This thesis consists of a critical edition, English translation, and commentary of Consentius' 'De barbarismis et metaplasmis'. Consentius probably lived in Gaul in the fifth century, and this work was presumably part of a larger grammatical treatise; as it stands, it is the most extensive discussion of language deviations (errors in ordinary language and poetic licences) in the Latin grammatical tradition. The critical edition has taken advantage from the availability of a manuscript and several sources of indirect tradition that were not used by previous editors. In the introduction, I provide a discussion of the tradition with a stemma codicum. The new text is quite close to that of previous editions, but arguably has several improvements. I also provide the first English translation of this work. In the commentary, I look at the text from the points of view of historical linguistics and the history of linguistics. The section on metaplasms is tightly embedded in the Latin grammatical tradition. This allows us to look into the grammatical approach to the poetic language. In particular, the role of archaisms is crucial in the grammarians' appreciation of poetry, and I analyse their views on this while also explaining the history and use of the forms Consentius and other grammarians discuss. An appendix to the discussion of metaplasms is the final section on the scansion of verses, which displays some original, if sometimes bizarre, views. The section on barbarisms is most interesting for the language historian: as Consentius discusses errors that arise in spoken language, he provides evidence for substandard Latin that is unparalleled in ancient grammatical texts. I assess such evidence by looking at other grammatical treatises, substandard texts (literary or not), and the Romance languages. Several forms mentioned by Consentius foreshadow Romance developments. The text also provides us with information about the regional diversification of Latin.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:729011 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Mari, Tommaso |
| Contributors | Melo, Wolfgang De |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:11f4efb5-6de2-44f6-9a73-add47a3680be |
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