Abstract
This article discusses discontinuity of the noun phrase, i.e. the separation of adjectival, genitival, or other modifiers from their head noun in Latin legal texts from the Republican period. Despite the common view that discontinuity, often termed ‘hyperbaton’, is a stylistic device, the study shows that discontinuity is also found in legal texts. Discontinuity mainly occurs with relative and indefinite pronouns as well as with genitival modifiers, and it is pragmatically motivated. Additionally, noun and prepositional phrases are regularly split by the enclitic coordinators -que ‘and’ and -ve ‘or’ in legal texts.
Acknowledgements
I thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments, which allowed me to improve this article.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Foreword
- Risposta alla recensione di Elena Spangenberg Yanes alla mia edizione 2020 della Rhetorica ad Herennium
- Seconda risposta alla Spangenberg
- Dormivit et resurgit. A language-ecology approach to the diachrony of the Latin ingressive perfect
- Nisi paria non pugnant: argument structure alternations with lexical reciprocal verbs in Latin
- The synchrony and diachrony of example markers in Latin
- Ecce in Archaic Latin: interjection or demonstrative?
- (H)ariuga/(h)aruiga: an etymological research
- Discontinuity of the noun phrase in Roman statutes from the Republican period
- Qui pro quo in Plautus’ grammar