Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I CONTEXTS FOR READING
- Part II READING PRACTICE
- 4 Origins and mythologies: the invention of language and meaning
- 5 Reading word by word 1: the role of the vernacular
- 6 Reading word by word 2: grammatical and rhetorical approaches
- 7 From words to the phrase: the problem of syntax
- 8 Government: the theory and practice of a grammatical concept
- 9 Rival orders of syntax: vernacular, natural and artificial
- 10 From the phrase to the text: grammatical and rhetorical approaches again
- 11 Naked intention: satire and a new kind of literal reading
- 12 Literacy: a new model for the classical text in the Middle Ages?
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature
7 - From words to the phrase: the problem of syntax
from Part II - READING PRACTICE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I CONTEXTS FOR READING
- Part II READING PRACTICE
- 4 Origins and mythologies: the invention of language and meaning
- 5 Reading word by word 1: the role of the vernacular
- 6 Reading word by word 2: grammatical and rhetorical approaches
- 7 From words to the phrase: the problem of syntax
- 8 Government: the theory and practice of a grammatical concept
- 9 Rival orders of syntax: vernacular, natural and artificial
- 10 From the phrase to the text: grammatical and rhetorical approaches again
- 11 Naked intention: satire and a new kind of literal reading
- 12 Literacy: a new model for the classical text in the Middle Ages?
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature
Summary
In supra dictis igitur de singulis vocibus dictionum … tractavimus: nunc autem dicemus de ordinatione earum quae solet fieri ad constructionem orationis perfectae, quam admodum necessariam ad auctorum expositionem diligentissime debemus inquirere.
Therefore, in the above sections, we have treated of the single voces of individual words; now indeed, we shall speak of their ordering, which is customarily undertaken for the construction of the perfect oratio, about which we must precisely and diligently inquire for the necessary exposition of the authors.
Priscian, IG, xvii, 2In this statement, which opens the seventeenth book of the Institutiones grammaticae, Priscian raises many of the issues that were to trouble medieval grammarians in their attempts to formulate coherent approaches to Latin syntax. He articulates the move from the study of words (the partes orationis) to the study of the phrase (oratio), but it is clear that his notion of syntax is itself utterly word-based: it is the ordinatio (‘ordering’) of individual words. He also speaks of the oratio without specifying exactly what he means by the term, yet says it can be ‘perfect’, and that the study of the perfect oratio is a necessary prerequisite to the study of the auctores, supposedly themselves the models of good style. What is the relationship between grammatical correctness and literary auctoritas here? Is Priscian proposing a conceptual ‘perfect’ oratio against which the authors should be judged, or is he suggesting we turn to the authors for examples of it?
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- Medieval ReadingGrammar, Rhetoric and the Classical Text, pp. 88 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996