A Parametric Comparison of Classical and Late Latin

This project applies the Parametric Comparison Method to Classical and Late Latin texts to evaluate the parametric development of Latin syntax from the 1st to the 6th century AD. Evidence is found of syntactic development between the 1st and 4th century texts in two subdomains: adnominal Genitives and adjectives. The Classical Uniform Genitive (GUN) is found to be reduced in later Latin. In Classical Latin, the inflectionally marked genitive was permitted to occur in virtually any phrasal position. This is documented in Petronius’ Satyricon. By the 4th century, in an informal narrative text, Egeria’s Peregrinatio, this seemed to have been reduced to an inflectionally marked Genitive confined to a single structural position raised over by the noun – a phenomenon which was not found in 1st century Latin. A trace of GUN was once again identified in the Regula Sancti Benedicti from the 6th century. The role of the preposition de is also seen to undergo some change and begins to take on a weak genitive role in the latter text. The occurrence of both a weak Uniform Genitive and a weakly prepositional genitive suggests competing grammars in the 6th century author. A significant shift in the behaviour of adjectives was observed from the 1st to the 4th century, whereby the surface distributional flexibility of adjectives was reduced as compared to Classical Latin: whereas Classical Latin permitted adjectives to modify all kinds of nouns both pre- and post-nominally, there is no evidence of so-called Manner 2 adjectives occurring prenominally in Late Latin. These findings show a gradual shift towards adjectives and genitives more similar to Romance between the 1st and 6th centuries. It was found that some of the changes that would eventually lead to Romance syntax began in Latin and that some Romance features emerged in some dialects/idiolects of Late Latin.