Early and Late Latin

Continuity or Change?

J. N. Adams, Nigel Vincent

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781107132252
• eBook ISBN:
  9781316723210
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Ancient Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book addresses the question of whether there are continuities in Latin spanning the period from the early Republic through to the Romance languages. It is often maintained that various usages admitted by early comedy were rejected later by the literary language but continued in speech, to resurface centuries later in the written record (and in Romance). Are certain similarities between early and late Latin all that they seem, or might they be superficial, reflecting different phenomena at different periods? Most of the chapters, on numerous syntactic and other topics and using different methodologies, have a long chronological range. All attempt to identify patterns of change that might undermine any theory of submerged continuity. The patterns found are summarised in a concluding chapter. The volume addresses classicists with an interest in any of the different periods of Latin, and Romance linguists.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Table of contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• Supplementary abbreviations
• Chapter 1 Continuity and change from Latin to Romance
• Chapter 2 Comic lexicon: searching for ‘submerged’ Latin from Plautus to Erasmus
• Chapter 3 Third person possessives from early Latin to late Latin and Romance
• Chapter 4 The language of a Pompeian tavern: submerged Latin?
• Chapter 5 Ad versus the dative: from early to late Latin
• Chapter 6 Variation and change in Latin be-periphrases...
• Chapter 7 Analytic passives and deponents in classical and later Latin
• Chapter 8 On the use of .habeo and the perfect participle in earlier and in later Latin
• Chapter 9 Expressions of time in early and late Latin: the case of temporal habet
• Chapter 10 Quid ago? Quid facimus?
• Chapter 11 On coepi/incipio + infinitive: some new remarks
• Chapter 12 Infinitives with verbs of motion from Latin to Romance
• Chapter 13 Causatives in Latin and Romance
• Chapter 14 The development of the comparative in Latin texts
• Chapter 15 Analytic and synthetic forms of the comparative...
• Chapter 16 Left-detached constructions from early to late Latin
• Chapter 17 Six notes on Latin correlatives
• Chapter 18 Epilogue: some patterns of change
• Bibliography
• Subject index
• Index verborum