Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Prisciano e il futuro del congiuntivo

2009; Akademie-Verlag; Volume: 153; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1524/phil.2009.0022

2196-7008

Michela Rosellini,

Historical and Linguistic Studies

According to Priscian (GL III 260, 20–261, 2) qui fecerit does not mean ‘who will have done’, but signifies ‘who will possibly do’, because fecero is futurum coniunctivi, and this form of subjunctive actually denotes, in Priscian’s view, that an event may/might/should/could happen in the future. Neither Priscian nor any other Latin grammarian understood this futurum as we do, that is as futurum exactum, which indicates “the priority of a future event over some other future event” (Palmer). It is worthwhile taking this into account while reading (later?) texts. In this paper some passages of Priscian’s Ars grammatica (GL II 416, 21–417, 28; III 251, 13–252, 3; 255, 9–16; 260, 20–261, 2) are examined and explained and an already suggested improvement of Hertz’s text is confirmed.