infinitif du verbe principal, repose sur les fonctions modales qui sont le dénominateur commun aux deux formations. L’appellation de « futur du passé » semble limiter des fonctions du conditionnel à l’axe temporel. Mais la temporalité ne sert que partiellement à expliquer l’évolution diachronique des tournures à la source du futur et du conditionnel, qui, quant à leur origine, se distinguent d’un côté par le temps présent de habere, donnant lieu au futur, et de l’autre côté par tous les temps du passé (l’imparfait, le parfait et le plus-que-parfait) aboutissant aux variations morphologiques du conditionnel, différemment distribuées dans les langues romanes. Les formes les plus répandues dans les langues romanes sont issues de l’imparfait (habebam), alors que les formes issues du parfait (habui) sont géographiquement plus limitées et encore plus rare celles issues du plus-que-parfait.

En fait, le conditionnel s’avère un véritable opérateur dans le domaine TAM. Dans son emploi, les relations entre la modalité, qui est de dicto, non-assertive, l’aspect qui est l’inaccompli et la valeur temporelle se croisent de manière surprenante.

La relation entre les fonctions temporelles et celle modales en latin se manifeste dans la périphrase de l’adjectif verbal en -turus+esse, qui présente certains emplois proches du conditionnel roman. Dans cette tournure, le présent de esse, exprimant une intention, une volition ou une prédestination, se projette dans le futur, parfois perçu plus proche ou plus contraignant que le futur synthétique. Mais la même locution aux temps du passé donne lieu à des contextes fonctionnellement équivalents à ceux du conditionnel roman, comme l’on peut constater dans l’emploi dans les apodoses de l’irréel ou dans les subordonnées à une phrase de temps passé, ce qui produit l’effet du sens de « futur du passé ».

En latin tardif, les nombreuses variations synchroniques dans l’emploi des tournures en -turus+esse et de l’infinitif+habere, les deux à l’imparfait ou au parfait, signalent la superposition des fonctions, qui seront revêtues par le conditionnel roman, comme le montrent les flottements dans un même ouvrage de l’époque chrétienne :

(1a) quod ipse sit iustus quem Iudaei occisuri essent (Cypr. Adv. Iud. 2, 14, P.L. 4, 708a Migne) « pourquoi il était l’innocent que le Juifs auraient mis à mort »

(1b) quod ipse dictus sit ovis et agnus qui occidi haberet (Cypr. Adv. Iud. 2, 15, P.L. 4, 709a Migne) « pourquoi il a été appelé brebis et agneau qui serait mis à mort ».

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Problemi critico-testuali ed esegetici nel De re coquinaria di Apicio

Vincenzo Ortoleva
Università di Catania

Saranno esaminati alcuni passi del De coquinaria attribuito ad Apicio (fine IV sec.?) che presentano dei problemi critico-testuali o esegetici. Per una corretta costituzione del testo e per la sua interpretazione saranno anche indagate, se necessario, le continuazioni mediolatine e romanze della terminologia impiegata nel trattato. Come ulteriore ausilio interpretativo sarà pure presa in considerazione, per quanto possibile, la concreta esecuzione delle ricette.

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Zu einigen politischen Begriffen und Wertvokabeln in der späte(re)n Latinität

Oswald Panagl
Salzburg

In Kontext einer größer dimensionierten Studie über den politischen Wortschatz der Römer, untersucht nach den Parametern von Wortbildung, lexikalischer Semantik und soziolinguistischer Pragmatik, möchte ich in meinem Beitrag einigen Ausdrücken und Sinnbezirken aus diesem Wortfeld nachgehen. Ich habe bislang einige Arbeiten zu einschlägigen Texten und Problemlagen aus der Zeit der späten römischen Republik bzw. der frühen Kaiserzeit abgeschlossen und vorgelegt: die silberne Latinität und die spätere Wortgeschichte sollen den Horizont meiner sprachgeschichtlichen Untersuchungen erweitern und methodisch vertiefen. Die angewendete Heuristik verbindet onomasiologische und semasiologische Verfahren, das Textcorpus stellt historische und biographische Werke in den Mittelpunkt. Als lexikalische Beispiele nenne ich das Ableitungsparadigma potentia – potestas – potentatus sowie die schillernden Begriffe virtus, liberalitas, fortitudo. Meine bereits publizierten Aufsätze galten den ‚Fahnenwörtern‘ clementia, dignitas und innocentia.

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On the merger of the front and back vowels in the Latin of Rome. Relative chronology

Alessandro Papini
UGent - Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics

The aim of this paper is to provide a more precise relative chronology of the merger of the front and back vowels in the Latin of Rome. It is usually assumed (cf. Adams 2013) that the merger of the front vowels (/i, eː/ > /e/) occurred earlier than the corresponding merger on the back-vowel axis (/u, oː/ > /o/), although some scholars have suggested that the back-vowel merger might have occurred earlier in some areas than in others (e.g. Herman 1971; 1985). The role of Rome in this scenario, however, is not entirely clear. For example, Gaeng 1968 maintains that the back vowels /u/ and /oː/ were merged in Rome at about the same time as the front vowels /i/ and /eː/, whereas Herman 1971 (1985) argues that the vowel mergers in the front- and the back-vowel axis proceeded there with a similar relative chronology as in most areas of the Latin-speaking world.

To better frame this issue, the cases of <e> vs. <i> and <o> vs. <u> occurring in a “sociolinguistically-relevant” corpus of more than 6,000 Latin inscriptions from this city were analysed in detail, by comparing the number of epigraphic errors affecting the front vowels with those affecting the back vowels in inscriptions from five different periods, namely: 1) the “late Republic” (ca. 119 BCE - ca. 1 BCE), 2) the “early Empire” (ca. 1 CE - ca. 150 CE), 3) the “mid Empire” (ca. 151 CE - ca. 300 CE), 4) the “late Empire” (ca. 301 CE - ca. 450 CE), and 5) the “post-imperial period” (ca. 451 CE - ca. 600 CE). The results obtained suggest that, in Rome, changes in the quality of the front vowels did indeed take place before changes in the quality of the back-vowels. However, the same results suggest that two changes (/i, eː/ > /e/ and /u, oː/ > /o/) may have developed differently in the various registers of the Latin diasystem represented by the diaphasically different inscriptions included in our corpus (cf. Mancini 2014), i.e., “formal”, “informal”, and “diaphasically low” texts.

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The Reception of Tertullian

Angela Parkes
formerly University of Birmingham, UK, now independent scholar

As the first major Christian writer in Latin, albeit not necessarily ‘The Father of Christian Latin’, as he is sometimes called, Tertullian’s writing should certainly be accorded a prominent place in the development of Christian expression in Latin. Indeed, Cyprian is reported as referring to him as ‘my Master’. However, apart from Heinrich Hoppe’s ‘Syntax und Stil des Tertullian’ of 1903 no specific attention appears to have been paid to Tertullian’s language as distinct from his theology. Clearly the proposed paper cannot address this topic in detail but I would hope to look briefly at such studies as exists and to suggest some lines of enquiry which might lead to a possible future detailed examination of Tertullian’s Latin.

Many of those who have written on Tertullian, both ancient and more modern, have referred to his style of language as ‘difficult’, though there has been no exact explanation as to why this should be so. Jerome, for example, describes him thus, Tertullianus creber est in sententiis sed difficilis in loquendo. (Ep. 84, 2). Minucius Felix, whose Octavius, a treatise in defence of Christianity, owes much to Tertullian, is clearly intended to ‘classicise’ his style to make the defence of Christianity more acceptable to those of the time who, like the lawyer Minucius, had received a traditional Roman education.

The early twentieth century Sondersprache hypothesis, promulgated mainly by Monsignor Joseph Schrijnen, Rector of the Catholic University of Nijmegen, together with his student and associate, Christina Mohrmann, although dealing in detail with the assertion that early Christians developed their own special language, somewhat strangely pays very little attention to Tertullian, possibly because of the traditional view in some quarters that Tertullian was a heretic, as Mohrmann puts it; Le fait que Tertullian a rompu avec l’église et qu’iI est mort hérétique a compromis sa mémoire dans l’église. Whilst understanding the view of the Catholic Church at the time I do not see this as any reason not to consider Tertullian’s particular use of Latin.

A nineteenth commentator on Tertullian’s Apologeticus, Henry Woodham (1813-1875), a Cambridge academic writing mainly for the students of the time who had received a traditional education in the classics, asserts that in any study of the Latin Fathers ‘the perplexities are so great as to be almost effectually discouraging’. (pp ii-iii).

The only modern work to consider Tertullian’s language, and that discussing specifically Tertullian’s use of Biblical language, is Haupt’s Tertullian’s Text of the New Testament outside the Gospels (2019). As mentioned above, the only detailed examination of Tertullian’s language I can find is contained in Syntax und Stil des Tertullian, by Heinrich Hoppe, 1903. I would suggest, therefore, that it is high time for the matter of Tertullian’s Latin to be examined in detail in the light of modern scholarship.

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Il lessico dell’agricoltura nel glossario latino-greco degli Hermeneumata Celtis

Maria Rosaria Petringa
Università di Catania

Si presenta uno studio di carattere linguistico e critico-testuale su alcuni termini poco o per nulla altrove attestati, che si rinvengono nella sezione nr. 41 sull’agricoltura del glossario latino-greco dei cosiddetti Hermeneumata Celtis. Di tali particolarità lessicali si chiarisce inoltre il significato e si delineano anche gli sviluppi nel latino medievale oltre che i possibili esiti romanzi.

Com’è noto, quello degli Hermeneumata Celtis è il più esteso glossario bilingue (organizzato in sezioni tematiche) a noi pervenuto dalla tarda antichità, tràdito da un manoscritto autografo dell’umanista Conrad Celtis (Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek suppl. Gr. 43, a. 1495), copiato a sua volta da un codice all’epoca conservato a Sponheim (Germania) e successivamente andato perduto. La presente ricerca si in inserisce nel più ampio progetto di edizione online ‘Onomastikón. Studi di lessicografia greca e latina’ (https://onomastikon.altervista.org)coordinato, oltre che dalla sottoscritta, da Vincenzo Ortoleva e da Salvatore Cammisuli, e finalizzato alla pubblicazione in open access delle sezioni ancora inedite del glossario.

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Nomen proprium as a metalinguistic term

Silvia Pieroni
Università per Stranieri di Siena

This paper reconstructs some fragments of the history of the metalinguistic label nomen proprium as used by late Latin grammarians, with special attention to Priscian.

As its modern Romance descendants, nomen proprium is found to refer to ‘proper’ nouns (i.e. to names) as opposed to ‘common’ nouns, as exemplified, for instance, in the following passage by Donatus: Nomen est pars orationis cum casu corpus aut rem proprie communiterve significans, proprie, ut Roma Tiberis, communiter, ut urbs flumen. (Ars maior II 2-3 [p. 614.2-3 Holtz]). Besides this value, a different and wider one, not restricted to this opposition, is also found, as is shown by the following passage by Priscian: Pronomen est pars orationis quae pro nomine proprio uniusquisque accipitur personasque finitas recipit (Ars 11.1-2 [GLK II 577.1-2]) (cf. Priscien 2020: 28-29, 170).

As a matter of fact, the term nomen proprium had already been used in Classical times, e.g. by Cicero and Quintilian, with reference to words with their own ‘proper’ sense (cf. Law 1997: 73, 264; Schad 2007: 332, Calboli 2013). Its Greek model, κύριον ὄνομα (Job 1893: 81; cf. Pagliaro 1952, Fabrizio 2013), had in its turn developed from the value ‘a noun properly used’ to a more restricted one ‘the individual name’ (Matthaios’ 1996; cf. Cope 1867: 282; Steinthal 1891; Baratin 2006, Lallot 2007).

The main aim of the paper is to compile a dossier of the Latin attestations of the label nomen proprium and to compare its use by the late grammarians, Priscian’s in particular, with its use by earlier rhetoricians.

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Anonymi cuiusdam uox: per una caratterizzazione linguistica del cosiddetto Fragmentum Censorini

Andrea Pizzotti
State University of Milan

Il cosiddetto Fragmentum Censorini è un compendio di varia erudizione tramandato dai codici anepigrafo e, probabilmente, acefalo senza soluzione di continuità con il De die natali di Censorino. Il testo del frammento, concepito, verosimilmente, come un «aide-mémoire» di contenuto enciclopedico sotto forma di estratti per l’insegnamento, è ripartito in quindici capitoli di diversa estensione, facenti capo a tre delle discipline della mathesis (astronomia, geometria, musica), cui corrispondono altrettante sezioni: cosmologico-astronomica (1-4), geometrica (5-8) e musicale-metrica (9-15). L’omogeneità e coerenza di contenuto del Fragmentum insieme alla struttura organica del progetto didascalico che rappresenta portano a considerarlo un’opera unitaria, composta da un’unica mano compilatrice. Per quanto riguarda la cronologia dell’anonimo compilatore di questo liber, egli visse, con tutta probabilità, nel III secolo d.C., poco prima o poco dopo Censorino.

L’obiettivo del presente contributo è quello di condurre i primi sondaggi riguardo alla lingua tecnica dell’anonimo compendio, con lo scopo precipuo di produrne la prima caratterizzazione linguistica in assoluto; in particolare, si intende articolare la disamina della lingua pseudocensoriniana in due momenti fondamentali.

In primo luogo, si intende riflettere sulla concisa e dotta scrittura definitoria, coerente, del resto, con la destinazione e la natura del testo (cf. frg. 14, 2: formas excipit triginta duas [sc. hexameter heroicus], quas enumerare festinantibus longum est), di cui si avvale l’anonimo compilatore, spesso votata alla mera elencazione di definizioni e organizzata secondo un andamento prevalentemente paratattico, di contro ad alcuni passi di maggiore impegno e complessità contenutistici e argomentativi, il cui dettato presenta, di conseguenza, una struttura più articolata e ipotattica (vd. ad es. frg. 1; 3; 9).

In secondo luogo, si intendono indagare alcuni aspetti specifici della lingua del Fragmentum, a cominciare dai numerosi termini tecnici greci (ad es. διάτονος, χρῶμα, ἁρμονία a frg. 12, 1), tracce di una scuola ancora fortemente grecofona, e dagli hapax legomena conservati nel testo (ad es. elegiarii a frg. 9, 1), che evidenziano ulteriormente la nota peculiarità delle dottrine trattate nell’epitome, per poi proporre alcune osservazioni in merito alla singolare lingua della traduzione pseudocensoriniana degli ὅροι, degli αἰτήματα e di alcune delle κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι del primo libro degli Elementi di Euclide a frg. 6-8 (ad es. nota per rendere σημεῖον a frg. 6, 1; 7, 1 e simile scutulae per tradurre ῥομβοειδές a frg. 7, 4).

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Use and disuse of ago in Late Latin

Anna Pompei
Roma Tre University
Francesca Pagliara
Roma Tre University

From its original meaning of ‘drive’ (LIV h2aĝ- ‘treiben, führen’), in Latin the verb ago specializes as ‘push forward’ as opposed to duco ‘march at the head of’, and it is considered as an ancient word of the pastoral context (e.g. capellas ago; see Ernout-Meillet 2001[1959]: s.v. ago). It is also found in the hunting lexicon, meaning ‘push toward (a trapping place)’ (e.g. cervos ago), as well as in other uses, for instance co-occurring with inanimate objects, such as the instrumentation and artifacts of the war (e.g. turres/currus/naves ago). Starting from this basic causative motion semantics, this term is gradually enriched with other senses, such as that of ‘dig’ (e.g. vias, fundamenta ago). As is known, the polysemy of ago is largely due to the shift from spatial to temporal domain (e.g. vitam/aevum/aetatem/tempora/hiemem ago), and to the more general change from concrete to abstract values, as happens in institutional contexts such as the religious (e.g. festos dies ago), political (e.g. honores/conventum ago) and legal (e.g. causam ago) ones, but also in the theater – both in the meaning of ‘play the part of’ (e.g. Cheream ago) and ‘act’ (e.g. fabulam/apologum ago) – and in rhetoric, where ago stands for ‘speak’ (cum venustate ago). In addition to the causative/transitive uses, anticausative/intransitive ones are present in Latin (e.g. bene ago) as well.

On the other hand, in the Romance languages the inherited forms (e.g. French agir, from which Italian agire) essentially retain the only intransitive value, whereas in most uses the Latin verb ago has been completely replaced by other verbs, which can exploit similar metaphors (e.g. Italian condurre/passare la vita ~ French mener/passer la vie ~ Spanish llevar/pasar la vida) or be equally ‘light’, in the uses furthest from the full lexical value, as happens with ‘do, make’ (e.g. Italian fare la Medea, French faire le Père Noël dans un centre commercial, Spanish hacer una obra de teatro).

Given these relevant differences, our proposal aims at verifying (i) whether and how ago decreases its usage in a corpus including literary and semi-literary texts; (ii) which values persist and how often they occur; (iii) which verbs are used in late Latin in the collocations/light verbs in which ago occurs in early and classical Latin. A prior perusal of Gregory’s Historia Francorum shows very little use of the verb, either in intransitive constructions or in routinized expressions.

The corpus used for the analysis will consist of the following texts: Itinerarium Egeriae ad loca sancta (IV cen. AD); Mulomedicina Chironis (IV cent. AD); Vegetius, Epitoma Rei Militaris (IV cent. AD); Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum (IV cent. AD); Historia Augusta (VI cent. AD); S. Benedictus, Regula (VI cent. AD).

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Once again on periphrastic gradation in Latin: the case of plūs

Lucie Pultrová
Charles University, Prague

In the paper presented at the 14th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin in Ghent, I addressed the question of whether the generally assumed gradual increase of periphrastic gradation with the adverbs magis and maximē is detectable in Latin literary texts (cf. Pultrová forth.). The quantitative investigation was carried out on all the texts included in the database Library of Latin Texts (Brepols) under the following periods: 1) Antiquitas (< ca. 200), 2) Aetas Patrum I (ca. 200–500), 3) Concilia oecumenica et generalia Ecclesiae catholicae (plerumque saec. 6–8), 4) Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam (ca. saec. 4–5), 5) Aetas Patrum II (510–735). The set of 83 adjectives that meet certain criteria (i.e., in the Antiquitas period they show evidence of both morphological gradation and, at least to a minimal extent, periphrastic gradation) was examined. The result of this research was that the idea of a gradual increase in periphrastic gradation at the expense of morphological gradation, however consistent with what the Romance languages show and with linguistic common sense, has no support in the data provided by the Latin literary texts.

The present paper builds on this research by examining evidence of gradation using the adverb plūs. The chosen corpus of texts is the same, but the choice of adjectives is different: grading with the adverb plūs is so rare in the Antiquitas period that no single adjective would meet the selection criteria applied to the study of periphrastic gradation with the adverbs magis / maximē. For this reason, all attested instances of gradation with the adverb plūs were extracted from the corpus. Their total number is surprisingly low: in the whole huge corpus, only 113 cases were found where the adverb plūs in conjunction with an adjective indicates its gradation. We can observe a slight increase in its use in the youngest period studied (Aetas patrum II, 510–735). Nevertheless, in all the periods under study, it is true that this means of gradation is used only marginally in literary texts.

Alongside the quantitative overview, my paper will also conduct a qualitative analysis: it will be observed which adjectives choose this way of gradation most often, in which authors and in which contexts they occur.

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Subordinate clauses with verba sentiendi et declarandi in Late Antiquity: the cases of Ennodius and Cassiodorus

Amedeo A. Raschieri
Università degli Studi di Milano
Martina Cofano
FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg

In Late Antiquity, the syntactic structures resulting in sentences with verba sentiendi et declarandi (introduced by the conjunctions quod, quia, quoniam, quomodo) became more subject to variation in their usage: the complement (or more rarely, “completive”) value began to coexist with the objective value on an increasingly regular basis. The subject has been thoroughly studied since the end of the 19th century (Mayen 1889), and then kept on attracting the attention of linguists in specific studies (e.g. Cuzzolin 1994; 2013a; 2013b; Herman 1989; Wirth-Poelchau 1977) and in systematic treatises on Latin language (Hofmann & Szantyr 1972; Pinkster 2021). In detail, from a historical-linguistic point of view, this phenomenon is relevant for the transition from Latin to the Romance languages (Herman 1963).

We would like to focus on the occurrence of this syntactic structure in the prosaic works by Ennodius and Cassiodorus, both of which have never been analysed in depth on this issue. Such an analytic strategy will allow the study of the phenomenon in a restricted chronological time frame (the first half of the VI century) in the works of two authors with a robust cultural background, active in a homogenous geographical area (the Italian peninsula, stretching between Rome and Milan). In order to make the comparison easier, we have chosen their epistolary collections as main basin for our research, as they include – theoretically – the less controlled version of an extremely polished language; dealing with Ennodius, we have also (and above all) chosen to consider the texts of the dictiones, which share common traits with a certain type of late antique epistula. After a quantitative analysis, which aims at recording the incidence of the AcI construction and that of Subordinate Clauses (with the verb in subjunctive or indicative) in dependence on verba sentiendi et declarandi, a detailed description of some evidential examples will be provided.

The ambition is to verify the level of regional diversification of Latin (Adams 2007) and its social variance (Adams 2013) with respect to this syntactic oscillation. In addition, it would be interesting to investigate the phenomenon in the following directions: 1) the relationship between the (primarily communicative) function of these texts and the use of syntactic structures that are more or less common in the spoken language; 2) the coexistence of standard classical forms and their – alternative – equivalent in the same author, corpus and even work; 3) the reasons of a stylistic choice made by the authors in texts with a strong literary component. Through this study it should be hence possible to understand in detail the degree of distribution of such linguistic usages and their characteristics in the high and cultivated social groups between Rome and Milan in the first half of the 6th century.

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La concurrence entre le (pseudo-)réfléchi et le médio-passif dans le codage de la voix moyenne dans la latinité mérovingienne

Elisabeth Reichle
Universität Leipzig

La communication présente les résultats d’une recherche de corpus (PaLaFraLat-V2-0) sur les différences sémantiques des constructions (pseudo-)réfléchies (se/sibi) et les constructions équivalentes médio-passives en -r/esse + pp dans la latinité mérovingienne. Les deux stratégies détransitivantes sont en concurrence dans différents évènements (cf. Kemmer 1993) depuis les textes de Plaute : par exemple avec des événements liés aux soins du corps, à des déplacements/changements de posture corporelle, des états psychiques, le moyen indirect, des évènements réciproques et spontanés. La transition du latin aux langues romanes est marquée par une forte réorganisation de la morphosyntaxe de ces types de situation : les marqueurs médio-passifs ne figurent plus dans les langues romanes, les (pseudo-)réfléchis par contre se chargent d’une partie des emplois du médio-passif latin (cf. Stempel 2002). Les opinions sur l’évolution diachronique et les différences sémantiques de l’emploi des deux stratégies dans le latin classique et le latin tardif sont très hétérogènes (e.a. Flobert 1975, Joffre 1995, Cennamo 1998, Adams 2013). De plus, les deux stratégies ne sont étudiées que sur la base de quelques exemples.

Dans une analyse lexicale, nous comparerons les verbes marqués avec les marqueurs (pseudo-)réfléchis et les équivalents médio-passifs dans le corpus. Dans une analyse textuelle, nous examinerons la distribution des deux stratégies dans un choix de textes. Nous montrerons qu’il n’y a pas de synonymie entre les deux signifiants dans la latinité mérovingienne. Les facteurs distinctifs dans l’emploi des deux stratégies dans les différents types de situation concernent l’agentivité, les classes de verbes et des facteurs pragmatiques.

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Gesprochenes und Geschriebenes Spätlatein in Arles während des V2. – VI1. s. PCN

Joseph Reisdoerfer
Institut grand-ducal, section de Linguistique

Einleitung

Die Rhône-Stadt Arles befindet sich im département des Bouches-du-Rhône, in der région PACA. Zur Römerzeit hieß die Stadt zuerst Arelate, nach 45 ACN Colonia Iulia Paterna Arelate Sextanorum. Während der Kaiserzeit ist Arles ein wichtiges wirtschaftliches, politisches – Praefectura Galliarum VIfin.. s. PCN – kulturelles und religiöses Zentrum. Im V. s. PCN wird die Stadt von den Westgoten im VI. von den Franci besetzt. (NP 1, col. 1045; RE II,1 (1895) 633–635)

In unserem Vortrag wollen wir das in Arles gesprochene und geschriebene Spätlatein des V2. – VI1. s. PCN anhand der Sermones ad Populum (SermPop) des Bischofs Caesarius v. Arles (*470 – †542) untersuchen.

Wissenschaftliche Fragestellung und Forschungsansätze

Wir haben versucht herauszufinden, welche Informationen die SermPop des Caesarius von Arles über die Diachronie des in Südgallien gesprochenen und geschriebenen Lateins beinhalten; hierzu haben wir Analysen über (1) die kommunikativen Rahmenbedingungen – wer spricht zu wem, i. e., die Autoren, das Publikum, auf welche Weise, i. e. die Sprachebenen, der Stil, und mit welcher Absicht, i. e. ethischer, religiös-didaktischer Diskurs – sowie (2) die Sprache, — Morphologie, Syntax und Lexik — angestellt.

Die Predigten des Caesarius v. Arles werden anhand der Methoden der Philologie und der diachronen Soziolinguistik untersucht (Banniard 1992).

Resultate

Die Sprache, die im V2. – VI1. s. PCN in der Arles-Region gesprochen und geschrieben wurde, ist mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit dem Diasystem des Lateins zuzurechnen. Die Sprache des Caesarius entspricht in weiten Zügen der des Hl. Augustinus (*354 – †430 PCN) in seinen Sermones ad populum1.Die Variation wurde durch den weitverbreiteten Einfluss der Bibelsprache abgeschwächt (cf. Serm. 37); im Speziellen wurden diastratische Variationen – Sprache der gebildeten Oberschicht vs. Sprache des einfachen, nicht lese- und schreibekundigen Volkes – durch die wenigstens passive Beherrschung der Hochsprache überbrückt und diaphasische Variationen systematisch durch den Gebrauch einer schlichten Sprache (sermo humilis) vergleichbar in etwa der Einfachen Sprache / des Plain English, entschärft: et ideo rogo humiliter, ut contentae sint eruditae aures verba rustica aequanimiter sustinere, dummodo totus grex Domini simplici et, ut ita dixerim, pedestri sermone pabulum spiritale possit accipere. (Caesarius v. Arles, Serm. 86, 1)

Kritische Analyse

Unsere Hypothesen müssen durch weitere Forschungen gestützt werden. So könnten Analysen der Sprache der Vita Caesarii2und der Dialogi Gregors des Großen interessante Aufschlüsse über die Entwicklung des Lateins im Südosten der Gallia und die Charakteristika des sermo humilis geben.

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Les hellénismes syntaxiques dans l’Expositio totius mundi et gentium

Bruno Rochette
Université de Liège

Le texte géographique intitulé Expostio totius mundi ac gentium, qui décrit la géographie et le commerce des régions à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de l’Empire romain, est généralement considéré comme une traduction d’un orignal grec qui aurait été réalisée au Ve s. sous Constance II. L’auteur serait un hellénophone originaire des régions orientales de l’Empire romain (peut-être un Syrien) et serait doté d’une culture limitée, peut-être un commerçant qui aurait écrit vers 359. L’œuvre est dédiée au fils de l’auteur, ce qui constitue un indice de son caractère didactique. Dans une première partie (jusqu’au paragraphe 21), on trouve une liste des populations de l’extrême Orient, une description des pays de l’Orient situés au-delà des limites du monde. La deuxième partie (à partir du paragraphe 22) comporte une description des ressources de l’Empire romain. La langue de ce petit traité constitue un problème difficile d’autant plus qu’aucun manuscrit de l’ouvrage n’a été conservé (notre connaissance du texte repose sur la version publiée par Godefroy en 1628 lequel avait à sa disposition un manuscrit copié par François Juret). Le texte comporte un grand nombre d’hellénismes.

Je voudrais réévaluer les hellénismes (ou prétendus tels) concernant la syntaxe et le système verbal (emplois de ut avec l’infinitif et de propter quod ou propter/propterea avec l’infinitif ainsi que l’emploi des participes). On peut relever des indices montrant que l’auteur a acquis le latin comme L² à travers les outils d’apprentissage disponibles à son époque. Il n’est pas impossible que le texte ait circulé dans les deux langues dans un contexte didactique. L’enseignement de la géographie avait de l’importance pour les fonctionnaires à la fin de l’Antiquité. Théodose II, qui attachait de l’importance à l’étude de cette matière, avait probablement fait placer à l’université de Constantinople qu’il fondait en 425 une carte de l’Empire, inspirée de la monumentale carte d’Agrippa, en vue d’initier les étudiants et les citoyens à la continuité et à la grandeur de l’Empire. Cette carte, connue par les 12 vers qui suivent la Divisio orbis terrae, transmise par le Liber de mensura orbis terrae de Dicuil (éd. J. J. Tierney, Dublin 1967, p. 56-58), était une carte “latine” et “romaine”, ce qui n’est pas surprenant, puisque, dans la nouvelle capitale, le latin maintenait sa supériorité dans la jurisprudence et la haute administration civile et militaire, les deux domaines pour lesquels étaient formés les étudiants de l’institution universitaire récemment créée.

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Simulating the development of Grammatical Gender in the transition from Latin to Old Occitan: Seq2seq-approach

Matthias Schöffel
BadW
Marinus Wiedner
Universität Freiburg

This communication is based on the study by Polinksy/Everbroeck (2003), who simulated the reanalysis and reattribution of grammatical gender from Latin to Old French with a connectionist model. Building on this, we want to simulate the development of gender from Latin to Old Occitan with a character-based Seq2seq-approach. Additionally, we plan on using current architectures like Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) or Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) in opposition to heuristic models (cf. Marr/Mortensen 2020).

A gender reduction from three to two genders took place in the transition from Latin to Old Occitan, during which the neuter disappeared. The neuter nouns had to be reattributed to either masculine or feminine, and we aim at evaluating the extent of different factors influencing the development of gender, in this case the grapheme-structure.

For our computer simulation, we use the nouns (n=4783) from the Dictionnaire de l’occitan médiéval (DOM), the largest work of Old Occitan lexicology. As a starting point for the model training we use the linked etyma from the Französischen Etymologischen Wörterbuch (FEW).

In addition to the lexicographic (and therefore normalised) data we use nouns extracted from original manuscripts.

We will present and discuss the basic idea as well as preliminary results.

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The Long Conversation: Reconceiving re- in Late Antiquity

Martin Shedd

This paper argues that certain changes in the Late Antique usage of re- verbs reflect a

reorientation of the literary and historical imagination whereby authors view novel extensions of the re- prefix into cases where prior authors would have used the simple form of the verb as truly representing “iterative” (Repetitiv) or “back to the starting point” (Zurück zum Ausgangspunkt)

functions (see Schrickx 2015). Several re- verbs in the TLL have sections dedicated to usages where the semantic function of re- appears to be diminished or absent, e. g. recogito, II vi

praeverbii minus vigente vel evanida. For verbs of thinking, speaking, discussing, and similar, such a segment often distinguishes usages of the re- verbs where the subject has not previously been discussed within the confines of the work, or where the author is introducing a

counterargument or novel idea into the discussion. On strict grounds, then, the TLL is justified in marking these uses of re- as distinct from the more recognizable uses categorized in particular in Schrickx 2015.

An evaluation of several such verbs including recogito, 2.relego, and retracto, suggests that Tertullian, who pioneers several of the uses identified as having a diminished force of re-, and other Late Antique authors conceptualize historical time and the sharing of information in a

unique manner. For these authors, the re- compound often appears either to position the author in the middle of an ongoing philosophical or theological debate, within which any discussion of a

topic handled by prior authors can be considered a return, or to suggest that the novel statement is such a self-evident truth that the addressee need only remember that evident truth, not truly

learn it anew. This understanding of doctrine as an eternally present conversation, in which current participants are simply extending the previous discussions, suggests that the force of the prefix has often changed its referential scope, rather than truly disappearing.

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How should women’s names decline in Latin inscriptions

Rhiannon Smith
University of Cambridge

Morphological variation encompasses a wide variety of features in Latin. Whilst this variation can often occur across the breadth of language, it can also be limited to very specific contexts. In this paper, I focus on several paradigms which are only found in epigraphic evidence and which are only used on female names, almost entirely cognomina.

Generally, one would expect Latin cognomina in -a to decline in the traditional Latin first declension and transliterated Greek cognomina in -e to decline with Paradigm 1, the transliterated Greek first declension endings. However, there is significant evidence for Paradigms 2 (-e, -enis) and Paradigm 3 (-e, -etis).

Adams (2003:488) has suggested that when a nominative form ends in -ne, the preferred paradigm is -e, -etis and when the nominative ends in any other consonant plus -e, the preferred paradigm is -e, -enis. However this does not fully explain the differences between these paradigms, or why -e, -enis or -e, -etis would be chosen over the more expected -e, -es. Overall, there are 40 different cognomina with nominative -e which arefound declining both Paradigm 1 and 2, 27 declining in both Paradigms 1 and 3, 49 declining in both Paradigms 2 and 3, and 17 which decline in all three paradigms. Therefore it is clear that this is not a case of individual names declining in different paradigms, but rather names containing the ability to decline in all three paradigms.

This paper will discuss how these various paradigms are used and where do they intersect. There are no geographical or chronological limits to my research, as I wish to consider the full attestation patterns of these paradigms to perform a true comparison. Are there different levels of attestation of certain names between the paradigms? As popularity with one paradigm increases, do we see a proportional decrease in popularity of the other paradigms, either overall or in the cases of individual name forms? What factors affect the choice of paradigm for individual names?

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I papiri italiani relativi a donazioni. Strutture linguistiche e implicazioni sociolinguistiche

Rosanna Sornicola
Wolfson College, Cambridge

I papiri italiani latini non letterari, pubblicati da Jan-Olof Tjäder tra il 1955 e il 1982, costituiscono un corpus di importanza primaria per lo studio della latinità tarda e volgare della penisola italiana, relativamente al periodo compreso tra la seconda metà del V secolo e l’inizio del secolo VIII. Si tratta di documenti legali di vari tipologia testuale: testamenti, donazioni, inventari di patrimoni, quietanze, affidamenti in tutela, compravendite.

Magistralmente studiati negli aspetti paleografici, prosopografici e nel più ampio contesto storico-culturale da Tjäder nella sua edizione critica dei testi, con apparato di note e glossario e un abbozzo di prospetto linguistico, i papiri presentano una grande ricchezza di fenomeni linguistici che richiedono uno studio approfondito e sistematico. Furono redatti in massima parte a Ravenna, centro politico e culturale di notevole rilievo non solo per i suoi rapporti con l’Impero bizantino e per la presenza, con alterne vicende, dei Goti, ma anche per la continuità di tradizioni amministrative e legali romane, conservate dalla Curia cittadina organicamente strutturata, e per la presenza di una popolazione multilingue di diversa provenienza.

I papiri italiani offrono dunque uno spaccato della “vita linguistica” dell’Italia tardo-antica nel convulso tramonto dell’Impero d’Occidente e nel complesso primo periodo alto-medievale. Nei documenti il latino si manifesta con strutture che costituiscono arcaismi di varia natura (sia delle lingue tecniche del diritto e dell’apparato burocratico che della Umgangssprache), ma anche con alterazioni sporadiche o frequenti che a volte preludono alle trasformazioni del latino nei volgari romanzi. Interessanti sono anche i fenomeni di contatto con il greco e il gotico, presenti con un ampio spettro di casistiche che include l’uso dell’alfabeto greco per scrivere in latino, da parte di alcuni parlanti per i quali evidentemente il greco è lingua prima o seconda o veicolare, l’interferenza lessicale o sintattica, e l’uso di una lingua diversa dal latino, come il gotico.

La molteplicità di competenze linguistiche e ortografiche, nonché culturali, dei redattori dei testi e di coloro che li firmano, e la diversità di tipologie documentali sono tra i fattori che rendono l’analisi sistematica delle strutture linguistiche dei papiri particolarmente complessa e tale da richiedere una riflessione metodologica preliminare.

In questo lavoro si presenterà una descrizione dei principali fenomeni linguistici, specialmente sintattici e lessicali, rilevati in un gruppo di documenti omogeneo per tipologia testuale, ovvero le donazioni (Schenkungen). Fanno parte di questo gruppo alcuni dei documenti più interessanti dell’intera raccolta dal punto di vista linguistico e sociolinguistico. Gli scribi che hanno redatto i documenti, spesso più di uno, e le persone implicate nell’atto legale, sia come donatori o riceventi del bene donato sia come testimoni, si presentano con un ampio spettro di caratteristiche linguistiche e socio-culturali. L’esposizione dei risultati sarà organizzata con un esame congiunto delle caratteristiche linguistiche dei documenti e dei profili sociali e culturali degli scriventi.

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The Contradictions of the Grammarian: Priscian and the Ablative Singular of the Third Declension

Elena Spangenberg Yanes
Sapienza Università di Roma

This paper is an outcome of the ERC-AdG-2019 project Priscian’s Ars Grammatica in the European Scriptoria (PAGES), directed by Michela Rosellini at Sapienza University of Rome with the main objective of a new critical edition of Priscian’s Ars (6th century). The paper will focus on the long debated issue of the endings of the ablative singular of the third declension as it is represented in Priscian’s grammatical reflection and in his own linguistic use. Such analysis will profit from the new systematic collation of the 8th-10th-century manuscripts of Priscian’s Ars grammatica. The previous critical text, edited by Martin Hertz in the corpus of the Grammatici Latini (1855-59), was grounded on a small documentary basis and lacked a stemmatic reconstruction of the relationships among the manuscripts: the new collation takes into account a much higher number of manuscripts, enables to reconstruct the stemma codicum, and, most importantly, to recover the text of the archetype of the whole tradition, that could not be reconstructed on the mere basis of the manuscripts employed by Hertz. Therefore it is now possible to observe a series of peculiar orthographic, morphological, and syntactic features of Priscian’s language, that in Hertz’s edition were standardised either by the editor himself or by the scribes of the Carolingian manuscripts that he consulted.

The individuation of the correct ending of the ablative singular of third-declension nouns and adjectives was widely debated by ancient and late antique grammarians, who were not aware of the variety of nominal stems collected under the heading of ‘third declension’ and tried to find empiric rules in order to predict the ending of the ablative of each word. In the former part of my paper I will analyse Priscian’s prescriptions about this topic, contrasting them with those by other ancient and late-antique grammarians and highlighting the most significant textual changes that will affect the relevant passages in the forthcoming new edition. The latter part will be devoted, instead, to a survey of Priscian’s own linguistic use as far as the endings of the aforementioned ablatives are concerned: the new collation of the manuscripts reveals several occurrences that conflict with the grammatical rules provided by Priscian himself and the critical editor has to decide, case by case, whether to accept the reading of the archetype or to standardize the ending according to the grammatical rule and/or to the linguistic use attested in coheval literary and documentary texts.

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Les « irrégularités » dans les syntagmes verbaux dans la chronique dite de Frédégaire

Beata Spieralska
University of Warsaw

La chronique dite de Frédégaire nous est parvenue dans plusieurs manuscrits, mais les éditeurs s’appuient surtout sur le plus ancien parmi eux, le Codex Claromontanus, produit à l’époque mérovingienne. Ce manuscrit contient, outre le texte de la « chronique originale de Frédégaire », une compilation des extraits historiographiques plus anciens, compilation qui est sans doute l’œuvre du même auteur que la chronique originale.

Le charactère composite du volume explique la diversité considérable de ses parties : diversité non seulement stylistique mais aussi grammaticale. En effet, le nombre et le type de formes irrégulières varient en fonction de l’identité du texte. Certaines idiosyncrasies linguistiques propres à la chronique originale ne se rencontrent pas dans les parties qui sont des citations empruntées aux autres auteurs. Mais les parties copiées ne sont pas libres non plus des formes non classiques, dont certaines peuvent être attribuées plutôt au compilateur qu’aux auteurs des textes originaux. Une comparaison minutieuse de ces « irrégularités » peut nous permettre de mieux saisir l’idiolecte de Frédégaire. Une telle étude doit aussi prendre en compte la possibilité des fautes de copie qui peuvent intervenir au cours de la tradition manuscrite. L’analyse de l’état de la langue latine dans les diverses parties du texte procure les indices qui permettent d’attribuer les irrégularités linguistiques à des divers intervenants auxquels on doit la forme finale du Codex Claromontanus : les auteurs des sources plus anciennes, « Frédégaire » et le scribe qui l’a produit.

Pour illustrer la diversité des formes « irrégulières », je comparerai les extraits de la chronique d’Hydace de Chaves et de celle d’Isidore de Séville, tels qu’ils sont présentés dans la compilation de Frédégaire, avec le texte de la « chronique originale ». Certaines formes « irrégulières » du point de vue de la flexion classique (résultant souvent des changements phonétiques, si elles ne sont pas de simples fautes de graphie commises par un scribe peu compétent) amènent des changements au niveau de la syntaxe. Cela concerne particulièrement la rection verbale sur laquelle mon étude sera concentrée.

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The Effect of Other Linguistic Changes on the Transformation of the Vulgar Latin Gender System

Béla Szlovicsák
HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics; Eötvös Loránd University - Faculty of Law

The transformation of the Latin grammatical gender system evidenced by Vulgar Latin epigraphical data is a highly interesting area of linguistic change. This phenomenon has been brought up and analysed in many studies, which also provided a thorough description of it (see e.g., Väänänen 1981 or Loporcaro 2018). I also presented a preliminary description of these transformations using the inscriptional data (Szlovicsák 2022). However, none of these studies did control their results for different confounding variables which could highly influence the final conclusions. The goal of the present paper is to provide a more sufficient description of the transformation of the gender system by considering a potential confounding variable.

The focus of this paper is the influence of other grammatical errors over gender confusions. These changes could affect the way gender confusions appear on epigraphs and the general distribution of them. In a similar case Adamik (2019) has already examined the interaction between word final -m errors and morphological confusions using the LLDB Database. Regarding the transformation of the gender system Väänänen and Herman have suggested the possible influence of other morphological changes. In this paper I will put these hypotheses to test to better understand the relationship between gender confusions and other changes. These alternative changes which might influence gender confusions are also captured by the LLDB Database, therefore I can use this database for the examination of the data.

The main goal of this research into the influence of some grammatical changes over the transformation of the Classical Latin gender system is to address the difficult question of how the dynamics of language change in one subsystem are affected by other, seemingly independent transformations. In this paper I will present some important steps towards achieving these results.

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I carmina epigraphica commatica nordafricani di IV-V secolo d. C.: fra prosa, prosodia classica e poesia accentuativa

Mirko Tasso
Universität Wien

Sebbene lo studio dei carmina latina epigraphica abbia a lungo sofferto del disinteresse degli studiosi, negli ultimi decenni si è registrato un rinnovato interesse accademico nei confronti dei poemi su pietra provenienti dal Nord Africa romano (MacCrostie Rae 1991, Evre Arena 2011, Hamdoune 2011 e 2016, Cugusi - Sblendorio 2014, solo per menzionare i lavori più significativi). A dispetto di una simile fioritura, la quale ha certamente favorito una più piena valorizzazione delle potenzialità artistiche della versificazione popolare della regione, si deve tuttavia constatare la totale assenza di contributi specificamente dedicati allo studio dei carmina epigraphica commatica nordafricani di IV e V secolo d. C., ossia di quelle epigrafi in cui ‹‹lines of prose are enhanced by brief portions of quantitative verse, or by fixed quantitively or accentually rhythmic cadences›› (MacCrostie Rae 1991, 10). Difatti, le iscrizioni commatiche africane sono state completamente escluse dall’analisi di MacCrostie Rae 1991, a tutt’oggi lo studio di riferimento per quanto concerne le caratteristiche prosodiche dei carmi epigrafici della medesima regione, giacché non considerate dalla studiosa dei ‹‹true carmina›› (MacCrostie Rae 1991, 10); esse non hanno ricevuto alcun particolare approfondimento nemmeno da parte dei contributi successivi, a dispetto della generale “riabilitazione” della natura poetica di simili componimenti avutasi con Kruschwitz 2002. Lo scopo che si prefigge il presente contributo risulta dunque duplice: da un lato, si desidera colmare questa lacuna negli studi relativi all’universo epigrafico nordafricano, fornendo un’analisi approfondita delle caratteristiche prosodiche dei carmina commatica tardoantichi della regione; dall’altro, di questo piccolo corpus epigrafico, costituito da una quindicina di carmi in cui coesistono prosa, metrica quantitativa e, sovente, ritmo accentuativo, si vuole evidenziare la natura esemplare ed imprescindibile ai fini dell’indagine dell’evoluzione della versificazione in lingua latina nel Nord Africa romano degli ultimi secoli dell’Impero.

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La transition latino-romane, ou la guéguerre qui perdure entre ‘procrastinateurs’ et ‘précipitateurs’

Marc Van Uytfanghe
Ghent University

La chronologie de la transition entre le latin et les langues romanes continue de diviser les spécialistes. Le débat entre les ‘procrastinateurs’ (terme utilisé par Orsat Ligorio), qui situent l’achèvement d’une nouvelle structure typologique (ou d’un nouveau diasystème) de la langue parlée au plus tôt au seuil de l’époque carolingienne), et les ‘précipitateurs’ (néologisme traduisant les ‘early risers’ de Ligorio), qui pensent plutôt à la fin de l’Empire romain d’Occident (ou peu après), ressemble toujours à un dialogue de sourds (comme l’a encore montré un récent colloque de l’École Française de Rome [2021] suite à la parution de la traduction italienne de Viva voce de Michel Banniard).

Les premiers se fondent surtout sur les témoignages métalinguistiques (maintien de la communication verticale), les seconds en appellent aux données de la grammaire historique et comparative, à la dialectologie et à l’analyse des premiers textes ‘romans’. La diglossie, supposée combler ou au moins réduire le hiatus entre les chronologies, ne fait pas non plus l’unanimité. Faut-il dès lors renoncer à vouloir concilier l’inconciliable? La présente communication entend poser quelques jalons pour continuer tout de même la discussion.

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Three forms of discontinuity and their use in later Latin

Agnes Vendel
University of Cambridge

Hyperbaton in Latin in a heterogenic phenomenon that comes in many different shapes. There exist some general surveys on the use of hyperbaton in later Latin, most notably Spevak (2012) and Herman (1985), as well as studies dedicated to specific authors, e.g. the study of Jerome’s use if the construction by Hoffmann (2019).

However, since there is no straightforward definition of hyperbaton, scholars use slightly different definitions, which makes it difficult to compare data from different studies. For instance, Herman’s study (pp. 347–353) notes the varying frequencies of hyperbaton in different authors and genres (c. 15–30% of noun phrases), but only makes a few passing comments about the nature of the discontinuity. In fact, Lehmann (1991:224) remarks that since Herman includes cases where the interposed element syntactically depends on either the noun or the other modifier, the actual rates of discontinuity are likely significantly lower, perhaps around 10%.

For this reason, I have chosen to limit the present study to three easily definable varieties of hyperbaton:

Noun – verb – genitive modifier

Non-verbal heads splitting their own argument

Modifier – preposition – noun

These are constructions that I have previously observed (Vendel, forthc.), to be used by Augustine in different ways depending on the genre. The first occurs particularly frequently in his sermons, whereas the second primarily in De civitate Dei. The third construction is frequent in Classical Latin, but used much more rarely by Augustine, and I would like to investigate whether this is a general tendency of the Latin of Late Antiquity.

The primary aim of the present paper is to build on my own observations, as well as those of Herman and Spevak, of different use in different genres and authors, and to investigate whether these constructions can indeed be associated with specific stylistic registers, genres, authors, or with original vs. translated texts (with potential influence from Greek). To this end, I excerpted a selection of texts, including Augustine, Jerome, Egeria and Gregory of Tours, for the constructions listed above, and compared their use.

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Word order in Merovingian Latin

Barbara Wehr
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

During my research on word order in Old French, Old Occitan and Old Italian where I was interested in the position of subject and verb after an initial non-subject (X-S-V vs. X-V-S), I frequently came across the hypothesis that the inversion of the subject after an initial non-subject “X” was supposed to be a common feature of the Medieval Romance languages (see for example Salvi (2000) and other authors working within the generative approach). This feature, known as “verb second” (V2), must already have existed in Late Latin, if their claim is correct. Indeed Wolf/Hupka (1981) think that the word order X-V-S, characteristic of Old French, was already present, at least as a tendency, in “Vulgar Latin”, and Ledgeway (2017) maintains that the syntax of the Itinerarium Egeriae could be structurally described as “V2”.

Other authors, however, do not agree; see for example Martins (2019) and Haiman (1974) criticizing the V2-claim for the Medieval Romance languages and for Late Latin.

In my contribution I shall have a closer look at hagiographic Merovingian texts written before the Carolingian Reform in order to find out if they already present “V2”, which is indeed a characteristic feature of Old French, but not of the other medieval languages where X-V-S is optional, but not obligatory. In this context, the Vita Sancte Eufrosine (8th/9th c.) is of special interest, as this text shows deviations from Latin standard forms to such an extent that Boucherie (1871) could characterize it as “romano-latin”.

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Afrae aures: Das Latein in Inschriften und Fluchtäfelchen in Carthago und Afrika

Paul Widzgowski
Heidelberg/Bamberg

In einem der Korpus lateinischer Inschriften (in großen Teilen Grabinschriften) aus Nordafrika, die der Zeit zwischen 100 und 800 n. Chr. zugeordnet werden, sind einige deutliche phonetische Abweichungen vom klassischen Latein zu erkennen, die durch ihre Entfernung von der Literatursprache die Entwicklungen der gesprochenen Sprache besonders gut belegen. Die Hauptaufmerksamkeit galt der Provinzhauptstadt Carthago, vergleichend wurden Inschriften aus anderen Städten in Africa und Mauretania Caesariensis herangezogen.

Im Vergleich zum romanischen Sprachraum in Europa fallen die Vokalquantitäten früh aus, wobei sich kurzes ĕ und i in unbetonten, in Einzelfällen auch in betonten Silben einander annähern. Der restliche Vokalismus folgt größtenteils dem auf Sardinien und Korsika belegten „archaischen“ Paradigma in dem die verschiedenen Vokalquantitäten ohne verschiedene Qualitäten einheitlich zusammenfielen. Aus europäischer Sicht auffällig sind die Erhaltung des kurzen ŭ und nur schwache Monophthongierung. Die Prosthese von i- ist möglicherweise durch semitischen Einfluss zu erklären und tritt früher als in Kleinasien oder Europa auf.

Der Konsonantismus wird durch starken Betazismus dominiert, die alveolaren Plosive ti und di, nicht jedoch ci,werden palatalisiert und möglicherweise assibiliert, wofür innovativ der Buchstabe Ζ aus dem griechischen Alphabet entlehnt wird. Die Lautungen von di und gi fallen im Laufe des 4. Jahrhunderts dem Muster der ostromanischen Sprachen folgend zusammen.

Im Vergleich mit Africa ist der Vokalismus inMauretanien trotz geringerem Inschriftenkorpus variantenreicher, der Betazismus deutlich seltener, die Palatalisierung der Plosive häufiger.

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Durocortorum Vulgare: Linguistic Change and Cultural Integration in the Non-Standard Latin Inscriptions of Reims

Lothar Willms
Universität Heidelberg

The North Western wedge of the Roman Empire that comprised the Belgian and Germanic provinces was a unique crucible where all major factors combined that would shape the history of Europe. This area witnessed not only the Romanization of Celtic population and the Christianization of Romans, but worked as the longest lasting contact zone of Romans and Germanic people in Antiquity where Roman culture, Germanic society, and Christian religion ultimately merged to a fusion that would determine the face of Europe for the next millennium and beyond.

My paper explores how this seminal blend is reflected in non-standard Latin inscriptions from Durocortorum (modern Reims) that document both sub-elite and adstratum features. This city’s eventful history epitomizes the aforementioned millenary processes in a completeness unmatched in the area. The governor of the Roman province of Belgica residing at Durocortorum, Romanization was, like in Cologne, Trier, and Mainz, fostered by a large afflux of population through administrative institutions. Located west and south of these three eastern beacon metropoles in the safe hinterland of Belgica, the city which had been the major oppidum of the Celtic tribe of Remi harboured a large Celtic resident population whose Romanization operated by a more organic coalescence, favoured by polytheism and commerce and supported by the refined Roman way of life. Seeing the christening of Clovis and serving as a capital of the Frankish kingdom Austrasia, Remis, as the city was named from Late Antiquity onwards, promises unique insights into the mechanisms by which the Franks’ establishment in Roman Gaul came about.

In order to provide a most comprehensive description of the facets of this city’s non-standard Latin, my paper combines methods of corpus, historical, areal, intercultural and sociolinguistics. This integrative approach will shed new light on the regional differentiation and diachronic evolution of Vulgar Latin as well as the sociolinguistic and intercultural dynamics of (De-)Romanisation. The starting point of my analysis is the 124 data sheets of the Budapest-based Database Computerized Historical Linguistic Database of the Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age (http://lldb.elte.hu/) for Durocortorum which I shall systematise to a local grammar of Vulgar Latin. I shall pay special attention to clues of prominent Vulgar Latin and Romance phenomena (nasalisation, palatalisation) and regional differentiation (cf. Väänänen, Galdi, Adams) that is to be matched with later Gallo-Romance and the linguistic profiles, found in Metz, Cologne, Trier, and Mainz. Moreover, I shall discuss potential influence of Celtic substratum and Germanic superstratum. Religion, economic opportunities as well as citizenship and local mobility will turn out to be driving factors in integration.

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Traits de latin tardif chez Fulgence le Mythographe

Étienne Wolff
Université Paris Nanterre

Fulgence le Mythographe, qu’il faut distinguer de Fulgence évêque de Ruspe (peut-être un parent à lui), vivait en Afrique sous la domination des Vandales. Il était chrétien et sans doute grammaticus. Il est l’auteur de l’Expositio Virgilianae continentiae, interprétation allégorique de l’Énéide, des Mitologiae, où il interprète cinquante fables choisies de la mythologie, de l’Expositio sermonum antiquorum, glossaire de soixante-seize mots latins rares, et du De aetatibus mundi et hominis, esquisse d’histoire universelle sous forme lipogrammatique. L’Expositio Virgilianae continentiae est postérieure aux Mitologiae, puisqu’elle y renvoie (98, 23-24). La langue et le style particuliers de Fulgence ont été remarqués dès le début du XVIe siècle, et lui ont généralement valu des jugements négatifs. Ici on s’intéressera à sa langue, qui contient certains traits de langue tardive ou pré-médiévale, soit attestés ailleurs, soit exceptionnels, et qui peuvent étonner de la part d’un professeur dont on attendrait un latin plus conservateur. Ces éléments de langue tardive relèvent de la morphologie, de la syntaxe et du lexique. On les étudiera en se fondant principalement sur l’Expositio Virgilianae continentiae et les Mitologiae, deux œuvres que nous connaissons bien pour en avoir donné la première traduction en français.

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Hyper-correct aspiration: evidence from the tablets of Caecilius Jucundus

Nicholas Zair
University of Cambridge

The status of aspirated plosives in Latin words of non-Greek origin has been a topic of discussion since the first century BC: Cicero (Orator 160) asserts that certain words – he mentions pulcher, triumphus, Carthago and Cethegus – had acquired in speech an aspirate that they had not previously contained (and he rejects, and thus implies, the use of aspirates in a number of proper names, corona, lacrima, and sepulcrum). Recent scholarship suggests two possibilities for the rise of aspiration: either that it was a sound change in some particular context, such as when plosives were adjacent to a liquid (thus Allen 1978: 26-7); or that it was due to some other (socio-linguistic) cause. Thus Leumann (1977: 163) mentions folk-etymology and influence by association with Greek words, while Weiss (2020: 65) talks of aspiration being “introduced trendily into some native Latin words where it had no historical justification”. Although taking different explanatory positions, these scholars acknowledge both a tendency for the change to take place in the vicinity of liquids, and the sporadicity of the change, but further progress seems stalled.

In this talk, I examine a new source of evidence for the question of the source of the aspiration, in the form of a collection of all examples of Greek words containing voiceless aspirates in the tablets of L. Caecilius Jucundus, an argentarius from Pompeii. 153 of these wax tablets are preserved (as CIL 4.3340), almost all of which are dated to 52-60 AD. The vast majority of words with aspirates are from sections written by scribes employed by Jucundus; they are predominantly names in witness lists on contracts. I find that the representing aspiration is omitted in these words far more frequently when the aspirate is adjacent to a sonorant than when it is adjacent to vowels (or a vowel when it is at the start of a word). This suggests that non-native speakers of Greek were therefore less able to identify whether aspiration was present in the context of a sonorant than when a sonorant was not present.

I argue that this variation in perceptibility provides an insight into the development of aspirated plosives in Latin words: it is the inverse of the tendency for aspiration to take place next to a sonorant (modern scholars tend to specify a liquid, but note triumphus), and thus suggests that the rise of aspiration in these words is due to hypercorrection.

That the correct pronunciation of aspirates was a matter of sociolinguistic importance in (at least) the first centuries BC and AD emerges from, e.g., the passage of Cicero already quoted, the famous poem of Catullus (84) about the freedman’s nephew Arrius who mispronounced his aspirates, and Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 1.5.20. Given the long history of Greek loanwords into Latin, there would not have been a clear dividing line between ‘Greek’ words with aspirates and ‘Latin’ words without (cf. bracchium ‘arm’, after βραχίων, and ampullus, which did not acquire an aspirate despite being a derivative of αμφορεύς); on all this see Manicini (1990: 11-19). Consequently, there was the opportunity for hypercorrect production of aspirates even in words of non-Greek origin, and this was more likely to happen in phonetic contexts where aspiration was harder to recognise in Greek words.

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“Christus imago? Uses of Imago to Signify Imperfection and Perfection, in the Latin Fathers from the Third to the Fifth Century”

Kevin Zilverberg
Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca

The Latin Church Fathers employed imago in apparently opposite senses, depending on the context. On the one hand, it stood in contrast to veritas and implied imperfection: mere imagines pointed to veritates not only as greater “truths” but greater “realities,” the transcendent fulfillment of the imagines.1In this use of imago, Christ is the veritas to which it alludes. Hence, Cyprian of Carthage wrote, Quod ante occiso agno praecedit in imagine impletur in Christo secuta postmodum veritate.2The slain lamb is an imago awaiting the perfection of Christ, veritas, the slain lamb par excellence. In fact, Christ declares that he is veritas in absolute (Ioh. 14, 6), leaving little doubt about which side of the imago-veritas divide he stands on.

On the other hand, the Latin Fathers use imago to express perfection in many instances. They cite the New Testament, in which Christ is the imago (εἰκών) Dei invisibilis (Col. 1, 15).3According to Ambrose of Milan’s Vetus Latina rendering, for example, Christ is the imago (χαρακτήρ) substantiae [Dei] (Hebr. 1, 3).4Although imago, per se, implies derivation from whatever the image represents, Ambrose makes clear that his theological use of the term preserves the doctrine of equality between God the Father and God the Son.

In these and other ways, the Latin Fathers developed and nuanced the meaning of imago for theological expression, whether placing their emphasis on imperfection or perfection. They could also blur the line between the two, as when Jerome paraphrased Origen as asserting that the Son, compared to the Father, was not veritas but merely an imaginaria veritas. This essay documents these lexical developments, which sometimes were born of and came to bear upon Christological controversies.

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Ortografia e ortoepia nel Medioevo grammaticale latino: alcune considerazioni

Laura Biondi
University of Milan

Il contributo intende occuparsi degli aspetti 2 (“the analysis of individual treatise on barbarism as witness of language awareness”) e 3 (“the testimony provided by treatises on barbarism as linguistic phenomena induced by the progressive expansion on the presence of foreign terms in the Latin linguistic community”) del Workshop e si focalizza su alcuni testimoni anonimi della grammaticografia medievale che, al più tardi nei secoli X e XI, rappresentano la persistenza del tema del barbarismus in scriptu e in pronuntiatu e l’esigenza di fissare (o precisare) regulae ortografiche e ortoepiche. Questi testimoni dell’interesse medievale per la correctio e la proprietas da un lato raccolgono l’eredità della riflessione latina che si era occupata di questo tema nell’ambito dell’interesse più generale per la Latinitas (ad es. Donato e Prisciano), dall’altro lato recepiscono l’onda lunga dell’attenzione alcuiniana alla recta scriptura come fondamento per lo studio e la tutela del patrimonio testuale cristiano e come strumento per una sua restituzione corretta anche nella performance orale. Lo fanno però con scelte tematiche (come la nota aspirationis e i dittonghi considerati come temi oggetto di un focus specifico), modi di analisi e forme testuali che rivelano tratti di innovatività e una distanza talora significativa da modelli lessicalisti offerti dalla stessa grammaticografia carolingia (ad es. i De orthographia di Beda e Alcuino). Di contro, questi tratti avvicinano le opere a cui si fa riferimento a tipi testuali che condividono l’interesse per l’orthopraxis e discendono dalle medesime esigenze di regolamentazione delle dimensioni grafica e fonetica del latino, basilari nella formazione scolastica ma soprattutto necessarie per le pratiche di scrittura, correzione, lettura (ad alta voce). In questo senso, questi testi riflettono nuove istanze e nuove condizioni, dovute all’uso del latino come L2 in un contesto di esteso plurilinguismo.

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« Peut-on parler de barbarisme ‘énonciatif’ ? »

Frédérique Biville
Université Lyon 2, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée

La définition canonique du barbarismus comme uitium factum in una parte orationis, présente le barbarisme comme

• une faute de langue (uitium) qui va à l’encontre de la norme et de l’usage établis,

• une faute qui affecte la nature du mot en tant qu’entité, individualité (una pars orationis, in singulis uerbis),

• une faute qui se situe à un niveau formel, qui altère (corrumpere) l’intégrité du mot (integer) dans ses structures phoniques (pronunutiatio) et graphiques (scriptio) – les lettres et leurs ‘accidents’, les syllabes, et l’accent.

La catégorie du barbarisme n’a donc pas vocation à accueillir les fautes qui dépassent les limites du mot et concernent les relations syntagmatiques (conexio, contextus) qu’il entretient avec les autres parties du discours, que ces connexions soient de nature phonétique (mœtacismos, conlisiones, hiatus), morpho-syntaxique (solœcismus), ou sémantique (acyrologia).

À ces traits définitoires fondamentaux s’en ajoutent d’autres, qui élargissent le cadre du barbarisme et du débat. Il font sortir le barbarisme du cadre du mot et de ses aspects purement formels et standardisés, en l’inscrivant dans une dimension énonciative, de variation et d’évolution linguistiques, où sont pris en compte : la nature du texte et de son contexte de production, l’origine et la compétence linguistique du locuteur, l’ouverture du latin aux autres langues et les phénomènes d’interférences qui en résultent, ainsi que la coexistence d’un système de codes non verbaux et les distorsions qui peuvent en résulter.

• le barbarisme ne concerne que les énoncés en prose (soluta oratio) ; en poésie (in metro, in uersu) il laisse la place au metaplasmus,

• il est fréquent dans l’oralité de la langue parlée au quotidien (communis sermo, in usu cotidie loquentium), où il révèle des différences de niveau de langue qui peuvent être porteuses d’évolutions linguistiques,

• il est spécifique de la langue latine ; l’insertion d’éléments étrangers (peregrina uerba), qui constitue également une atteinte (corrumpere) à l’intégrité (à la ‘pureté’) de la langue latine, entre dans une sous-classe du barbarisme, la barbarolexis,

• en dehors des barbarismes grammaticaux, il existe une catégorie (controversée) de barbarismes rhétoriques (barbarismi grammaticorum / rhetorum), qui contreviennent à des codes comportementaux et sociaux, et qui conduisent à s’interroger sur les relations d’impropriété et de discordance que le langage verbal peut entretenir avec d’autres formes de communication corporelle.

Nous nous appuyons pour cela sur le témoignage et l’analyse de différents types de textes antiques, de nature technique ou littéraire.

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Perspectives on barbarism from Augustine to Petrus Helias

Paola Cotticelli-Kurras
Dipartimento Culture e Civiltà, Università di Verona

If it is true that Donatus' definition of barbarism (Ars Maior 3.5, GL 4: 395; 397-399) has an unbroken tradition until his medieval commentaries, the attitude and illustration of the phenomenon change over the centuries. Augustine's (Fortes: 15ff.) grammatical treatise, the Ars breviata tackled only linguistic barbarism (barbarismus) and solecism (soloecismus) among the language deviations (vitia orationis). In this treatise, Augustine gives examples of barbarism such as pronouncing hominem without aspiration, or adding a syllable to potest which becomes potestur which are not Latin forms, as well as the forms uulla for uilla. Therefore the removal, addition, change, alteration or aspiration of letters as well as of syllables or accents or, sometimes, of tenses, constitutes barbarism (Aug. Ars brev. 1.100, Fortes 2019). Augustine also introduces critical comments on the phenomena of barbarism (and solecism) in his philosophical works. Above all, in De Ordine and De Doctrina Cristiana shows a relativized interest in language, stating that linguistic correctness could not be more important than moral correctness. The definitions for barbarism are given in De doc. Chris. 2.45.

Isidore of Seville (d. 636) took some examples from the Bible, and Julian of Toledo (d. 690) gave traditional examples in his chapter on barbarism, with the exception of one: to illuminate hiatus (which is by no means included among barbarisms by all grammarians, and of which e.g. Donatus does not give any example) he has chosen Hierosolymitanus.

In the non-continental tradition, Smaragdus does not discuss barbarism, although he wrote his book on Donatus parts of speech around 805, whereby Christian ones systematically replaced the examples of Donatus. Muretach and other early medieval texts, particularly in Godescalc by Orbais (ca. 850) and in the St. Gall Treatise (late 9th or 10th century), provide a comprehensive discussion of barbarism. Sedulius Scotus In Donati artem maiorem also summarizes the difference in assessment between barbarism and barbarolexis, as does the Ars Laureshamensis, Expositio in Donatum maiorem, followed by Eberhard of Béthune and Hugo of St. Victor. He gives the example of striving [h] and its phonetic value or the correct position of stress on a word. We often find the terminology to introduce barbarism such as X per Y, x not y; or si dicat…barbarismum facit; or phrases introduced by ut. In the 12th and 13th century, we see the parallel traditions of commentaries on both Donatus and Priscian. Petrus Helias gives an exhaustive classification of solecism in his Summa super Priscianum. He provided a definition of the phenomenon, a distinction of the written from the spoken deviations (D.a.g 1, 33: Barbarismus vero est incongrua litterarum vel sillabarum in scriptura coniunctio sive dictionis incongrua prolatio, ut si scribas ' f' ante 'b' in eadem sillaba, vel si pronuncies natura penultimam correptam cum eam debeas producer), or, in Liber constructionum 2, 47: Barbarism est incongrua iunctura litterarum in sillaba vel sillabarum in dictione, in scriptura vel pronunciatione, an etymology of the word solecism (1,37).

The interesting consideration in such time span is that the line between correct and incorrect language is often blurred over time and cases that allow for different interpretations are usually commented on using an example.

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Treatises on barbarism in Latin grammarians between literary examples and sub-standard language

Paolo De Paolis
Università di Verona

The notion of barbarismus as a linguistic fault is strictly connected to the doctrine of Latinitas, intended as the purity of language that must be the goal of those who wish to write and speak Latin correctly. The two antithetical concepts go back to Greek linguistic doctrines and to the contraposition between ἑλληνισμός and βαρβαρισμός, one of the antithetic vices opposed to the correct use of the Greek language. In Latin, it is precisely the treatise that introduced Greek rhetoric doctrine into Latin scholarship, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, that first used the two terms Latinitas and barbarismus. Definitions and examples of barbarism will then be found in Quintilian and again in Gellius, but it will be mainly the Latin grammarians who will dedicate specific treatises to this vitium orationis, starting from Sacerdos and especially Donatus, whose short chapter dedicated to this vice will provide wide inspiration for the several commentaries on his work, aimed at providing broader explanations to the plain Ars maior. Donatus distinguishes between written and spoken barbarism, but ends up dealing more with the first category, citing mainly examples from even the most illustrious literature, e.g. the prosodic adaptations of Virgilian verses, such as Aen. 1, 2 (Ītaliam fato profugus) and Aen. 8, 677 (fervĕre Leucatem), defined as metaplasms, together with instances such as salmentum pro salsamentum, which have no high literary witness, but instead seem to be forms of Vulgar Latin, which can only have a place in technical literature (salmentum, apart from mentions in grammatical texts, appears only in the Mulomedicina Chironis). The comments to the Donatian chapter on barbarism, however, widened the sphere to cases only hinted at by Donatus, such as Pompey's treatises on phenomena simply listed in the Ars within the malae compositions, such as iotacism, mitacism and labdacism. Consentius goes even further, with his customary attention to the forms of Vulgar Latin, introducing in De barbarismis et metaplasmis a series of examples of incorrect linguistic usages that were, however, spreading, such as the well-known case of the Roman plebs' predilection for the pronunciation stetim instead of statim.

The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine some case studies that show the different types of exemplification of barbarisms (and metaplasms) in the dialectic between literary examples and sub-standard language uses.

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La trattazione del barbarismo nell’Ars grammatica di Carisio

Fatima El Matouni
Università di Verona

L’Ars di Carisio rientra tra i manuali tardoantichi che includono la cosiddetta terza parte dell’ars grammatica, ovvero la discussione sui vitia virtutesque orationis, che prevede una sezione dedicata al barbarismo.

La trattazione degli errori, così come degli espedienti retorici che contribuiscono a rendere più efficace l’oratio, è nella grammatica di Carisio sviluppata nel capitolo IV, il quale è estremamente interessante per quel che riguarda le fonti su cui si basa.

A partire da alcune riflessioni formulate da Alessandro Garcea in un lavoro del 2016 dedicato all’analisi degli schemata dianoeas con cui si chiude il capitolo carisiano, in questo contributo si intende approfondire il modo in cui il materiale viene presentato nel capitolo e la sua provenienza. All’interno della trattazione sul barbarismo è infatti particolarmente evidente quel meccanismo di giustapposizione con cui Carisio è solito riportare le informazioni che trova nelle sue fonti. In questa discussione, così come in quella che segue sul solecismo, il grammatico riporta di fatto due diverse presentazioni per ciascuno dei due vitia. In un primo momento egli offre una discussione che attribuisce a Cominiano (349, 18 B. ut ait Cominianus), a cui ne fa seguire un’altra, che introduce invece con l’espressione 350, 24 B. aliis uberius ita placuit.

Pertanto, si analizzeranno in maniera approfondita queste due versioni della presentazione del barbarismo, mettendole anche a confronto con il resto delle trattazioni che su questo stesso vitium offrono le altre artes tardoantiche (principalmente Sacerdote, Donato, Diomede e Consenzio). Un confronto di questo genere passerà anche dalla schedatura degli exempla – sia singole parole sia citazioni letterarie – impiegati nelle due diverse versioni della spiegazione del barbarismo. In particolare, il rapporto più interessante è quello che si instaura con la trattazione che sullo stesso argomento offre Diomede. Proprio la sezione sul barbarismo si dimostra una delle più utili al fine di indagare le relazioni tra questi due grammatici, la cui natura costituisce uno dei nodi più complessi del tentativo di ricostruzione della tradizione artigrafica romana.

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Exploring Barbarisms in the Harley Glossary

Lucio Melazzo
Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche

British Museum 3376, which is generally considered to date back to a period between the end of the 10th and the beginning of the 11th century, contains one of the most important and elaborate Latin glossaries with Old English interpretations (Ker 1957: 312-313). What is found in the manuscript is only a portion of a larger glossary of which other leaves still exist. One of these leaves is at the University of Kansas; the other is in the Bodleian Library. Not counting the entries on these two leaves, the Harley glossary comprises 5563 entries. Most of these, more than two thirds of the total number, consist of a Latin word or phrase as an entry followed by one or more Latin glosses, whereas for nearly all the remaining part, the Latin entries are also or exclusively aligned with an Old English translation. Occasionally there also appear entries to which no gloss has been added. Furthermore, there are a number of interlinear and marginal glosses, and the entries come from different sources and are arranged alphabetically in the AB order from Abacus to Future mercis. Latin words are written in Caroline script; Old English words are written in insular script. Latin lemmata glossed in Old English are underlined, and the number of glosses is noted at the bottom of the pages on which they appear. The underlining was probably the work of John Joscelin, secretary to Archbishop Matthew Parker, b. Aug. 6, 1504, Norwich, Norfolk – d. May 17, 1575, Lambeth, London (Ker 1957: 313). Since the Bodleian leaf has no underlining, the fragmentation of the manuscript may well have taken place prior to the time it came into Joscelin's hands. The content of the Bodleian leaf was partially published by Meritt (1961), while Mucciante and Scarpanti (2012) edited the glossary section of the Oxford and Lawrence sheets. Excerpts of the manuscript with the lemmata accompanied by Old English glosses were published by Th. Wright, the nineteenth century antiquary, in a collection of mediaeval glossaries (Wright 1857 and 1873). Some years later R.P. Wülcker published a revised edition of Wright's work (Wright-Wülcker 1884). Then, 54 years ago, R.T. Oliphant (1966) issued the entire Harley glossary. His edition, however, did not bring about any substantial progress in the knowledge of the linguistic items preserved in the glossary and was unfavorably reviewed (Schabram 1968: 495-500). Actually, it includes a great many mistakes, exhibits some poor and inadequate commentary, and does not even attempt a systematic search for the sources from which the entries were taken.

The indisputable importance of the linguistic data contained in the Harley glossary persuaded me to engage in the challenging enterprise of attempting to shed light on some of the numerous obscurities that one comes across in reading entries that often appear in a garbled or opaque form (Melazzo 1984, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2018, 2019, 2021.) Continuing the effort to clarify the glossary data, I would like to present my analysis of certain intriguing barbarisms for the consideration of my colleagues. These anomalies not only mirror Latin and its pronunciation during the periods when they were originally inscribed in the codices containing specific Latin works, and/or during the diverse instances when they were transcribed into intermediate collections before converging in Harley's extensive compilation, but they also shed light on the fact that, in some instances, Latin was characterized as an L2 and was therefore spoken and written by scribes who had a version of either Old English or, as will be explained, Old French as their L1. Thus, it will be understood among other things how in Harley are recorded barbarisms such as becca and emellus with the meanings of “tail” and “unsavory” respectively, or such as biuligo in which one cannot but recognize the orthographically correct fuligo “soot.”

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The class of pronouns between barbarism and solecism

Stella Merlin
Università Napoli Federico II

The Ars Maior of Donatus reported the following specific example of solecism: «If either say ‘she’ while pointing out a man, or “he” when pointing out a woman» (III. 2, translation by Copeland/Sluiter 2009). Such a very particular example, concerning the 3rd person demonstrative pronoun, finds an antecedent in the theoretical description given by Apollonius Dyscolus in Syntax (III 8 ff., Lallot 1997; Sluiter 2004), where the Greek grammarian questioned about the very nature of such an error: if the utterance is produced in the night, is still a solecism? It is probably not, because the speaker does not see the physical person indicated by the pronoun. On the contrary, it is indeed a solecism when the same utterance is pronounced in presence of the person indicated by the pronoun, because of the lack of agreement between the grammatical gender and the sex of the referent.

Another case of solecism of pronouns involves the epistolary style: although nouns are assumed to be of the third person – since they are constructed with verbs in the third person – they can be used as appositions in letters when the text is as such: “I, Plato, am writing to you, Socrates”. In the long tradition of scholia to Dionysius Thrax, some comments arise in which the scholiast asks himself how it is possible to preserve the prototypical deictic value in pronouns I and you if both are absent from the conversational settlement, as happens in letters. The answer is that in epistolary construction the deixis is not conveyed by pronouns but, exceptionally, by nouns, which normally do not take part in it. Consequently, it can be possible to associate first and second personal pronouns to proper names (and also common nouns) without producing a solecism.

The present paper aims at discussing such vitia orationis involving the word class of pronouns. In particular, it will address: a) the process of deixis-demonstratio as the core of the act of pointing; b) the question of linguistic expression and extra-linguistic reference (Saussure 2018); c) the possibility to find an explanation of solecism (cfr. Isidore of Seville “a figure is an error that occurs for a reason”); and finally d) the discussion on examples which seemingly belong to barbarism, being caused by an error in a single word, but nonetheless concern the whole structure of the sentence in term of congruitas.

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Evoluzioni della dottrina tardoantica sul barbarismo

Ilaria Morresi
Sapienza Università di Roma
Anna Zago
Università di Pisa

La dottrina antica e tardoantica sul barbarismo rappresenta un ottimo banco di prova per comprendere la percezione dei parlanti e degli scriventi rispetto alla variazione linguistica lato sensu. Questo 'scarto' dalla Latinitas può avvenire su tre piani principali: diatopico, diacronico e diastratico. L'asse diatopico e l'asse diacronico sono particolarmente significativi per analizzare il modo in cui i capitoli 'classici' de barbarismo (nell'Ars maior di Donato in primis, ma anche in altri trattati dei secoli 111-VI) siano recepiti e rifunzionalizzati da maestri ed eruditi delle età successive. Essi, infatti, si trovano a operare in contesti geograficamente molto lontani (fra loro e dal centro dell'impero) e in condizioni culturali profondamente mutate, soprattutto per quanto concerne la competenza linguistica dei discenti e le loro esigenze di apprendimento.

La nostra comunicazione intende indagare le modalità con cui i 'nuovi' maestri dei secoli VII-IX descrivono e presentano il vitium del barbarismo, con lo scopo di mettere in luce i loro principi ispiratori, le loro fonti e la destinazione del loro insegnamento. I principali testi presi in esame saranno i cosiddetti Pauca de barbarismo, le grammatiche di Giuliano di Toledo e Isidoro di Siviglia, il commento a Donato di Remigio di Auxerre e i trattati di area insulare composti da Murethach, Sedulio Scoto e dall'anonimo autore dell'Ars Laureshamensis.

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Hieronymus und das Konzept der latinitas

Roman Müller
Universität Heidelberg

Hieronymus und Augustinus richten den Begriff der latinitas und die dazugehörigen

Bezeichnungen mit dem Adjektiv latinus mehr auf die Istnorm der Sprache aus als auf die

Sollnorm. Dies unterscheidet beide Autoren von früheren Bemühungen, durch Regeln und Modelle den „richtigen“ vom „falschen“ Sprachgebrauch zu unterscheiden und so die Bandbreite der Akzeptabilität abzustecken.

Folgende Aspekte stellt Hieronymus in den Vordergrund:

Allgemeiner Sprachwandel: Hieronymus redet dem linguistischen Pluralismus das Wort und setzt sich auch gegenüber den Regeln der klassischen Rhetorik ab.

Aktuelle Gebrauchsnorm: Er trennt den Sprachgebrauch scharf von Präskription. Daraus resultiert ein vielfältiges metalinguistisches Beschreibungsinventar.

Differenzierung gegenüber Fremdsprachen, speziell dem Hebräischen und

Griechischen. Hier diskutiert Hieronymus die semantischen Schwierigkeiten, die sich aus Übersetzungen ergeben. Diese stehen in einem semantischen Spannungsfeld zwischen eingeführtem Gebrauch einerseits und Anpassungserfordernissen aufgrund neuer Inhalte andererseits.

Spezifika des christlichen Glaubensinhalts. Die Unantastbarkeit spiritueller Inhalte begründet das Erfordernis, von regelgerechten Anpassungen und grammatikalischen Regeln abzusehen.

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Il cambiamento della quantità vocalica nei barbarismi secondo la tradizione grammaticale

Nóra Paulus
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics

Della scomparsa dell'opposizione di quantità vocalica nel latino volgare si sono occupati molti linguisti e filologi del XX e XXI secolo, le cui opere si sono principalmente basate sulle informazioni fornite dai grammatici latini tardo-imperiali. Tuttavia, il dibattito accademico sui diversi aspetti vincolati a questo tema non si può ancora dire concluso. Un articolo di Marco Mancini, pubblicato nel 2001 e incentrato proprio sulle testimonianze dei grammatici, metteva in dubbio l’opinione generalmente accettata secondo cui il collasso della quantità latina classica risultò immediatamente nella quantità romanza, in cui la lunghezza delle vocali accentate dipende dalla struttura sillabica. Secondo Mancini, tutte le vocali accentate erano state neutralizzate in una fase precoce del latino volgare, e i parlanti persero presto la capacità di distinguere tra vocali lunghe e brevi.

Michele Loporcaro, nel suo libro del 2015 intitolato Vowel length from Latin to Romance, rifiutò la teoria di Mancini sulla base dell’analisi della quantità vocalica nei dialetti romanzi. Mostrò, infatti, come la cosiddetta ‘quantità romanza’ fosse in vigore in tutto il territorio dell’Imperio Romano, per cui la sua nascita dovette risalire all’epoca tardo-imperiale, quando la lingua era ancora essenzialmente unitaria. Nello stesso anno, anche Mancini pubblicò un altro studio sul tema, sostenendo l’idea che, nel latino volgare, la quantità vocalica fosse indipendente dalla struttura sillabica; nello stesso tempo, modificò leggermente la propria ipotesi, affermando che, in posizione tonica, l’esito della neutralizzazione della lunghezza fosse sempre la manifestazione dell’allofono lungo.

Alla base delle proprie argomentazioni, Mancini poneva gli esempi apportati dai grammatici per spiegare errori grammaticali riguardanti la quantità latina, tra i quali si rinviene più di un caso in cui la prosodia dell’esempio (classificato come sbagliato) non corrisponde con la quantità romanza. La stragrande maggioranza delle 15 testimonianze citate procede dalle descrizioni di vari tipi di barbarismi, trattate da 9 grammatici. Infatti, ben 6 dei 7 esempi che sembrano verificare la teoria dell’isocronia vocalica, si riferiscono proprio a barbarismi.

In questo contributo, mi ripropongo di studiare dettagliatamente i testi dei grammatici antichi che si occupano degli errori relativi alla quantità vocalica, in particolare i 6 passi citati da Mancini. L’obiettivo è quello di dimostrare come la frequente menzione di tali errori non sia sempre originata dalla constatazione dei cambiamenti (senza dubbio presenti) nella lingua coeva, bensì piuttosto dalla continuazione di una tradizione grammaticale. Allo stesso tempo, gli esempi che contraddicono gli esiti romanzi non riflettono (per lo più) forme autentiche della lingua parlata, ma possono essere spiegati in maniera differente.

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Der Barbarismus und seine Bedeutung für die volkssprachliche Grammatikschreibung in Italien. Aspekte der Rezeption lateinischer Vorbilder

Corina Schmauser

Bei der Herausbildung der volkssprachlichen Grammatikographie in Italien kam lateinischen Grammatiken eine entscheidende Bedeutung zu. Seit der Wiederentdeckung der Antike waren diese nicht nur im Wissenskanon von Gelehrtenkreisen verankert, sondern sie bildeten auch die einzigen Quellen, auf die bei der Grammatikschreibung zurückgegriffen werden konnte, so dass sie eine wesentliche Modellfunktion im Hinblick auf Struktur und Inhalte einnahmen. Dabei kam auch das Konzept der latinitas und, in enger Verbindung dazu, die Abhandlung der vitia als Verstöße gegen die Reinheit der Sprache zum Tragen. Der Beitrag will zeigen, wie sich dies konkret im Falle des Barbarismus, dem sprachlichen Verstoß bezogen auf Einzelwörter (in Abgrenzung zum Solözismus als Verstoß in Wortverbindungen), darstellt, und den Fokus demnach auf die Rezeption der Barbarismendiskussion legen: Ausgehend von einem kurzen Überblick über die wichtigsten lateinischen Vorreiter in Antike und Spätantike (Quintilian, Diomedes, Donat) sowie im Humanismus (Niccolò Perotto, Aldo Manuzio) soll jene von den Anfängen der italienischen Grammatiktraktate im 16. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende der Frühen Neuzeit nachgezeichnet werden. Dabei sollen Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede in Bezug auf die Definitionen von Barbarismus und die vier Änderungskategorien (adjectio, detractio, transmutatio, immutatio) herausgestellt sowie ebenso Belege im Sinne von ‚Fremdwort‘ besprochen werden. Darüber hinaus soll auch, unter Berücksichtigung konkreter sprachlicher Beispiele und Einbezug der Lemmatisierung in lexikographischen Werken, aus begriffsgeschichtlicher Perspektive aufgezeigt werden, in welchem Zusammenhang wörtliche, das heißt latinisierende Belege (it. barbarismo) gegenüber volkssprachlichen Bezeichnungen und Umschreibungen (wie etwa parola barbara, voce corrotta, errore) verwendet werden, die letztendlich wiederum den Status des Lateinischen im soziokulturellen Kontext des untersuchten Zeitraumes widerspiegeln und eine deutliche Traditionslinie im Umgang mit sprachlichen Verstößen erkennen lassen.

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Per varia ad classica: preliminary insights in motivational and didactic aspects of late Latin texts in the new Flemish curriculum

Simon Aerts
Ghent University
Morris Callens
Ghent University

By September 2024, Latin texts from ‘other periods than Antiquity’ will have been part of the minimal requirements in the curriculum of Latin, Greek and Hebrew at secondary schools in Flanders for one year. Minimum curricula for each subject lay out the competences required for pupils to complete secondary school, but as the central requirements are traditionally rather vague, individual teachers (or school traditions) have the liberty of filling in the details themselves (i.e. ‘educational freedom’). More established teachers have often reached the point where their syllabi only require the occasional tweaking over the summer, but whereas obligatory materials previously included only a few specific authors or genres from Antiquity (e.g. Tacitus, Vergil), they now cover different periods, different genres and even somenon-literary texts – whatever these may be. As a result, many teachers are now forced to apply major rather than minor revisions to their syllabi – and to include texts that many of them perceive as uncharted territory. In this context, the current paper offers a first national overview of teachers’ attitudes and motivations regarding the implementation of late Latin texts in Flanders, with our data stemming from didactic practices in the Latin classroom in the final two years of secondary education (ages 16-18).

Over the course of 2023-2024, Author1 has been invited to speak at three teacher training days to provide instruction, to present specific starter-kit materials and to address concerns among the teachers in Flanders. In reciprocity, these teachers shared in online surveys their initial concerns, their efforts and experiences throughout the year in tackling difficulties along the way, and their retrospective as well as prospective attitudes at the start of the summer break. The data from these surveys was prepared and analysed by Author2 within the framework of established theories on motivation. During our talk, the insights from this pilot year of late Latin texts in Flanders will be presented, with the aims of (a) sharing and exchanging very specific but universally recognised experiences with the international community, (b) pointing out potential risks and consulting other scholars on risk mitigation and (c) relaying essential insights and opportunities for improvement back to teachers in Flanders and around the world.

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The borders of the adverbium between praepositio and coniunctio in Notker’s perspective

Paola Cotticelli-Kurras
University of Verona
Francesca Cotugno
University of Verona

In the Middle Ages, grammatical analysis heavily relied either on the commentaries on Donatus’ Ars Minor and Ars Maior or was not entirely aware of Priscian’s contribution to the scholarly discussion within the educational framework. Between the eighth and ninth century, the discovery of Priscian’s Institutiones brought a new perspective within this field of analysis (Cinato 2015). Priscian’s interest in metalanguage and definitions was tackled by scholars to bring the methods of dialectics into the study of grammar. In this sense, we can refer to a few relevant figures within the medieval framework that played a relevant role. In this period, scholars such as Alcuin of York (ca. 731–804) started defining a theory of definitions rooted in dialectics by observing and commenting on the use of definitions in Donatus and Priscian (Irvine 1994: 323). This is also the case of the glosses and lexica written in the Middle Ages that shed light both on the need for definitions and on the relationship between Latin metalinguistic definitions and Germanic languages (Amsler 1989). Among the works concerned with metalanguage the Glosses from St. Gall hold a special place (Visser 2011). The teaching methods used in the Abbey of St. Gall survive in the translations and commentaries of the monk, scholar and teacher Notker Labeo (c.950–1022). One relevant aspect is noticeable the terminology adopted for translating the different parts of speech into German (cf. St. Gall 556, nomen – namo, verbum – wort, coniunctio – gevugeda). The didactic purpose is evident and can also be compared with other works in which the Latin terminology has been translated for didactical purposes. In this sense we can refer to Aelfric’s Old English terminology in which we have translations such as nomen – nama, verbum – word, coniunctio feging / geðeodnis.

The focus of this presentation is on the adverbium as its borders are often nuanced between the other parts of speech praepositio and coniunctio. Starting from the translation given by the different grammarians and works, such as the Glossae from St. Gall and Aelfric’ Grammatica, the code mixing between Latin and Germanic languages, we aim at contouring the definition of adverbium compared to the two other parts of speech (Grotans 2006).

As a matter of fact, by taking into account the evidence of the grammatical commentaries, it will be possible to analyses how Middle Ages grammars provided Carolingian and later scholars with the metalanguage for classifying definition and probe the extent of the involvement of non-continental and continental grammarians in the definition of metalanguage (Holtz 1983, 1991).

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Teaching Latin in the Early Medieval Ireland: the case of the Anonymus ad Cuimnanum

Fatima El Matouni
Università di Verona

The grammar of the so-called Anonymus ad Cuimnanum, so known to scholars because of the name of the work’s dedicatee, is one of the commentaries on Donatus’ Ars appeared in Late Antiquity and during the early Middle Ages. Specifically, this text, preserved only in the manuscript St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek 2/1 and first edited by B. Bischoff and B. Löfsted (Turnhout 1992), concerns book II of Donatus’ Ars maior. This manual was in all probability composed in the first half of the 8th century and certainly came from an insular context, so the centers of Luxueil and Bobbio have been assumed – the latter being the one considered most probable. We can therefore say that it is a Latin grammar textbook intended for non-Latin native speaking students. In fact, in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, Ireland was faced with a particular situation. Grammarians in Italy and Gaul were accustomed to dealing with linguistic errors, whereas in Ireland, where Latin really was a L2, teaching needs were very different.

What we propose to do in this paper is to analyze the text of the Anonymus ad Cuimnanum, in order to highlight aspects intended to make it a useful tool for a medieval teacher who found himself teaching Latin as a foreign language. To this purpose, an analysis of the work’ structure will be conducted, aimed both at considering its overall organization and exploring some specific sections. Through a comparison with some late antique grammar manuals, this contribution will try to investigate the most relevant discussions and themes offered by the Anonymous. Such an analysis can shed light on aspects of absolute importance in determining the users of the manual itself.

In this regard, an important element to investigate is the fact that, although this is a commentary on Donatus' Ars, the anonymous author also uses many other grammarians as sources. Probably, the author's way of working is due to the needs of a medieval teacher, to whom the use of Donatus’ manual as a sole source might have been insufficient.

The Anonymus ad Cuimnanum has been studied by the scholars mainly in relation to the grammatical authors he used as sources. Also for this reason I believe that an analysis on the Anonymus in itself could highlight how he can represent an important stage in the teaching of Latin as a second language.

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Is there an appetite for (Late) Latin in an English Catholic college?

Caterina Guardamagna
University of Liverpool
Laura Zambianchi
University of Central Lancashire

Building on John XXII’s Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia (1962) and Paul VI’s Studia Latinitatis (1964), both demanding the teaching of Latin in seminaries, Benedict XV’s motu proprio Latina Lingua (2012) claims the central role of the Catholic Church in the maintenance and transmission of Latin beyond the formation of future priests: “It therefore appears urgently necessary to support the commitment to a greater knowledge and more competent use of Latin, both in the ecclesial context and in the broader world of culture” (emphasis added). To this end, Benedict XVI established the Pontificia Academia Latinitatis, with a wider remit for the promotion of the language. The message by Pope Ratzinger still holds under Pope Francis – who intervened in matters liturgical (motu proprio Summorum Pontificum) – but not on education and culture in general.

Our research aims to investigate whether, to what extent and on what ground, Catholic schools and colleges in England offer Latin. This qualitative paper (part of a broader project) reflects on one in-depth interview carried out with a teacher of Latin in a Catholic college in the North-West of England. This paper addresses the following research questions: Do Catholic schools and colleges engage with Christian Latin at all, and if so, to what extent? Is there any appetite to expand the teaching of Late and Christian Latin? What perceptions and feelings are experienced by Latin teachers?

This pilot interview suggests that our expectation that Catholic Schools are not engaging significantly with the teaching of Latin may have been mistaken. Learners of Latin are driven largely by a fascination with Classical culture, with Late and Christian Latin being out of focus. Furthermore, students show greater interest in the Middle Ages rather than the Late Antiquity. Based on this limited, early data, Late Latin is not discarded on principle, but the teacher reports a lack of support in teaching this particular time period. This finding encourages initiatives like the creation of ad-hoc materials and the provision of teacher training.

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Teaching the government of nouns to L2 students in the Late Antiquity and in the early 12th century

Mira Harjunpää
University of Helsinki

In my presentation, I will discuss how the use of cases (i.e., government, or valency of nouns and adjectives) was taught to L2 students in the Late Antiquity and in the early 12th century. Priscian’s Ars, also called Institutiones grammaticae (ca. 526), is the earliest Latin grammar on syntax, which has come down to us. It was intended for the teaching of advanced Greek-speaking students, which shows in the frequent paralleling with the Greek language. The use of cases occupies the first part of the book XVIII, which is the second book on syntax. Before Priscian’s treatise, the Late Latin grammarians, such as Charisius and Diomedes (4th century), treated the case government under the listings of idiomatic expressions (idiomata casuum). Priscian’s approach was different: it was based on the semantics of the nouns and adjectives. For example, he classified the adjectives of desire, acquiring or lacking (e.g., dives, avarus, egenus) as one group, which made the previously scattered information more readily accessible to students.

The development of the syntactical theory began in the 11th and 12th centuries when Priscian’s books on syntax became more widely known. Hugh of St. Victor’s De grammatica (ca. 1120) is the earliest known exposition of syntax and government, which is adapted for the secondary-level teaching. I will demonstrate how Hugh adjusted Priscian’s account to suit the needs of the students at the monastic school of St. Victor in Paris.

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Teaching Vulgar and Late Latin in Finnish Universities: History and Current Challenges

Timo Korkiakangas
University of Helsinki
Tommi Alho
University of Helsinki

The proposed paper will outline a history of teaching vulgar and late Latin (LVLT) in Finnish universities, with a focus on its current state and challenges.

LVLT has established itself as a relatively prominent element in the Finnish university syllabi and teaching under the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century, thanks to various influential researcher-teachers, such as Veikko Väänänen, who introduced their research interests into teaching. To understand better the scope of the phenomenon, we will first sketch a historical overview of the teaching of LVLT in Finland, briefly going through all those universities that provide or have at some stage provided teaching in LVLT.

We will examine in more detail the official degree requirements of the syllabi of the University of Helsinki from the 1920s to date, as well as the teaching realized on a yearly basis in the same university from the 1960s to date. This analysis aims to highlight how the theoretical and practical knowledge on LVLT has been meant to be transmitted to the students of Latin Language and Roman Literature on the syllabus level and to which texts and teaching materials they have been exposed in practice. The impact of LVLT teaching will be evaluated by investigating the titles of the Master’s theses (pro gradu dissertations) and doctoral theses produced during the last sixty years in Helsinki. We hope to extend a similar investigation to the University of Jyväskylä as well, where the teaching had a notable emphasis on LVLT from the 1970s to the 2000s.

The second part of the paper will be based on the interviews of three to four present and former Finnish university researcher-teachers about what they consider to be the best practices and the primary challenges of teaching LVLT. The focus will be on didactic solutions and classroom practices: for example, the balance between the theory of historical LVLT grammar and the close-reading of relevant texts (including their stylistic and literary analysis), motivating students, and the adaptation of practices and/or materials to learners from different backgrounds.

A preliminary analysis of the data so far available suggests that the role played by influential and inspiring teachers has been crucial to the “success” of Finnish scholarly activity within the field of LVLT. Another important point is the surprisingly high proportion of the relatively small university personnel who have been capable of teaching LVLT in Finland; their innovative teaching choices also suggest that many teachers have shared a genuine interest in LVLT. An increasing challenge for teaching ancient languages, including LVLT, is the decreasing numbers of both students and university teachers. Since only a few Finnish schools teach Latin nowadays and since the university syllabi have been heavily scaled down over the past few decades, the general decline in and the concomitant polarization of students’ Latin skills has also endangered any advanced approach to language beyond the basic level. On the other hand, the progressive inclusion of the modern linguistic perspective in teaching LVLT is considered a major improvement.

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Teaching LVLT: A new challenge for the secondary school?

Silvia Tantimonaco
University of Oviedo

In a world where the teaching of Classical Latin itself is increasingly at risk, introducing Vulgar and Late Latin at high school level could be an opportunity to revive pupils’ interest in the study of this language, and to increase awareness on their cultural heritage. The ideal way to stimulate this effect is through class work on epigraphic documents, which have the undoubted advantage of interdisciplinarity, providing teachers with the unique possibility to connect disciplines that are normally kept separated in the school programs (Latin, History, Art History, etc.) and allowing pupils to get to know the Latinspeaking civilization ‘from within’. In fact, the use of inscriptions for the Latin class and the teaching of Latin also with its non-Classical varieties at high school level was advocated by the renown epigrapher S. Panciera as early as 1985. Yet, it is only in very recent years that this teaching strategy has been attracting the attention of researchers internationally, stimulated by the need to renew Latin teaching methods to make it more effective and meaningful for both teachers and students. In this contribution we will offer a brief review of past experiences (also conducted on a personal level) based on the use of epigraphy for the teaching of Late and Vulgar Latin in high schools in different European countries; we will delve into the potential of different types of documents (e.g. defixiones or paleo-Christian inscriptions) for the elaboration of a specific syllabus; and we will reflect on what the role of the universities should be in promoting the teaching of Vulgar and Late Latin in the secondary school.

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Quand le calque n'a pas d'équivalent en latin: les biblismes du type in saecula saeculorum

Bernard Bortolussi
Université Paris Nanterre
Lyliane Sznajder
Université Paris Nanterre

La construction biblique latine avec réduplication par dépendance, du type uanitas uanitatum « vanité des vanités » (Eccl. 12,8.), canticum canticorum « cantique des cantiques » (Prolog. in libris Salomonis), sanctum sanctorum  « saint des saints » (ex. 29 37 ; 30 10 etc.) est le calque d’une construction intensive de l’Hébreu Biblique à valeur superlative (réduplication par dépendance avec substantif sg + substantif pluriel) (Joüon-Muraoka 2006 : 141).

La traduction latine de cette construction de l’HB peut s’inscrire dans le sillage d’une construction avec génitif partitif présente en latin depuis la période archaïque (H-Sz 1965 : 55) :  pessimorum pessime (Naeu. frg. 118). En revanche l’extension aux noms (dans la traduction uanitas uanitatum), canticum canticorum) ne correspond pas à une construction latine ; sa productivité est en outre très limitée.

Notre étude porte plus spécifiquement sur la formulation la mieux reçue en latin, in saeculum saeculi ou in saecula saeculorum (1500 occurrences chez les auteurs chrétiens entre le 3ème et le 8ème siècle). C’est un bon exemple de « biblisme » : il reprend le modèle des génitifs d’amplification de l’HB, sans que la source HB ne soit exactement reproduite.

Après présentation des constructions latines pré-chrétiennes pouvant servir d’appui à l’introduction de cette construction, nous examinons les 34 occurrences de la Vulgate en les confrontant avec les langues sources : hébreu, araméen et grec. L’objectif est d’évaluer dans quelle mesure Jérôme accepte cette construction « exotique » : en définitive seuls 2 exemples sont des calques exacts et tous les autres des calques légèrement adaptés. Nous verrons que les données ne sont pas les mêmes dans les parties directement traduites et dans les parties révisées. Mais ses choix de traducteur, calque ou abandon et reformulation, peuvent également varier en fonction de la langue source, comme le montre la double traduction des Psaumes (d’après l’HB et d’après la Septante).

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Latin Translations of Strong Causal Clauses introduced by יַעַן in the Hebrew Bible. Standard Renditions and Variability

Alfio Giuseppe Catalano
Pontificio Istituto Biblico, Roma

This paper deals with Hebrew marked causal clauses introduced by יַעַן (yaꜥan), “literally for the reason of (the fact that), Lat. ea ratione (quod), hence because of (the fact that)” (Joüon-Muraoka, 2006, 170f). This rare particle is given a stronger and exclusive causal nuance compared with כִּי (kî), which is indeed employed in a wider range of subordinate clauses—substantival, declarative (כִּי recitativum), asseverative, etc.—as it happens with the Greek particle ὅτι.

The particle יַעַן is often found within periphastic phrases (yaꜥan asher, yaꜥan beyaꜥan, yaꜥan kî, kî yaꜥan), followed by either yiqtol/qatal or infinitive. The usual Greek translation of these sentences is ἀνθʼ ὧν + finite verb or by διὰ τό + infinitive, while Jerome prefers the renderings eo quod/pro eo quod + finite verb. Nonetheless, sometimes the Greek and Latin renderings are non-periphrastic (ὅτι + indicative, quia + indicative, and others).

My research aims at understanding whether the variability in Greek and Latin renderings can be exclusively regarded as stylistic or whether it is linked to different degrees of causality perceived by the translators. Moreover, it wants to detect a potential correlation between the use of periphrastic causal clauses in Hebrew and their corresponding periphrastic renderings in Latin. If this correlation exists, the use of the syntagms eo quod, pro eo quod in these passages should not be deemed as the result of an internal evolution of Latin towards more analytical causal constructs but instead as an effort to faithfully mirror the redundancy of the Hebrew Vorlage.

The approach of the paper is a distributional one: first, I collect all the causal clauses introduced by יַעַן (and by the periphrases containing יַעַן) in the Hebrew Bible; second, I group the Greek and Latin renderings by homogeneous classes; third, I compare the renderings with the corresponding Vorlagen; and lastly, I analyse them.

The study of variability within the renderings and its rationale in relation to the Hebrew Vorlage can help characterise the pliability of Jerome’s translation technique and explain how fidelity to a Hebrew text, which he felt to be redundant, led him to adopt periphrastic and ‘unusual’ causal constructs in the Vulgate compared to Classical Latin.

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The Aspectual Reference of the Present Participle in the Vulgate

Eystein Dahl

The present contribution takes a fresh look upon the use of the present participle in selected Old and New Testament books in the Vulgate. A preliminary examination of the data reveals that the present participle in the Vulgate version of Genesis and Exodus frequently corresponds to the so-called consecutive imperfect in the Hebrew Masoretic text (201/401 ≈ 50%), which in turn tends to be rendered by the aorist indicative in the LXX (118/201 ≈ 59%). Given that the consecutive imperfect is the most frequently used verbal category in narratives in Biblical Hebrew (cf. Waltke and O’Connor 1990) and that the aorist indicative denotes the perfective aspect in the LXX, it is reasonable to conclude that the present participle has developed an aspectually neutral meaning in Late Latin. Although it remains controversial whether a distinct category of neutral aspect exists (cf., e.g., Altshuler 2013, 2014, Dahl 2020), a substantial body of evidence shows that semantically specific aspect categories like progressives tend to acquire more general meanings over time, sometimes resulting in the apparent loss of aspect distinctions (cf., e.g., Bybee et al. 1994, Dahl 2020). This paper adds to this evidence, based on a comparative study of the use of the present participle in the Vulgate versions of the Genesis, Exodus, and the Gospels. The patterns of use associated with the present participle differs slightly in the two text corpora, the most central difference concerning its use to render a finite, narrative past tense, which is common in the Vulgate Pentateuch texts but hardly ever occurs in the Gospels. However, a case could be made for the claim that this reflects the fact that there are greater typological affinities as regards subordination and participle syntax between Late Latin and Koiné Greek than between Late Latin and Biblical Hebrew. Both Latin and Greek employ participles quite freely in subordination, whereas the use of participles in Biblical Hebrew is very restricted and seemingly stylistically marked. This is also reflected in the absolute numbers of participle forms in the nominative case in the Pentateuch and the Gospels and Acts, given in the table below.1

These data show that the number of participle forms is considerably lower in the Pentateuch than in the Gospels and Acts, although the latter comprises a somewhat smaller corpus than the former.2 It is likely that the differences in table 12 reflect the different origins of the two corpora, the Pentateuch being influenced by its Biblical Hebrew source text and the Gospel texts adhering less strictly to the Semitic stylistic conventions.

This set of assumptions provides a straightforward explanation of the different functional ranges of the use of the present participle in the Vulgate. Due to its neutral aspectual character at this stage, it was compatible with imperfective and perfective readings alike, thus representing a highly flexible morphosyntactic category. In the Vulgate New Testament, it primarily renders the Greek participles of the present and aorist, in line with its more general use as a subordination device. In the Vulgate Old Testament, on the other hand, contexts demanding a participle-based subordination strategy are less frequent and, consequently, another, somewhat understudied function of the present participle surfaces, namely its use as a converbal category. This paper pursues this idea further, suggesting that the later demise of the present participle is intimately related with its development into a converb. From this perspective, the present participle competited with other converbal categories, such as the gerund, which eventually seems to have rendered the present participle obsolete.

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The rendering of μέλλω in the Vulgate New Testament

Giovanbattista Galdi
Ghent University

As it is well known, in its translation of the New Testament Jerome attempted to remain as close as possible to the Greek original. This is particularly true for the Gospels, in which the author “revised an existing Latin translation by adapting it to a Greek text he considered authoritative (Graeca ueritas)” (Kreinecker 2023: 42; cf. also Hier. Praef. Euang. p. 3,2ff. and its commentary in Houghton 2016: 32–35). One of the most challenging tasks he had to cope with was the rendering of the Greek periphrasis μέλλω + infinitive which, due to its polysemy, does not have an exact equivalent in Latin. In fact, according to Thayer (1889: 196f), this construction can express five different meanings in the New Testament, i.e. (a) to be on the point of doing or suffering something; (b) to intend, have in mind; (c) in reference to things that will come to pass, by fixed necessity or divine appointment; (d) referring to what is sure to happen; (e) to delay. Expectedly, in most of the instances Jerome resorts to the future participle, which constitutes the closest Latin counterpart. However, in several cases he adopts different strategies, such as the gerundive, uolo + esse and, especially, incipio + esse (cf. Galdi 2016: 44). The aim of our presentation is twofold: on the one hand we provide an overview of the various translations of μέλλω in the Vulgate’s New Testament, comparing them with some of the most representative testimonies of the Vetus Latina; on the other hand, we focus on the instances in which the future participle is avoided, attempting to assess the reasons behind the author’s choice. We argue that in the vast majority of the cases Jerome’s translation is not arbitrary nor represents a mere ‘reprise’ from the existing Latin translations, but it can be accounted for considering the morphological, semantic and aspectual properties of the infinitive depending on μέλλω.

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Rendering Gr. κτίσις and κτίσμα in Vulgate. The Curious Case of creatio.

Octavian Gordon
University of Bucharest

The usual rendering of Gr. κτίσις and κτίσμαin Jerome’s Vulgate is creatura. However, a single occurrence of creatio is registered in Hebr. 9, 11, corresponding to the same Gr. κτίσις. Two other instances of creatio are found in the 4th Book of Ezra. Unfortunately, we do not dispose of either a Greek, or a Hebrew correspondent for these two. It is considered that 4 Ezra was written in Hebrew, then translated into Greek and, afterwards, from Greek into Latin, but the original(s) are lost. That is why, from a translation perspective, creatio becomes a sort of a hapax legomenon in Vulgata.

The paper aims at uncovering the reasons behind Jerome’s choice of creatio over creatura for rendering such an important theological and biblical concept, in a period when the terminology related to the Arian controversy should have already been established on Latin soil. In the 3rd century, as shown by Tertullian’s works, it was conditio which usually rendered both κτίσις and κτίσμα. Creatura, even if slightly attested in Tertullian and Vetus Latina, only gain prominence with Jerome’s Vulgate. I will show whether the context of creatio is different from those of creatura in Vulgate, closely comparing them with the early Bible translations into Latin. A careful analysis of the use of creatio in Jerome’s own literary work will also be considered.

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Support verb constructions in the Old Testament of the Vulgate

Roland Hoffmann
Mainz

Support verb constructions (SVCs) are a special type of Latin light verb constuctions which consist of an abstract verbal noun and a verb with a general meaning as dare or facere (Pinkster 2015:74-77). These syntagms have found increasing interest in the New Testament of the Vulgata, as several articles by Baňos & Jiménez López show (e. g. 2017). Nevertheless, not much research seems to have been done in the Old Testament. In this part of the Bible, there are two versions before the Vulgata, namely the Hebrew original and the Greek translation of the Septuagint. The following paper tries to determine in how far we can find this syntagm in the Vulgata of the Old Testament and what kind of verb phrases were originally in the source language and in the Greek translation.

Looking first at the book of Genesis and at facere and dare as support verbs, we find at least two different types of instances, one type where all three versions have a SVC as in [1] and another one where a SVC is only in the Vulgata version attested as in [2].

Here the Hebrew word order is a marked one, because it has O-V-S or with the indirect object: dO-V-iO-S. The unmarked and normal word order would be VSO with the (direct) object at the end of the sentence. Since the abstract verbal noun ṣǝhoq is here the focus, this word order seems to be pragmatically motivated, since this sentence starts with the salient part of the information. But as the next sentence shows (quicumque audierit conridebit mihi) it is not a causative construction here which could also be easier expressed by a special verb stem of ṣhq.

Another type is [2] where only the Vulgata uses an SVC, but the other two versions use a single verb form (yuqqam; ἐκδεδίκηται).

The reason for the SVC in the Latin text is not difficult to find here: Since a single Latin verb form is the deponent verb ulcisici it cannot express a passive as the Hophal form of nqm in the original version does: so the SVC ultio dari is used here suppletively. In analysing SVCs of the Vulgate text we will have to look if such suppletive uses are the only reason. There seem to be other instances as for example da mihi osculum in Gn. 27,26 or dedit possessionem in Gn. 47,11.

Limiting to two of the most wide-spread support verbs facere and dare in this paper I shall try to examine the extent of the support verb constructions that can be found in the Vulgata and if we can speak of a real system similar to the system in Classical Latin. The results will give more insight in a special type of Late Latin verbal morphosyntax and Jerome’s and his anonymous co-translators use of this morphosyntactic constructions in compiling the Latin Bible.

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Insubordinate morphosyntax in the Vulgate: between contact and diachrony

Ezra la Roi
Ghent University

Insubordination refers to the diachronic process whereby formally subordinate clauses become not only syntactically but also discursively independent (Evans 2007; D’Hertefelt 2018): If only he knew; Que sean felices; Dass ihm nur nicht schlecht dabei wird. Though the phenomenon had mainly been studied for modern languages (e.g. Beijering, Kaltenböck, and Sansiñena 2019), insubordinate clauses have now been shown to also be pervasive in Ancient Greek (la Roi 2021) and Latin (la Roi 2022); in Latin, we for example find wishes and directives with insubordinate ut or assertive ‘as if’ clauses with quasi, though these strategies undergo changes in usage and distribution across time.

In this talk, I propose that the rich but varied corpus evidence from the Latin bible can shed further light on the diachrony of insubordinate constructions in Late Latin. First of all, we find insubordinate wish constructions which seem to have been less frequent in Archaic and Classical Latin, e.g. (o) si wishes. Second, insubordinate wish constructions which were pervasive before undergo changes as well, such as the moods used with counterfactual utinam wishes. Third and finally, we find evidence for the impact of the complex contact setting of the Latin Bible (cf. Houghton 2023); for example, there are insubordinate uses of si which are contact-induced, as the result of contact with a conditional insubordinate construction with an assertive force available both in the Septuagint as well as in Biblical Hebrew (la Roi 2021, 39–40; Conklin 2011).

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Will and desire in the New Testament

Felicia Logozzo
University for Foreigners of Siena

This paper is part of a broader investigation into modality in the Vulgate and is dedicated to examining the prevalent expressions of will, desire, wish, and volition in the Vulgate of Saint Jerome, with special attention to the semimodal verb volo (1-2):

et extendens manum tetigit eum Iesus dicens: volo mundare ( = gr. θέλω, καθαρίσθητι ‘I am willing; be cleansed’) et confestim mundata est lepra eius (Mt. 8, 3)

‘Jesus reached out His hand and touched him, saying, “I want to clean.” Immediately his eprosy was cleansed.’

hunc cum vidisset Iesus iacentem et cognovisset quia multum iam tempus habet dicit ei: “vis sanus fieri? (= gr. θέλεις ὑγιὴς γενέσθαι)” (Jh. 5, 6)

‘When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”’

While it is acknowledged that Latin has various morphosyntactic methods (such as inflection of tense/mood) and lexical devices (such as the use of modal particles or modal verbs) for expressing volition, request, wish, and command, we opt to initiate our exploration of these modalities in the Vulgate with a lexical analysis. As is commonly known, the Vulgate represents a distinct form of Late Latin text, drawing influence from Greek and Hebrew versions, as well as earlier Latin texts referred to as Vetus Latina. Despite Saint Jerome's preference for a translation sensum de sensu rather than a verbum de verbo approach, the tendency to assign a single Latin word for all occurrences of a Greek word is evident. A lexical investigation allows us to assess whether Jerome's choices are optimal for Late Latin or if they are influenced by foreign sources.

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Direct discourse marking in Jerome’s works

Jana Mikulová
Masarykova univerzita

Direct discourse marking in the Vulgate was examined by Sznajder (2015), who listed its characteristics, such as the preference for the anteposition of the marking verb; the identification of speakers by using different verbs of speech in dialogues, connectors and anaphoric pronouns; the redundant marking by more verbs of speech; and the reduction of the use of the participle dicens, a calque from original languages, in comparison to Vetus Latina.

In the present paper, I will build on her research and the subsequent examination of direct discourse marking (Mikulová 2022), in which a passage from the Gospel according to Matthew, a few letters and the Life of St. Hilarion are considered. I will examine additional passages from the Vulgate, Jerome’s letters, and treatises, delving into the differences and similarities in his marking practice in greater detailAttention will be paid to characteristics of individual markers (e.g., the choice of a verb ‘to say’, the position of verbs, redundant marking), the choice of markers to fulfil the same function in the Vulgate and Jerome’s original works, such as introducing a quote from authority and reporting a dialogue.

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Some lexical and syntactic features of the Vulgata, compared to the Greek version and to Classical Latin: possessive sentences, situative verbs, motion verbs

Andrea Nuti
University of Pisa

In the chronological shift from Archaic and Classical Latin to later stages of the language and finally Romance, the transformations affecting the possessive sentences (e.g., the spread of transitive habeo and the disappearence of the mihi est construction), the syntax of situative verbs (e.g., constructions with stare and predicative elements), or the complex system of motion verbs represent a series of substantial linguistic changes (see Baldi & Nuti 2010; Nuti 2015; 2016). In this contribution, I will present a brief description of the use of these constructions in the Vulgate, highlighting similarities and discrepancies from the classical texts, as well as a comparison with the corresponding Greek text, which will sometimes show a certain independence of Jerome’s version from the Greek source. A special focus will be on motion verbs constructions (see Verdejo Sánchez 1998; Nuti in press): among the case-studies considered, the occurrence of dative personal pronouns with motion verbs (e.g., Aug. ep. 34.3 vadam mihi ad eos; Hier. ep. ad Eustochium 22.41 hiemps transiit, pluvia abiit sibi; Vulgate text: Cant. 2.11 hiemps transiit, imber abiit et recessit. See Adams 2013:357-359); the intransitive use of moveo (2 Mac. 14.16 moverunt et convenerunt ad castellum Dessau. Cf. It. Ant. 37.2 et inde moventes. See also Adams 2016:540-541); the relation between the construction in conspectu ambulare (Gen. 48.15 Deus in cuius conspectu ambulaverunt patres mei), its Hebrew source (see Luciani 1973; 1977), and some analogous uses in Latin outside the Vulgate (SHA Hadr. II 21.3 e conspectu ambulare; Petr. 57.5).

As far as these functional domains are concerned, I will finally try to evaluate to what extent the Vulgate text can be considered the outcome of artificial choices depending more or less on the source language, or, alternatively, in what sense the Vulgate reflects a language stage that marks a significant evolution from Classical Latin and, possibly, an actual step toward later chronological stages (see, among the vast bibliography, the keen notes by Vineis 1988).

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The Vulgate text of 1 Corinthians and its Greek source text

Anna Persig
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Textual changes introduced in the Vulgate version of 1 Corinthians may derive from the consultation of Greek manuscripts by the reviser of the Vulgate or be internal to the Latin tradition. Some of these are necessary to render effectively and correctly the text in the target language but others are modifications to the content which cannot be explained by stylistic and linguistic considerations. In this paper, some instances of translations of the Vulgate not corresponding to the editorial text of Nestle-Aland 28 will be examined and possible motivations for their introduction will be offered. For instance, at 1 Cor 6:19, the rendering membra, attested in the Vulgate, does not match the Greek underlying reading τὸ σῶμα, which is translated in the Old Latin manuscripts by the corresponding word corpus. A possible explanation for this translation lies in the influence of 1 Cor 6:15, in which membra is used. Other instances in which the Vulgate differs from the Greek tradition are also attested in the Vetus Latina and kept unaltered in the Vulgate. For instance, at 1 Cor 3:5, the Vulgate and part of the Old Latin tradition attest the translation ministri eius cui credidistis which does not correspond to the Greek διάκονοι δι’ ὧν ἐπιστεύσατε. The translation of the Vulgate suggests that the Corinthians believed in Paul, while, according to the reading of the Greek text, they believed through the ministers. These divergences with the Greek source text show that the Vulgate text of 1 Corinthians incorporates readings and errors of the Old Latin tradition which are not preserved in surviving Greek manuscripts.

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Credidi propter quod locutus sum. Crēdō’spredication(s) and alternation(s) in the Latin Vulgate

Pedro Riesco García
University of Oviedo, Spain

The semantic domain of cognitive verbs has being a point of linguistic interest across languages. In Latin, within this category, the verb credo seems to be, both in Classical and Biblical Latin, a very frequent mental predicate, and one of the most versatile. Classical Latin Lexicographers (Lewis & Short 1879, ThlL 1900-) have placed it within the realm of verbs of thought and belief (‘to be of opinion, think, believe, suppose’), but it is nonetheless true that credo is also a material verb meaning loan (‘to lend’). This meaning is probably the base domain from which a psychological metaphor was developed, resulting a meaning of confidence or trust: ‘to trust to’, ‘to believe in, trust in’, ‘to believe in someone’s words’, ‘to believe a thing, admit as true’. These various posibilities prompt the analyst to define the verb as polysemic.

Semantic multimodality has been often associated with several syntactic possibilities. Precisely, the syntax of credo exhibits multiple constructions: with argumental dative (credere alicui), prepositional phrases (credere in aliquo / aliquem), propositional Objects (credere + [AcI], credere quod, quia, quoniam) or its equivalents (credere id, credere omnia). Reflexive (sibi credere), passive ([alicui] credi aliquod) and absolute constructions are well attested too. The currently prolific verbal alternations proposal (Levin 1993) will be the framework in which I will analyse the interface between credo’s syntax and semantics in the Bible, i.e., the potential relationship between meaning change and syntactic variation.

Along with this synchronic perspective, I will explore credo from a diachronic linguistics standpoint too. Within Late Latin linguistic change, the biblical text offers a landscape in which a new conceptualization influences lexical units, and this is much clearer in a verb meaning trust, belief and confidence. In this respect, Classical Latin witnesses and the vulgar language attested by Vetus Latina will be our main parallels for the comparison. Additionally, Greek LXX and NT will provide us with a cross-linguistic perspective.

Thus, our study delves into the occurrences of credo in Hieronymus’ Vulgate, aiming to elucidate its syntactic-semantic characteristics, to discern continuities and innovations within the broader scope of Latin texts, and to understand the semantic shift undergone by the verb under the Christian way of seeing culture, relationships, faith and individuals.

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The translation of Greek substantival participles in the Vulgate

Liana Tronci
Università per Stranieri di Siena

This paper proposes a corpus-based study of Latin translations of Greek substantival participles in the Vulgate. Greek substantival participles were challenging for Latin translators to render, as Greek extensively used substantival participles, while Latin, lacking a definite article, did not have a specific strategy for substantivizing participles.

Scholars usually distinguish substantival participles into two types, following the classification by Benveniste (1948: 11‒12), which categorizes Latin nouns in -tor which are considered nominalizations of the author of an action (i.e. someone who occasionally does something) and the agent of an action (i.e. someone who usually does something). Based on this distinction, among substantival participles, there are those with a verbal character and those displaying nominal features. The former govern accusative direct objects, while the latter display the complement in the genitive (see Laughton 1964: 73‒74; Adams 1973: 119; Bortolussi et al. 2023: 262 for examples from the Vulgate). Adams (1973: 118) argues that by the Classical period substantival participles of the second type became “a well established feature of the language in cases other than the nominative”. According to Pinkster (2015: 956), in Classical Latin “such substantival participles were especially used when no verbal noun of the same verb stem was readily available”. The usage of the substantival participle instead of the corresponding noun in -tor was a stylistic phenomenon in Classical authors, while this usage increased during the Empire, presumably under the influence of Greek. However, the substantival participle was “a device of the educated language” and “had little place in popular Latin” (Adams 1973: 132).

In this study, I would like to investigate how Jerome translated Greek substantival participles in the Vulgate. Besides the translation by the participle, especially the present participle, other strategies are also possible, e.g. relative clauses with or without quantifier (qui… or omnes qui…) and nouns with suffix -tor (see Magni 2022 for the latter type; on the relationship between substantival participles and nouns in -tor see also Pinkster 2015: 956‒957). My research questions are:

How can we account for the distribution of the different translation strategies? Does the choice of one translation instead of another depend on semantic, syntactic and/or pragmatic features?

What is the relationship between the Vulgate and the Vetus Latina with respect to the translation of Greek substantival participles?

Are there relevant differences between the Vulgate New Testament and the Old Testament? Do these possible differences depend on the different source texts?

To answer these questions, I will conduct a corpus-based analysis of the occurrences of substantival participles in Greek and their translations in the Vulgate. The corpus consists of the Gospels for the New Testament and the Pentateuch for the Old Testament. Results are expected to contribute to both Biblical studies and the understanding of Latin diachronic changes concerning participles, especially the present one (see Gayno 2015; Vangaever 2021). It is understood that the theme of Greek influence on Biblical Latin will also be taken into account.

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The imperfect of delayed awareness in the language of the Vulgate

Elena Zheltova
Saint Petersburg State University

The language of the Vulgate provides us with a lot of evidence about the unusual forms and constructions which can hardly be found in Classical Latin. Among them are several occurrences of the imperfect tense with a special meaning, ex. (1):

(1) Et ecce velum templi scissum est a summo usque deorsum in duas partes, et terra mota est, et petrae scissae sunt; 52 et monumenta aperta sunt, et multa corpora sanctorum, qui dormierant, surrexerunt 53 et exeuntes de monumentis post resurrectionem eius venerunt in sanctam civitatem et apparuerunt multis. 54 Centurio autem et, qui cum eo erant custodientes Iesum, viso terrae motu et his, quae fiebant, timuerunt valde dicentes: «Vere Dei Filius erat iste!» (Matth. 27, 51–54).

‘And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “He was truly the Son of God.’” 

As is evident from the passage, Matthew describes the most dramatic moment of the Gospel – the death of Jesus Christ, which is accompanied by supernatural phenomena. It is not until this event that the centurion and the guard realized that they saw the Son of God. For them, the truth was recognized at that very moment, although true before, and the surprise experienced by the eyewitnesses is conveyed by the imperfect erat rather than by the present or any other tense.

To my knowledge, there has been no indication of this particular meaning of Latin imperfect in the literature – neither in general grammars (e.g., Hofmann, Szantyr 1972; Pinkster 2015), nor in special studies of the Biblical Latin (e.g., Burton 2000; Houghton 2023). Meanwhile, cases like (1) should be identified as a mirative strategy (see Zheltova 2019), because typologically, “deferred realization” is part of the mirative domain and is defined as “a post-factum inference made on the basis of something that the speaker had previously witnessed but only later could realize what it had meant” (Aikhenvald 2012: 468). In a number of languages, the meaning of delayed awareness is conveyed by different past tenses (Aikhenvald 2012: 463) and, importantly for this study, the so called “imperfect of a truth just recognized” has already been attested, though not referred to as a mirative strategy, in Greek (see Smyth1956: 426; Jordaan2013: 10–11, 65).

In this talk I am going, firstly, to analyze all the examples of the strategy under consideration in the Latin corpus, with particular focus on the occurrences in the Vulgate, and secondly, I will attempt to answer the question of whether this mirative strategy was originally inherent in Latin or borrowed from Greek. The latter seems to shed more light on how Jerome dealt with the source language in his work as a translator.

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The (Didactic) Imitation Game: A Psychodynamic Practice

Maria Camilla Mastriani

The pedagogical function attributed to the exercise of imitatio is widely recognized and praised by the ancients: Quintilian extensively discusses it in his Institutio oratoria, but there are also other ancient witnesses regarding such practice, not only artistic and literary witnesses but also somehow practical. For example, among the Colloquia of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, scenes of daily life concerning the school world show how the pueri received stimuli from the environment and the various social contexts they passed through, situations rich in exempla that inspired and guided (positively or e contrario) their education and their formation as individuals. Furthermore, imitatio was also a tool of primary importance in the field of language learning. Students copied exercises on the alphabet, syllables, and words, repeated and imitated speeches and dialogues, aiming to replicate, under the guidance of the magister, the correct writing, pronunciation, and intonation. Teachers themselves played a crucial role as models to be imitated: their authority derived both from the teachings they imparted and from their ability to embody the moral ideals they promoted. Students, by observing and imitating their teachers, assimilated not only “academic” content but also cultural and social values.

Through the comparison and the study of different ancient sources, the present work tries to offer a dynamic overview of the practice of imitatio in pedagogical contexts. As modern and contemporary studies in education sciences have demonstrated, the “game” of imitation is realized not only in school exercises, aimed at language learning, but also in social settings, where the psychodynamic implications underlying the collaboration between teacher and students prove to be of crucial importance.

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