Latin Lexical Peculiarities in an Account from Tebtynis (P.Tebt. II 686 recto – II in. AD) (original) (raw)

Forms and functions of Greek words in Late Latin literary texts: a corpus-based approach

N. Holmes, M. Ottink, J. Schrickx & M. Selig (eds.), Lemmata linguistica Latina, volume 1: Words and Sounds, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York: 294-311. ISBN 978-3-11-064758-7 , 2019

This chapter investigates forms and functions of Greek words in Late Latin literary texts which are part of a corpus specifically designed to study textual bilingualism. Firstly, we will offer a quantitative account of the distribution of Greek words across different genres, along with a semantic analysis which considers the most represented lexical fields. Secondly, some illustrative cases will be discussed in order to show the main functions of using Greek in a selection of Late Latin texts, namely Pelagonius' Ars ueterinaria, Macrobius' Saturnalia, and Servius' In Uergilii Aeneidos Libros. Finally, we shall focus on a specific word category, that of compounds created with Greek lexical material, providing a morphological classification and a quantitative survey of their textual distribution. This chapter provides evidence for the advantages of examining ancient bilingualism, combining quantitative and qualitative perspectives thanks to a corpus-based approach.

Latin Loanwords in Ancient Greek: A Lexicon and Analysis (CUP 2023)

Cambridge University Press, 2023

Why, when, and how did speakers of ancient Greek borrow words from Latin? Which words did they borrow? Who used Latin loanwords, and how? Who avoided them, and why? How many words were borrowed, and what kind of word? How long did the loanwords survive? Until now, attempts to answer such questions have been based on incomplete and often misleading evidence, but this study offers the first comprehensive collection of evidence from papyri, inscriptions, and literature from the fifth century BC to the sixth century AD. That collection – included in the book as a lexicon of Latin loanwords – is examined using insights from linguistic work on modern languages to provide new answers that often differ strikingly from earlier ones. The analysis is accessibly presented, and the lexicon offers a firm foundation for future work in this area.