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In:Chapters of Dependency Grammar: A historical survey from Antiquity to Tesnière
Edited by András Imrényi and Nicolas Mazziotta
[Studies in Language Companion Series 212] 2020
► pp. 59–84

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Chapter 2
The notion of dependency in Latin grammar in the Renaissance and the 17th century

 | Histoire des Théories Linguistiques (UMR 7597) | University of Paris
Published online: 6 February 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.212.03col
This article examines the links of dependency that are woven between words or phrases in Latin syntax according to Latin grammarians between 1500 and 1650. They establish a distinction between ‘convenience’ or ‘concord’ (agreement) and ‘rectio’ or ‘regime’ (government) depending on whether an element controls another element or not. In fact, even in the case of agreement, one element is mostly dependent on the other. We consider the following topics from the perspective of the concept of dependency: the definition and division of syntax; the rules of agreement and exceptions to them; the evolution of the treatment of verbal government; certain particular constructions in relation to the preposition, such as the locative and the ablative which are claimed to be absolute cases; the syntax of the relative pronoun; the syntax of the conjunction.
Article outline
  • 1.The definition and division of syntax in the first humanist Latin grammar
  • 2.Agreement/concord
    • 2.1How does agreement differ from government?
    • 2.2Complex agreements: How to deal with the interdependency of heterogeneous elements
  • 3.The government of the verb
  • 4.The evolution of the system
    • 4.1The model built around transitivity
    • 4.2Sanctius: Towards a model with simplified dependency rules
  • 5.Particular syntactic structures and dependency
    • 5.1Ablative absolute, locative and preposition
    • 5.2The syntax of relative pronouns
    • 5.3Can the conjunction govern? The notion of “improper concord”
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
References (36)
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