A note on the functional distribution of ille in Late Latin
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Silvia Pieroni
Abstract
This paper deals with the distribution of adnominal ille in Late Latin. While the literature on the topic is substantial, the aim of the paper is not to seek attestations of ille which foreshadow its article or article-like function, but simply to look for some functional properties that allow for its future development as a marker of definiteness. Moreover, this paper aims at considering the distribution of ille in the context of the propositional structure taken as a whole. The Peregrinatio Aetheriae is first analysed, as a privileged text for looking at a redundant use of adnominal ille. In this text, the frequency of occurrences of adnominal ille appears to be linked to the frequency of presentative structures: in particular, ille is often found within post-verbal noun phrases which, even while fulfilling the subject function, combine a predicative and/or rhematic function with the argumental one, precisely as in existential and presentative structures. The hypothesis may thus be suggested that ille occurs as a marker of nominative nominals which occur in “atypical” combinations of syntactic and pragmatic functions and in correlation with a marked linear order. In a second step, this analysis is checked against a further corpus, drawn from St. Augustine’s Confessiones where, again, ille is found either as a marker of nominals which, in addition to functioning as arguments, have a predicative and rhematic value, or as a marker of nominals which occur in propositional structures where other nominal (or adjectival) elements are involved as predicates as well.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Vorwort der Herausgeber
- Contents
- A note on the functional distribution of ille in Late Latin
- The origin of the Baltic inchoative in -sta-
- Once more on Hittite ā/e-ablauting ḫi-verbs
- The long vowel in WGmc. *hlūdV
- Homeric κρείων ‘lord’ and the Indo-European word for ‘head’
- Decoding Middle Welsh clauses or “Avoid Ambiguity”
- Did murmur spread in Pre-Proto-Indo-European?
- Intensifiers and reflexives in SAE, Insular Celtic and English
- Beiträge zur Leidener Arbeitstagung 2013
- Ares the Ripper
- Tone variation in the Baltic ia-presents
- “Narten formations” versus “Narten roots”
- Surprise at length of Tocharian nouns
- From phonetics to grammar
- Notes on three “acrostatic” neuter s-stems
- Monosyllabic circumflexion or shortening?
- The augment of vowel-initial roots and vṛddhi–derivation in the Indo–Iranian languages
- The lengthened grade in Germanic hypocoristica
- The fourth makes it whole?
- Wortindex
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Vorwort der Herausgeber
- Contents
- A note on the functional distribution of ille in Late Latin
- The origin of the Baltic inchoative in -sta-
- Once more on Hittite ā/e-ablauting ḫi-verbs
- The long vowel in WGmc. *hlūdV
- Homeric κρείων ‘lord’ and the Indo-European word for ‘head’
- Decoding Middle Welsh clauses or “Avoid Ambiguity”
- Did murmur spread in Pre-Proto-Indo-European?
- Intensifiers and reflexives in SAE, Insular Celtic and English
- Beiträge zur Leidener Arbeitstagung 2013
- Ares the Ripper
- Tone variation in the Baltic ia-presents
- “Narten formations” versus “Narten roots”
- Surprise at length of Tocharian nouns
- From phonetics to grammar
- Notes on three “acrostatic” neuter s-stems
- Monosyllabic circumflexion or shortening?
- The augment of vowel-initial roots and vṛddhi–derivation in the Indo–Iranian languages
- The lengthened grade in Germanic hypocoristica
- The fourth makes it whole?
- Wortindex
