Latin Grammarians as Lexicographers: The Treatment of Nouns with Uncertain Gender

Abstract

Abstract Several late antique Latin grammatical works encompass material drawn from the ancient erudite linguistic speculation De Latinitate and De dubio sermone, ultimately dating back to Pliny the Elder. The most prominent formal feature of the concerned texts is their lexicographical structure, i.e. the presence of a series of highlighted lemmata accompanied by examples and explanations. Furthermore, most of the works concerned show traces of the alphabetical arrangement of their common source. This paper presents the results of a preliminary survey of the texts dealing with nominal gender: particular attention is paid to the ways in which each late antique grammarian adapts the common source according to his specific interests. This inquiry comes out of a larger research project, which aims at producing a digital critical collection (thesaurus) of grammatical passages dealing with the dubius sermo. This repertory is intended to overcome the limits of the traditional printed collections of grammatical fragments.