Abstract
The paper aims at investigating the syntax treatment in late Antiquity through the analysis of the description of prepositions within Donatus’s Artes. As far as an organic and dedicated description of syntax is concerned, the Roman tradition of grammatical studies in late Antiquity shows an overall gap. However, reflections on syntax emerge from the parts of speech descriptions made by grammarians. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to understand if, and to what extent, traces of emerging thought on syntax can be found in Donatus’s description of prepositions. These are regarded as a syntactic object of study by the modern linguistic theory. To that end, the paper focuses on the textual analysis of the de praepositione sections included in both Donatus’s Ars maior and minor, with particular reference to metalinguistic terminology. The analysis highlights some emerging traces of Donatus’s reflection on syntax, although his concept of syntax is distant from the modern one, particularly in reference to a double perspective that concerns his description of the relation between praepositio and casus.
Highlights
The present paper aims at investigating Donatus‟s syntax treatment, limited to his description of prepositions
The textual analysis of the de praepositione sections included in Donatus‟s Artes, focusing on metalinguistic terminology, has highlighted that reflections on syntax emerge from the www.macrothink.org/ijl
As noted from the analysis of several passages, the syntactic reflection that emerges from the descriptive treatment of the prepositions in Donatus is characterized by an ambivalent perspective
Summary
Roman grammarians of late Antiquity, especially Donatus (IV AD) and Priscian (V-VI AD), have completed the process of adapting thoughts, categories, and terminology of the Greek grammatical tradition to Latin, so providing a range of tools of metalinguistic reflection, which has been fundamental for the analysis of Latin and other languages throughout many centuries (cf. Poli 1990: 149 ff.; among others, see Robins 1967; Baratin 2014; De Paolis 2015). (Note 1). There are some remarks on syntax in the grammar attributed to Dionysius Thrax (II BC) - for example, in the concept of word as the minimal unit of the sentence (which is the maximum one) or in the classification of the parts of speech - any specific section regarding syntax lacks, and the concept of σύνταξιρ (and σύνθεσιρ) is very far from the modern idea of syntax as the analysis of the internal structure of sentences. In antique grammatical theory, syntax is fragmentary and surreptitious: it «entre par les interstices d‟un édifice de nature essentiellement graphophonétique, morphologique et catégorielle», it can emerge from the description of certain parts of speech: for example, this is true for conjunctions, already in Dionysius Thrax, as for Greek, and in Donatus, as for Latin (Swiggers & Wouters 2003: 32 ff.; cf Pugliarello 2013 on coniunctio in Donatus). The results will be presented and discussed through a selection of significant examples
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