Modus concessivus, species concessiva and species affirmativa in the Works of Roman Grammarians

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the use of the term concessivus/concessiva ‘concessive’ in Latin grammatical texts which make up Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum and Digital Library of late antique Latin texts, and to consider the concessive meaning as a grammatical category. A number of grammatical sources (Probus, Ars of Diomedes, Victorini sive Palaemoni Ars, Ars of Cledonius, Explanationes) place the category of concessivity among the verbal categories, namely modus ‘mood’, while in others this term is not mentioned. The text of Diomedes is also notable for the fact that concessivity is included in the concept of species, a term that includes heterogeneous grammatical phenomena among Roman grammarians. At the same time, the grammarian identifies not one meaning of concession, but two, which are defined by the terms — species concessiva (describes situations that are undesirable for the speaker in the present and future) and species affirmativa (describes situations that did not actually happen). All the three terms in the title of this paper correspond to coniunctivus concessivus and indicate the same grammatical form — perfect subjunctive, e. g. feceris ‘even if you did’. In modern linguistics, the meaning of concession is expressed not only by the perfect subjunctive, but also by the present subjunctive, and, thus, does not have a unique formal expression, as in ancient linguistics. I suppose that concession in the Latin language falls under the scope of covert grammatical category, whereas concession, as it was presented in Roman grammars, can be treated as an overt one.

Keywords:

Latin, Roman grammarians, covert category, cryptotype, overt category, phenotype, concession, concessive meaning, mood