[lit-ideas] Wittgenstein's "Lateinisch" (or Lack of It)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:32:59 EDT
J. Evans said she would see if she could find a good tricky example of Latin
oratio obliqua.
When it comes to Wittgenstein, I am reminded of Shakespeare who (alas, as
Borges loved to say he too) had "little Latin and less Greek".
Recall that Wittgenstein describes the 'order' of words in Latin as
'remarkable', 'queer', and 'peculiar'. The literal truth is that the order of
words
in Latin is pretty flexible, as every public-school boy knows.
There must be more to it than that. The concern for Wittgenstein was
'order', or as I prefer, "^" (as in the 'sequence' sign favoured by Grice).
Wittgenstein mentions two words ("Stellung" and "Ordnung"). Anscombe ingores
"Stellung" and translates both as "order".
"Es liegt hier ein Fall vor, ähnlich dem, wenn jemand sich vorstellt, man
könne einen Satz mit der merkwürdigen WORTSTELLUNG der deutschen oder
lateinischen Sprache nicht einfach denken, wie er dasteht. Man müsse ihn zuerst
denken, und dann bringt man die Wörter in jene seltsame ORDNUNG. (Ein
französischer
Politiker schrieb einmal, es sei eine Eigentümlichkeit der französischen
Sprache, daß in ihr die Worte in der ORDNUNG stehen, in welcher man sie
denkt.)"
("Someone imagines that one could NOT think "a sentence"with THE
*REMARKABLE* _WORD ORDER_ of German or Latin just as it stands" "Rather, one
first has
to think it, and then one arranges the words in that *QUEER* _order_" "(A
French politician once wrote that it was a peculiarity of the French language
that in it words occur *in the [peculiar] *order** in which one thinks them.)"
Linguists apparently like to talk of word-order and McCreery is right on
(the) spot when he mentions Japanese for "The cat chased the cheese-eating
rat".
Here below some online references on 'word order', then (or sequential
surface structure, as I prefer). For FIXED word order in Latin, the reference
is:
Jong, Jan R. de 1989. The Position of the Latin Subject. Subordination and
Other Topics in Latin: Proceedings of the Third Colloquium on Latin
Linguistics, Bologna, 1-5 April 1985. Ed. Gualtiero Calboli. Amsterdam and
Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 521-540. (_citation record_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/citation/C0006.html) )
Apparently the idea is that Latin has not a 'fixed' order -- allowed by the
case system. However, there may be a fixed order in the subject in
subordinated clauses.
Latin has a very flexible word order, as this document below shows, so I
don't see what Wittgenstein is complaining about -- Or is he 'quoting' someone
who _might_ have complained? Surely not them [sic] 'public school boys' around
him.
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_grammar#Word_order_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_grammar#Word_order)
"Latin allows for a very flexible word order because of its inflectional
syntax. Ordinary prose tended to follow the pattern of Subject, Indirect
Object,
Direct Object, Adverbial Words or Phrases, Verb. Any extra, though
subordinate verbs, are placed before the main verb, for example infinitives.
Adjectives
and participles usually directly followed nouns, unless they were adjectives
of beauty, size, quantity, goodness, or truth, in which case they preceded
the noun being modified. Relative clauses were commonly placed after the
antecedent which the relative pronoun describes. While these patterns for word
order were the most frequent in Classical Latin prose, they are frequently
varied; and it is important to recall that there is virtually no evidence
surviving that suggests the word order of colloquial Latin. In _poetry_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry) , however, word order was often changed
for the sake
of the meter, for which vowel quantity (short vowels vs. long vowels and
diphthongs) and consonant clusters, not rhyme and word stress, governed the
patterns. It is, however, important to bear in mind that poets in the Roman
world
wrote primarily for the ear, not for the eye; many premiered their work in
recitation for an audience. Hence variations in word order served a
rhetorical, as well as a metrical purpose; they certainly did not prevent
understanding. In _Virgil_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil) 's _Eclogues_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclogues) , for example, he writes, Omnia vincit
amor, et
nos cedamus amori!: Love conquers all, let us yield to love!. The words omnia
(all), amor (love) and amori (to love) are thrown into relief by their
unusual position in their respective phrases. The meter here is _dactylic
hexameter_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactylic_hexameter) , in which Virgil
composed _The Aeneid_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aeneid) , Rome's
national
epic.The ending of the common Roman name Marcus is different in each of the
following examples due to its grammatical usage in that sentence. The ordering
in the following sentences would be perfectly correct in Latin and no doubt
understood with clarity, despite the fact that in English they're awkward at
best and senseless at worst:
Marcus ferit Corneliam: Marcus hits Cornelia. (Subject-Verb-Object)
Marcus Corneliam ferit: Marcus Cornelia hits. (Subject-Object-Verb)
Cornelia dedit Marco donum: Cornelia has given Marcus a gift. (Subject,
Verb, Indirect Object, Direct Object)
Cornelia Marco donum dedit: Cornelia Marcus a gift has given. (Subject,
Indirect Object, Direct Object, Verb)
The problem I have with the examples above is that as every public school boy
knows, in "Cornelia Marco donum dedit" _nobody_ in her clear mind would
translate "Marco" as "Marcus": "to Marcus" comes immediately to mind. Old
English did have cases like that -- so the thing should still resonate in
English
speakers (as in 'whose horses are being trained?', where 'whose' is a notable
genitive).
I haven't been able to check all the links below to different aspects of
word order in Latin (and German).
_http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/index.html#word_order_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/index.html#word_order)
_OV [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/ov_latin.html)
_SOV [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/sov_latin.html)
_SVO [and marked OV sequence] [German]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/svo_and_marked_ov_sequence_german.html)
_SXV [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/sxv_latin.html)
_verb [in clause-final position] [German]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/verb_in_clause_final_position_german.html)
_verb [in clause-final position] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/verb_in_clause_final_position_latin.html)
_verb [in clause-final position] [subordinate clause] [German]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/verb_in_clause_final_pos
ition_subordinate_clause_german.html)
_verb [in clause-final position] [subordinate clause] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/verb_in_clause_final_posi
tion_subordinate_clause_latin.html)
_verb [in clause-initial position] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/verb_in_clause_initial_position_latin.html)
_verb [in medial position] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/verb_in_medial_position_latin.html)
_VO [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/vo_latin.html)
_word order [free] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_free_latin.html)
_word order [infinitive + auxiliary] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_infinitive_auxiliary_latin.html)
_word order [infinitive + habere] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_infinitive_habere_latin.html)
_word order [subordinate clause] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_subordinate_clause_latin.html)
_word order [unmarked] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_unmarked_latin.html)
_word order variation [German]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_variation_german.html)
_word order variation [main vs. subordinate clause] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_variation_main_v
s_subordinate_clause_latin.html)
_word order [verb-final] [German]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order/word_order_verb_final_german.html)
_OV to VO [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order_change/ov_to_vo_latin.html)
_postposition [change to preposition] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order_change/postposition_change_to_preposition_
latin.html)
_verb [in medial position] [emergence of] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order_change/verb_in_medial_position_emergen
ce_of_latin.html)
_verb [in medial position] [emergence of] [Latin] [explanation of]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order_change/verb_in_media
l_position_emergence_of_latin_explanation_of.html)
_verb [in medial position] [spread of] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order_change/verb_in_medial_position_spread_of_
latin.html)
_word order change [and case loss] [Latin]_
(http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/wordord/keyword/word_order_change/word_order_change_and_case_loss_latin.
html)
Cheers,
JL
************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
Other related posts:
