With or without ut? A study of juxtaposed subordinate clauses in Plautus

• Grant number: 15/26060-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: April 01, 2016
• End date: October 01, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Languages
• Principal Investigator: José Marcos Mariani de Macedo
• Grantee: Alex Mazzanti Júnior
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 17/06554-9 - With or without ut? A synchronic and diachronic study of juxtaposed subordinate clauses in Archaic Latin, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Plautus is the most ancient Latin writer whose work comprises a sizable amount of almost complete texts dating from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. His plays allow us to study more ancient structures of the Latin language, different from those of Classical Latin, which is based on authors like Cicero. One of these structures concerns the use of subjunctive verbs as complements to other verbs. This is what certain grammarians call Substantive Clauses with Subjunctive, among other names. These clauses can figure with or without the conjunction ut, so the absence of this conjunction is considered a more archaic construction. The aim of the research will be to verify in the 21 plays of Plautus how the language works synchronically concerning the presence or absence of the conjunction ut in these Substantive Clauses with Subjunctive. To do so, I will focus on the main verbs facio and uolo, studying how they work with subjunctives as complements. Firstly, I will do a quantitative analysis, checking what is Plautus usage preference; then, a qualitative analysis, checking if there are any explanations from contextual settings like metrics, play characters or morphosyntax that may elucidate in which situations Plautus uses or does not use ut.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

MAZZANTI JÚNIOR, Alex. With or without ut? A study of subjunctival complement clauses of facio and uolo in Archaic Latin. 2018. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.