44 CHAPTER TWO

74· De lingua Latina 8.66-7.

75· BUCK Comp .

, aratJve grammar § 8

76. PRISCIAN I I I I' M' ,3 9·

77. e.g. Syntax·I:S.· aximus auctor artis grammaticae.

78. De pronomine b

79 D J • 33 ; PRISCIAN 13.6.29 13631

. e auverbio BERKE A ' .. .

• ,R, necdota Gra I

EKCXcrrov CXlhwv t~ IS! t eca, vo ume 2, 529; Syntax I.S:

UEIl~Plcrra1 TO: TOV M ~ ~61CXS avayeTcxl. De pronomine 85 a: ov ~(AlvaTs

80. Syntax I 3' TO:' .~ v Ilepll. allUCXlvOllEV01S Se.

_ .. " urroxotrrer TWV IJEP - -" • • "

TOU PTWcrT0S xc] _ 6 . WV TOU °YOV avCXYETal TIpOS TT]V

81. ibid 3 3 r : ' .• TOU VOUCXTOS aVvTa~lv.

8 '" 1') EvepYE1CX (0S TIP" • •

2. ibid. 3.6. OS VTIOKEH.lEVOV 1'1 1'ilCXI31j3aSETCX1.

8 ibi

3· lid. 1.3, 2.IO-II

84. ibid. I 3 2 •

85. ibid. 1" .14.3.19.3.32.

A ·3·, 1.9 (an alternative a I' .'

pollonius treat .. na YSIS of this sentence envisaged by

. s TCX){V eAeov

With TIcxlSiov a . k as a neuter adjectival phrase linked

. ' qUlc boy c .

I!nrnediate constit ommg up helped us, with a different

3 uent structure)'

42. ' cp. STE1NTHAL, 1890, volume 2,

86. ibid. 332' 1'01 -

in . . . spcv OUOAOYEI TO TIp 5 '6

g In love admit bei 00 lcrTl E0601lITTO TOU epwuEVOU. (,Ile·

th s to emg affe t d b

e verb properly c C y one's beloved' and therefore

the constructs with th . . ' .

8 agent in passiv e genitive case, the case used of

7. BUCK C e sentences.)

, omparati

of tlz G ve grammar § 2 .

88 e reek language L ' 40, J. WIll CHT, Comparative gramlJ/ar

. ROBl:-<s. 19-7 8 ' ondon, 1912 § "26

S ~, 1-3 ' .1 •

9· HJELMSU:v C .

thought h' ~$, 12. Maximus PI d

"Th t an IS generally d' anu es showed more originality of

.e case theory of M ~re ited to Byzantine grammarians (RobinS,

1ultlonal C axunus PI d'

ongreS$ of Line . anu es , Proc. of the eleventh inter-

",UlSts Bol

, ogna, 1974, 107-11.

Three

Rome

In passing from Greece to Rome we enter a very different world. One rightly speaks of the Greco-Roman era as a period of unified civilization around the Mediterranean area, but the respective roles of Greece and Rome were dissimilar and complementary. Without the other, the contribution of either to European civilization would have been less

significant and less productive.

The Romans had for long enjoyed contact with Greek material

culture and intellectual ideas, through the Greek settlements in the south of Italy; and they had learned writing from the western Greeks. But it was during the third and second centuries B.C. that the Greek world fell progressively within the control of Rome, by now the mistress of the whole of Italy. The expansion of Roman rule was almost complet.e by the Christian era, and the Roman Empire, as it now was, had achieved a relatively permanent position, which, with fairly small-scale changes in Britain and on the northern and eastern frontiers, remained free of serious wars for a further two hundred years. The second half of this period earned Gibbon's well-known encomium: 'If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the c~ndition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, Without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus";'

I.n taking over the Hellenistic world, the Romans brought within

their sway the Jewish people and the land of the Old and New Testaments. The intellectual background of Greece and J udaea and the polical. unity and freedom of intercourse provided by Roman stability were the conditions in which Christianity arose and spread, to become

CH"'PTER THREE

ROME 47

in the fourth centu

these three peoplesryth ... ·D·Gthe state religion of the Roman Empire. To

E ' e reeks the R

urope and much f h .' omans, and the Jews modem

. 0 t e entire d '

mtellectual, moral, political mo. ~rn world owe the origins of their

From their carr and religious civilization.

, lest contacts the R

supenor intellectual d " omans cheerfully acknowledged the

tically this Was refleacnt da~lstlc achievements of the Greeks. Linguis-

e e m the diff

astern and the we t . I erent common languages of the

h s ern provmces I h

were no contact had b . n t e western half of the empire

becam h een made with a . d ' ". ' '

, e t e language of adrni , recogmze civilization, Latin

SOCial advancement UI' mrstration, business, law learning and

with I' . tlmately spok L' ' ,

h c asslcalliterary Latin) di I en ann (by no means identical

t e western provinces d b ISP ac.ed the former languages of most of

the m d ' an ecame in th

o ern Romance 0 N e course of linguistic evolution

o,pe. In the east how' r eo-Latin, languages of contemporary Eur-

amce th H ' ever, already lar I d

e eUenistic peri d G ge y un er Greek administration

reached' R 0, reek retain d th ...

. ,Oman official fee posrnon It had already

their d ti s 0 ten learned d

UI' u ies, and Greek literat an used Greek in the course of

ttmately thi . ure and ph') h .

spl't . s linguistic di . . I osop y were highly respected.

I tmg f h IVISlon w I' .

E . 0 t e Roman E . . as po itically recognized in the

mplres . h mpirs into th W

end . ,Wit the new east e estern and the Eastern

unng h ern capital t C .

and t ib as, t e head of the B ,a onstantmople (Byzantium)

n ulatio yzantme d " .

Th n up to the time f h omiruons through much trial

civil' e ~ccepted view of th °lt ,e western Renaissance.

l.Zatlon were ation b t

of Rom' as probably well e ween Roman rule and Greek

, e s plac d represented' V .,

In the arts ~ an duty; let oth ' 10 ergil s famous summary

Durin ,:hile Rome keeps th ers (I.e. the Greeks) excel if they will there g t e years in which R e peace of the world. ~

must have b orne ruled h

of other I een Contacts b t e western civilized world,

.... ~_ anguage etween s ak

~n in gee t d S at all levels and ' pe ers of Latin and speakers

the easte ..... a emand, and the te chi all places. Interpreters must have

... provi ac ng and I '

manner of pe nces, of Greek) earrung of Latin (and, in

T l'SOns b h' must hav b

. ransIations \V or 10 private ho h e een a concern for all

ment into G ~e numerous Th fiuse olds and in organized schools.

the HeUenisti:ee (the. Septu~":nt)e rat translation of the Old Testa-

w.s c age d '"t)' Was the k

G sYStematicall ,an from the third wor of Jewish scholars of

reek. "'titing p Y translated into L ti century B,C. Greek literature

and revai] tha a in, So h di

learn: c:omJ>Osed d . t Latin poetry ab muc dId the prestige of

from the G unng the classical ~doned its native metres

reek. poets. Thi penod and after in metres

s adaptati .

on to Latin of Greek

metres found its culmination in the magnificent hexameters of Vergil and the perfected elegiacs of Ovid. It is surprising that we know so little of the details of all this linguistic activity, and that so little writing on the various aspects of linguistic contacts is either preserved for us or known to have existed. The Romans were aware of multilingualism as an achievement. Aulus Gellius tells of the remarkable king Mithri· dates of Pontus (120-63 B.C.), who was able to converse with any of his subjects, who fell into more than twenty different speech com-

munities.!

In linguistic science the Roman experience was no exception to the

general condition of their relations with Greek intellectual work. Roman linguistics was largely the application of Greek thought, Greek c?ntroversies, and Greek categories to the Latin language. The rela-

ti I . '1

v~ Y simi ar basic structures of the two languages, together with the

umty of civilization achieved in the Greco-Roman world facilitated

this metalinguistic transfer. '

The introduction of linguistic studies into Rome is credited to one of those picturesque anecdotes that lighten the historian's narrative. Cr~tc:s, a Stoic philosopher and grammarian, came to Rome on a P,ohtical delegation in the middle of the second century B.C., and while SIghtseeing fell on an open drain and was detained in bed with a broken leg. He passed the time while recovering in giving lectures on literary

themes to an appreciative audience.

. It .is probable that Crates as a Stoic introduced mainly Stoic doctrine 10 his teaching; but Greek thinkers and Greek learning entered the Roman world increasingly in this period, and by the time of Varro ~1l6--27 B,C.), both Alexandrian and Stoic opinions on language were

now? and discussed. Varro is the first serious Latin writer on linguistic ~u~tl~ns of whom we have any records. He was a polymath, ranging III s Interests through agriculture senatorial procedure and Roman antiq~ities. The number of his wri:ings was celebrated b; his contempo~a:ies, and his De lingua Latina, wherein he expounded his linguistic

opimons co . d .

, mprtse twenty-five volumes of which books 5 to 10 and

some fra f h .'

gments 0 t e others survive.

One major feature of Varro's linguistic work is his lengthy exposition and formalization of the opposing views in the analogy-anomaly centrov~r:; ~pp. 19-22, above), and a good deal of his description and analysis o . atm appears in his treatment of this problem. He is, in fact, one of the mam sources for its details, and it has been claimed that he misrepre-

sented it as f '

a matter 0 permanent academic attack and counter-attack,

CHAPTER THREE

rather than as the mo b bl .

, re pro a e co-existence of opposite tendencles or

attltudes.4

Varro's style has bee . " d .

, n cnticize as unattractive, but on linguistic

questions he was prob bl h . .

H . a y t e most original of all the Latin scholars.

e Was much Illfluenced b S . I h' .

t h Stil Y tore t 10Ug t, including that of his own

eae er n 0; but he was II c '1' .

d f. equa y rarru rar With Alexandrian doctrine

an a ragment p . ,

, urportmg to preserve his definition of grammar 'the

systematic knowledge of h ' '

d t e usage of the majority of poets historians

an orators', 5 looks ver h I" "

(b Y muc Ike a direct copy of Thrax's definition

p. 31, a ove). On the oth h d h

Predecesso d er an e appears to have used his Greek

rs an contemp . h

them .' h h " cranes rat er than merely to have applied

wit t e nurumum f h

conclusions are 0 c ange to Latin, and his statements and

independent' su~po:ted by argum\:nt and exposition, and by the

investigatIOn of r

was much admi d d ear rer stages of the Latin language. He

Ire an quoted b I .

the main strea f r " y iater wnters on linguistics, though in

did not bri m °b mgulstlc theory his treatment of Latin grammar

ng to ear the infl h'

antiquity that m deri . uence on t e mediaeval successors to

ore envatlve sch I h " .

themselvcs to de ib L' 0 ars sue as Priscian did, who set

SCn e atm v " thi h f

Greek by Thrax's T'~ 1 _ \I In t e ramework already fixed for

ecnne and the '

In the evaluation f V ' syntactic works of Apollonius.

h 0 arro s work I

t e fact that only si f h on anguage we are hampered by

. x 0 t e twen ty fi b k

Uf\'IVC. We ha\'e hi h - ve 00 s of the De lingua Latina

1S t reefold d' . , .

tymology, morphol IVISlon of Imguistic studies, into

d ogy, and syntax 6 d h ' .

an seCOnd. ' an t e matenal to Judge the first

Y arro envisaged langua ed'

pnmal word, imposed g ~ve]opmg from an original limited set of productively as the on t ngs so as to refer to them and acting

b SOurce of Jar e '

u equent changes' I g numbers of other words through

d '. In etters Or in h '

Crlphon came to th ' , P oneuc form (the two modes of

pi' e same thmg C J' )

ee In the course of . or 11m .7 These letter changes take

cl 'cal h )ears and r

hi tllum, war ate cited' ,ear ier forms, such as duel/urn for

cane as f ' as mstance A h . .

,. 'lOr example th . s, t t e same time meanings

arro' ti ' e meanmg l l. '

, S un , and in classical 0 tostts; once' stranger', but in

~~ca~ s~atements are Suppor':1 ~ter Latin, 'enemy'.8 These etymo-

ho ~ etymology suffers f y modern scholarship, but a great

pre en Ion ilia ... 1.___ rom the sam 'eak

"'" ,t '"-'l.iI.Tacterized G k ,e W ness and lack of com-

.... Tt. to SWIm - ,ree work thi fi

iir ' V1tlS, vine from - In IS eld, Anas duck from

er«; to bum th h • VlS, strength d - '

etymolo 'cal e, ~rt, are sadly tv ieal b ,an ~ITa, care, from COT

gt tudies In general. Q • P oth of his work and of Latin

ROMB

49

A fundamental ignorance of linguistic history is seen in Varro's references to Greek. Similarities in word forms bearing comparable meanings in Latin and Greek were obvious. Some were the product of historical loans at various periods once the two communities had made indirect and then direct contacts; others were the joint descendants of earlier Indo-european forms whose existence can he inferred and whose shapes can to some extent be 'reconstructed' by the methods of comparative and historical linguistics. But of this, Varro, like the rest of antiquity, had no conception. All such words were jointly regarded by him as direct loans from Greek, whose place in the immediate history of Latin was misrepresented and exaggerated as a result of the Romans' consciousness of their cultural debt to Greece and mythological associations of Greek heroes in the story of the founding of Rome.

In his conception of vocabulary growing from alterations made to the forms of primal words, Varro united two separate considerations, historical etymology and the synchronic formation of derivations and inflexions. Certain canonical members of paradigmatically associated word series were said to be primal, all the others resulting from • declension' (decliniitio), formal processes of change.w Derivational prefixes are given particular attention in book 6, chapter 38•

a,ne n:ust regret Varro's failure to distinguish these two dimensions of ItngUistic study, because, as with other linguists in antiquity, his synchronic descriptive observations were much more informative and perceptive than his attempts at historical etymology. As an example of an app~rent awareness of the distinction, one may note his statement that, within Latin, equiuitus cavalry, and eques (stem equit-), horseman, can be associated with and descriptively referred back to equus, horse. but that no further explanation on the same lines is possible for eqll~.11 Within Latin it is primal, and any explanation of its form ~~ Its meaning involve diachronic research into earlier stages of the L: ?·european family and cognate forms in languages other than

atlO.

t' In the field of word form variations from a single root both deriva-

tonal and infl' I V '

I exional, arro rehearsed the arguments for and against

ana ogy and al' . .

'If I' anom y, citing Latin examples of regularity and of

regu artty S ibl

, ,enSI y enough he concluded that both principles must be

reeogruzed and d '

th . accepte 10 the word formations of a language and in

e ila e:uungs associated with them. 11 In discussing the limits of strict

regu anty in th f . f

e ormanon 0 words he noticed the pragmatic nature of

SO CHAPTER THREE

language, with its vocabulary more differentiated in culturally important areas than in others. Thus equus, horse, and equa, mare, had separate forms for the male and female animal because the sex difference was important to the speakers, but corvus, raven, did not, because in them the difference is not important to men; once this was true of doves, formerly all designated by the feminine noun columba, but since they were domesticated a separate, analogical, masculine form columbus was created.» Varro further recognized the possibilities open to the individual, particularly in poetic diction, of variations (anomalies) beyond those sanctioned by majority usage, a conception not remote from the Saussurean interpretation of langue and parole.

One of Varro's most penetrating observations in this context was the distincticn between derivational and inflexional formation, a distinction ~ot commonly made in antiquity. One of the characteristic features of inflexions is their very great generality- inflexional paradigms contain f~w omissions and are mostly the s~e for all speakers of a single dialect or of an acknowledged standard language. This part of morphology Varro called • natural word form variation' (diclintitio mitiirtilis), because, given a word and its inflexional class, we can infer all its other fO~S.14 By contrast, synchronic derivations vary in use and acceptaMity from person to person and from one word root to another (cp. ~'121, above); from 0fJis, sheep, and sUs pig are formed ooile, sheep-

10 d and -k ' ' , -

, na, pIgsty, but booile is not acceptable to Varro from bas,

ox, althougb Cat' id ' d

f 018 Sat to have used the form (the normal Latin wor

or ox-stall was bUbik).ls The facultative and less ordered state of this

part of morphology whi h ' , ibili

disti ' c gives a language much of Its flexi 1 ity, was

a~lO~1Shed by Varro in his use of the term • spontaneous word form vanallon' (dic1inatiO volll7lttiria),

Vano showed imilar " . . al

class'fi' sirrn criginality in his proposed morpholOgIC

1 cation of L ti . fl

logical cat ' a In 10 ected words, His use in this of the morpho~

sources ~th nes shows how he understood and made use of his Greek

WI out detiberatel ' . . d

II they had d Y copymg their conclusions. He recogruze ,

gories of inft on de, case ~d tense as the primary distinguishing care-

ecte worda in th lass' al d .

putite --tem f r, e c IC languages, and set up a qua n-

-J~ 0 lOur inflexionall '

y contrasting classes:

ThOle with Q&e inft .

th' eXIOn,

Ole With. tense inft '

thOle -riL eXIon,

.. lUI <:lie and - •• ina

thoee with neith "'UOK: exion,

cr,

nouns (including adjectives), verbs,

participles,

adverbs.

ROME 51

ized forms which, respec-

These four classes were further categonze as d i h tax of

" d C' hare 10 t e syn

tively named, made statements, jome i.e. s , h b their

noun~ and verbs), and supported (construc~ed ':1t ver ~l:es the subordinate members ),16 In the passages deahng, w,dthfthese lik dacU

h I . all derive orms e ,

adverbial examples are all morp 0 oglc Y all 11

learnedly and leete choicely, His definition would apply equ Y we

" , d b f L tin like max, soon,

to the underived and monomorphemlc aver s 0 a 1 ,

and eras, tomorrow, but these are referred to elsewhere amo~g t~e un-f . .' • , ( -I ) d 17 A full classlficatlOn 0

mfiected invariable or barren siert e wor s. .

, di . of syntactl-

the invariable words of Latin would require the istincnon

d f G ek and the later

cally defined subclasses such as Thrax use or re ,

" L ' . b f his examples It seems

Latin grammanans took over for atm, ut rom ,

clear that what was of prime interest to Varro was the range of grammatl-

. f d inele common root

cally different words that could be orme on a sing

(e.g,lego, I choose, I read, lector, reader, legem, reading, one who reads,

and lecu, choicely). , his

In his treatment of the verbal category of tense, Varro displayed

sympathy with Stoic doctrine, in which two semantic f~nctions were distinguished within the forms of the tense paradigms, time reference and aspect (p, 29, above). In his analysis of the six indicative tenses, active and passive, the aspectual division, incomplete-complete, was the more fundamental for him, as each aspect regularly shared the same stem form, and in the passive voice the completive aspect tenses consisted of two words, though Varro claims that erroneously most people only considered the time reference dimension: IS

ACtive Time past present future
Aspect I shall
incomplete discebom. 1 was disco 1 learn discam
learning learn
complete didiceram I had didicf I have didicero 1 shall
learned learned have
Passive learned
incomplete amtibar I was amOT lam amlibor 1 shall be
loved loved loved
complete amatus I had amatus 1 have amlitus I shan
eram been $Urn been er6 have been
loved loved loved (The Latin future perfect was in more common use than the corresponding (heek (Attic) future perfect.)

52

CHAPTER THREE

ROME

53

Varro. put the Latin' perfect' tense forms didici, etc., in the present completive place, corresponding to the place of the Greek perfect tense forms. In what we have or know of his writings he does not appear to hav~ allowed for one of the major differences between the Greek and Latin tense ~aradigms, namely that in the Latin 'perfect' tense there ,~as a syncretism of simple past meaning (' I did '), and perfect meaning

( I have done') d'

· ,correspon mg to the Greek aorist and perfect respec-

tively. The Lati ' t: , •

ca' in penect tense forms belong in both aspectual

· t~gones, a point clearly made later by Priscian in his exposition of a similar analysis of the Latin verbal tenses 19

If the difference . d . . ,

t: III use an meanmg between the Greek and Latin

perlect tense forms h .

b . seems to ave escaped Varro's attention, the more

o VIOUS contrast b t . h fi

· e 'Ween t e ve term case system of Greek and the

SIX term system fL' r .

h 1 0 atin torced itself on him as it did on anyone else

w 0 earned both I L " ,

cas . 'b. anguages. atm formally distinguished an ablative

e ; y whom an . .

It I d actIon IS performed' is the gloss given by Varro. ao

s tare a number f h .

genit' . d ,0 t e meamngs and syntactic functions of the Greek Pie an dative c f d

thc'L ' ase orms. For this reason the ablative was calle

atm case' Or th ,. h '

as th . e sixt case .%1 Varro took the nominative forms

e canofilcal wo d f

developed d li ~ orms, from which the oblique cases were

fixing 0 ,an, ~ke his Greek predecessors, he contented himself with

n one typical' ,

(his apparent . mean,mg or relatIOnship as definitive for each case

mlstranslatlOn f tl G k ,. • " b -

acciisiilivus ha 1 0 re ree aitiatik« ptiisis y caSUS

s a ready b .

Varro Was p b bl een mentlOned, p. 35, above).

}. ro a y the m ind d ' . .

Inguistic top' ost In epen ent and original writer on

ICS among th R .

cussions of ex' , e omans.o After him we can follow dis-

. lstlng questi· b '. .

OUr attention Am ons Y several authors wah no great claim on

h' . ong othe ] li d

IS mind to th I rs U IUS Caesar is reported to have turne

e ana ogy-ano I d b

campaign.zl Th af ma y e ate while crossing the Alps on a

. . ere ter the

Clan used anal ' controversy gradually faded away. Pris-

,.' h ogra to mean th I'

'It Out mention' _. e regu ar mflexion of inflected words,

ftno I ' Ing anomailQ' th -. I' h

rna ous,,=: lTrcgul ,e term aniimalia (whence Eng IS

a ar, as a tech' I )

ppeared occasional! mea term sometimes used in grammar

Van'o's ideas . hY 2Ol0ng the late grammarians %4

but h on t e c1assificat' f" .

t e Word class sv Ion 0 Latin words have been noticed:

enshri d i JStem that W bli . ,

ne In the ' ... ·orks f P' . as est a ished In the Latin tradition

much clo 0 nsclan and th I' ,

. ser to the One'. e ate Latin grammanans was

remamed' gwen In Th 'T. .

th Gat eIght, '~ith 0 h rax s eclme. The number of classes

e reek (d' ne c ange AI'

efinite) article h _'. c ass of words corresponding to

0, he, to, the, did not exist in classical

Latin' the definite articles of the Romance languages developed later from 'weakened forms of the demonstrative pronoun ille, ilia, illud, that. The Greek relative pronoun was morphologically similar to the article and classed with it by Thrax and Apollonius.s! In .Latin t~e relative pronoun, qui, quae, quod, who, which, was morphologically akin to the interrogative pronoun quis, quid, who?, which?, and both were classed together either with the noun or the pronoun class. 26

In place of the article the Latin grammarians recognized the interjection as a separate word class, instead of treating it as a subclass .of adverbs as Thrax and Apollonius had done.s? Priscian regarded Its separate status as common practice among Latin scholars, but the first writer who is known to have dealt with it in this way was Remmius Palaemon, a grammatical and literary scholar of the first century A.D., who defined it as having no statable meaning but indicating emotion. 28 Priscian laid more stress on its syntactic independence in sentence structure.

Quintilian was Palaemon's pupil; he wrote extensively on education, and in his lnstitutio aratoria, wherein he expounded his opinions, he dealt briefly with grammar, regarding it as a propaedeutic to t~e appreciation of literature in a liberal education, and defining it in terms similar to those used by Thrax at the beginning of the Techne (p. 31, above). In a matter of detail, Quintilian discussed the analysis of the Latin case system, a topic always prominent in the minds of Latin scholars who had studied Greek. He suggested isolating the i~strumental use of the ablative (gladio, with a sword) as a seventh case, Since it has nothing in common semantically with the other meanings of the ablative.29 Separate instrumental case forms are found in Sanskrit, and may be inferred for unitary Indo-european, though the Greeks and Romans knew nothing of this. It was (and is) common practice to name the cases by reference to one of their meanings (dative 'giving', a~lative 'taking away', etc.), but their formal identity as members of a Sue term paradigm rested on their meaning, or more generally, their meanings, and their syntactic functions being associated with a morphologically distinct form in at least some of the members of the case inflected word classes. Prise ian saw this, and in view of the absence of any morphological feature distinguishing the instrumental use of the ablative case forms from their other uses, he reproved such an addition to the descriptive grammar of Latin as redundant (supervQcuum).30

The work of Varro, Quintilian, and others during the classical age

of R h I' ., h

orne 8 ows the process of absorption of Greek mguistic teary.

54

CHAPTER THREE

ROME

55

controversies, and cate aries ' thei '.'

But Latm'· I' '. g ,m err applIcatIon to the Latin language.

- mgulStIc sch I hi ' b

descriptiv L . 0 ars p IS est known for the formalization of

e atin grammar to b h b . . ,

antiquity and h 1\:..., ecome t e aSIS of all education In later

modern. wo ld tTeh :bd~le A. ges and the traditional schooling of the

r ,. eLatmgr f h

descendants f h .. . ammars o. t e present day are the direct

. 0 t e compil ti f

most ci , .' a IOns 0 the later Latin grammarians, as the

ursory exammatlo f P' , ,

show. n a nscian S Institutiones grammaticae will

Priscian's grammar (c

running to nea I h·' A,D. 500), co .. mprising eighteen .books and

r y a t ousand pa . bli h

representative f h . ges as pu IS ed today may be taken as

o t eir work Qu' t . b ' .

mars Working' . d'CX . • 1 e anum er of writers of Latin gram-

'm luereot p t f hR'

from the fi t - ar SOt e oman Empire are known to us

rs century A.D. r . '

and P.riscian are th . b on'r\ard;3! Of them Donatus (fourth century)

of detail. on th eh .lest known. fhough they differ on several points

, e woe all th '

same basic syste f e.se grammarIans set out and follow the

show little ori . n\? grammatical description. For the most part they

gmanty doing thei b -

categories of th G· '. ell' est to apply the terminology and

t hnic» e reek gramma . . ,

ec leal terms ' .... ere e- nans to the Latm language. The Greek

L ' re gIven fixed t I' .. ,

ann Word: 6noma _ rans anons with the nearest available

etc I hi s nomen ant6nl111; f - - - , ,_

.. n ts P'l"ocedu thev :T l a, pranomell, syndesmos, coniuncno,

.' . re eyhdb

mmous Alexand . a een encouraged by Didymus a volu-

, rh . nan scholar f th '

'. 0 stated that ev rOe second half of the first century B,C.,

Lat' ery .leature f G

. • m.H He foHowed the ., 0 reek grammar could be found in

:~lcle and the person~ ~:OIC wo~d class system which included the u e abs~nce of a Word fot:n nouns III o~e class (p. 28, above), so that

( pset his clasSification 33 1\ ~~tresponding to the GreekarticIe did not

c. A D 4- .) • =ong th L ' .

G '. 00 gave an ac. eahn grammarians Macrobws

reek d COunt of th < di ff '

paraU 1 ~ . , the Latin verb H b ~ 1 erences and likenesses' of the

th e hstlng of the fo ' . ut It amounted to little more than a

e verbal s . rrns, wl~hout

Th YStems of the tw 1 0 any penetrating investigation of

. e succession of L.' 0 anguages.

graInnJatical d ann grammari

and hand· escription of th I ans through whom the accepted

the ehtia ~d on to the Middl ~ anguage Was brought to compIetion Greco.Robanera. This periode ges spanned the first five centuries of

man ci 'J' Covered th

first two c IVl ~ation of th 1\" . e pax Romana and the unita.ry.

enturi . e lVledit ..

CetltlUy and es, the breakin . erranean that lasted during the

1+--1 ' the fin 1 h g of the im'& . . d

I4IY, by inVJ' a .s attering f h pen peace in the thir

Hi'. aslOn fr . 0 t e West . ....

l'tOtlC'aUy th om beyond th ..ern provinces, Including

ese centuries. witnes de earher frontiers of the empire.

se two ev f . .

ents 0 permanent SlgniJi·

eance in the life of the civilized world. In the first place, Christianity, which, from a secular standpoint, started as the religion of a small deviant sect of Jewish zealots, spread and extended its influence through the length and breadth of the empire, until, in the fourth century, after surviving repeated persecutions and attempts at its suppression, it was recognized as the official religion of the state. Its subsequent dominance of European thought and of all branches of learning for the next thousand years was now assured, and neither doctrinal schisms nor heresies, nor the lapse of an emperor into apostasy could seriously check or halt its progress . .ru. Christianity gained the upper hand and attracted to itself men of learning, the scholarship of the period shows the struggle between the old declining pagan standards of classical antiquity and the rising generations of Christian apologists, philosophers, and historians, interpreting and adapting the heritage of the past in the light of their own conceptions and requirements.

The second event was a less gradual one, the splitting of the Roman world into two halves, east and west. After a century of civil turmoil and barbarian pressure, Rome ceased under Diocletian (284-305) to be the a.dministrative capital of the empire, and his later successor Constantme transferred his government to a new city, built on the old Byzantium and named Constantinople after him. By the end of the fourth century the empire was formally divided into an eastern and a western. realm, each governed by its own emperor; the division roughly corresponded to the separation of the old Hellenized area conquered by Rome but remaining Greek in culture and language, and Italy and the provinces raised from barbarism by Roman influence and Roman letters. Constantinople, assailed from the west and from the east, continued for a thousand years as the head of the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire, until it feU t? the Turks in 14-53. During and after the break-up of the Western Em~lr~, Rome endured as the capital city of the Roman Church, while ChristIanity in the east gradually evolved in other directions to become the Eastern Orthodox Church.

.. ~lturally one sees as the years pass on from the so-called 'Silver A.ge (late first century A.D.) a decline in liberal attitudes, a gradual exhaustion of older themes, and a loss of vigour in developing new ones. Save only in the rising Christian communities, scholarship was backward-looking, taking the form of erudition devoted to the acknowledged ~an~ardB of the past .. This was an era of commentaries, epitomes, and

Ctionaries. The Latin grammarians, whose outlook was similar to that of the Alexandrian Greek scholars, like them directed their attention

56

CHAPTER THREE

to the language of classical literature. for the study of which grammar ~erved as the introduction and foundation. The changes taking place I~ th~ spoken and the non-literary written Latin around them aroused little mterest; their works arc liberally exemplified with texts. ail drawn from the prose and verse writers of classical Latin and their anteclassical predecessors Plaut us and Terence.

How ,different accepted written Latin was becoming can be seen by Co~panng the grammar and style of St. Jerome's fourth century trans-

lation of the B' bl (h VI' ' f '

, . let e u gate), wherein several grammatical eatures

of th~ Romance languages are anticipated, with the Latin preserved and

descnbed by th . 1

P" .. e grammanans, one of whom, Donatus, second on y to

nscian In reputat' 'as in f •

' ron, was In act St. Jerome s teacher.

b The nature and the achievement of the late Latin grammarians can

est be appre ' t d h . ' '

, cia e t rough a consideration of the work of their

greatest repr,csentat', 'P' , ., . C

, ., . ive •. nsclan. who taught Latin grammar man·

stantmople' tl

. in ne second half of the fifth century Though he drew

much from his La . d . r

f tin pre ecessors his aim like theirs was to transrer

as ar as he eo ld I ' , '.' f

A 11 '. u. t ie grammatical system of Thrax's TIc/me and 0

po OUIUS s wruing t L' .' . ,,'

sch l hi s 0 atm. HIS admiration for Greek hngUisUC

.0 ars Ip and his d d ' '

partieul • h epen ence on Apollonius and his son Herodlan, 1_Il

inttod ar, t e greatest authorities on grammar' are made clear in his

uctory paragta h d '

p,'" , p s an throughout his gramrnar,l5

11SCIan worked, .' .. '

of the I . S}stemahcally through his subject. the descrtpUOn

, "anguage of classi I L" "I bl

structur slcaatm, literature. Pronunciation and syh e

e are covered by d " f d

as the sm 'II ' aescnptlon of the letters (litferae). de ne

a est parts of '. I . '

11011ten th arncu ate speech of which the properties are

., e name of the 1 t -,' , ' , .' .'

phonetic val AI' e ter, figura, Its wntten shape and potestas. Its

, .. ue I thi h '

above). and the h ,s ad already been set out for Greek (p, 24.

P Onetlc des ' , d .

menu and of the '. cnptlons of the letters as pronounce seg-

except for th '. s}l~able structures carry little of linguistic interest

I err partial evid . '

angua,ge.l6 ence of the pronunciation of the LaUD

From h '

(d"~ P onetlcs Priscian

. IClm) andlhe s. _ passes to. morphology defining the word

~ h' entence (oral' -) " . ,. ,

t e minimum u 't f W, In the same terms that Thrax had used"

campI . h nj . 0 seIltenc . '. , . f

" lite t ought '. . e structure and the expression 0 a

Pnscian' • respectively 37 As " . .

_'. s granunatical d: \\Ith the rest of western antlqUlty,

.... enled an I' , mo el IS Wo d . d ' . '1

called 'Y Ingulstic si '£1 r an paradigm, and he expre.ssy. . mornb' IgOI cance to di . , . "'ent!" ' 'I'" emie analysis b I " • ivisions, m what would noW U<.

leg 1flto this field he " e ow the word,J8 On one of his rare

nusreprese ted . ' ..

. n the morphemic composluon of

ROME

57

words containing the negative prefix in- (indoctus, untaught, etc.), by identifying it with the preposition in, in, into,39 Th~s.e two ffi.orphemes, in-, negative, and in-, the prefixal use of the preposltlon, are m contrast in the two words iuvisus, unseen, and in'Vlsus, hated (literally, looked

(askance) at).

Mter a brief review of earlier theories of Greek linguists, Priscian

set out the classical system of eight word classes laid down by Thrax and Apollonius, with the omission of the article and the separate recognition of the interjection, already mentioned. Each class of words is defined, and described by reference to its relevant formal categories (accidents (accidentia), whence the later accidence for the morphology of a language), and an are copiously illustrated with examples from classical texts. All this takes up sixteen of the eighteen books, the last two being devoted. to syntax. Priscian seems to have addressed himself to readers already knowing Greek, as Greek examples are widely used and comparisons with Greek are drawn at various points, and the last hundred pages (18,20.157 ff.) are wholly taken up with the comparison of different constructions in the two languages. Though Constantinople was a Greek-speaking city in a Greek-speaking area, Latin was declared the offi.ciallanguage when the new city was founded as the capital of the Eastern Empire; great numbers of speakers of Greek as a first language must have needed Latin teaching from then on.

The eight parts of speech (word classes) in Priscian's grammar may be compared with those in Dionysius Thrax's Techne. Reference to extant definitions in Apollonius and Priscian's expressed reliance on him allow us to infer that Priscian's definitions are substantially those ~f Apollonius, as is his statement that each separate class is known by us semantic content. 40

nOmen (noun, including words now classed as adjectives): the property of the noun is to indicate a substance and a quality, and it assigns a common or a particular quality to every body or thing,.'l1 Ve7bum (verb): the property of a verb is to indicate an action or a being acted On ; it has tense and mood forms, but is not case inflected .• ~

PaT.ticipium (participle): a class of words always derivationally referable to verbs, sharing the categories of verbs and nouns (tenses and cases), and therefore distinct from both.43, This definition is in line with the Greek treatment of these words (p. 34, above).

P15nomen {pronoun): the property of the pronoun is its substitutability for proper nouns and its specifiabiliry as to person (fit st.

CHAPTeR rHRBB second, or third) "'I Th ' ,

third· . '. e Iml1tation to -

person pronouns .. .. proper nouns, at least as far as

,Elsewhere Priscian l'ep:tscO~cerned:, c?ntradicts the facts of Latin,

p. roperty 'of the p. -. pollomus s statement that a ifi

- ronoun IS to ' di . . . . .spec c

a way of i.nten.reti h. m reate substance without quality 4l

wh' h ->t'ng t e lack. of 1 ' s

lerna}' be referred to a . h _ .eXJc~l restriction on the nouns

adverbium (adverb), th nap Ot.JcaJIy by pronouns.

co tru . .., e prope ty f

;5 .. etlon with a verb, to whihC' ,0 the adverb is to be used in I

su ordinate .• 6 C rr IS syntactically and semantically

Praepositi6 ( . "

Used preposItIon): the

ti as a separate Word b fi. pro~ecty of the preposition is to be

pO? ,before both case-in~ octe dcas.e Inflect. ed words and in composi-

l'ISCllln lik T·· - ec e and n '

, e hrax ide ~:fi d on-case-mflected words, 47

proconsul d'.' n .... e the first f .._

. ., ,an· Ultercurrer t. part 0 . words .like proc(J1Isui,

mterzecti' (' . e, 0 mmgle w'th

d 0 Interjection) . J ' , as prepositions.

ent ofveth ' , . a class of w . d '.

, S., and mdicati . f, . . or s syntactically indepen-

comu,nctio (conjuncti ). ~g a eeJmg ora state of mind. ~8

SYntacticaUy on . the property f .

cating two Or Dlore.tne b 0 conjunctions is to join

a relationship be ..... e _ th ers of any other word class indio

I, . "W en em,H '

n reVlewjng p ,

Context in whic tlsdan's Work as a w

description of h?e Was Writing and . hole, one, notices that in the sary. Wh LatIn, no definit' - in the form In which he cast his

ere other 1 L IOn of grarnm . J

mOre than hb . ate .atin gral'n' ar !tse f was foundneces-

'" ... , a rev' - ~.manans d fin d

~ 'ie/me. It iSl late the definitio . e .. e the term, they did no

g c ear that th n gIVen at th b .

eneral, in edu .: .e place of gr ... e egtnning of Thrax's

ately set OUt by ~on Was the same ~m;r, and of linguistic studies in o~ission is an ' . d ,ra:x .and sUrnrnariI as _a been precisely and deliberobJe~ti'Ves. takenl~o Jcatron of the 10nY ::pe~te~ by Quintilian. Priscian's

Pnscian Otganj r granted dUring ~ ntmulty of the conditions and nouns and . Zed the m -h ese centuries

ea . . Verbs. a d orp oIogical d ' .

~L nonlcal Or basic'1) n of the other . fi escnption of the forms of

"lIe firStOnnS i . 10 eeted W d b

Ceed . . person sin. ' n nouns the no '.' or s, y setting up

for ~d to the other ~~Iar present indicati:Inat:ve Singular and in verbs

In as f fllJ,S by . e act1'lre' f h

Unit and or the rest f a series of lett - ,rom t ese he pro-

chang bthe lllinhnal ~ _ western aritiqu't erbchanges, the letter being

ea ear PllonoI' J y, oth th " ,

that f,ou d no relation oglcal unit "'h e mJOlmal graphic

n 11 to . J. e ste-' ,

lln.der the i 0 faVOur at all ~orphernic anal si ps mvoJved In these

prOCess tel' n_Huence of th 10 recent des ,Y ,8, a~d are of the type

1ll1llologies e generative cnptIve lmguistics though

are now b ' grarnmari . > .

ellig suggeSted.50lUlS somewhat similar

ROME 59

The accidents or categories in which Priscian classed the formally different word shapes of the inflected or variable words included both derivational and inflexional sets, Priscian following the practice of the Greeks in not distinguishing between them. Varro's important insight was disregarded. But Priscian was dearly informed on the theory of the establishment of categories and of the use of semantic labels to identify them, Verbs were defined by reference to action or being acted on, but he pointed out that on a deeper consideration (' siquis altius consitferet') such a definition would require considerable qualification; and case names were taken, for the most part, from just one relatively frequent use among a number of uses applicable to the particularcase named .. 51 This is probably more prudent, if less exciting, than the insistent search for a common or basic meaning uniting all the semantic functions associated with each single set of morphologically identified case forms. The status of the six cases of Latin nouns is shown to rest, not on the actually different case forms of anyone noun or one declension of nouns, but on semantic and syntactic functions systematically COfrelated with differences in morphological shape at some point in the declensional paradigms of the noun class asa whole; the many-one relations found in Latin (as in other languages) between forms and uses and between uses and forms are properly allowed lor in the analysis. 52

In describing the morphology of the Latin verb,Priscian adopted the system set out by Thrax for the Greek verb (p. 35, above), distinguishing present, past, and future, with a fourfold semantic division of the past into imperfect, perfect, plain past (aorist), and pluperfect, and recognizing the syncretism of perfect and aorist meanings in the Latin perfect tense forms.s- Except for the recognition of the full grammatical status of the Latin perfect tense forms, Priscian's analysis, based on that given in the Tichne, is manifestly inferior to the one set out by Varro under Stoic influence. The distinction between incomplete and complete aspect, correlating with differences in stem form, an which Varro laid great stress, is concea1ed,although Priscian recognized the morphological difference between the two stern forms underlying the six tenses.s- Strangely, Priscian seems to have misunderstood the use and meaning of the Latin future perfect, calling it the future subjunctive, though the first person singular form by which he cited it (e.g, scripserii, I shall have written) is precisely the form which differentiates its paradigm from the perfect subjunctive paradigm (scripserim, I wrote) and, indeed, from any subjunctive verb form, none of which

60

CHAPTER THREE

show a first pers ".

bOn ternunatlon in-o Tbi ..

, ecause the correspond' .:£ .' s seems all the more surprising

r shall have been beat mg orms In Greek, e.g.. tetypsomai (TE"TIftpO!1(Il)

. en, are correcd . d .. :.:: d . . . '

Was that his Greek . d . Y 1 efilJUe .55 PosSIbly his reason

th ' . . pre ecessors had e 1 d d h f

. err schematization f th .. xc. u e t e uture perfect from

. G . 0 . e tenses In that this'

m reek, and was felt to be an ' " tense Was not much used

dence on the Greek cate 'I f Attlclsm (p, 30, above). A like depen-

both .. . - gona ramework pr b bI I d hi .

. .. a subjunctive mood (sub . ., . 0 aye . m to recogmze

pendent, expressing a Wishs)u, ordmatm?) and an optative mood (indeGreek. nowhere distin 'h rn the Latm verb, although Latin, unlike

as p'" . guts es these tw d fi. ,

r. ISClan III fact ad' h 0 moot orrns morphol.oglcally

. . mas, t us conf d' h' '

nJtlon of the status of c oun mg 1S earlier explicit recog-

D . a wnnaI gram . 1

esplte such ap . matIca category (p. 59 above),56

. parent QUsrep·' ,

stve trust in. a point f . , . reSentatlOns, due primarily to an exces-

systematization of Gor Pk. Oint applicability of Thrax's and Apollonius's

10 . ree to the L ti I ..

gylS detailed, orderly . d . a in anguage, Priscian's morpho-

of syntax in the lasttw' anb kIn ~ost:. places definitive. His treatment

the Or" .. "; , 0 00 s 'S much 1

1 k b ..... uZlIlg features that fin-· ess so, and a number of

ac ing in his aCCOunt' th wes- d in modern grammars of Latin are

scholar ., ey Were added b d'

P, . s on to the foundatl·o. f p. • • y me iaeval and postrnediaeval

tlSClan' n 0nsc .

th s syntactic theory is h dl . ranic morphology. Confidence in

at the Word order rn at y mCl"eased by reading his assertion

pronoun ( b' - mosr common in L' . . .

subst ~u 1~ct) followed b v. . atin, nOl1llnatlve case noun or

phil ance.1S PrIor to the actio y. erb 13 the natural one, because the

I oS~Phizing on an inadequ ~ 1~p~rformS57;suCh are the dangers of n t. e syntactic des' . a e asrs of empirical fact.

same hnes ' h cnPbon of Lati p' . .

into ., as ad been worked r n,. ClSClan cIassIfied verbs on the

active (tr '. out ror Greek b h

!loti anS1Uve) pass' . y t e Greek grammarians

ce of the d 'lve, and neur al (' '

or intr~~ " eronent verbs pas" r Intransitive), with due

.... Stuve in ,SIve tn morph I . __ I I: b '

PassiVe t . meaning and . 0 Ogl\ii:U rorrn . ut actrve

enses 38 l' ... syntax and ith .

case (laud- • . ranS1tIve verbs . WI out corresponding

need so·rneo tl. ' I praise you .. oc _art'~L~ose coIIigating with an oblique

one t . . ' , ..... eo ..,." I . . _"

'case fonns d 0 PIty me.); and the b' l1lJure you, egeo mzserantis, I

an finit b . a senee of c d b

Were not in' ,. ever s is noted 59 B oncor etween oblique

of stilJiectu ... use In Priscian's time as" ut the terms subject and obiect

. " to d . gram . al J

COll'Unon Pri' eslgnate the 10 . at . matlC terms, though the use

thOugh the Sctan made mention gflC subject of a proposition was

. actual nO. the abI ti .. b .

gave an aC(:o,,~ .<une of this c . a lye a solute construction,

me ' ,,-,.t and onstructlOn' 1a

fJidente tmeru examples of ex· tl JS a ter in .. vention; he

ttl cecidi n. ac y this us f .

S '. While I sa . e o. the ablative case:

. W It You be t h b

ate oy, and Augusta

ROMB 61

imperatore Alexandria provincia facta est, when Augustus was emperor Alexandria was made a prcvlnee.w

Of the systematic analysis of Latin syntactic structures Priscian had little to say. The relation of subordination was recognized as the primary syntactic function of the relative pronoun, qui, quae, quod, and of similar words used to embed a verb or a whole clause within another clause.61 The concept of subordination was employed in distinguishing nouns (and pronouns used in their place) and verbs from all other words, in that these latter were generally used only in syntactically subordinate relations to nouns or verbs, these two c1asses of word being able by themselves to constitute complete sentences of the favourite, productive, type in Latin.6z But in the subclassification of the Latin conjunctions, the primary grammatical distinction between subordinating and coordinating conjunctions was left unmentioned, the coordinating tamen, however, being classed with the subordinating quamquam and quamsi, although. 63

Once again it must be said that it is all too easy to exercise hindsight and to point out the errors and omissions of one's predecessors, It is both more fair and more profitable to realize the extent of Priscian's achievement in compiling his extensive, detailed, and comprehensive description of the Latin language of the classical authors, which was to serve as the basis of grammatical theory for eight centuries and as the foundation of Latin teaching up to the present day. Such additions and corrections, particularly in· the field of syntax, as later generations needed to make could be incorporated in the frame of reference that Priscian had employed and expounded.

Any division of linguistics (or of any other science) into sharply differentiated periods is a misrepresentation of the gradual passage of discoveries, theories, and attitudes that characterizes the greater part of man's intellectual history. But it is reasonable to close an account of Roman linguistic scholarship with Priscian, In his detailed (if in places misguided) fitting of Greek theory and analysis to the Latin language he represents the culmination of the expressed intentions of most Roman scholars once Greek linguistic work had come to their notice • And this was wholly consonant with the general Roman attitude in intellectual and artistic fields towards • captive Greece' who • made captive her uncivilized 'captor and taught rustic Latium the finer arts '.64

Priscian's work is more than the end of an era; it is also the bridge between antiquity and the Middle Ages in linguistic scholarship, By

62.

CHAPTER THRES

far ~e most widely used grammar .. ' .• .

ran mto hundreds of mar . ' Pnsclan s lnstztuti<mes grammatica L'.. anuscnpt . d f . ..""

. atin gramto.. ar and the fo .. d '. 5" an armed the basis of mediaeval

which _ un anon of medi t I' .

must be' considered'. ... memaevai . Jnguistic philosophy,

Was the f . In the next cha t P' . ;

.rmt of a Ion ..,.... per. TlSCI.an s grammar

hadalre d . b g period of Greco-Ro .... .

f .. . a.y een broken b the ti . -. man unity. This umty

oHowmg, the Latin west y e tnne he wrote, and in the centuries the confusion of these tim was to be shattered beyond recognition. In

teachin ha . es, the grammar'· heir .

1 . g. .ve been identi fi d . . . lans, t err studies and their

c 3.S81CaI. heritage in the darknes 38 one of the main defences of the . ess of the Dark Ages.6s

FOR FURTHER '

H. AIU!NS S- l. • CONSULTATION

~:. ' r" aerlU!lUense1._.t: • d

(IU zur G . . '''''J t.er Oang'n .. E •

R. ll. BOLGA~ge1lwart, Freiburg/Munich. ' rei' .. nt~.eklungtJon der A'ntike

J COL . ., The classical h_,·t· (second edition), 1969 30-4

• . LART V . ~ •• age and its b ,j;' • ' • • D.FBHLIN~ 'Van-on gramm4irien latin P .. eneJ.ctartes, Cambridge, 1954·

d . , ana und di , arts, 1954·

er Flexion' G re grammatische L .

H N:l!TT·. > loua 3S (1956) . eme Von der Analogie und

• centu:HIP~ 'The study of g;;4-'70• 36 (1958), 48-100.

R. It. ROBI:;'D. , J~rnal of Pht1ology ~ar among the Romans in the first

d ' A.nctent and , d' 5 (1886), I89-2IA

on, 1951 ha me laeval' "T'

J .. B. SANDY • C . pter 1. grammatzeal theory in Europe, Lon-

s, Hutory if fa .

X92I. volume I 0 c meal sclwlarshi . '. . .. • .

T.A. SBBIlOK H' . P (third edition), Cambridge

, !Stori .'

U. STEINT . ography of li "

Riimern HAL, Geschiehte der S7IgulSttC~, 137-77.

(second ed'f pra.cl-tw!stetlseh·~ b .

D. J. TAYLoR D /. I Ion), Berlin 18 4J t , e, dell Griechen und

V ,ee Inalio' ,90. .

arro, Amste d . a study of the li "

ram. 1975. ngu,stu; theory of Marcus Terentius

NOTES r, a, G1]m

i.Qnd . ON, The decline a d

1. .. on, 1909, volu n fall of the Ramo .

Vl!aGIL, A.eneid 6 8 me I" 8'5-6. .. n Emptre (ed. J. D. BURY),

Ture. . ' 51-3:

('- gete lInpe .

nae tibi e no papulos R .

runt art) .' Otnane rn

PlU'oere sub' . es), pacisq . ,emento

3. Noctes Au' JeCtis et deb ell ue lmponere motem

lcae 17 are supb . ,

ZUages QffWn .17.1; H. S. G . er os.

4. l'£RLlNG . 'K tlu ancients La BHMAN, The lnt

, 1956-58.0 th' ncaster p erpreters of foreign lan·

n e POSsible • a., 1914. .

preservation b . .

y Varro (De lingua

Latina 8.68-9) of part of the analogy-anomaly argument, Robins. 'Varro and the tactics of analogist grammarians', Studies in Greek, Italic, and Indo-european linguistics (ed. A. M. DAVIES and W MElD).

Innsbruck, 1976, 333-6.

5. H. FUNAlOLI, Grammaticorum Romanorum fragmenta, Leipzig, 1907,

265: An grammatica scientia est eorum quae a poetis historicis

oratoribusque dicuntur ex parte maiote.

6. De lingua Latina 8.1.

7. ibid. 8·S·

8 .. ibid. 5.3.5.73.

9. ibid. 5.37. 5.78, 6.46.

10. ibid. 6.37-8, 8.3. II. ibid. 7-4.

12, •. ibid. 9.3, 10.74·

13. ibid. 9.56.

14. ibid. 8.21-2, 9.35, 10.1.6.

15. ibid. 8.54; CHARISIOS, AI'S grammaticae I (KEIL, Grammatici[, Leipzig,

1857, 1°4).

16. VARRO, op. cit., 6.36, 8.44, 10.17·

17. ibid. 8.9-10.

18. ibid. 9.96.." 10.48.

19. PRISCIAN 8.10.54·

20. VARRO, op. cit., 8.16.

21. ibid. 10.62.

22. On Varro's linguistic theory in relation to modern linguistics, cp.

D. T. LANCENDOEN, 'A note on the linguistic theory of M. Terentius Varro', Foundations oj language 2 (1966),33-6; TAYLOR, 1975·

33. SUETONlUS, Caesar, 56; CELLIOS, Noctes Atticae 1.10·4·

24. PRISCIAN, Institutio de nomine pronomineet verbo 38, [nstitutiones grammaticae 5.7.38; PROBUS, Instiuua artium (H. ](ElL, GTammatici

Latini, Leipzig, 1864. volume 4), 48.

25. DIONYSIUS THRAX, Tecllne. § 20 (1. BEKKER, Anecdota Graeca 2, Berlin,

1816,640); APOLLONIUS DYSCOLUS, Syntax 1.43·

26. As noun, PRISCIAN 2.4.18, 2.6.30, 13.3.11; as pronoun, PROBUS,

Instituta eKEIL, Grammatici 4), 133·

27. APOLLONIUS, Deadverbio, BEKKER, Anecdota Graeca s, 5.31-

28. CHARISlUS, ATs grammaticae 2.16 (KEIL, Grammatici 1 (I8S7), 238}:

Nihil dodbile habent, significant ramen adfectUn:l animi.

29. QUINTlLIAN, Institutio oratoria 1.4.2-3. 1.4.26.

30. PRISCIAN 5.14.79.

31• Their works are published in the eight volumes of H. KllIL, Gram1Hil'-

tid Latini, Leipzig, 1855-1923-

31. PRlSCIAN 8.17.96; Defiguris lIumeTorum 9·

33. PRISCI.\N II. 1. I.