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University of Bologna
program: Tuesday, June 10 | Wednesday, June 11 |
Thursday, June 12
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Michela CENNAMO, Università di Napoli
Accusative “ subjects” and argument marking in Late Latin
In this paper we discuss a well-known issue of Late Latin syntax: the use of the accusative in subject function, well - attested by the 4th-5th century A.D., with early examples by the end of the 2nd-3rd century A.D. (Audollent 1967: 384; 387; Herman 1987: 103-105; 1997).
This phenomenon, also referred to in the literature as the “extended accusative” (Plank 1985), occurs in particular with intransitive and intransitive-like patterns such as equative clauses (curationem haec est), anticausatives (ficum minutum fiat), passives (sardam exossatur), impersonals (factum fuerit missam), one argument verbs (nascitur contractionem). It is attested instead only at a later stage with transitive verbs/patterns (filios fecerunt, nullus homine ausus sit piscato prendere) (Norberg 1944; Bastardas Parera 1953).
We claim that the issue under investigation, which points to the existence of an initially “active” (Plank 1985; La Fauci 1994; 2001) and subsequently “neutral” alignment in the coding of grammatical relations in Late Latin (Cennamo 2001), may be regarded as one of the outcomes of a more general and pervasive change, involving a deep restructuring in the whole system of argument marking in the transition from Latin to Romance: the emergence of head-marking patterns in a canonical dependent-marking language such as Latin (Vincent 1997; 1998).
References
- Audollent, A. (1967) Defixionum Tabellae, Frankfurt: Minerva Gmbh.
Bastardas Parera, J. (1953) Particularidades sintacticas del Latin Medieval, Barcelona: Escuela
de Filologia.
- Cennamo, M. (2001) “L’extended accusative e le nozioni di voce e relazione grammaticale nel
latino tardo e medievale”, in V. Viparelli (a cura di) Ricerche Linguistiche tra Antico e
Moderno, Napoli,: Liguori, 3-28.
- Herman, J. (1987) “La disparition de –s et la morphologie dialectale du latin parlé“, in J.
Herman (ed) Latin Vulgaire-Latin Tardif, Tübingen : Niemeyer, 97-108.
– (1997) “À propos du débat sur le pluriel des noms italiens (et roumains) : à la recherche
d’une conclusion”, in G. Holtus et al. (eds) Italica et Romanica, Festschrift für Max Pfister
zum 65 Geburstag, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 19-30.
- La Fauci, N. (1994) Objects and Subjects in the Formation of Romance Morphosyntax,
Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
– (2001) “Quel pasticciaccio brutto della declinazione scomparsa”, Vox Romanica 6: 15-24.
- Plank, F. (1985) “The extended accusative/restricted nominative in perspective”, in F. Plank
(ed) Relational Typology, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 269-310.
- Vincent, N. (1997) “The emergence of the D-system in Romance”, in A. Van Kemenade & N.
Vincent (eds) Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 151-169.
– (1998) Tra grammatica e grammaticalizzazione: articoli e clitici nelle lingue (italo)-
romanze”, in P. Ramat & E. Roma (a cura di) Sintassi Storica, Roma: Bulzoni, 127-146.
Most recent modifications: February 18, 2003 – latling@classics.unibo.it
Source: Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Medioevale
No rights can be derived from the information on this Internet-page.
- References
- Audollent, A. (1967) Defixionum Tabellae, Frankfurt: Minerva Gmbh. Bastardas Parera, J. (1953) Particularidades sintacticas del Latin Medieval, Barcelona: Escuela de Filologia.
- Cennamo, M. (2001) “L’extended accusative e le nozioni di voce e relazione grammaticale nel latino tardo e medievale”, in V. Viparelli (a cura di) Ricerche Linguistiche tra Antico e Moderno, Napoli,: Liguori, 3-28.
- Herman, J. (1987) “La disparition de –s et la morphologie dialectale du latin parlé“, in J.
Herman (ed) Latin Vulgaire-Latin Tardif, Tübingen : Niemeyer, 97-108.
– (1997) “À propos du débat sur le pluriel des noms italiens (et roumains) : à la recherche d’une conclusion”, in G. Holtus et al. (eds) Italica et Romanica, Festschrift für Max Pfister zum 65 Geburstag, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 19-30. - La Fauci, N. (1994) Objects and Subjects in the Formation of Romance Morphosyntax,
Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
– (2001) “Quel pasticciaccio brutto della declinazione scomparsa”, Vox Romanica 6: 15-24. - Plank, F. (1985) “The extended accusative/restricted nominative in perspective”, in F. Plank (ed) Relational Typology, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 269-310.
- Vincent, N. (1997) “The emergence of the D-system in Romance”, in A. Van Kemenade & N.
Vincent (eds) Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 151-169.
– (1998) Tra grammatica e grammaticalizzazione: articoli e clitici nelle lingue (italo)- romanze”, in P. Ramat & E. Roma (a cura di) Sintassi Storica, Roma: Bulzoni, 127-146.
Most recent modifications: February 18, 2003 – latling@classics.unibo.it
Source: Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Medioevale
No rights can be derived from the information on this Internet-page.