Volume 20, Issue 1

The present study demonstrates that the process of linguistic Romanization, i.e. Latinization of the Roman Empire, is traceable by the data of the Computerized Historical Linguistic Database of Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age (LLDB). A multi-level analysis of linguistic and non-linguistic data in the LLDB has shown that Latinization, i.e. the spread of spoken or vulgar Latin, became more and more intensive over time in all concerned provinces (i.e. Lusitania, Gallia Narbonensis, Venetia et Histria, Dalmatia, Moesia, Pannonia, and Britannia), although to a varying degree in each. What is more, in many aspects of the investigation, it was possible to find differences between the selected provinces of the Roman Empire corresponding mostly to the future Romance (both negative and positive) outcomes of the respective areas. All in all, the analysis of data of the LLDB database can contribute to solving the complex problem of Latinization, and is a lot more appropriate for this purpose than a simple comparative analysis of epigraphic corpora of the selected provinces.

Este artículo analiza la doctrina de los nombres patronímicos ( nomina patronyma ) en los grammatici Latini , doctrina adaptada de la gramática griega. Las considerables diferencias entre el sistema onomástico latino y el griego ocasionaron, en palabras de Denecker y Swiggers (Denecker, Tim y Pierre Swiggers. 2018. The articulus according to Latin grammarians up to the early Middle Ages: The complex interplay of tradition and innovation in grammatical doctrine. Glotta 94. p. 130), “situaciones de negociación” al momento de trasladar el sistema de una lengua a la otra – por ejemplo, los sufijos – y de ofrecer latinos para ilustrar fenómenos originalmente griegos. Los diferentes grammatici no lidiaron del mismo modo con estas situaciones, y, como resultado, hay una clara diferencia entre la doctrina de los patronímicos de las artes grammaticae “occidentales” y de las “orientales” – i.e., las elaboradas en la parte occidental y oriental del Imperio respectivamente –. A través de un recorrido de la doctrina gramatical de los patronímicos – de Dionisio Tracio a Prisciano –, este artículo analizará cómo los grammatici adaptaron, según su origen, tradiciones y destinatarios, esta categoría a la lengua latina. Abstract This paper analyzes the patronymic doctrine ( nomina patronyma ) in late Latin grammarians, which was adopted from Greek grammar. The significant differences between the Latin and Greek onomastic systems caused, in the words of Denecker and Swiggers (Denecker, Tim and Pierre Swiggers. 2018. The articulus according to Latin grammarians up to the early Middle Ages: The complex interplay of tradition and innovation in grammatical doctrine. Glotta 94. p. 130), “bargaining situations” when transferring the system from one language to the other (e.g., suffixes) and when offering Latin exempla to illustrate originally Greek phenomena. Not all grammarians dealt with these situations in the same way. As a result, there is a clear difference between the patronymic doctrine of the Western and Eastern grammars – i.e., those situated in the western and eastern parts of the Latin Empire. Through a comparative analysis of patronymics’ grammatical doctrine – from Dionysius Thrax to Priscian –, this paper will analyze how the grammatici adapted, according to their origin, traditions, and audience, this category to the Latin language.

In the present paper the evaluation of a new etymology for the word uirgō ‘virgin’ serves as occasion for an overview of the morphological prefixes by means of which Latin encodes negation on adjectives and nouns. Using the theoretical framework, whose origin ultimately goes back to Aristotle, three varieties of negation will be described: contrariety, contradiction, and privation. As will be shown, all these varieties, and privation in particular, require some theoretical refinement: in some cases, instead of contrariety, some more adequate conceptualizations are preferable such as neutralization or reverse. In this paper the seven prefixes used to encode negation on adjectives and nouns – dē -, dis -, ex -, in -, nĕ- , sē -, uē - – will be described also diachronically, and for each of them their original function will be tentatively identified.

After more than a century since its discovery, the mystery of the Fibula Praenestina has been definitively solved. The artifact and the inscription are both authentic beyond any reasonable doubt. Complex spectrographic analyses published a few years ago have confirmed that the Fibula is not a forgery. However, quite paradoxically, an Early Latin reduplicated perfect fefaked is still implausible from a morphological point of view. This form continues to disturb the Early Latin linguistic framework, which can be reconstructed thanks to the available data at our disposal. The article presents a new reading of the text, which on the one hand confirms the congruity of the preterite morphology (not a reduplicated form of the root * d h ē- / d h ǝ -, but an ancient aorist similar to Faliscan făced / făcet ) and on the other gives an account of the abnormal use of punctuation between <whe> and <wha>.

The term “suppletion”, introduced by Osthoff (1899. Vom Suppletivwesen der indogermanischen Sprachen . Heidelberg: Universitätsbuchdruckerei Hörning), was traditionally used to refer to an inflectional paradigm containing forms based on two or more etymologically different stems. In the last decades, however, it has been argued that etymology does not contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon, and it should be strictly defined on synchronic terms: simply as the peak point on the formal irregularity scale, regardless of the actual origin of the irregularity. Under this approach, all forms reported by speakers as two potentially different lexical items are considered to be suppletive. To be able to determine what users of a living language consider to be a case of suppletion, it is possible to analyze data collected from speakers. The situation is considerably more difficult for dead languages, which however have played an important role in the debate and provided many of the canonical examples. As a closest equivalent to eliciting the required information from a native speaker, the informed but from the present-day perspective naïve expressions of linguistic introspection in the works of Late Latin Grammarians, namely their use of specific terms ( defectivum , anomalum , inaequale ) to refer to different degrees and lexical examples of irregularity, are highly valuable, as it also may reflect the difficulties confronted by non-native learners.