Personal versus impersonal passive in Latin infinitival clauses: Some diachronic considerations
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Sean Gleason
- Source
- Pallas, Vol 102, Pp 267-275 (2016)
- Subject
- infinitive
accusativus cum infinitivo
nominativus cum infinitivo
diachrony
greek
Social Sciences
- Language
- French
- ISSN
- 0031-0387
2272-7639
This paper deals with the historical origins of the Classical Latin alternation between the personal passive NcI and the impersonal passive + AcI constructions. Starting from the observation by Maraldi (1983) that this alternation is not found prior to Cicero in the first century BC, the claim is that a combination of external and internal linguistic factors lie behind its emergence in the language. The external factor is the existence of an identical alternation in Ancient Greek, while the internal factor is the development of the passive as an independent category in Latin. The interplay between these two factors points to viewing the impersonal passive + AcI as a partial Graecism.