Publications

The current study aims to shed more light on the dynamics involved in the changing form-function pairings in the Latin passive system. On the one hand, the ‘old’ construction for perfectum stem passives (e.g. cantatus est) experiences competition from an innovation (e.g. cantatus fuit) which specializes in the function of ANTERIORITY and survived as a PAST PERFECTIVE in Romance (e.g. Fr. il fut chanté). On the other hand, cantatus est gave rise ...

In this paper, Livy's use of the Latin narrative tenses is examined from a functionalist point of view. Assuming that three levels of meaning (referential, textual and interpersonal) potentially underlie paradigmatic choices in grammatical systems, "tense" and "aspect" are conceived of as three-dimensional categories related to the communicative intentions involved in the narrative tenses. Close-readings of episodes with that conception in mind ...

Interpreting grammatical aspect as a category that conveys meaning on three dimensions might serve to better understand and appreciate the semantic potential of the narrative tenses in Latin historiography. Similarly to Livy's, Gregory of Tours' language features a number of 'tense uses' where aspect plays a decisive role. However, the rise of morphological innovations (e.g. deletus fuerat) reveals processes of specialization of the old ...

The current paper examines the statistical correlation between a number of cotextual cues and the latent variable of perspective in a corpus of episodes taken from Livy's narrative. The possible perspectives (external, internal, scenic camera-eye, immersive eyewitness and distanced eyewitness; cf. "focalization" in narratological studies) featured in Latin historiographical narratives are introduced and hypothesized to co-occur with a number of ...

The current paper investigates the three-dimensional meaning potential of the Late Latin narrative tenses. The grammatical categories ‘tense’ and ‘aspect’ are hypothesized to express meaning on the three metafunctional levels posited by Systemic Functional Linguistics. Combinations of their ideational and textual dimensions can be used to classify the various ‘traditional labels’ proposed in the literature on the Latin tenses. Interpersonal ...

The current paper defends the existence of aspect in Latin by proposing a three-dimensional (SFL-inspired) interpretation of both aspect and tense. The traditional usage labels of the tenses can all be framed within the framework proposed in this paper. Moreover, the interpersonal meaning of perspective, similar to focalization, adds an important interpretation of many tenses and their textual surroundings. The ultimate tense choice in ...

This paper introduces the framework for a new project on the categories of tense, aspect and Aktionsart in Latin. In the first section, the relevant concepts are defined in terms of general linguistics. The second section provides an overview of the existing theories regarding the verb system and the categories of tense and aspect in Latin. Their shortcomings are listed while the strong points serve as the basis for the development of the ...