On Prefixes and Actionality in Classical and Late Latin
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Ø ÄÒÙ×Ø ÀÙÒÖ¸ ÎÓк ¼ ´½¾µ¸ ÔÔº ½½¿½¿ ´¾¼¼¿µ ÇÆ ÈÊÁË Æ ÌÁÇÆ ÄÁÌ ÁÆ Ä ËËÁ Ä Æ Ä Ì Ä ÌÁÆ Ö ÚÖÐÒ ×ØÖØ In Early and Classical Latin, we encounter a rich and complex system in which prefixes are used to render verbs telic and to emphasise the beginning or end of a process or of an activity, and in which the opposition between non-dynamicity and dynamicity or between transitivity and intransitivity is expressed by various suffixes. In the perfect there is an opposition between non-dynamic unprefixed verbs and dynamic prefixed ones. In the later centuries this system breaks down, and there is a blurring of the semantic difference between the prefixed and unprefixed verbs and often also of that between the prefixes themselves. New verbs are formed to replace old verbs that have lost their old functions. These changes pervade the whole verbal system in Latin and affect the semantic relationship between the perfect and imperfect tenses. In Romance, the definite and indefinite articles express the functions previously expressed by the various actional forms. ½º ÁÒØÖÓ Ù Ø ÓÒ Verbs and phrases containing a verb express different kinds of actionality. They may, for instance, indicate a non-dynamic State, an atelic Activity, a telic Accomplishment or a momentaneous Achievement.½ In the development from Early to Late Latin there is a gradual change in the way some such ¾ semantic features are expressed. In Early and Classical Latin (ca. 200 – ca. 200 ) there is an opposition between unprefixed verbs indicating an atelic Activity and prefixed verbs used in a telic sense, for instance between Ó ÔÖ×ÙÓ ×Ù ‘try to persuade’ and ‘persuade’ (1a). In Late Latin (ca. 200 –ca. 600 ), however, these semantic oppositions are blurred. Thus Ö× Ó ÎÙÐ Ø in the official translation of the Bible, the so-called Î ,which was revised by St. Jerome around 400 , we may encounter the prefixed ½ See e.g., Vendler (1957; 1967), Comrie (1978, 41ff), Smith (1997, 22ff), Johanson (2000, 55ff), Bertinetto–Delfitto (2000); cf. also Haverling (2000, 22ff). ¾ Such differences are often expressed by derivational features as opposed to aspectual dif- ferences, which tend to be inflectional: see Bybee (1985, 102) and Bybee et al. (1994, 57ff). Ñ Ã¸ ÙÔ!×Ø 1216–8076/03/$ 20.00 c 2003 ÚÖÐÒ 114 Ö ×ÙÓ Ö×ÙÓ Ô in the sense ‘try to persuade’ and the unprefixed in the sense ‘persuade’ (1b): ×Ù!Ó ËØ# Ô!Ö×Ù!Ó (1)(a) 2nd c. : ‘try to persuade’ (e.g., Plaut. 608) — ‘persuade’ ÖÙ (e.g., Plaut. Ì . 200) ×Ù!Ó Ø Ô!Ö×Ù!Ó (b) 4th c. : ‘persuade’ (Vulg. 21.14) — ‘try to persuade’ (e.g., ÙØ# Vulg. Ê 1.18) Ó ÓÑÓ In Early and Classical Latin means ‘eat’ or ‘eat (some) of’ and Ó Ó ‘eat up’ (2a), and means ‘drink’ or ‘drink of’ and means ‘drink Ö× Ó ÎÙÐ Ø up’ (3). But in Late Latin, for instance in the Î , we frequently ¿ ÓÑÓ encounter the prefixed verb in the sense ‘eat, eat of’ (2b): !Ó &ÔØ ÓÑ!Ó (2)(a) 2nd c. : ‘eat, eat (some) of’ (e.g., Plaut. 77) — ‘eat up’ (e.g., Plaut. ÅÓ×Ø. 559) ÓÑ!Ó (!Ò (b) 4th c. : ‘eat (some) of’ (e.g., Vulg. 2.16–17) ))Ó ÇÖØ !))Ó (3) 2nd c. : ‘drink, drink of’ (e.g., Cato . frg. 221) — ‘drink up’ (e.g., Ter. ÀÙØ. 255) These changes are found in the perfectum tenses too. In the earlier periods of Latin the unprefixed perfect tense form Ø Ù means ‘have been silent’ or ‘was ÓÒØ Ù silent’ and the prefixed form ‘have fallen silent’ or ‘stopped talking’ (4a). The earliest dynamic examples of the form Ø Ù ‘stopped talking’ are met with in Late Latin; in the same period we also have some examples of ÓÒØ Ù a hypercorrect use of the prefixed forms, for instance in the sense ‘have been silent’ (4b): ØÙ ÌÖÙ ÓÒØÙ (4)(a) 2nd c. : ‘have been silent, was silent’ (e.g., Plaut. 817) — ‘stopped talking’ (e.g., Plaut. ×Ò. 448) ØÙ ÓÒØÙ (b) 4th c. : ‘stopped talking’ (e.g., Amm. 16.6.3) — ‘have been silent, was silent’ (e.g., Symm. +Ô×Ø. 5.89) In Late Latin—especially in the literary language—the words look very much the same as before, but in several cases their semantic functions have changed. Due to these changes new kinds of word formation are introduced, as well as new ways of using some of the old words. These changes are presumably connected with other changes in the language, for instance in the tense system and in the development of articles in Romance. ¿ See Haverling (1994; 2000, 205ff). See Haverling (1994; 2000, 218ff, 224f). Ø ÄÒÙ×Ø ÀÙÒÖ ¼¸ ¾¼¼¿ ØÓÒÐØÝ Ò Ð××Ð Ò ÐØ ÐØÒ ÓÒ ÔÖ Ü× Ò 115 ¾º Ø ÓÒ Ð ØÝ Ò ÔÖÜ× ÖÓÑ ÖÐÝ ØÓ Ä Ø Ä Ø Ò The changes in the way prefixes express various forms of actionality are clearly Ó¹ × Ó¹ illustrated by the development of the × verbs in Latin. The suffix is very productive in Latin (there are over 700 such verbs from the earliest attesta- tions of the language to after 600 ) and occurs in several different kinds of word formation (5a–f). It is found in some verbs of Indo-European descent Ó ÔÓ× Ó Ù × Ó like ÒÓ× or (5a), in verbs formed from transitive verbs like ÖÑÒ× Ó (5b), in verbs formed from intransitive and dynamic verbs like Ô × Ó (5c), in those formed from non-dynamic verbs like Ö (5d), and in verbs × Ó × ÐÚ× Ó formed from adjectives and nouns like × and (5e–f): ¢ ¢ ¢ ¶¢Ò!# + ¹×¹ ÒÓ×Ó ¶ÔÖ!¹×¹ ÔÓ×Ó (5) (a) ¿ ‘try to get to know’; ‘ask for, demand’ Ó Ù!×Ó (b) Ù! ‘increase, intensify’ — ‘increase, grow’ !ÖÑÒÓ Ô!ÖÑÒ×Ó (c) Ô ‘flow through, seep, percolate’ — ‘seep through gradually, penetrate’ !Ó Ö!×Ó (d) Ö ‘am dry’ — ‘become drier, am drying, dry’ Ù× ×!×Ó (e) × ‘dry’ — ‘become drier, am drying, dry’ ×ÐÚ!×Ó (f) ×ÐÚ ‘forest’ — ‘become like a forest, put forth thick growth, bush out’ The most productive category is (5d), the verbs formed from the statives ¹ which incorporate the Indo-European suffix * ½ . This suffix, which often Ó interrelates in this way with the × -suffix, is found in verbs indicating states which in many other languages are described by an adjective and a verb meaning ‘to be’. Common expressions for ‘is hot’ or ‘is red’ in Early and ÐØ ÖÙØ Classical Latin are simple verbal forms such as and . As the original function of the stative suffix disappears in Vulgar Late Latin and in Romance, such verbs are replaced by the combination of an adjective and the verb ÐØ Ð ÙÑ ×Ø meaning ‘to be’, i.e., ‘is hot’ is replaced by expressions like . ¾º½º Ø ÓÒÐ ØÝ Ò ÖÐÝ Ò Ð×× Ð ÄØ Ò The semantic opposition between atelic unprefixed verbs and telic prefixed ones could be observed in Classical Latin in the way such verbs are used with expressions indicating how long a certain situation lasted or in what length of See Keller (1992) and Haverling (2000, e.g., 137ff); and also Leumann (1977, ï407) and Rix (1998, e.g., 149f, 229f, 245, 442f). ï See e.g., Leumann (1977, ï410.2.c and d), V¨a¨an¨anen (1981, 314) and Lehmann (1995). Ø ÄÒÙ×Ø ÀÙÒÖ ¼¸ ¾¼¼¿ ÚÖÐÒ 116 Ö time a certain result was achieved. We have unprefixed verbs with durative ÑÒ×× temporal expressions like ÙÓ× ‘for two months’ (6a), and prefixed Ñ Ù× verbs with completive temporal expressions like ÕÙ Ò ‘in fifteen days’ (6b): !×Ø (6) (a) ÙÓ× Ñ!Ò×!× ÙØ × ‘that it may be drying for two months’ (Vitr. 5.12.4) Ñ !)Ù× º º º !ÜÖ!×!Ö! ÊÙ×Ø (b) ÕÙÒ! ‘become dry in fifteen days’ (Varro . 1.32.1) Another example of this is found in the use of prefixed and unprefixed verbs with the conjunction ÙÑ meaning ‘while, as long as’ with an unprefixed verb (7a) and ‘until’ with a prefixed verb (7b): ×Ð!×ÙÒØ ØÙÖ)! (7) (a) ÙÑ #! . ‘while these troubles are calming down’ (Ter. 785) ÓÒ×Ð!×ÙÒØ ØÙÖ)! ÅÐ (b) ÙÑ #! . ‘until these troubles calm down’ (Plaut. 583) Ó¹ Common to all of the functions in which the × suffix occurs is the fundamen- tally dynamic and atelic character of the suffix. To express the telic sense, in other words to indicate that a transformation takes place, Early and Classical Latin needs a prefix; for this reason we find in some cases only prefixed verbs, ÓÒØ × Ó ÓÑÙØ× Ó for instance ‘stop talking’ and ‘become dumb’ (8a–b): !Ó ÓÒØ!×Ó (8) (a) Ø ‘be silent, say nothing’ — ‘stop talking’ Ó)ÑÙØ!×Ó (b) ÑÙØÙ× ‘dumb, speechless, silent, mute’ — ‘become dumb, speechless’ In several cases we find an opposition between a non-dynamic verb indicating Ó¹ a State and a prefixed × verb indicating a change from one State to an- ÓÒÓÖÑ × Ó Ø Ó other, for instance ÓÖÑ Ó and ‘fall asleep’ (9a) and and ÓÒØ × Ó ‘stop talking’ (10a). Latin, as opposed for instance to Gothic, usually needs a dynamic suffix to turn a non-dynamic verb into one which indicates a change of this kind; in Gothic the prefix ¹ alone suffices to do ÓÒÓÖÑ Ó this (9b, 10b). The unsuffixed Latin verb means ‘to be fast asleep’ See Haverling (2000, 61ff); cf. e.g., Smith (1997, 27f), Johanson (2000, 61, 64, 73f), Bertinetto – Delfitto (2000, 199ff). See Haverling (2000, 70ff); cf. Hofmann–Szantyr (1965, ïï329–330). See Haverling (2000, e.g., 1, 138, 147, 166–8, 175, 191, 205).