Linguistics

The early seventeenth-century English sermon was the bestselling print genre of its time and church preaching was more widely attended than any play. Jennifer Clement argues here that a major aim of these sermons was to teach people how to feel the right emotions — or as preachers would have said at the time the passions or affections — to lead a good Christian life. In the process preachers took a primarily rhetorical approach to the emotions; that is they used their sermons to define emotions and to encourage their listeners and readers actively to cultivate and shape their emotions in line with Scripture.

This study offers an overview of five key emotions — love fear anger grief and joy – in the sermons of key preachers such as John Donne Richard Sibbes Joseph Hall Launcelot Andrewes and others. It shows how these preachers engaged with contemporary treatises on the emotions as well as treatises on preaching to highlight the importance of the rhetorical as opposed to the humoral approach to understanding the emotions in a religious context. In addition Clement reads sermons next to early seventeenth-century religious poetry by writers such as Donne George Herbert Amelia Lanyer and Henry Vaughan to show how the emotional concerns of the sermons also appear in the poetry reverberating beyond the pulpit.

Bringing together rhetorical theory sermon studies and the history of the emotions Clement shows how the early seventeenth-century English sermon needs to inform our thinking about literature and its engagement with emotion in this period.

This paper focuses on the ‘expletive’ function of the sentence Latin negative particle non which is closely connected with the semantic role of the ‘N-words’ namely the negative indefinite pronouns or adverbs (e.g. nemo nihil numquam). Both aspects are universally interrelated in the distribution of the main types of negation in the word languages that are the double negation type (DN) and negative concordance (NC).

Generally the evolutionary path from the former to the latter type is explained referring to either sociolinguistic variation (especially colloquial register) or influence by Greek language whose tendency toward the NC type is evidenced since antiquity. However the change of negation type that takes place in late Latin and the Romance languages can be analysed in the perspective of the cycle of weakening and reinforcement underlying any linguistic change giving way to idiosyncratic outcome in each language.

Concretely the starting point of the evolution is the Latin ‘N-words’ whose strictly negative force (at least in the classical language) allowing for the DN system is progressively weakened. This fact yielded functions as ‘free choice’ quantifiers and/or Negative Polarity Items (NPI) such as English ‘any’ and its compounds whose usage in negative sentences requires a negative expression. Nevertheless in late Latin as well as in the Romance languages the evolution of the ‘N-words’ is differentiated according to their semantic role. In the role of ‘Agent’ the ‘N-words’ preserve their negative force which is weakened in other semantic roles (e.g. patient experiencer possessor) as shown by contrasting Italian sentences such as Nessuno è venuto and non ho fatto niente di male a nessuno: in the former one the indefinite pronoun nessuno has a fully negative meaning in the latter nessuno represents a free choice quantifier. This process is in accordance with the scalar approach of semantic roles: SU>DO>IO>OBL>GEN> OCOMP formulated by Keenan et Comrie (1977 66).

In this paper I wish to show some linguistic features of Latin narrative texts of the beginning of the Middle Ages. The documents investigated are chronicles written between the sixth and the eighth centuries. This is a material apparently homogeneous but the texts can exhibit differences of formulation that depend on cultural level and individual stylistic habits. The norm that determines historical narration is a traditional one; however it undergoes variation with the progress of time. In the present study I would like to examine the degree of complexity of the sentences the relative frequency of coordination and subordination textual coherence and narrative structure. In the scalar typology that I propose here the two extreme points are the fragmentary text of Hydatius (with some chapters of Fredegar’s chronicle) and Paulus Diaconus’ historical work showing a great richness of anaphoric constructions and of other cohesive means. The distance between spoken language and written language is continually growing in the Late Latin period and this fact seems to trigger two opposed reactions: written texts can search for the simplicity of the expression or on the contrary they can return to the classical tradition. In the latter case one recognizes also the influence of the biblical style.

Analysis of the following terms in Cassiodorus’ De anima and its sources: acatholicus adunatio attractiuus circumstantia conspicientia crapulatio detentorius digestio expellitiuus expugnatrix inelaboratus infiguratus inhalatio inspiramen mundifico obnoxietas palpabilis parturialis perscrutabilis praeconialis proficuus simplicabilis substantialis translatiuus uaricatio.

The focus of the Latin Vulgaire – Latin Tardif book series lies on the complex and multifaceted problem of late and so-called vulgar Latin. Specifically starting out from a wide range of methodological approaches involving all levels of language the series’ main purpose is to investigate how Classical Latin (i.e. the language used in the period from ca. 100 BC to AD 100 by authors such as Cicero Horace and Vergil) underwent the changes during the late period (i.e. mainly between the 3rd and the 7th century AD) that resulted in (the early stages of) the Romance languages. To this purpose three main types of linguistic sources are taken into consideration. First direct Latin sources which include for instance texts written by people with a lesser level of literacy (e.g. inscriptions soldiers’ letters) or by fully literate authors reproducing colloquial language deliberately (e.g. Petronius Apuleius). Second indirect Latin sources which consist of metalinguistic testimonies of ancient authors (mainly but not exclusively grammarians) dealing with the language variation typical of their time and region. And third the Romance idioms themselves: by comparing sources in at least two Romance varieties one may reconstruct Latin words or forms which were used widely in spoken usage but for different reasons are not attested in any extant source.

This paper investigates the relationship between negation and modal verbs in both diachronic and synchronic perspective. In the evolution from Latin to the Romance languages negation has a twofold impact on the change of the modalities from a semantic and syntactic point of view. Firstly the rise of modal verbs in the Romance languages replacing the mere moods (especially the subjunctive) employed in Latin was favoured by occurrences in negative contexts that increasingly show a redundant use of modal verbs even in subordinate clauses. Secondly the impact of the double negation on the reciprocal shift from epistemic to deontic modalities basing on the distinction on the one hand between objective and subjective possibility and on the other hand between weak and strong necessity. Particularly the double negation triggers the shift from one to another one among those types of modalities especially crossing subjective possibility and weak necessity. Different results however are evidenced by contrasting the Latin and Romance systems of negation that are distinguished by different structures of marked and unmarked negation. Generally however the double negation has an emphatic force so that it is stylistically marked. That is why double negation often occur in argumentative contexts conveying different nuances of interpretation especially between weak and strong deontic modality.

This paper studies the use of demonstratives in St Benedict’s Rule at various levels (forms used cases use as a determiner and as a pronoun syntactic functions) and relates it to other works and collections. The six classical units are conserved distributed in a very irregular way in the text: is and hic are the most used of their series while idem and iste are used in a very limited way. On the other hand the syntactic function seems to play an important role when choosing one or another demonstrative form.

Terence’s language must be examined from different points of view: (1) the language of the comedy (Terence in comparison with Plautus Caecilius Luscius Lanuvinus); (2) the oratorical approach to some problems discussed in the prologues; (3) the direct or indirect influence of Greek on Terence’s language.

As for point (2) Terence could distinguish the style of Menander’s Perinthia from that of the Andria: Andr. 9-12 Menander fecit Andriam et Perinthiam. / qui utramuis recte norit ambas nouerit: / non ita dissimili sunt argumento et tamen / dissimili oratione sunt factae et stilo. Since Perinthia was presumably an early work of Menander’s we can assume that Terence could distinguish a comedy composed by the young Menander from another one of the old poet. Another intriguing story is told in Phormio’s prologue where Luscius’ opinion about Terence’s comedy is given (Phorm. 4-8).

These discussions and defences of Terence’s comedies are given in discourses held by a speaker (Haut. 11 oratorem esse uoluit me non prologum; Hec.1 Orator ad uos uenio ornatu prologi) in the prologus conceived as a discourse to be held in a trial Therefore I will take into account this ‘style’ and kind of discourse and study it by applying the theory of elocutio we find in the first complete rhetorical handbook namely the Ad Herennium written about eighty years later and in particular at 41015 where the swollen style is described and illustrated with a couple of examples which can be compared for the exaggerated pathos with Luscius’ comedy as it is described in Phorm.7-8 (ceruam uidere fugere et sectari canes / et eam plorare etc.). I suggest that the language employed by Terence could be defined as sermo uolgaris i.e. as the language usually employed according to the meaning provided in Rhet. Her. 31236 and 45669. We must therefore start from Terence to know which was the original meaning of sermo uulgaris opposed to the oratorical language. On the other hand and as pointed out by Goldberg 1986 202 ‘Terence left behind the diffuse rambles of early prose and the playful verbosity of his comic predecessors creating instead the kind of Latin that first showed clearly those features from which the great stylistics of later times developed their individual voices’. The change of styles by Terence and the mention of oratorial style in his prologues show attention to different kinds of language asked for different situations and people. An attention we don’t find in Plautus who used masterly his language to comic effects but without a systematic distinction of high and low style.

The present paper builds upon the analysis of the sicilicus a diacritic which although occupying an altogether marginal space in Latin epigraphy may provide insights into phono‑orthographic issues in the Latin language. The sicilicus is seldom attested in Latin orthographic tradition and ancient grammarians’ testimonies suggest that it could have marked long consonants before the spread of geminatio consonantium.

Traces of the evolution of this mark might be spotted in the epigraphic notation of abbreviations standing for plural forms. Such forms can be notated either through geminatio consonantium or through a supralinear diacritic of varying shape which can be identified with a sicilicus or with an apex. Therefore a common origin of both the sicilicus and the apex has been suggested by some scholars to indicate the doubling of a grapheme.

In order to shed light on the variability of shape and function of these marks we examined the diacritics and abbreviations attested in a corpus of Latin inscriptions from Latium (including Rome) and Campania. Our preliminary results will explore the possibility of relating the use of the examined diacritic marks of varying shape to the sicilicus discussing whether they can represent its evolution.

This contribution investigates the linguistic features of Langobard Latinity. The perspective adopted here combines the analysis of structures occurring in the documentary and literary texts written in Langobard cultural contexts and a consideration of the socio-historical factors of the Langobards’ complex ethnogenesis. The contribution debates the sociolinguistic implications of the Langobards’ imperfect learning of Latin during the early migration periods and the early settlements in the Balkans as well as the impact of their later settlements in Italy and their consequent language and culture contact to the Roman populations. A starting problem posed by the linguistic analysis is the possible existence of differences of the Langobard Latinity with respect to the Late Latinity of other parts of the post-Roman world. On the base of a comparison of structures from Late Latin texts especially but not only documentary of various areas of the Romania two groups of structural phenomena are identified as possibly typical of Langobard Latinity i.e. the vacillation and confusion of the genitive / dative inflectional endings and the accusative subjects with intransitive and passive verbs. The first group of phenomena has parallels in the Balkan Latinity the second in the Late and vulgar Latin of some Romano-Germanic areas.