Pluralist Perspectives in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae

Abstract

Abstract This paper aims to demonstrate that the Thesaurus linguae Latinae, the world’s largest lexicon of ancient Latin and a traditional project rooted in 19th-century philology, makes a significant contribution to today’s intellectual diversity within Classical Studies. By analysing a corpus of 270 lemmas, ranging from r to razīmus, I argue that the TLL’s quietly revolutionary mode of philological pluralism is realized at three levels of lexicographic content: the selection of primary material (choosing textual passages of ancient Latin to be included in the lexicon); the arrangement of individual lexicographic entries (structuring the presentation of primary text in each article); and the annotation of passages, rubrics, and entire articles (providing metalinguistic description, explanation, and commentary). As a whole, my analysis presents the first-ever account of how the TLL systematically reshapes established lexicographic and scholarly practices.