History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. IIDunlop, John Colin
History
History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II
Dunlop, John Colin
Latin literature -- History and criticism
The fifth book relates to words expressive of time and its divisions, and
to those things which are done in the course of time. He begins with the
months and days consecrated to the service of the gods, or performance of
accustomed rites. Things which happen during the lapse of time, are
divided into three classes, according to the three great human functions
of thought, speech, and act. The third class, or actions, are performed by
means of the external senses; the mention of which introduces the
explication of those terms which express the various operations of the
senses; and the book terminates with a list of vocables derived from the
Greek. These two books relate the common employment of words. In the
sixth, the author treats of poetic words, and the poetic or metaphoric use
of ordinary terms, of which he gives examples. Here he follows the same
arrangement already adopted—speaking first of places, and then of time,
and showing, as he proceeds, the manner in which poets have changed or
corrupted the original signification of words.
Such is the first division of the work of Varro, forming what he himself
calls the etymological part. He admits that it was a subject of much
difficulty and obscurity, since many original words had become obsolete in
course of time, and of those which survived, the meaning had been changed
or had never been imposed with exactness. The second division, which
extended from the commencement of the seventh to the end of the twelfth
book, comprehended the accidents of words, and the different changes which
they undergo from declension, conjugation, and comparison. The author
admits but of two kinds of words—nouns and verbs, to which he refers all
the other parts of speech. He distinguishes two sorts of declensions, of
which he calls one arbitrary, and the other natural or necessary; and he
is thenceforth alternately occupied with analogy and anomaly. In the
seventh book he discusses the subject of analogy in general, and gives the
arguments which may be adduced against its existence in nouns proper: In
the eighth, he reasons like those who find analogies everywhere. Book
ninth treats of the analogy and anomaly of verbs, and with it the fragment
we possess of Varro’s treatise terminates. The three other books, which
completed the second part, were of course occupied with comparison and the
various inflections of words.
The third part of the work, which contained twelve books, treated of
syntax, or the junction of words, so as to form a phrase or sentence. It
also contained a sort of glossary, which explained the true meaning of
Latin vocables.
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