A Companion to the Latin Language E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1671

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A Companion to the Latin Language presents a collection of original essays from international scholars that track the development and use of the Latin language from its origins to its modern day usage.

• Brings together contributions from internationally renowned classicists, linguists and Latin language specialists
• Offers, in a single volume, a detailed account of different literary registers of the Latin language
• Explores the social and political contexts of Latin
• Includes new accounts of the Latin language in light of modern linguistic theory
• Supplemented with illustrations covering the development of the Latin alphabet

Leseprobe

Contents

List of Illustrations

Figures

Tables

Notes on Contributors

Abbreviations of Ancient Authors and Works

Abbreviations of Modern Sources

Symbols Used

Linguistic and Other Abbreviations

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

PART I Sources

CHAPTER 2 The Latin Alphabet and Orthography

Introduction

Arrival of the Alphabet in Italy

Etruscan Origins

Date of Borrowing and Other Considerations

Innovations and Changes

Old Latin Orthography

Letterforms

Direction of Writing and Punctuation

Abbreviations

Letter Names

Diffusion of the Latin Alphabet

CHAPTER 3 Latin Inscriptions and Documents

Introduction

The Pitfalls of Interpretation

Collecting and Interpreting Ancient Documents

The Writer of a Latin Text

Conclusion

CHAPTER 4 Latin Manuscripts and Textual Traditions

Introduction

The Processes of Transmission

Standardisation

A Sample of Manuscript Evidence

Traces of the Unusual

Punctuation

Conclusion

CHAPTER 5 Romance Languages as a Source for Spoken Latin

Latin and Romance

Phonology and Phonetics: Vowels

Phonology and Phonetics: Consonants

Nominal Morphology

Verbal Morphology

Syntax

Semantic and Lexical Changes

Conclusion

PART II The Language

CHAPTER 6 The Sounds of Latin: Phonology

Reconstructing Latin Phonology

The Latin Writing System

Consonants

Vowels

Syllable Structure

Accent

CHAPTER 7 Latin Prosody and Metrics

Italic Background, Carmina, Saturnian

Comic Meters

Stress, Ictus, Recitation

Conclusion

CHAPTER 8 The Forms of Latin: Inflectional Morphology

Introduction

Nominal Morphology

Pronouns

Verbal Morphology

CHAPTER 9 Latin Syntax

Introduction

Meaning and Sentence Structure

Constituency and Discontinuity

Phrases: Heads, Complements and Adjuncts

Constituent Order in Clauses

Clause Structure: Main and Subordinate Clauses

Conclusion

CHAPTER 10 Latin Vocabulary

The Fundamental Latin Vocabulary

The Internal Structure of the Latin Lexicon

Main Semantic Phenomena

Lexical Innovations

Conclusion

CHAPTER 11 Word-Formation in Classical Latin

Suffixation

Nominal Compounding

Verbal Compounding

Preverbation

Agglutination

Recategorisation

Conclusion

CHAPTER 12 Latin Particles and the Grammar of Discourse

Introduction: Aims and Key Concepts

Particles as Pragmatic Markers

From Sentence Grammar to Discourse Grammar: The Location of Particles in a Grammar of Discourse

Connective Particles

Conversation Management Particles

Conclusion

PART III Latin Through Time

CHAPTER 13 The Historical Background to Latin within the Indo-European Language Family

Proto-Indo-European: Who, When, and What?

The History of the Sounds of Latin

The Prehistory of Latin Nouns and Adjectives

The Prehistory of Latin Pronouns, Numerals, Adverbs, and Adpositions

The Prehistory of Latin Verbs

Syntax

Lexicon

CHAPTER 14 Archaic and Old Latin

Sources

Orthography and Phonology

Selected Morphological Features

Lexicon

Some Syntactic Patterns

Archaic Latin

Samples of Inscriptions

Old Latin: On the Threshold of the Classical Language

CHAPTER 15 Classical Latin

Introduction

The Creation of a Standard

Latin Orthography and Pronunciation

Morphology

Syntax and Textual Structure

Vocabulary

Conclusion

CHAPTER 16 Late Latin

Introduction: The Term “Late Latin”

A Specimen of Late Latin

Some Important Developments, and the Notion of “Vulgar Latin”

Gender

Phonology

Future Tense

Reported Speech

General Conclusions

CHAPTER 17 Medieval Latin

Introduction

Tools for Learning Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin and Its Characteristics

CHAPTER 18 Neo-Latin

Introduction

A New Dawn: Latin and the Italian Renaissance

Innovation through Imitation: The Case of Ciceronianism

The Linguistic Nature of Neo-Latin

Diffusion and Diversity: Neo-Latin after the Renaissance

Conclusion: The Difficult Path Ahead

PART IV Literary Registers of Latin

CHAPTER 19 The Language of Roman Comedy

Introduction

Spelling, Phonology and Metre

Morphology

Syntax

Lexicon

CHAPTER 20 The Language of Latin Epic and Lyric Poetry

Theories of “Poetic Language” in Greek and Roman Critics

The Sounds of Poetry. Prosody and Recitation

Phonetics, Spelling, and Morphology

The Lexicon

Syntax (Nominal, Verbal, Periodic)

Cohesion and Word-Order

CHAPTER 21 The Language of Latin Verse Satire

Introduction

Satura and Sermo

Discourse Organization: Subjectivity

Lexicon: Informality and Stylization

Conclusions

CHAPTER 22 The Language of Roman Oratory and Rhetoric

Oratory, Rhetoric and Real Life

The Unrepresentativeness of the Sample

Oratory in the Roman Republic

Cato and Gaius Gracchus

From Cato to Cicero

The Evidence of the ad Herennium

Oratory and Ordinary Language in Cicero’s Time

The Early Empire and the Rhetorical Schools

The Reign of Trajan and Later

CHAPTER 23 The Language of Latin Historiography

History and Poetry

History and Oratory

Antiquarianism

Military Narrative

The Historian’s Voice

CHAPTER 24 Epistolary Latin

Introduction

Letters as Colloquial and Informal Language

Letters as Literature: Rhetorical and Elaborate Language

Formal Letters

Conclusion

CHAPTER 25 Latin as a Technical and Scientific Language

Introduction

Modern Definitions of “Technical” Texts and Languages

The Characteristics of Ancient “Technical” Texts and Languages

The Role of Greek in the Formation of Latin Technical Languages

Conclusion

CHAPTER 26 Legal Latin

Introduction

Legal Terminology

Legal Drafting

Legal Latin in Post-Classical Europe

CHAPTER 27 Christian Latin

Christian Latin, Biblical Latin, “Vulgar Latin”

The Lexicon of Christian Latin

Further Lexical Phenomena

Conclusions

PART V Latin in Social and Political Contexts

CHAPTER 28 The Social Dialects of Latin

Introduction

Male and Female Speech

Age-Related Variation in Speech

Class-Based Variation

Phonology

Morphology

Vocabulary and Word-Formation

Conclusion

CHAPTER 29 Latin and Other Languages: Societal and Individual Bilingualism

Introduction

Societal and Individual Bilingualism

The Ancient Evidence

Latin and Societal Bilingualism

Latin and Individual Bilingualism

Conclusions

CHAPTER 30 Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire

Introduction

The Republic and Early Principate

The Dominate

Theodosius II

Justinian

Conclusion

CHAPTER 31 Latin Inside and Outside of Rome

Introduction

The Republic

The Empire

References

Index Locorum

Literary Texts

Inscriptions and Papyri

Index

BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO THE ANCIENT WORLD

This series provides sophisticated and authoritative overviews of periods of ancient history, genres of classical literature, and the most important themes in ancient culture. Each volume comprises between twenty-five and forty concise essays written by individual scholars within their area of specialization. The essays are written in a clear, provocative, and lively manner, designed for an international audience of scholars, students, and general readers.

ANCIENTHISTORY

Published

A Companion to the Roman ArmyEdited by Paul Erdkamp

A Companion to the Roman RepublicEdited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx

A Companion to the Roman EmpireEdited by David S. Potter

A Companion to the Classical Greek WorldEdited by Konrad H. Kinzl

A Companion to the Ancient Near EastEdited by Daniel C. Snell

A Companion to the Hellenistic WorldEdited by Andrew Erskine

A Companion to Late AntiquityEdited by Philip Rousseau

A Companion to Archaic GreeceEdited by Kurt A. Raaflaub and Hans van Wees

A Companion to Julius CaesarEdited by Miriam Griffin

A Companion to Ancient HistoryEdited by Andrew Erskine

A Companion to ByzantiumEdited by Liz James

A Companion to Ancient EgyptEdited by Alan B. Lloyd

A Companion to Ancient MacedoniaEdited by Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington

A Companion to the Punic WarsEdited by Dexter Hoyos

LITERATURE ANDCULTURE

Published

A Companion to Classical ReceptionsEdited by Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray

A Companion to Greek and Roman HistoriographyEdited by John Marincola

A Companion to CatullusEdited by Marilyn B. Skinner

A Companion to Roman ReligionEdited by Jörg Rüpke

A Companion to Greek ReligionEdited by Daniel Ogden

A Companion to the Classical TraditionEdited by Craig W. Kallendorf

A Companion to Roman RhetoricEdited by William Dominik and Jon Hall

A Companion to Greek RhetoricEdited by Ian Worthington

A Companion to Ancient EpicEdited by John Miles Foley

A Companion to Greek TragedyEdited by Justina Gregory

A Companion to Latin LiteratureEdited by Stephen Harrison

A Companion to OvidEdited by Peter E. Knox

A Companion to Greek and Roman Political ThoughtEdited by Ryan K. Balot

A Companion to the Ancient Greek LanguageEdited by Egbert Bakker

A Companion to Hellenistic LiteratureEdited by Martine Cuypers and James J. Clauss

A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and Its TraditionEdited by Joseph Farrell and Michael C.J. Putnam

A Companion to HoraceEdited by Gregson Davis

A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman WorldsEdited by Beryl Rawson

A Companion to Greek MythologyEdited by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone

This edition first published 2011© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148–5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of James Clackson to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A companion to the Latin language / edited by James Clackson.p. cm. – (Blackwell companions to the ancient world)Includes bibliographical references and indexes.ISBN 978-1-4051-8605-6 (alk. paper)1. Latin language–History. 2. Latin philology. I. Clackson, James.PA2057.C66 2011470–dc22

2011009293

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs [ISBN 9781444343366]; Wiley Online Library [ISBN 9781444343397]; ePub [ISBN 9781444343373]; Mobi [ISBN 9781444343380]

List of Illustrations

Figures

2.1

Etruscan abecedarium from Marsiliana d’Albegna

2.2

The Fibula Praenestina

2.3

The Forum inscription

2.4

The Duenos inscription

2.5

The epitaph of Scipio Barbatus

2.6

The earliest Latin abecedarium

2.7

The Tibur inscription

2.8

Dipinto with cursive E and F

2.9

Graffito from Pompeii

4.1

Simplified stemma showing the relationship of the principal manuscripts of Catullus

4.2

MS Canonicianus class. lat. 30, f. 20r., showing Catullus 63.26–56

12.1

Sallust, Jug. 95–96.1

12.2

Hierarchical structure of Sallust, Jug. 95–96.1

15.1

Papyrus fragment of Gallus found at Qasr Ibrim

29.1

Bilingual roof-tile from Pietrabbondante

29.2

Monument to Regina (RIB I.1065)

Tables

2.1

The Classical Latin alphabet

2.2.

Spelling of velars in Very Old Latin inscriptions

2.3

Very Old Latin inscriptions of the seventh to sixth centuries BCE

2.4

Comparison of archaic Etruscan and Latin letterforms

2.5

Variation in Very Old Latin letterforms

3.1

Editorial conventions for inscriptions and documents

6.1

The consonant phonemes of Classical Latin

8.1

Representative paradigms of the main declension classes of Latin

8.2

Paradigms showing distinctive neuter endings

8.3

The Latin personal pronouns

8.4

The Latin pronoun hic, haec, hoc

8.5

The Latin pronoun is, ea, id

8.6

The Latin relative pronoun

8.7

The interrelationship between tense, mood and verb stem in Latin

8.8

The four regular Latin verb conjugations

8.9

Other present stem formations of the verb amō

8.10

The Latin perfect conjugation

8.11

Other perfect stem formations from the verb amō

8.12

Passive forms of the verb amō

8.13

Perfect passive forms of the verb amō

13.1

Development of PIE voiced aspirates in Latin

13.2

Vowel changes from PIE to Latin

19.1

Imperfects in Plautus and Terence

19.2

Futures in Plautus and Terence

19.3

The position of possessives in Plautus

19.4

Focus and the position of possessives

19.5

Telicity and tense in the accusative and infinitive construction

19.6

Seruos and seruolus in Plautus and Terence

Notes on Contributors

J.N. Adams was Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, from 1998 to 2010. His numerous publications on Latin include The Regional Diversification of Latin 200BC–AD600 (2007), Bilingualism and the Latin Language (2003), Wackernagel’s Law and the Placement of the Copula esse in Classical Latin (1994), The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (1982) and The Vulgar Latin of the Letters of Claudius Terentianus (1977). In 2009 he was awarded the Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies and Archaeology by the British Academy.

Philip Burton is Reader in Latin and Early Christian Studies at the University of Birmingham. His previous publications include The Old Latin Gospels (2000) and Language in the Confessions of Augustine (2007), as well as articles on Latin linguistics and on the reception of Classical Antiquity. He is currently working on an edition on the Old Latin traditions of John (www.iohannes.org) for the Vetus Latina series.

David Butterfield is the W.H.D. Rouse Research Fellow and Lector in Classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and works primarily upon the textual criticism and transmission of Latin literature. He has co-edited The Penguin Latin Dictionary (London, 2007) and A.E. Housman: Classical Scholar (London, 2009), and has written various articles on Latin poets (particularly Lucretius) and the history of Classical scholarship.

Anna Chahoud is Professor of Latin at Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of C. Lucilii Reliquiarum Concordantiae (1998), of articles on Republican Latin and the grammatical tradition, and co-editor of Colloquial and Literary Latin (2010). She is currently finalising a commentary on the fragments of Lucilius for Cambridge University Press.

James Clackson is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics at the University of Cambridge. His books include The Blackwell History of the Latin Language (2007, with Geoff Horrocks), and Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2007). His research interests include historical and comparative linguistics, the sociolinguistics of the ancient world, and the Armenian language.

Greti Dinkova-Bruun is Associate Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. She has published widely on a range of topics within the field of Medieval Studies. A noted palaeographer, she is responsible for a number of critical editions and translations of medieval texts including the poetry of Alexander of Ashby, Alexandri Essebiensis Opera Poetica (2004) and The Ancestry of Jesus (2005). Since January 2010 she has been the Editor-in-Chief for the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum (CTC).

Rolando Ferri is Professor of Latin at the University of Pisa. He studied at Pisa, Princeton and London, where he was Momigliano Student in the Arts in the years 1993–1996. He has published books on Horace (I dispiaceri di un epicureo, 1993) and Senecan tragedy (Octavia attributed to Seneca, 2003), and he has edited books devoted to the Roman school (F. Bellandi and R. Ferri, ed., Aspetti della scuola nel mondo romano, 2008) and to Latin lexicography (R. Ferri, ed., The Latin of Roman Lexicography, 2010). He now works on the bilingual Greek–Latin glossaries and their value as evidence for the study of Late and Vulgar Latin.

Thorsten Fögen teaches Classics at Durham University and the Humboldt University of Berlin. Among his research interests are the history of linguistic ideas, ancient rhetoric, literary criticism, non-verbal communication and semiotics, ancient technical writers, women in antiquity, animals in antiquity and ancient epistolography. He is the author of “Patrii sermonis egestas”: Einstellungen lateinischer Autoren zu ihrer Muttersprache (2000), “Utraque lingua”: A Bibliography of Bi- and Multilingualism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and in Modern Times (2003), and Wissen, Kommunikation und Selbstdarstellung. Zur Struktur und Charakteristik römischer Fachtexte der frühen Kaiserzeit (2009).

Benjamin W. Fortson IV teaches Classical languages and Indo-European philology at the University of Michigan. His publications include articles and reviews on Indo-European and historical linguistics, as well as an introductory textbook in Indo-European (Indo-European Language and Culture, 2nd edn, 2010) and a monograph on Plautine metrics and linguistics (Language and Rhythm in Plautus, 2008).

Michèle Fruyt is Professor of Latin Linguistics at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) and Director of the Centre Alfred Ernout for Latin linguistics. Her research mainly concerns the following: a description of the Latin lexicon from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, focusing on the way elements of the language were perceived by Latin speakers (motivation, de-motivation, re-analysis); semantic issues in the functioning of the language; the structural organization of the Latin lexicon; word-formation; the morphosyntactic evolution of Latin, including grammaticalization, deixis and endophor, verbal periphrases, etc.

Giovanbattista Galdi holds a PhD in Classical Philology from the University of Bologna (2002). He was scientific co-worker at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich from 2001 to 2003 and wrote his Habilitation at the University of Trier from 2003 to 2007. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of Latin Language at the University of Cyprus (Nicosia). His main areas of interest lie in the field of Late and Vulgar Latin, epigraphic language and Greek–Latin bilingualism. He is the author of Grammatica delle iscrizioni latine dell’impero (province orientali). Morfosintassi nominale (2004) and of numerous articles on Latin language.

Bruce Gibson is Professor of Latin at the University of Liverpool. His principal research is concerned with the literature of the Roman Empire, with significant connections with various aspects of Roman history and culture. His work also engages with the transmission of Latin texts in manuscripts and with Renaissance scholarship. His publications include an edition and commentary of Statius, Silvae 5 (Oxford, 2006).

Hilla Halla-aho works as a researcher at the Department of World Cultures, University of Helsinki. Her main interests are the language of Latin non-literary texts as well as variation and change in Latin syntax. Her publications include the monograph The Non-Literary Latin Letters: A Study of Their Syntax and Pragmatics (2009).

Geoffrey Horrocks is Professor of Comparative Philology in the University of Cambridge. His publications include The Blackwell History of the Latin Language (2007, with James Clackson), and Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers (2nd edn, 2010). His research interests include the history and structure of the Greek and Latin languages (including Medieval and Modern as well as Ancient Greek), linguistic theory, and historical linguistics.

Christina Shuttleworth Kraus is Thomas A. Thacher Professor of Latin at Yale University. She works on Latin historiography, primarily on Livy and Tacitus, and is currently preparing a commentary (together with A.J. Woodman) on Tacitus’ Agricola.

Caroline Kroon is Professor of Latin at the VU University Amsterdam. She is the author of Discourse Particles in Latin: A Study of nam, enim, autem, vero and at (1995), and co-editor of Theory and Description in Latin Linguistics (2002). Her main research interests lie in the fields of pragmatics, discourse linguistics, and, especially, the linguistic articulation of narrative. She is currently supervising a linguistic-narratological research programme on ancient war narrative.

Matthew McCullagh teaches at St Paul’s School in London. He received his doctorate in Classics from Cambridge University, and he has taught both at Cambridge University and at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is currently preparing a monograph on the prehistory of the Greek aorist passive.

Wolfgang de Melo teaches in the Department of Latin and Greek at the University of Ghent and is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His book The Early Latin Verb System: Archaic Forms in Plautus, Terence, and Beyond was published in 2007. His main scholarly interests are the linguistic aspects of Early Latin; the development from Indo-European to Latin, and from Early to Classical Latin; and the closest relatives of Latin (Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian, Venetic).

Alex Mullen is Lumley Research Fellow in Classics at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. She has published on linguistic and cultural contacts in Roman Britain and southern Gaul and is currently co-editing a multi-authored volume on multilingualism in antiquity.

John Penney is University Lecturer in Classical Philology at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. His research interests include Indo-European phonology and morphology, the languages of pre-Roman Italy, and Tocharian. He has also published articles on historical aspects of the language of Latin verse and prose.

J.G.F. Powell is Professor of Latin at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published editions of Cicero’s Cato Maior de Senectute (Cambridge, 1988), of Laelius de Amicitia (Warminster, 1990), and of De Re Publica and De Legibus (Oxford Classical Text, 2006), has edited Cicero the Philosopher (Oxford, 1995), and Logos: Rational Argument in Classical Rhetoric (BICS Supplement 2007), and co-edited Author and Audience in Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1992), Cicero’s Republic (BICS Supplement 2001) and Cicero the Advocate (Oxford, 2004). He is working on, among other things, a new Latin grammar for Wiley-Blackwell.

Bruno Rochette is Professor of Greek and Latin Language and Literature at the University of Liège, Belgium. He is the author of Le latin dans le monde grec. Recherches sur la diffusion de la langue et des lettres latines dans les provinces hellénophones de l’empire romain (1997) and of articles on various aspects of Greco-Latin bilingualism.

Rex Wallace is Professor of Classics and Associate Dean of Personnel and Research for the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests are the languages of ancient Italy and historical/comparative linguistics. He is the author of The Sabellic Languages of Ancient Italy (2007), Zikh Rasna: A Manual of Etruscan Language and Inscriptions (2009), and numerous articles on Etruscan and Italic linguistics.

Roger Wright is Emeritus Professor of Spanish at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of (inter alia) Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (1982), Early Ibero-Romance (1995), and A Sociophilological Study of Late Latin (2003). His research interests centre on both the linguistic and the historical aspects of the transitional period between Latin, Romance and the Romance languages.

Abbreviations of Ancient Authors and Works

Accius, praet.

L. Accius, Fabulae Praetextae

Ael.

Claudius Aelianus (Aelian), Varia Historia

Afran.

L. Afranius

    com.

comoediae as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Amm.

Ammianus Marcellinus

Andr.

L. Liuius Andonicus (Livius Andronicus), works as in the Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum

App.

Appianos (Appian)

    Sam.

History of the Samnite Wars

Apul., Met.

L. Apuleius, Metamorphoses

Asel.

Sempronius Asellio

August.

Aurelius Augustinus (Augustine)

    C.D.

de Ciuitate Dei

    Doct. Christ.

de Doctrina Christiana

    Quaest. Hept.

Quaestiones in Heptateuchum

    Trin.

de Trinitate

B. Afr.

Bellum Africanum

B. Hisp.

Bellum Hispaniense

Caecil.

Caecilius Statius (Caecilius)

    com.

comoediae as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Caes.

C. Iulius Caesar (Caesar)

    Civ.

de Bello Ciuile

    Gal.

de Bello Gallico

Cato

M. Porcius Cato (Cato)

    Agr.

de Agri Cultura

    Orig.

Origines

Catul.

C. Valerius Catullus (Catullus)

Cels.

A. Cornelius Celsus, de Medicina

Cic.

M. Tullius Cicero (Cicero)

    Ac.

Academica

    Arch.

pro Archia

    Att.

Epistulae ad Atticum

    Brut.

Brutus

    Caec.

pro Caecina

    Cat.

in Catilinam

    Clu.

pro Cluentio

    Div.

de Diuinatione

    Dom.

de Domo sua

    de Orat.

de Oratore

    Fam.

Epistulae ad Familiares

    Fat.

de Fato

    Fin.

de Finibus

    Har.

de Haruspicum Responsio

    Inv.

de Inuentione

    Leg.

de Legibus

    Man.

pro Lege Manilia

    Mur.

pro Murena

    N.D.

de Natura Deorum

    Off.

de Officiis

    Orat.

Orator

    Phil.

Philippicae

    Pis.

in Pisonem

    Q. fr.

Epistulae ad Quintum fratrem

    Rep.

de Republica

    S. Rosc.

pro S. Roscio Amerino

    Sen.

de Senectute

    Tim.

Timaeus

    Top.

Topica

    Tusc.

Tusculanae Disputationes

    Vat.

in Vatinium

    Ver.

in Verrem

Cod. Iust.

Codex Iustinianus

Cod. Theod.

Codex Theodosianus

Col.

L. Iunius Moderatus Columella (Columella), de Re Rustica

Curt.

Q. Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni

Dig.

Digesta

D. S.

Diodorus Siculus

Edict. Roth.

Edictus Rothari

Enn.

Q. Ennius (Ennius)

    Ann.

Annales (ed. Skutsch)

    Scen.

Scenica (ed. Vahlen)

    Trag.

Tragoediae (ed. Jocelyn)

Eus.

Eusebius

    Vit. Const.

Vita Constantini

Fest.

S. Pompeius Festus (Festus), de Significatu Verborum

Fortunatianus, Ars rhet.

Consultus Fortunatianus, Ars rhetorica.

Frontinus, Str.

S. Iulius Frontinus (Frontinus), Strategemata

Fronto, Ep.

M. Cornelius Fronto (Fronto), Epistulae

Gaius, Inst.

Gaius, Institutiones

Galen

Aelius Galenus (Galen)

    Libr. Propr.

de Libris Propriis

Gel.

Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae

Hipp. Berol.

Hippiatrica Berolinensis

Hor.

Q. Horatius Flaccus (Horace)

    Carm.

Carmina

    Ep.

Epistulae

    Epod.

Epodi

    S.

Sermones

Hyginus, Astron.

G. Iulius Hyginus (Hyginus), de Astronomia

Isid.

Isidorus Hispalensis (Isidore of Seville)

    Or.

Origines

Just.

M. Iunianus Iustinus (Justin), Epitoma Historicarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi

Juv.

D. Iunius Iuuenalis (Juvenal), Saturae

Laber.

D. Laberius (Laberius)

    mim.

mimi as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Liv.

T. Liuius (Livy), ab Vrbe Condita

Lucil.

C. Lucilius

Lucr.

T. Lucretius Carus (Lucretius), de Rerum Natura

Marc., Med.

Marcellus Empiricus, de Medicamentis

Naev.

Cn. Naeuius (Naevius)

    com.

comoediae as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Nepos

Cornelius Nepos

    Alc.

Alcibiades

    Dat.

Datames

Non.

Nonius Marcellus, de Compendiosa Doctrina

Nov.

Nouellae Constitutiones

Nov. Theod.

Nouellae Theodosianae

Novius

Q. Nouius (Novius)

    com.

comoediae as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Onas.

Onasander

Ov.

P. Ouidius Naso (Ovid)

    Met.

Metamorphoses

    Tr.

Tristia

Pac.

M. Pacuuius (Pacuvius)

    trag.

Tragoediae as in the Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Paul. Fest.

Paulus Diaconus, Epitoma Festi

Per. Aeth.

Peregrinatio Aetheriae

Persius

A. Persius Flaccus (Persius), Saturae

Petr.

Petronius Arbiter (Petronius), Satyrica

Pl.

T. Maccius Plautus (Plautus)

    Am.

Amphitruo

    As.

Asinaria

    Aul.

Aulularia

    Bac.

Bacchides

    Capt.

Captiui

    Cas.

Casina

    Cur.

Curculio

    Epid.

Epidicus

    Men.

Menaechmi

    Mer.

Mercator

    Mil.

Miles gloriosus

    Mos.

Mostellaria

    Per.

Persa

    Poen.

Poenulus

    Ps.

Pseudolus

    Rud.

Rudens

    St.

Stichus

    Trin.

Trinummus

    Truc.

Truculentus

Plin., Nat.

C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Naturalis Historia

Plin.

C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger)

    Ep.

Epistulae

    Ep. Tra.

Epistulae ad Traianum

    Pan.

Panegyricus Traiani

Plut.

Plutarchos (Plutarch)

    Alex.

Alexander

    Caes.

Caesar

    Cat. Mai.

Cato Maior

    Cic.

Cicero

Polyb.

Polybios (Polybius), Histories

Pompon.

L. Pomponius (Pomponius)

    com.

comoediae as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Prop.

S. Propertius (Propertius), Elegiae

Quint., Inst.

M. Fabius Quintilianus (Quintilian), Institutio Oratoria

Rhet. Her.

Rhetorica ad Herennium

Sal.

C. Sallustius Crispus (Sallust)

    Cat.

Bellum Catilinae

    Hist.

Historiae

    Jug.

Iugurtha

Schol. Juv.

Scholia in Iuuenalem uetustiora

Sen.

L. Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Elder)

    Con.

Controuersiae

Sen.

L. Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger)

    Dial.

Dialogi

    Ep.

Epistulae Morales

    Med.

Medea

    Nat.

Naturales Quaestiones

[Sen.] Oct.

Octauia, attributed to L. Annaeus Seneca (the younger)

Serv.

Maurus Seruius Honoratus (Servius)

    A.

in Vergilium commentarius: ad Aeneidem

    Ecl.

in Vergilium commentarius: ad Eclogas

SHA

Scriptores Historiae Augustae

    Hadr.

Hadrianus

    Sept. Sev.

Septimius Seuerus

Soran. Lat.

Sorani Gynaeciorum uetus translatio Latina

Stat.

P. Papinius Statius (Statius)

    Silv.

Siluae

    Theb.

Thebais

Suet.

C. Suetonius Tranquillus (Suetonius)

    Aug.

Augustus

    Claud.

Claudius

    Gram.

de Grammaticis

    Iul.

Iulius

    Ner.

Nero

    Tib.

Tiberius

    Ves.

Vespasianus

    Vit.

Vitellius

Tac.

Cornelius Tacitus (Tacitus)

    Ag.

Agricola

    Ann.

Annales

    Dial.

Dialogus de Oratoribus

    Hist.

Historiae

Ter.

P. Terentius Afer (Terence)

    Ad.

Adelphi

    An.

Andria

    Eu.

Eunuchus

    Hau.

Hautontimorumenos

    Ph.

Phormio

Tert.

Q. Septimius Florens Tertullianus (Tertullian)

Theodorus Priscianus

    Eupor.

Euporista

Tib.

Albius Tibullus (Tibullus), Elegiae

Titin.

Titinius

    com.

comoediae as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Tribonian

Flauius Tribonianus (Tribonian)

    Inst. Iust.

Institutiones Iustiniani

Turpil.

S. Turpilius

    com.

comoediae as in the Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta

Var.

M. Terentius Varro (Varro)

    L.

de Lingua Latina

    R.

Res Rusticae

Vegetius

P. Flauius Vegetius Renatus (Vegetius)

    Epit.

Epitoma Rei Militaris

    Vet.

Ars Veterinaria

Vell.

C. Velleius Paterculus, Historiae Romanae

Ven. Fort.

Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (Venantius Fortunatus)

Verg.

P. Vergilius Maro (Virgil)

    A.

Aeneis

    Ecl.

Eclogae

    G.

Georgica

Vitr.

M. Vitruuius Pollio (Vitruvius) de Architectura

V.Max.

Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta Memorabilia

Note: Where translations are credited to authors but no further source is given, the translation is taken from the Loeb Classical Library.

Abbreviations of Modern Sources

AAntHung

Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae

AC

L’Antiquité Classique

AE

L’Année épigraphique

AION

Annali dell’Istituto universitario orientale di Napoli, Dipartimento di studi del mondo classico e del Mediterraneo antico

AJA

American Journal of Archaeology

AJPh

American Journal of Philology

AKG

Archiv für Kulturgeschichte

ALL

Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik

ALMA

Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin Du Cange)

ANRW

Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt

AntTard

Antiquité tardive

BEFAR

Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome

BICS

Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London

BIFAO

Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale

BSL

Bulletin de la Société de linguistique de Paris

CA

Classical Antiquity

CAG

Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Berlin, 1882–1909

CB

Classical Bulletin

CCC

Civiltà classica e cristiana

CEL

P. Cugusi, Corpus Epistolarum Latinarum, papyris tabulis ostracis servatarum. 3 vols. Florence, 1992–2002

CGL

G. Loewe and G. Goetz, Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum. Leipzig, 1888–1923

CHG

E. Oder and C. Hoppe, Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1924–1927

ChLA

Chartae Latinae Antiquiores. Olten, 1954–

CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1862–

CJ

Classical Journal

CLE

Carmina Latina Epigraphica. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1895–1926

CLL

Cahiers de L’Institute de Linguistque de Louvain

CML

Corpus Medicorum Latinorum. Berlin, 1915–

CPh

Classical Philology

CPL.

R. Cavenaile, Corpus Papyrorum Latinarum. Wiesbaden, 1958

CPR

Corpus Papyrorum Raineri. Vienna, 1895–

CQ

Classical Quarterly

CR

Classical Review

DHA

Dialogues d’histoire ancienne

ET

H. Rix et al., Etruskische Texte. Editio minor. Tübingen, 1991

FLP

E. Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Oxford, 2003

GL

H. Keil, Grammatici Latini. 8 vols. Leipzig, 1855–1923

G&R

Greece and Rome

HLov

Humanistica Lovaniensia

HSCPh

Harvard Studies in Classical Philology

HSK

Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

IF

Indogermanische Forschungen

IG

Inscriptiones Graecae. Berlin, 1873–

IGF

D.-C. Decourt, Inscriptions grecques de la France. Lyon, 2004

IGPhilae

Les inscriptions grecques de Philae. Paris, 1969–

IGUR

L. Moretti, Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae. Rome, 1968–1979

ILAlg

Inscriptions latines de l’Algérie. Paris, 1922–

ILLRP

A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae rei publicae. 2 vols. Florence, 1957–1963

ILS

H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. 5 vols. Berlin, 1892–1916

JEA

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

JIES

Journal of Indo-European Studies

JPh

Journal of Philology

JRS

Journal of Roman Studies

K-S

R. Kühner and C. Stegmann, Ausfürliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache. Satzlehre. Revised by A. Thierfelder, 3rd edn. Hanover, 1955

LCM

Liverpool Classical Monthly

MedArch

Mediterranean Archaeology: Australian and New Zealand Journal for the Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

MH

Museum Helveticum

NphM

Neuphilologische Mitteilungen

O.BuNjem

R. Marichal, Les Ostraca de Bu Njem. Tripoli, 1992.

O.Claud.

Mons Claudianus. Ostraca graeca et latina. Cairo, 1992–

O.Max.

Unpublished ostraca from Maximianon (Al-Zarqua, Egypt)

O.Wâdi Fawâkhir

O. Guéraud ‘Ostraca grecs et latins de l’Wâdi Fawâkhir,’ BIFAO 41, 1942, 141–196

OCD3

S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd edn. Oxford and New York, 1996

OGI

W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1903–1905

OLD

P. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford, 1968–1982

P.Herc.

Papyri Herculanenses

P.Masada

H.M. Cotton and J. Geiger, Masada II, The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963—1965. Final Reports: The Latin and Greek Documents. Jerusalem, 1989

P.Mich.

Michigan Papyri. Ann Arbor, 1931–

P.Ness.

Excavations at Nessana. 3 vols. London and Princeton, 1950–1962

P.Oxy.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. London, 1898–

P.Panopolis

L.C. Youtie, D. Hagedorn and H.C. Youtie, Urkunden aus Panopolis. Bonn, 1980

P.Ryl.

Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Manchester, 1911–

P.Yadin

The Documents from the Bar Kochba Period in the Cave of Letters. Jerusalem, 1989–

PCPhS

Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society

PL

J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Paris, 1844–

PLLS

Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar/Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar/Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar

PSI

Papiri greci e latini. Florence, 1912–

QUCC

Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica

REI

Rivista di Epigrafia Italica (published as part of Studi Etruschi)

REL

Revue des Études Latines

RenQ

Renaissance Quarterly

RH

Revue historique

RhM

Rheinisches Museum

RIB

The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Oxford, 1965–

RIDA

Revue internationale des droits de l’Antiquité

RIG

Recueil des inscriptions gauloises. Paris, 1985–

RLM

C. Halm, ed., Rhetores Latini Minores. Leipzig, 1863

RPh

Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes

SB

Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten

SCI

Scripta classica Israelica

SEG

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, 1923–

Sel. Pap.

A.S. Hunt and C.C. Edgar, Select Papyri. 5 vols, London and New York, 1932–1934

SIFC

Studi italiani di filologia classica

SIG3

W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 3rd edn. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1915–1924

SO

Symbolae Osloenses

ST

H. Rix, Sabellische Texte. Die Texte des Oskischen, Umbrischen und Südpikenischen. Heidelberg, 2002

T.Alb.

C. Courtois, L. Leschi, C. Perrat and C. Saumagne, Tablettes Albertini. Actes privés de l’époque Vandale. Paris, 1952

T.Sulpicii

G. Camodeca, Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum: edizione critica dell’archivio puteolano dei Sulpicii. 2 vols. Rome, 1999.

T.Vindol.

Vindolanda: The Latin Writing Tablets. London and Oxford, 1983–

Tab. Sulis

R.S.O. Tomlin, ‘The Curse Tablets’, in B. Cunliffe (ed.), The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath, vol. 2: The Finds from the Sacred Spring. Oxford, 1988: 4–277

TAPhA

Transactions of the American Philological Association

TLL

Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Leipzig, 1900–

TPhS

Transactions of the Philological Society

Ve

E. Vetter, Handbuch der italischen Dialekte. Heidelberg, 1953

WS

Wiener Studien

YClS

Yale Classical Studies

ZPE

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

ZSS

Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte

Symbols Used

*

precedes an element which is reconstructed for an earlier stage of the language or for a proto-language, but which is unattested

**

precedes an element which is unattested or is an impossible formation

< >

enclose an orthographic symbol or symbols (in most cases one or more letters of the Latin alphabet)

[ ]

enclose a phonetic symbol or symbols, representing a particular sound or sequence of sounds

//

enclose a symbol or symbols, representing a phoneme or sequence of phonemes

[β]

a voiced bilabial fricative, like the medial sound in Spanish beber

[ð]

a voiced dental fricative, like the initial sound of English that

[θ]

an unvoiced dental fricative, like the initial sound in English thin

[j]

a palatal approximant, like the initial sound of English yet

[ŋ]

a velar nasal, like the final sound of English sing

[∫]

a postalveolar fricative, like the initial sound of English shirt

[x]

a velar fricative, like the final sound of the German name Bach

[ε]

a relatively low or open “e” vowel, like the vowel in English pet

[ә]

a mid central unrounded vowel (schwa), like the final vowel in English pizza

[I]

a close front i vowel, like the vowel in English pit

[ɔ]

a relatively low or open “o” vowel, like the vowel in English paw

[y]

a high front rounded vowel, like the German vowel written ü

[ʊ]

a relatively close back rounded vowel, like the vowel in English good

[i]

a close central unrounded vowel, like the second vowel in English roses

[u]

a close central rounded vowel

ː

written after a phonetic symbol for a vowel sound represents a long vowel

ø

zero/zero morph (indicating the form has no ending)

X→Y

Y is a derivative of X

X>Y

X becomes Y by sound change

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

James Clackson

Latin was the first “World Language” of human history. As the language of the Roman Empire and then the Roman Catholic Church it has spread around the globe, and today well over a billion people speak a language derived from Latin as their first or second language (Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, etc.). Although there are no native speakers of Latin still alive, Latin has a cultural prestige matched by no other language in the West. In religion, in law, in medicine and in science, Latin terms and phrases are still employed on a daily basis. Latin’s position in the modern world reflects its importance as the language of many of the most influential texts written between antiquity and the Early Modern period, from Virgil’s Aeneid and Tacitus’ Annales through the works of Augustine and the church fathers, to the use of Latin by Newton, Milton and Spinoza. Despite Latin’s enormous cultural significance, this is the first single volume companion to the Latin language, both enabling the reader to access reliable summaries of what is known about the structure and vocabulary of the language, and setting the language in its cultural milieu from its first appearance, in short inscriptions in the first half of the first millennium BCE, to its use as a language of scholarship, of law and of the church in the modern period.

Latin comes after Greek. The initial impetus for this volume was as a companion to Bakker’s Companion to the Greek Language (2010), and in structure and scope the Companion to the Latin Language mirrors its older sister. Indeed, in some areas, the two volumes overlap and complement each other. Just as the Companion to the Greek Language combines “traditional” and “modern” approaches to the linguistic study of the language, so does the Companion to the Latin Language. This volume attempts to give a comprehensive overview of the Latin language, including aspects of social variation and language change, speakers’ attitudes to language and the use of Latin in literary texts.

However, in much the same way that the Latin language has a very different history to Greek, so the structure of this Companion also reflects the differences between the two languages. The longer history of Greek (and the continual use of the label “Greek” to describe the language spoken in Greece in modern times) has meant that the written forms of the language have been recast many times. Moreover, the existence of Greek city states in the Classical period, and the emergence of different literary forms through oral and local traditions, have led to the adoption of a range of varieties of the language as written forms (the so-called Greek dialects). In contrast, there is usually reckoned to be only one standard form of Latin, Classical Latin. No dialects of Latin ever reached the status of a literary form, and no later stage of the language ever rivalled the prestige of the Classical standard. The formation of Classical Latin, and the repeated moves to purify or correct the language will be repeated themes of this volume, as will the demonstration that within the apparently monolithic structure of Classical Latin there is room for considerable variation and choice.

The Companion is divided into five parts, each of which is built around a different broad theme. Part I deals with the sources of our knowledge of the Latin language. Latin is a corpus language, known only through written documents, and no one who could genuinely be described as a native speaker of Latin has been alive for the last millennium. It is appropriate therefore that the first chapter of this section is devoted to the alphabet that encodes the language. Rex Wallace addresses the question of the adoption and adaptation of the alphabet from the Greeks through Etruscan intermediaries, and his richly illustrated chapter contains the most up-to-date survey of the very earliest Latin inscriptions that survive. He then traces the development of the Latin letterforms, the differing orthographic practices of the Romans down to the imperial period, and the possible connections between and influences from letterforms and orthographic practices among the other literate peoples of Italy. The next two chapters examine the ways Latin texts function as sources for the language. Latin texts have reached us through two principal routes. Either the original written form has survived on a medium such as stone, wood, metal or papyrus, or a text has been copied and recopied in an unbroken chain of manuscript transmission. In general, texts in the second category comprise literary works, and those in the first all other forms of documentation (although there are instances where literary works are recorded in inscriptional texts, such as Augustus’ Res Gestae, or where manuscripts preserve sub-literary material). James Clackson presents a discussion of some of the pitfalls for the linguist who uses inscriptional and documentary material to research the Latin language, including the vexed problem of attributing “authorship” to an ancient inscription. This chapter also includes a description of the range of such material available for the ancient world and explanations of some of the editorial conventions used. Bruce Gibson addresses the question of how literary texts have been handed down through the centuries. He shows how a modern editor of a text reconstructs a manuscript tradition, and how scholars have addressed the problems of variant readings, non-standard orthographies and different sources for a single text, presenting (among other examples) a test case of a manuscript page of Catullus and the modern reading. Roger Wright concludes Part I by looking at the use of a very different sort of source for the Latin language, the medieval and modern languages which have descended from spoken forms of Latin. As he shows, in order to understand this topic it is important to distinguish first between what counts as Latin and what counts as Romance, and the chapter includes a discussion of this topic, before a systematic review of the evidence of Romance for our knowledge of spoken Latin.

Wright’s chapter is also the first point in this volume where the term Vulgar Latin is used, and it is worth pausing to consider this term, which been the most discussed in the study of Latin, and is widely used in modern published work. Many readers will expect to find a chapter, if not a section, on Vulgar Latin in a Companion to the Latin Language, and will want to know why this volume does not include one. Part of the reason is the ambiguity inherent in the term. Wright (p. 63) reports József Herman’s definition of Vulgar Latin as a collective label for features of the language which we know existed but which were not recommended by grammarians, a usage which is observed by Adams in his chapter (pp. 263–265). Adams notes that the term would then have to include the linguistic behaviour of individuals such as the Emperor Augustus, and as such is at odds with a prevalent understanding of Vulgar Latin as the variety or varieties spoken by the uneducated and illiterate populace. For the sake of avoiding confusion, the writers in this volume generally restrict their use of the term Vulgar Latin to Herman’s definition, where they use it at all, and the other senses in which the label is used are defined in their own terms.

Part II aims to provide an overview of the linguistic structure of Latin, concentrating largely on the synchronic grammar of the Classical form of the language. Matthew McCullagh shows how we are able to reconstruct the phonology of the language accurately, to isolate the meaningful sounds of Latin (the phonemes), and, in most cases, specify their phonetic value. Benjamin W. Fortson IV expands the discussion of the sound of Latin by looking at what we can learn about the language from the metres the Romans used, and what we can learn about the metres from comparative and linguistic investigation. Fortson concentrates on three particular problems: the Saturnian metre and its background in inherited verse types of the Indo-European family; the adaptation of Greek metres by the Latin comic playwrights and their nativisation; and the interaction between verse beat (ictus) and the native Latin word and phrasal stress. Inflectional morphology and the selection of the Classical Latin exponents from a range of varieties are then covered by James Clackson. For many people who learnt Latin at school, the memory of lessons on syntactic constructions such as the ablative absolute or the gerundive is enough to provoke winces of pain; experienced teachers are frequently able to answer the question “How?” but rarely the question “Why?” Geoffrey Horrocks, in his chapter on Latin syntax, goes beyond the traditional listing and cataloguing of different constructions and uses modern syntactic theory to give an answer to the “Why?” question, introducing theoretical notions such as “control” into the study of Latin grammar for the first time. The Latin lexicon is the subject of the next two chapters by Michèle Fruyt. In any language, the vocabulary is formed from a combination of inherited, borrowed and derived lexemes. In the first of her two chapters, Fruyt considers the basic vocabulary of Latin, the organisation of the semantic structure of the lexicon, and the means by which the language incorporates words borrowed from other languages, with particular focus on the reaction to, and the reception of, Greek words. In the next chapter, she looks in more detail at the processes of lexical morphology, including the formation of compounds and the derivation of new words from existing lexical items, with detailed consideration of individual affixes and affixation processes, as well as agglutination and recategorisation (the process whereby words are transferred from one lexical class to another with the addition of no overt affix). To round off this section, Caroline Kroon’s chapter tackles a linguistic topic that is generally absent from traditional works on Latin, the grammar of discourse. Recent work on pragmatics, the study of language in use, has shown how speakers and writers of different languages employ particles and other text-marking devices in various ways in order to give order and structure to units of communication longer than a sentence. Kroon shows how familiar Latin particles have a more nuanced, and more precise, use in context than is apparent from bare English translations.

Part III is devoted to presentations of Latin through history, from its Indo-European origins to its use in the modern world, detailing the distinctive changes and features for each period, as well as recording the spread of the language. Benjamin W. Fortson IV looks at Latin in the context of the Indo-European language family, and details the major changes which Latin has undergone, and also gives details on its relationship to Oscan and Umbrian and the other Indo-European languages of Italy. John Penney examines in detail the language of the earliest Latin texts up to the end of the second century BCE, including commentary on selected early inscriptional texts, noting changes in language and orthographic practices. The next chapter, by James Clackson, covers Classical Latin, principally the language of the late Republic and the first two centuries of the Roman Empire. This chapter includes extensive discussion of the debates about what constituted Latinitas, probably best translated as “correct Latin”, the processes of standardisation, including changes in orthography, morphology, syntax and vocabulary, and the treatment of Greek words in Latin. The next three chapters treat the Latin of later chronological periods. First, J.N. Adams examines the notion of Late Latin, and asks whether there are distinctive linguistic features to Latin of this date, and how linguistic change, pressure from the standard language and other factors intertwine in texts written in Late Antiquity and beyond. The last two chapters describe the survival of Latin as a written and scholarly idiom, used alongside various vernaculars, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Greti Dinkova-Bruun discusses Medieval Latin, offering sample texts to illustrate the changes in orthography, grammar, vocabulary and style of Latin texts in the period between the end of antiquity and the Renaissance. David Butterfield looks at the language from the Renaissance to the present, showing the repeated attempts by writers to get closer to Classical models, and detailing the link between teaching Classics and writing Latin prose and verse in the last two centuries.

Part IV of the companion is devoted to presentations of the idioms and styles characteristic of a range of specific Latin literary registers. It is well known to any classicist that Latin poetry employs features such as extreme displacements of word order, or calques of Greek syntax, which are not found in Latin prose, and that a letter by Cicero will differ in style and vocabulary from one of his speeches or his philosophical works. The chapters in Part IV examine both the language of specific literary or para-literary genres and the language which is associated with certain contexts, such as the law court or the Christian church. In all these areas it is of course impossible to give a checklist of features which are obligatory for a certain genre or context, and the chapters here indicate, in different ways, some of the limitations of seeing a simple correspondence between genre and language. Even so, there are many broad generalisations to be made, as well as illuminating discussions of individual features, and the chapters together present a completely new picture of the language of literary Latin. Wolfgang de Melo gives an overview of the language of Roman comedy and mime, showing distinctive features of the Latin of Plautus and later dramatists. Rolando Ferri looks at poetic language, particularly as revealed in epic and lyric works (encompassing also the language of Senecan drama). Ferri sets out ancient theories of poetic language, and demonstrates the ways in which the sound and metre of poetry affected the orthographic and lexical choices authors made. Poetic techniques such as metaphor, hyperbaton and Greek syntactic constructions are placed in context and illustrated by citations from authors ranging from Lucretius to Cyprianus Gallus. Quintilian famously stated that satura quidem tota nostra est (“satire is all ours”; Inst. 10.1.93). Satire is noteworthy as the only genre of Latin literature which does not have Greek models to follow, and Anna Chahoud’s chapter on Roman satire shows how lexical and syntactic choices set this genre apart from other Latin poetry, and how the authorial presentations of the genre in opposition to the themes and language of “high” poetry are brought about in style and diction. This chapter also gives an insight into what constituted “coarse” and colloquial language for a Roman audience.

The literary genres of prose are covered in the next chapters in this section. Jonathan Powell reminds us how limited our knowledge of actual Roman oratory is, and traces the development of rhetoric as a topic of study and debate in the Roman world, while also analysing some of the features of Ciceronian periodic style in his speeches. Christina Shuttleworth Kraus writes on the language of Roman historiography and draws out the similarities and differences between history writing and other genres, including poetry and oratory; she documents the ways in which historians from Cato to Ammianus vary their style according to the subject matter, and make use of annalistic and military language in their works. Hilla Halla-aho dissects the construction of different styles apparent in the Latin epistolary corpus (comprising both the correspondence of Cicero, Pliny and Fronto and documentary material such as the wooden tablets from Vindolanda). She separates out colloquial from rhetorical and formal styles in letters, and her presentation of what constitutes a colloquialism has ramifications beyond the Latin of letters alone. Technical writing is not normally reckoned to be a unified genre per se within literary studies of ancient literature, but, as Thorsten Fögen shows, the modern concept of a specific idiom of Fachsprache can lead to interesting conclusions when looking at Roman writing on subjects as diverse as grammar, architecture, medicine, farming and the encyclopaedic Naturalis Historia composed by Pliny the Elder. All of these disciplines share similarities in their approaches to the formation of new technical terms, their employment of non-personal styles and constructions, and their reactions to Greek models. Finally, the last two chapters examine the two cultural contexts in which Latin has survived the longest into the modern world: law and Christianity. Jonathan Powell considers the tradition of Roman law from the earliest tables, through contracts surviving on wax tablets from the bay of Naples to the Latin tags employed by professional lawyers and jurists even today. Philip Burton offers a condensation of research on the language employed by Christian writers and Bible translators, and revisits the debates about the special nature of Christian Latin. He shows that Christian authors can encompass a wide range of styles, and how special uses of vocabulary items can reveal their indebtedness to biblical language.

What can broadly be termed sociolinguistic approaches to Latin are the subject of Part V. The four chapters here explore different aspects of language variation in the ancient world. We know that some linguistic variation in Ancient Rome correlated with the social status, age and gender of the speaker, and James Clackson assesses to what extent these social dialects of Latin are accessible to us. By considering whether it is possible to associate the social position of a speaker or writer with variation in Latin, this chapter necessarily overlaps with previous research carried out under the heading of Vulgar Latin as discussed above. It goes beyond the discussion of variation correlated with social class, however, by also surveying the evidence for specific features that can be associated with the gender and age of the speaker. This chapter also discusses the significance of the use of Greek by Latin speakers, and this topic is further expanded and analysed in the contribution of Alex Mullen who examines Latin in contact with other languages (including not only Greek but also a range of idioms now no longer spoken, including Oscan and Gaulish). Mullen considers the topic of bilingualism both at the macro-level of institutionalised bilingualism, and at the micro-level of individual speakers, such as Cicero, and the significance of the choices made between two or more languages. The role of the state and of Roman magistrates and emperors in enforcing or promoting Latin, its complex sociocultural relationship to Greek, and the use of Latin in the Greek world through the Byzantine period are clearly of particular importance in the consideration of the social functions of Latin. This is the subject of Bruno Rochette’s chapter. Finally, Giovanbattista Galdi summarises the range of evidence for geographical variations in Latin across the Roman world, in both the republic and the empire. Using the mass of evidence gathered by Adams in his recent book on the diversification of Latin across the Roman world (Adams 2007), Galdi brings out salient features of regional Latin, including an examination of the Latin of the north-eastern provinces of the empire.

Galdi’s chapter reminds us of the extraordinary geographical spread of Latin. In the first century of the Roman Empire, Latin began to be recognised as a universal language, as shown by the comments of the Greek author Plutarch (Moralia 1010D). In consideration of the question of why Plato said that the only parts of speech were nouns and verbs, Plutarch notes that in Latin there is no definite article as there is in Greek, nor as many prepositions. Parenthetically, Plutarch adds that almost all men use Latin. These comments mark a significant stage in the history of Latin, since it is now that Greeks take an interest in the language, and start to relinquish their own claim to linguistic predominance. Although no longer a spoken universal language, Latin has increased its reach and range since the time of Plutarch. The association of Latin with the Roman Catholic Church, and its use in countless legal constitutions, statutes and codes have resulted in the spread of the language to parts of the world unknown to the Romans. Latin supplies models of correct grammar for language purists, it provides syntactical and morphological meat for professional linguists and it is mined for mottos by states, companies and celebrities. In showing something of the complexities of its structure, history and use, this volume will, it is hoped, enhance the understanding and appreciation of the Latin language.