Left-Dislocation in the Epigraphic Material

Abstract

The material discussed in this chapter is defined according to the manner of preservation (writing incised on a durable material), which means that, unlike in chapters 3 and 5, the material is not homogeneous in text type and genre. The overwhelming majority of epigraphic material is, however, legal or official in nature. Accordingly, this chapter will mostly be about the formal Latin of administration and government (4.2–4.3). Epigraphic evidence from various types of private inscriptions will be discussed after these (4.5). The formulation of Roman statutes and other legal texts is aimed at maximal explicitness and unambiguity, probably originallymotivated by thewish to prevent intentional misinterpretations of the law.1 Common patterns include repetition of verbs in different tenses, repetition of nominal heads of relative pronouns in thematrix clause, accumulation of synonyms, as well as abundant use of resumptive anaphoric pronouns. This style is visible already in the earliest preserved statutes, the Lex repetundarum and the Lex agraria from the late second century BCE.2 Interestingly, this repetitive style exists alongside a partly opposite tendency toward simple and concise expressionof leges XII tabularum (see Marouzeau 1959 and Crawford 1996: 16). These styles seem to have been used in different contexts ‘presumably by deliberate choice’ (Crawford 1996: 16).3 A notable feature of the simple style is the omission and change of the subject inside the same sentence, often without any explicit notice (Pascucci 1968: 7–11; Crawford 1996: 16, with references). This has been taken as a feature resulting from a written version of what was originally transmitted orally (Pascucci 1968: 8). The simple style, though prone to constructions that would be irregular in classical Latin, did not produce constructions that lend themselves to analysis as left-dislocation.