Enrichment and Simplification in Latin Syntax: (the Development of the Optative and the Subjunctive)

Abstract

SummaryThough the Latin language seems to have been rather stable and have undergone few changes even in the passage from early to classical Latin, some new words and morpho-syntactic forms entered into Latin, some perished and some other were reintroduced. Two forces, therefore, seem to have been active in Latin which can be calied enrichment and simplification (enrVsimpl.). After taking into account this Situation of Latin language I will use this criterion to explain some syntactic enlargements, and in particular the birth and enlargement of optative and subjunctive moods and the passage from an early phase of Indo-European languages (as represented by Hittite) to a historical one (I will give a hypothesis of such a birth). Birth and expansion of these moods offered the possibility of distinguishing deictic and non-deictic verbal processes. Such an enrichment of Greek and Latin fmite verb produced some distinctions which could not be expressed before and perhaps didn't exisL This brought to a syntax more and more concentrated on the use of finite verbal forms and permitted an expression which got more clear and fine and, through conservation of old expressions and introduction of new ones, was also richer.