Bemerkungen zum Gebrauch von Präpositionen im klassischen Latein

Alfons Weische

doi:10.1515/joll.2005.9.2.811

Summary

By prepositions people can more precisely describe complex relations of persons and things than by means of pure cases. Precision was especially necessary in Roman society in the last decades of the Republic, when the economy and jurisprudence flourished. As a response to these growing demands, certain anonymous speakers created an elaborate system of prepositions in the common language. Through this way of giving information the already-existing tendency to pronounce the endings of cases in a lax manner became less troublesome. In relation to modern developments of common language Cicero and Caesar exercised restraint, following their ideal of elegantia. But they effected this restraint in different ways. This diversity in their use of prepositions - together with a variety of information about the history of Latin - gives us some hints in grasping the common language of that time. - Cicero's conservatism in the use of prepositions may be illustrated by his way of expressing the concept 'concerning', 'about'. Here he consciously avoided, like Terence, super, which was commonly used in this meaning, but he failed to notice that he used it three times in the Letters to Atticus. Besides de, he preferred the old prepositions in and ad. In this sense in also appears in a 'theme' outside the kernel of the sentence, e.g. o f f . 1,61. The origin of the meaning 'concerning' is to be found in local use (similar to other languages). De in the sense of 'concerning' is no exception; it is definitely not derived from the partitive use.

Bemerkungen zum Gebrauch von Präpositionen im klassischen Latein

Summary

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