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The volume under review is the fourth and last in the series New perspectives on historical Latin syntax, edited by Philip Baldi and Pierluigi Cuzzolin for De Gruyter Mouton.

How can linguists studying ancient languages make sure that they are aware of register differences in their texts? How can they safely single out features of the spoken language in corpora that are by definition written? And how can they reach more fine-grained sociolinguistic classifications of ‘colloquial’ traits? Colloquial and Literary Latin aims to answer these questions. It deals with issues significant for any researcher in historical linguistics who has to work with Latin sources or with texts heavily influenced by Latin models. But its contribution goes beyond Latin studies and addresses foundational concerns of historical linguistics.

This work is an attempt to give a formal account of the syntax of the Latin nominal phrase within the Principles & Parameters framework and to detect, during the history of the language, some crucial stages bearing witness of a complex chain of parameter-resetting operations, which prelude to future pan-Romance developments.

Classical Latin displays negative particles, like neque / nec and ne…quidem 'neither, not even', that can express sentential negation while at the same time narrowly focusing on some constituent of the clause. These particles are multifunctional elements that can express various types of focus (additive or scalar) and, in the case of neque / nec, also have a coordinative and a discourse-structuring function. In this work I investigate the complex interplay of semantic and syntactic factors that govern their distribution and interpretation. I single out the structural and meaning-related contextual conditions favoring the additive or the scalar interpretation, and I propose an analysis of the complex internal structure of the particles. I also discuss the diachronic implications of my analysis, in particular with respect to the role played by the Romance continuations of nec. El llatí clàssic disposa de partícules negatives com ara neque / nec i ne … quidem 'ni, ni tan sols', que poden expressar la negació oracional i, alhora, presentar focus estret en algun component de l'oració. Aquestes partícules són elements multifuncionals que poden expressar diversos tipus de focus (additiu o escalar) i, en el cas de neque / nec, també tenen una funció coordinativa i d'estructuració del discurs. En aquest treball investigo la complexa interacció dels factors semàntics i sintàctics que regeixen la seva distribució i interpretació. Destaco les condicions estructurals i les contextuals relacionades amb el significat que afavoreixen la interpretació additiva o l'escalar, i proposo una anàlisi de l'estructura interna complexa de les partícules. També tracto de les implicacions diacròniques de la meva anàlisi, en concret amb relació al paper que tenen les continuacions romàniques de nec.

The paper discusses the phenomenon of Late Latin intransitivizations, where a morphologically active form of a transitive verb is used with a middle-passive function. Intransitivizations are present throughout the history of the language, but their number increases significantly in the 3rd-4th century CE. They are instances of patient-preserving lability and represent one of the possible means to express the anticausative alternation. The analysis casts intransitivizations into the broader context of voice fluctuations in Late Latin, by comparing them with competing constructions and by examining the possible causes for their increase in frequency during the Late Latin stage. © 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston.

SummaryThe aim of this paper is to draw a sketch of the verbal voice system in Latin and possibly to shed more light on some controversial points (in particular, the status of deponent verbs (DVs)), by means of a comparison between middle voice (MV) and Split Intransitivity.

In this work the internal structure of the nominal phrase in Latin is investigated within a framework of parametric typology. In particular, this research is concerned with facts related to word order within the nominal phrase, such as the position(s) of the genitive case and the syntax of adjectival modification. It will be argued that a heuristic procedure, consisting of the parametric typology here proposed and a set of techniques developed in order to detect the values of parameters over written closed corpora, is able to capture some generalizations about Latin nominal syntax and, thus, qualifies as suitable for the purpose of syntactic comparison among ancient Indo-European languages.