Variation and Change in Latin Close Appositions

Abstract

Summary:Close appositions are binominal constructions in which the two nouns are combined and denote a single entity. Throughout the history of Latin, syntactic and morphological variation in appositions point to a gradient from juxtapositional structures, where the two members are semantically and syntacti- cally on a par, to hierarchical structures, where the two members build various semantic and syntactic relations, yielding multiple and context-dependent interpretations. As it will be shown, the gradient-based model proposed in this paper captures variation and change in close appositions more adequately than approaches attributing an invariant internal structure to these constructions.