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Appendix Probi

The Appendix Probi ("Probus' Appendix") is the conventional name for a series of five documents believed to have been copied in the seventh or eighth century in Bobbio, Italy.[1] Its name derives from the fact that the documents were found attached to a copy of the Instituta Artium, a treatise named after (but probably not written by) the first-century grammarian Marcus Valerius Probus.[2]

1892 photocopy of the Appendix
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The Appendix was likely composed in Rome[i] around the first half of the fourth century AD.[4]

It is specifically the third of the five documents that has attracted scholarly attention, as it contains a list of 227 spelling mistakes, along with their corrections, which shed light on the phonological and grammatical changes that the local vernacular was experiencing in the early stages of its development into Romance.

The text survives only in a carelessly transcribed water-damaged manuscript of the 7th or 8th century[5] which is kept at the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III[6] as MS Lat. 1 (formerly Vindobonensis 17).

Phenomena visible in the spelling mistakes edit

Note that the format is "[correct spelling], not [incorrect spelling]".[7] Scribal abbreviations have been expanded.

Syncope edit

Development of yod from front vowels in hiatus edit

Change of /ŭ/ to [o] edit

Reduction of pretonic /au̯/ to [o] edit

Loss of final /m/ edit

Loss of /h/ edit

Reduction of /-ns-/ to /-s-/ edit

Loss of intervocalic /β/ before a back vowel edit

Confusion of /b/ and /β/ edit

Confusion of singletons and geminates edit

Elimination of imparisyllabic nouns edit

Adaptation of 3rd-decl. adjectives to the 1st class edit

Adaptation of 4th-decl. feminine nouns to the 1st decl. edit

Adaptation of 3rd/4th decl. feminines to the 1st decl. via diminutive suffix edit

Adaptation of neuter plural to the first declension edit

Elimination of the ablative edit

Alteration of nom. -es (in the third declension) to -is edit

Reduction of the endings -es and -is to -s[iv] edit

Loss of the masculine flexion -us edit

Metathesis, assimilation, dissimilation, etc. edit

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ There is a reference on line 134 to caput africae, the name of a grammar school known to have been located in that city.[3]
  2. ^ Note the regular dissimilation, after syncope, of /-tl-/ to /-kl-/.
  3. ^ An example of hypercorrection (Elcock 1960: 30), in this case the improper insertion of a silent ⟨n⟩, cf.Tooltip confer the spellings herculens and occansio below.
  4. ^ Perhaps by analogy with existing words like urbs or plebs (Elcock 1960: 32).
  5. ^ The unusual forms figel and mascel may reflect the replacement of the diminutive ending -ulus with -ellus, followed by the loss of both final /s/ and the unstressed /ŭ/. While the change may seem to foreshadow e.g. the Romansh form maschel, such forms are unusual for the time period and would not be seen again until the Kassel glosses (Elcock 1960: 32).

References edit

  1. ^ Quirk 2006
  2. ^ Powell 2007: §1
  3. ^ Barnett 2007: 705
  4. ^ Quirk 2006: 16–21, 300
  5. ^ Rohlfs 1969: 16
  6. ^ Quirk 2006
  7. ^ Elcock 1960: 28–34

Sources edit

  • Barnett, F. J. 2007. The sources of the "Appendix Probi": A new approach. The Classical Quarterly 57(2). 701–736. doi:10.1017/s000983880700064x.
  • Elcock, William Dennis. 1960. The Romance Languages. London: Faber & Faber.
  • Rohfls, Gerhard. 1969. Sermo Vulgaris Latinus: Vulgarlateinisches Lesebuch. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
  • Leppänen, V., & Alho, T. 2018. On The Mergers Of Latin Close-Mid Vowels. Transactions of the Philological Society. doi:10.1111/1467-968x.12130
  • Powell, Jonathan G. F. 2007. A new text of the "Appendix Probi". The Classical Quarterly 57(2). 687–700. doi:10.1017/S0009838807000638.
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2005. The “Appendix Probi” as a compendium of Popular Latin: Description and bibliography. The Classical World 98(4). 397–409. doi:10.2307/4352974
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2006. The Appendix Probi: A scholar's guide to text and context. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta.
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2017. Hypercorrection in the Appendix Probi. Philologus 161(2). 350–353. doi:10.1515/phil-2016-0119

External links edit

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