, and many others. To Giulia, for her courage and her freshness. Translations are mine unless noted. 1 A good map of issues relating to scientifi c models can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/models-science/ Enrica Sciarrino documented journal article." It does indeed, and I left it so intentionally. I was collecting ideas and texts for this little project when, on the early morning of September 4, 2010, a 7.1 earthquake hit Christchurch, the city in which I live and work. On that occasion, the city suffered serious damage (including the library), but fortunately there were no fatalities. On February 22, 2011, on the same day the library fi nally reopened and the second day of the new academic year, another major earthquake hit the city. This time 185 people died, and it is unclear how many were injured. A week later, we resumed teaching in tents set up on campus and carried on business "as usual" throughout the whole year, without libraries to go to, and offering support as best we could to the students who did not fl ee the city. This article has developed in that environment. Most of the considerations that it contains arose during precious conversations with friends and colleagues, while browsing notes scattered in notebooks and electronic documents, and through Google searches. Accordingly, this is a theoretical refl ection, but it is also an experiment in what it means to pursue humanistic work in crisis situations-and to keep doing so in spite of major disruptions and minimal resources. DISCOURSE AND RELATED MATTERSIn the last decades, the term "discourse" has become increasingly common in a variety of disciplines, so much so that it is invariably left undefi ned as if its meaning were self-explanatory. In the analysis of literary texts, "discourse" invokes the work of a group of French philosophers of the late 60s. Michel Foucault is one of them, and in his Archaeology of Knowledge, he defi nes discourse as follows (1972.80):Instead of gradually reducing the rather fl uctuating meaning of the word "discourse," I believe that I have in fact added to its meanings: treating it sometimes as the general domain of all statements, sometimes as an individualizable group of statements, and sometimes as a regulated practice that accounts for a number of statements.In the fi rst defi nition, discourse is an entity made out of sequences of signs organized in the form of enouncements (enoncés) or statements; in the second, discourse is the combination of statements that characterize large bodies of knowledge: something comparable to the disciplines (1916, French ed.), de Saussure distinguished between parole and langue. Parole refers to the realm of individual moments of language use-of particular "utterances" or "messages," whether spoken or written-and langue to the system or code of the language (le code de la langue) or, to put it in de Saussure's words, to "the social product of the faculty of speech and a collection of necessary conventions that have bee...
confusing. If the above-mentioned datives are regarded as bearing the theta-role of Benefactive, this implies that they are both arguments, which is incorrect. In the case of the genitive in the phrase arma hostium 'the enemies' weapons' (p. 244), the genitive hostium is said to bear a theta-role of Possessorthis means that it has to be taken as an argument, which is incorrect. I also cannot see how Purpose can simultaneously be a 'theta-role of indirect objects' (p. 251) and 'rather an autonomous adjunct' (p. 253). True arguments, in turn, are sometimes misconstrued as adjuncts: complements of verbs such as utor 'to use' are interpreted as 'special uses of the ablative of instrument' (p. 256). Sometimes, the concepts used neglect modern approaches: it is well known that nam and ergo (pp. 265-6) are not causal or illative 'conjunctions' but discourse markers. There are also instances where aspects of the Latin language are surprising. For example, Chapter 23 deals with 'embedded clauses': complement clauses introduced by a subordinator ('complementizer' ut, quod, quin). It is not clearly stated that the same function (direct object or subject of the main clause) can also be fulfilled by indirect questions (24.4) and accusative and infinitive clauses (Chapter 26.1), as if Latin only has 'complementizer clauses'. There are also some incorrect formulations and errors, and I will only mention some of them. Is, ea, id is not a 'third personal pronoun' (p. 93) but an anaphor. Reflexive pronouns (pp. 94-5) are not 'anaphoric elements' (confusing formulation). In the framework of Generative Grammar, these pronouns could eventually be explained in terms of external and internal anaphora. The claim that 'relative clauses have a structure similar to interrogative clauses' (p. 283) is very disputable. 'Negative copulative constructions also frequently occur with pronouns, for example nec quicquam' (p. 264). Such a formulation is incorrect: in the case of coordination, there is a complementary distribution consisting of the use of the negative coordinator followed by an indefinite pronoun (nec quisuisquam instead of et nemo). I come now to errors, for example, nomen adiectivum (not adiectivus, p. 49); the verb noceo figures in two different categories (pp. 252-3). The main focus of this book is to produce a formal description of the various features of Latin grammar using a small number of universal principles. Its aim is to propose a unitary and simple theory for heterogeneous or odd phenomena. Those who sympathise with this aim will find the book satisfying; those who want a systematic, accurate and comprehensive description of the Latin language should consult another book.
After reviewing current opinions about the social function of literature in second-century BCE Rome, I focus on two controversial fragments assigned to Cato the Censor's Origines. In the first, Cato portrays the ancestors in a convivial setting as they sing the praises and the manly deeds of famous men; in the second, he gestures towards the pontifex maximus' specialized use of writing and the functioning of the tabula as a locus of memory. By drawing on the field of performance studies, I identify the performative features inherent in both of these fragments and map out how these features inform the positioning of Cato in relation to the identity politics of his time, professionalism, and writing. The aim of this study is to return the Origines to its immediate socio-cultural purview, but working towards this aim will also entail a shift in perspective and a reassessment of our notions of ““poetry”” and ““prose.”” In fact, by stressing the performance dimension that underlies the genesis of the Origines as a text, this article will also expose the shortcomings inherent in the hyper-literary approaches that have been so far adopted.
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