Ebook: A Lexicon of Latin Grammatical Terminology

The subject of the present study is the terminology of the Latin grammarians. This represents a variety of technical language created and developed for the purposes of grammatical description and analysis. Interest in technical vocabulary in general and the processes which lead to its formation has been increasing. For Latin in particular the terminology for a number of technical fields has received attention, e.g. law, medicine and architecture.
Grammar has remained behind, not least because of the difficulties which a full study of the technical language would encounter, in view of the lack of lexica indicated above and of the current uncertainties about the interpretation and dating of the texts discussed in the previous section. In addition for Latin grammar as for most other disciplines the situation is complicated by the fact that the Latin terminology is heavily influenced and to a large extent derived from that of Greek. On the one hand the Greek model provided an invaluable basis for the creation of the Latin grammatical vocabulary; on the other hand the description of Latin involves categories and concepts not covered by the Greek terminology for which some independent linguistic creativity was required.