The Oxford Latin Syntax

The Oxford Latin Syntax
Author: Harm Pinkster
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1280
Release: 2021-03-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192608894

In this two-volume work, the first full-scale treatment of its kind in English, Harm Pinkster applies contemporary linguistic theories and the findings of traditional grammar to the study of Latin syntax. He takes a non-technical and principally descriptive approach, based on literary and non-literary texts dating from c.250 BC to c.450 AD. The volumes contain a wealth of examples to illustrate the grammatical phenomena under discussion, many of them from the works of Plautus and Cicero, alongside extensive references to other sources of examples such as the Oxford Latin Dictionary and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. While the first volume explored the simple clause, this second volume focuses on the complex sentence and discourse. The first three chapters examine different types of subordinate clause; the following four then explore relative clauses, coordination, comparison, and secondary predicates. Later chapters investigate information structure and extraclausal expressions, word order, and discourse and related features. The Oxford Latin Syntax will be a valuable and up-to-date resource both for professional Latinists and all linguists with an interest in Classics.

Word Order Change

Word Order Change
Author: Ana Maria Martins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2018-06-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191064467

This volume explores word order change within the framework of diachronic generative syntax. Word order is at the core of natural language grammatical systems, linking syntax with prosody and with semantics and pragmatics. The chapters in this volume use the tools provided by the generative theory of grammar to examine the constrained ways in which historical word order variants have given way to new ones over time. Following an introduction by the editors, the book is divided into four parts that investigate changes regarding the targets for movement within the clausal functional hierarchy; changes (or stability) in the nature of the triggers for movement; verb movement into the left peripheries; and types of movement, with specific focus on word order change in Latin. Data are drawn from a wide variety of languages from different families and from both classical and modern periods, including Sanskrit, Tocharian, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Irish, Hungarian, and Coptic Egyptian. The book's broad coverage and combination of language-internal and comparative studies offers new perspectives on the relation between word order change and syntactic movement. The volume also provides a range of wider insights into the properties of natural language and the way in which those properties constrain language variation and change.

Terence and the Verb 'to Be' in Latin

Terence and the Verb 'to Be' in Latin
Author: Giuseppe Pezzini
Publisher:
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 019873624X

Terence and the Verb 'To Be' in Latin is the first in-depth study of the verb 'to be' in Latin (esse) and some of its hidden properties. Like the English 'be' (e.g. it's), the Latin forms of esse could undergo phonetic reduction or contraction. This phenomenon is largely unknown since classical texts have undergone a long process of transmission over the centuries, which has altered or deleted its traces. Although they are often neglected by scholars and puzzling to students, the use of contracted forms is shown to be widespread and significant. These forms expose the clitic nature of esse, which also explains other properties of the verb, including its participation in a prosodic simplification with a host ending in -s (sigmatic ecthlipsis), a phenomenon which is also discussed in the volume. After an introduction on methodology, the volume discusses the linguistic significance of such phenomena, focusing in particular on analysis of their behaviour in the plays of the ancient Roman playwright, Terence. Combining traditional scholarship with the use of digital resources, the volume explores the orthographic, phonological, semantic, and syntactic aspects of the verb esse, revealing that cliticization is a key feature of the verb 'to be' in Latin, and that contractions deserve a place within its paradigm.

From Latin to Romance

From Latin to Romance
Author: Adam Ledgeway
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2012-05-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780199584376

This book examines grammatical changes during the transition from Latin to the Romance languages and the factors proposed to explain them. It challenges orthodoxy, presents new perspectives on language change, structure, and variation, and will appeal equally to Romance linguists, Latinists, philologists, and historical linguists of all persuasions.

A Companion to the Latin Language

A Companion to the Latin Language
Author: James Clackson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2011-07-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1444343378

A Companion to the Latin Language presents a collection of original essays from international scholars that track the development and use of the Latin language from its origins to its modern day usage. Brings together contributions from internationally renowned classicists, linguists and Latin language specialists Offers, in a single volume, a detailed account of different literary registers of the Latin language Explores the social and political contexts of Latin Includes new accounts of the Latin language in light of modern linguistic theory Supplemented with illustrations covering the development of the Latin alphabet

Exploring Latin: Structures, Functions, Meaning

Exploring Latin: Structures, Functions, Meaning
Author: Lucie Pultrová
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 697
Release: 2024-11-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111333035

This two-volume work contains a selection of papers first presented at the 22nd International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, held in Prague (2023). The papers address important issues in Latin linguistics with a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. The first volume ("Word") contains texts concerning Latin phonology, etymology, flexion and derivation, and lexical semantics, both with respect to individual words and to entire word classes. Both diachronic and synchronic perspectives are employed in the discussion of the various issues. The second volume ("Clause and Discourse") includes papers dealing with issues of syntax and semantics, and with the structure of texts and pragmatic aspects. One of the subchapters, entitled "Conversation and Dialogue", contains papers presented at the conference in a separate workshop of the same name, linked by a common methodological framework of "Conversation Analysis". This book provides essential texts for researchers in the field of Latin linguistics and may also be of use to linguists who work primarily with other languages.

Colloquial and Literary Latin

Colloquial and Literary Latin
Author: Eleanor Dickey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-07-22
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 113948852X

What is colloquial Latin? What can we learn about it from Roman literature, and how does an understanding of colloquial Latin enhance our appreciation of literature? This book sets out to answer such questions, beginning with examinations of how the term 'colloquial' has been used by linguists and by classicists (and how its Latin equivalents were used by the Romans) and continuing with exciting new research on colloquial language in a wide range of Latin authors. Each chapter is written by a leading expert in the relevant area, and the material presented includes new editions of several texts. The Introduction presents the first account in English of developments in the study of colloquial Latin over the last century, and throughout the book findings are presented in clear, lucid, and jargon-free language, making a major scholarly debate accessible to a broad range of students and non-specialists.

Latin Word Order

Latin Word Order
Author: A. M. Devine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 650
Release: 2006
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0195181689

Combining the rich empirical documentation of traditional philological approaches with the deeper theoretical insight of modern linguistics, this work aims to reduce the intricate surface patterns of Latin word order to a simple and general cross-categorical system of syntactic structure which translates into constituents of pragmatic and semantic meaning." "The book will be useful for advanced students and scholars in the fields of linguistics, Latin, and classics."--Jacket.

Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry

Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry
Author: Roland Mayer
Publisher: British Academy
Total Pages: 468
Release: 1999
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780197261781

Of the peoples of ancient Italy, only the Romans committed newly composed poems to writing, and for about 250 years Latin-speakers developed an impressive verse literature. The language had traditional resources of high style, e.g. alliteration, lexical and morphological archaism or grecism, and of course metaphor and word-order; and there were also less obvious resources in the technical vocabularies of law, philosophy, and medicine. The essays in this volume show how the poets in the classical period combined these elements, and so created a poetic medium that could comprehend satire, invective, erotic elegy, drama, lyric, and the grandest heroic epics. These wide-ranging studies will be essential reading for all students of Latin.