Some remarks on dicens in Late Latin texts

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the use of the participles dicens or dicentes ‘saying’ introducing direct speech in Late Latin texts from the 6th to 8th centuries. It argues that dicens/dicentes shows signs of ongoing grammaticalization and develops into a quotative marker, acquiring a discourse-organizing function. The analyzed signs of grammaticalization of dicens/dicentes examined in the paper include “frozen” dicens/dicentes which disagrees in case and/or in number; redundant dicens/dicentes after verbs of speech; the position of dicens/dicentes immediately before direct speech; and the spread of dicens/dicentes to new contexts. It is assumed that individual instances show various degrees of grammaticalization, but that dicens/dicentes is not a fully grammaticalized quotative marker.