Verbal nouns in Cicero’s narrative texts

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 3 deals with the use of various verbal nouns in three of Cicero’s texts: the treatise De divinatione, the speech Pro Milone, and a sample of letters to Atticus. It aims to describe their use and their properties, in particular the syntactic functions they fulfil in the clause. At the clause level, verbal nouns are used as subject or object with verbs of existence, happening, perception, and communication. They are also found as means or purpose adjuncts. They frequently express or imply arguments but they also show reduction of arguments: usually only one argument expressed, the other being implied from the subject of the clause or another constituent, or from the context. At the noun phrase level, verbal nouns occur with well-delimited groups of expressions requiring a complement (valency nouns). In narrative texts verbal nouns serve for condensation of information and textual coherence.