CORNIFICIUS, VARRO AND THE QVADRIPERTITA RATIO

Abstract

In both the Rhetorica ad Herennium and the De lingua Latina, the ratio of phonetic and morphological changes is used to provide an account of the diachronic relationships between primitive and secondary or derivative forms. In later texts it is instead employed in a synchronic, normative perspective, that of linguistic correctness, notably in the famous taxonomies of barbarisms and solecisms. The sole link between these two hermeneutic loci is the passage where Quintilian inserts etymology and the quadripertita ratio into his model of Latinitas.