Abstract
This paper provides an analysis of the variables that determine the syntactic distribution of ecce, a presentative adverb in Latin. Traditionally, grammarians have simply regarded ecce as an adverb (similar to here) or an interjection (similar to hey!) but this lexicographic view misses important syntactic phenomena. For example, adverbs in Latin can follow subjects, but ecce cannot. Interjections can be used as single words to express surprise, but ecce, as a presentative, is never used in the absence of a following determiner phrase (DP). Two corpora of almost seven million Latin words ranging from ∼200 BCE to 1800 CE were analyzed for instances of ecce. Adopting a cartographic approach, results suggest that ecce, as a presentative, is base-generated in the head of a Focus phrase (FocP) projection in the matrix clause. This is confirmed through its consistent precedence of subjects, scope over left-dislocated constituents in [Spec, FocP], and its ungrammaticality in the embedded domain. This study brings to light several theoretical implications for the under-studied category of presentatives by showing how discourse and hierarchical properties license the use of ecce and restrict its contexts of use.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the support of Jason Kandybowicz for valuable insight and guidance on earlier versions of this paper, as well as one anonymous reviewer. This work was also enriched by fruitful discussions when I presented it at the 20th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 2019.
Abbreviation of Latin authors and texts cited in this work
- Alcuin.
-
Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus
- Cuc.
-
Versus de Cuculo
- August.
-
Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis
- Confess.
-
Confessiones
- Caes.
-
C. Julius Caesar
- Gal.
-
De Bello Gallico
- Cic.
-
M. Tullius Cicero
- Att.
-
Epistulae ad Atticum
- Caec.
-
For Aulus Caecina
- Clue.
-
Pro Cluentio
- Fronto.
-
M. Cornelius Fronto
- Ad M. Caes.
-
Ad M. Caesarem et Invicem
- Gaius.
-
Gaius
- Inst.
-
Institutiones
- Ioann
-
Sanctus Ioannes, Evangelista
Evangelium secundum Ioannem
Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio.
- Just.
-
Iustinianus
- Dig.
-
Digesta Iustiniani
- Ov.
-
P. Ovidius Naso
- Met.
-
Metamorphoseon
- Petr.
-
G. Petronius Arbiter
- Sat.
-
Satyricon
- Plaut.
-
T. Maccius Plautus
- Amph.
-
Amphitryon
- Asin.
-
Asinaria
- Epid.
-
Epidicus
- Merc.
-
Mercator
- Sen.
-
L. Annaeus Seneca
- Herc. Oet.
-
Hercules Oetaeus
- Octav.
-
Octavia
- Stat.
-
P. Papinius Statius
- Theb.
-
Thebaidos
- Teren.
-
P. Terentius Afer
- Heaut.
-
Heautontimorumenos
References
Adams, James N. 1976. A typological approach to Latin word order. Indogermanische Forschungen 81. 70–99. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110243239.70.Search in Google Scholar
Adams, James N. 1992. British Latin: Notes on the language, text and interpretation of the bath curse tablets. Britannia 23. 1–26. https://doi.org/10.2307/526102.Search in Google Scholar
Adams, James N. 2013. Social variation and the Latin language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511843433Search in Google Scholar
Adler, George J. 1858. A practical grammar of the Latin language; with perpetual exercises in speaking and writing: For the use of schools, colleges, and private learners. Boston: Sanborn, Carter, Bazin & Co.Search in Google Scholar
Aelbrecht, Lobke, Liliane Haegeman & Rachel Nye. 2012. Main clause phenomena: New horizons. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.190Search in Google Scholar
Bianchi, Valentina & Mara Frascarelli. 2010. Is topic a root phenomenon?. Iberia 2(1). 43–88.Search in Google Scholar
Bloch, Oscar & Walther von Wartburg. 1968. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 5th edn. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Search in Google Scholar
Bortolussi, Bernard. 2017. Topicalizations, left dislocations and the left-periphery. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 16. 101–123. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/catjl.208.Search in Google Scholar
Cennamo, Michela. 2009. Argument structure and alignment variations and changes in Late Latin. In Jóhanna Barðdal & Shobhana L. Chelliah (eds.), The role of semantic, pragmatic, and discourse factors in the development of case, 307–346. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.108.17cenSearch in Google Scholar
Charpin, François. 1989. Étude de syntaxe énonciative: L’ordre des mots et la phrase. In Gualtiero Calboli (ed.), Subordination and other topics in Latin, 503–520. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.17.32cha.Search in Google Scholar
Chase, Thomas. 1882. A Latin grammar. Philadelphia: Eldredge & Brother.Search in Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge [Mass]: The MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195115260.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Cleveland, Charles D. 1836. Adam’s Latin grammar: With numerous additions and improvements, designed to aid the more advanced student by fuller elucidations of the Latin classics. Philadelphia: William Marshall & Company.Search in Google Scholar
Crane, Gregory, Bridget Almas, Alison Babeu, Lisa Cerrato, Anna Krohn, Frederik Baumgart, Monica Berti, Greta Franzini, & Simona Stoyanova. 2014. Cataloging for a billion word library of Greek and Latin. In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Digital Access to Textual Cultural Heritage: DATeCH ’14, 83–88. New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2595188.2595190.Search in Google Scholar
Cuzzolin, Pierluigi. 1998. Quelques remarques syntaxiques à propos de ecce. In Benjamín García-Hernández (ed.), Estudios de lingüística latina: Actas del IX coloquio internacional de lingüística latina, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 14–18 de abril 1997, vol. I, 261–271. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.Search in Google Scholar
Danckaert, Lieven. 2011. On the left periphery of Latin embedded clauses. Ghent: Universiteit Gent [Belgium] unpublished doctoral dissertation. https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/1908358/file/4335555 (accessed 4 April 2020).Search in Google Scholar
Danckaert, Lieven. 2012. Latin embedded clauses: The left periphery. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.184Search in Google Scholar
De Cuba, Carlos. 2014. In defense of the truncation account for main clause phenomena. Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association. http://cla-acl.ca/wp-content/uploads/deCuba-2014.pdf (accessed 2 March 2020).Search in Google Scholar
De Jong, Jan. 1994. Word order in Cato’s De Agricultura. In Jozseph Herman (ed.), Linguistic studies on Latin studies, 91–101. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.28.10jonSearch in Google Scholar
De Vaan, Michielnd. 2008. Etymological dictionary of Latin and the other Italic languages. Leiden: Brill.Search in Google Scholar
Devine, Andrew M. & Laurence D.Stephens. 2006. Latin word order: Structured meaning and information. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181685.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Donaldson, John W. 1867. A complete Latin grammar for the use of students. London: Deighton, Bell, and Co.Search in Google Scholar
Emonds, Joseph E. 1970. Root and structure-preserving transformations. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D. dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Fruyt, Michèle. 2011. Grammaticalization in Latin. In Philip Baldi & Pierluigi Cuzzolin (eds.), New perspectives on historical Latin syntax. Volume 4: Complex sentences, grammaticalization, typology. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110253412.661Search in Google Scholar
Greenough, James B. & Joseph H. Allen. 2013. Allen and Greenough’s new Latin grammar. Mineola, NY: Courier Corporation.Search in Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2006a. Argument fronting in English, Romance CLLD and the left periphery. In Raffaella Zanuttini, Hector Campos, Elena Herburger & Paul Portner (eds.), Negation, tense and clausal architecture: Cross-linguistic investigations, 27–52. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2006b. Conditionals, factives and the left periphery. Lingua 116. 1651–1669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2005.03.014.Search in Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2012. The syntax of MCP: Deriving the truncation account. In Lobke Aelbrecht, Liliane Haegeman & Rachel Nye (eds.), Main clause phenomena: New horizons, 113–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.190.05haeSearch in Google Scholar
Hall, Robert A. 1952. The classification of Italian ecco and its cognates. Romance Philology 6. 278–280. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44939767 (accessed 2 March 2020).Search in Google Scholar
Hill, Virginia. 2014. Vocatives: How syntax meets with pragmatics. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004261389Search in Google Scholar
Hoekstra, Eric. 1993. Dialectal variation inside CP as parametric variation. In Werner Abraham & Josef Bayer (eds.), Dialektsyntax. Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft, vol. 5. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.10.1007/978-3-322-97032-9_8Search in Google Scholar
Hooper, Joan B. & Sandra A. Thompso. 1973. On the applicability of root transformations. Linguistic Inquiry 4(4). 465–497. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4177789 (accessed 2 March 2020).Search in Google Scholar
Jones, Peter V. & Keith C. Sidwell. 2016. Reading Latin: Grammar and exercises, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781139540704Search in Google Scholar
Julia, Marie-Ange. 2016. Sur ecce et quelques présentatifs des langues anciennes. In Paolo Pocetti (ed.), Actes du XVII ème Colloque International de Linguistique Latine, Rome, mai 2013. http://www.academia.edu/5925308/SUR_LATIN_ECCE_ET_QUELQUES_PRESENTATIFS_DES_LANGUES_ANCIENNES (accessed 24 December 2019).Search in Google Scholar
Kiss, Katalin, É. 1995. Discourse configurational languages: Introduction. In Katalin, É. Kiss (ed)., Discourse configurational languages, 3–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195088335.003.0001Search in Google Scholar
Kiss, Katalin, É. 1998. Identificational focus versus information focus. Language 74(2). 245–273.10.1353/lan.1998.0211Search in Google Scholar
Ledgeway, Adam. 2012a. From Latin to Romance: Morphosyntactic typology and change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199584376.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Ledgeway, Adam. 2012b. From Latin to Romance: Configurationality, functional categories and head‐marking. Transactions of the Philological Society 110(3). 422–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-968X.2012.01310.x.Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, Charlton T. & Charles Short. 1879. A Latin dictionary. Founded on Andrews’ edition of Freund’s Latin dictionary. Revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Linde, Paul. 1923. Die Stellung des Verbs in der lateinischen Prosa. Glotta 12. 153–78 http://www.jstor.org/stable/40265515 (accessed 23 December 2019).Search in Google Scholar
Maiden, Martin. 1995. A linguistic history of Italian. London: Taylor & Francis.Search in Google Scholar
Manoliu, Maria. 2011. Pragmatic and discourse changes. In Martin Maiden, John C. Smith & Adam Ledgeway (eds.), The Cambridge history of the Romance languages I: Structures, 472–531. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CHOL9780521800723.011Search in Google Scholar
Matthews, Peter H. 2014. The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics, 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
McFadden, Patrick J. E. 1999. The discourse function of discontinuous noun phrases in Latin: A discourse-pragmatic approach to a word order pattern. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan doctoral dissertation. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/131722 (accessed 23 December 2019).Search in Google Scholar
Mondon, Jean-François. 2015. Intensive basic Latin: A grammar and workbook. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315683522Search in Google Scholar
Nigel, Vincent. 1988. Latin. In M. Harris & V. Nigel (eds.), The Romance languages, 26–79. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Oniga, Renato. 2014. Latin: A linguistic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Panhuis, Dirk G. J. 2009. Latin grammar. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Search in Google Scholar
Penny, Ralph. 2002. A history of the Spanish language, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511992827Search in Google Scholar
Petit, Daniel. 2010. On presentative particles in the Baltic languages. In Nicole Nau & Norbert Ostrowski (eds.), Particles and connectives in Baltic, Acta Salensia, vol. 2, 151–170. Vilnius: Vilniaus Universiteto Leidykla.Search in Google Scholar
Pinkster, Harm. 1990. Latin syntax and semantics. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Pinkster, Harm. 2015. The Oxford Latin syntax. Volume 1: The simple clause. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283613.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Plautus, Titus M. 2011. Amphitryon – The Comedy of Asses – The Pot of Gold – The Two Bacchises – The Captives. Edited and translated by Wolfgang de Melo London: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Poste, Edward (trans.) 1871. Elements of Roman law by Gaius. London: Macmillan & Co.Search in Google Scholar
Riley, Henry T. 1869. The comedies of Plautus, vol. 1. London: Bell and Daldy.Search in Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed), Elements of grammar, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-011-5420-8_7Search in Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi & Giuliano Bocci 2017. Left periphery of the clause. Primarily illustrated for Italian. In Martin Everaert & Henk C. van Riemsdijk (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell companion to syntax, 2nd edn. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom104.Search in Google Scholar
Roby, Henry J. 1887. A grammar of the Latin language from Plautus to Suetonius, Part. I, 5th edn. London: Macmillan & Co.Search in Google Scholar
Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1954. Historische Grammatik der Italienischen Sprache und ihrer Mundarten III. Syntax und Wortbildung. Berne: A. Francke AG.Search in Google Scholar
Salvi, Giampaolo. 2004. La formazione della struttura di frase romanza. Ordine delle parole e clitici dal latino alle lingue romanze antiche. Tübingen: Niemeyer.10.1515/9783110945508Search in Google Scholar
Scott, Peter D. 1965. Alcuin’s “Versus de Cuculo”: The vision of pastoral friendship. Studies in Philology 62(4). 510–530. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4173496 (accessed 21 November 2019).Search in Google Scholar
Smitherman, Thomas & Jóhanna Barðdal. 2009. Typological changes in the evolution of Indo-European syntax?. Diachronica 26(2). 253–273. https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.26.2.04sam.Search in Google Scholar
Snijders, Liselotte. 2012. Issues concerning constraints on discontinuous NPs in Latin. CSLI. (n.p.) Proceedings of LFG12. http://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/LFG/17/abstracts/lfg12abs-snijders.html (accessed 8 April 2020).Search in Google Scholar
Spevak, Olga. 2010. Constituent order in classical Latin prose. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.117Search in Google Scholar
Spigariol, Stefano. 1990. The discontinuity of NP in the Latin sentence: An attempt of interpretation. Journal of Latin Linguistics 3(1). 57–68. https://doi.org/10.1515/joll.1990.3.1.57.Search in Google Scholar
Suñer, Margarita. 1982. Syntax and semantics of Spanish presentational sentence-types. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Taylor, John. 2017. Essential GCSE Latin, 2nd edn. London: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar
Touratier, Christian. 1994. Syntaxe latine. Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters.Search in Google Scholar
Unceta Gómez, Luis. 2017. Discursive and pragmatic functions of Latin em. Grammaticalization, pragmaticalization… interjectionalization?. In Camille Denziot & Olga Spevak (eds.), Pragmatic approaches to Latin and Ancient Greek, 63–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.190.04unc.Search in Google Scholar
Valpy, Francis E. J. 1828. An etymological dictionary of the Latin language. London: A.J. Valpy.Search in Google Scholar
Wood, Jim, Laurence Horn, Raffaella Zanuttini & LukeLindemann. 2015. The Southern dative presentative meets mechanical Turk. American Speech 90(3). 291–320. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-3324487.Search in Google Scholar
Zanuttini, Raffaella. 2017. Presentatives and the syntactic encoding of contextual information. In Enoch Aboh, Eric Haeberli, Genoveva Puskás & Manuela Schönenberger (eds.), Elements of comparative syntax: Theory and description, 221–255. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9781501504037-008Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- The politeness formula si placet in Late Latin: on the role of pragmatic conventions in discourse traditions
- The syntax of the Latin presentative adverb ecce: Relation to focus phrase
- Greek, Latin, and more: Multilingualism at the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon
- Nominalization as a typological phenomenon: A comparison between Latin and Australian languages: Types and tokens
- Book Review
- Korkiakangas, Timo: Subject Case in the Latin of Tuscan Charters of the eighth and ninth Centuries
- Discussions
- On Varro’s and Cicero’s spelling and pronunciation: A clarification
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- The politeness formula si placet in Late Latin: on the role of pragmatic conventions in discourse traditions
- The syntax of the Latin presentative adverb ecce: Relation to focus phrase
- Greek, Latin, and more: Multilingualism at the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon
- Nominalization as a typological phenomenon: A comparison between Latin and Australian languages: Types and tokens
- Book Review
- Korkiakangas, Timo: Subject Case in the Latin of Tuscan Charters of the eighth and ninth Centuries
- Discussions
- On Varro’s and Cicero’s spelling and pronunciation: A clarification