Table Of ContentA STUDY OF LATIN WORD ORDER
STUDIES IN LANGUAGE COMPANION SERIES (SLCS)
The SLCS series has been established as a companion series to
STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, International Journal, sponsored by
the Foundation "Foundations of Language".
Series Editors:
John W.M. Verhaar Werner Abraham
Gonzaga University & University of Groningen
Spokane, WA The Netherlands
* * *
Volume 11
Dirk G.J. Panhuis
The Communicative Perspective in the Sentence:
A Study of Latin Word Order
THE COMMUNICATIVE PERSPECTIVE
IN THE SENTENCE
A Study of Latin Word Order
DIRK G.J. PANHUIS
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
1982
© Copyright 1982 - All rights reserved
ISSN 0165 7763 / ISBN 90 272 3010 2
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint,
microfilm or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
PREFACE
This study is meant to fill a gap in our understanding of a so-called free
word order language. Although many observations have been made on Latin
word order, particularly within the noun phrase, a more systematic investiga
tion was needed with respect to the order of the sentence constituents. At
the same time, typological linguistics has not made much headway with respect
to Latin. I therefore hope that both Latinists and general linguists will welcome
the in-depth study of the order of the sentence constituents in a particular
— typologically ambivalent — language.
This work was originally submitted as a Ph.D dissertation at the Univer
sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Michigan) in March 1981 under the title: The
Communicative Perspective in Latin Word Order. I am pleased to thank here
again the members of my doctoral committee, Professors Gerda Seligson, Peter
Hook, Ernst Pulgram, and Alton Becker, for their support during the prepara
tion of this work.
To Dr. John Verhaar and Dr. Werner Abraham I am grateful for their
appreciation of this study and their decision to publish it in the Studies in
Language Companion Series.
Leuven D.P.
July 1981
LIST OF DISPLAYS
Display 1: The Theory of Functional Sentence Perspective 16
Display 2: The Conversation Harpax-Ballio 50
Display 3: Communicative Word Order Patterns in Colloquial Latin 61
Display 4: The Semantic-Communicative Organization of the Active
Sentence in Classical Latin (Caesar) 126
Display 5: Word Order Patterns in Classical Latin (Caesar) 149
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE v.
LIST OF DISPLAYS vi.
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND STATUS QUAESTIONIS 7
1. The Theory of Functional Sentence Perspective 7
2. Other Approaches to Word Order 18
3. Studies on Word Order in Latin 22
III. THE COMMUNICATIVE PERSPECTIVE IN COLLOQUIAL
LATIN: PLAUTUS 31
1. Introduction 31
2. Non-emotive Word Order 32
3. Emotive Word Order 51
4. Conclusion 54
IV. COLLOQUIAL LATIN: PATTERNS, PROBLEMS, PROSPECTS 59
1. Introduction 59
2. Relative Pronouns 59
3. Interrogative Sentences 61
4. Imperative Sentences 68
5. Disjunctions 72
6. "Accessory" Words in Second Position 80
7. Afterthoughts 83
8. Dominating Verb Inside Subordinate Clause 85
9. Rhematizing Factors 89
10. Toward a Better Comprehension of Texts 92
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
V. THE PLACE OF THE VERB IN LEGAL AND RELIGIOUS TEXTS
AND THE EMERGENCE OF A LITERARY CONVENTION 99
1. Introduction 99
2. Religious Texts 99
3. Legal Texts 106
4. The Proto-Indo-European OV Pattern 110
5. The Emergence of a Literary Convention 112
VI. THE COMMUNICATIVE PERSPECTIVE AND THE PLACE OF
THE VERB IN CLASSICAL LATIN: CAESAR 117
1. Introduction 117
2. Final Verbs 117
3. Semantic Roles and Communicative Dynamism 119
4. A Syntactic Factor in Word Order 127
5. Context 131
6. Non-final Verbs 144
7. Summary 148
VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS 151
1. Word Order in Other Latin Authors 151
2. Communicative Word Order and Latin Accentuation 152
3. Evaluation of the Theory of FSP 156
BIBLIOGRAPHY 161
PLACE INDEX 173
AUTHOR INDEX 176
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
It is often said that word order in Latin is free (Kühner and Stegmann
1955, II:590), or at least freer than in English (Gildersleeve and Lodge 1895:
428; Lakoff 1968:100; Lyons 1968:76, 223) or in French (Laurand and Lauras
1965: 552). In addition, these authors, except Lakoff (1968), specify that the
freedom of word order is not absolute (Laurand and Lauras 1965:552), that
word order is not characterised by complete freedom and arbitrariness (Kühner
and Stegmann 1955, II:590), or that the various possible orders are associated
with differences of emphasis or contextual presuppositions (Lyons 1968:223).
Such general statements are then usually followed by more specific
observations about the position of certain elements in the phrase or in the
sentence. These observations may concern syntax (e.g., prepositions usually
precede the noun phrase), the highlighting of certain elements in particular
positions (e.g., at the beginning or at the end of the sentence), rhetorical figures
(e.g., chiasmus, rhythmic prose clausulae), or poetic patterns in the verse (e.g.,
the Golden Line abAB, where the lower case indicates an adjective and the
upper case the noun it determines).
The last areas referred to, rhetoric and poetics, remain almost complete
ly outside the scope of this study. Syntactic patterns are dealt with only in
directly insofar as their freedom of ordering allows the author to express his
message in a way which is communicatively most effective. The communicative
organization of the message, particularly on the sentence level, is the central
concern of this study.
All areas mentioned have been researched extensively in Latin scholar
ship, but the results are somewhat deceptive since they often consist of lists of
observations, rather than of a coherent description. Rubio writes about authors
like Marouzeau (1922-1949): "Según estos autores son tantos los principios
reguladores del orden y tantas las excepciones y contraexcepciones a tener en
cuenta que el lector acaba preguntándose si sus reglas merecen ser recordadas
o si el título apropiado a sus trabajos es el de 'el orden' o 'el desorden' de las
2 CHAPTER ONE
palabras en latin." (Rubio 1972:404).
In the area of syntax the recent development of typological linguistics
has contributed much to a systematic study of word order. After Greenberg's
(1963) work on universals and Lehmann's (1973, 1974) study of Proto-Indo-
European word order, a more coherent view of Latin word order phenomena
has been presented by Adams (1976). Facts that were previously interpreted
in different, and sometimes contradictory ways, are treated by Adams in a
systematic typological and historical perspective. Adams' attention goes mainly
to the order of the constituents within the noun phrase and to the order of
verb and object. His work is referred to in Chapter Five, Section Four.
The present study focuses on the order of the constituents in the senten
ce with respect to their communicative effectiveness. Since the nominals and
the verb are inflected, the order of the sentence constituents does not signal
syntactic relations. Furthermore, since the order of the constituents is not
fixed — Latin being typologically an ambivalent language —, it can be used to
put the message in a particular communicative perspective. In languages with
a more rigid word order such a perspective has to be created chiefly by other
means, such as prosodic focussing or clefting constructions, as will also be clear
from my translations of Latin passages.
Much of the research on the communicative aspect of Latin word order
provides a wealth of piecemeal observations. It gives the impression that optimal
communication is achieved only occasionally through "emphasis," "contrast,"
"mise en relief," etc. In order to avoid such a fragmentary approach, it is my
intention to show that the Latin sentence has a communicative organization
in the same way as it has syntactic structures. That is, a sentence, conveying a
message from the speaker/writer to the hearer/reader, provides the elements
of the message with a certain perspective, according to the point the speaker or
the writer intends to make in the act of communication. This communicative
perspective is realized in Latin through word order, whereas other means are
used in languages with a more rigid word order.
The theoretical model that is the source of inspiration for this study is
the theory of Functional Sentence Perspective, elaborated by linguists of the
Prague School (Mathesius, Firbas), and ultimately going back to the pioneering
work of Weil (1844). Although Weil's work is generally known to Latin scholars,
and its importance explicitly recognized (Gildersleeve and Lodge 1895:v, 429;
Lindskog 1896:2; Kühner and Stegmann [1914]1955, II:590), many of them
do not consider language as a "system of systems" (Vachek 1958:94), but
combine the communicative dimension with the syntactic system. As a result,
