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Appendix Probi

The ("Probus' Appendix") is the conventional name for a series of five documents believed to have been copied in the seventh or eighth century in Bobbio, Italy. Its name derives from the fact that the documents were found attached to a copy of the , a treatise named after (but probably not written by) the first-century grammarian Marcus Valerius Probus.

The Appendix was likely composed in Rome around the first half of the fourth century AD.

It is specifically the third of the five documents that has attracted scholarly attention, as it contains a list of 227 spelling mistakes, along with their corrections, which shed light on the phonological and grammatical changes that the local vernacular was experiencing in the early stages of its development into Romance.

The text survives only in a carelessly transcribed water-damaged manuscript of the 7th or 8th century which is kept at the as MS Lat. 1 (formerly Vindobonensis 17).

Phenomena visible in the spelling mistakes

Note that the format is "[correct spelling], not [incorrect spelling]". Scribal abbreviations have been expanded.

Syncope

Development of yod from front vowels in hiatus

Change of to

Reduction of pretonic to

Loss of final

Loss of

Reduction of to

Loss of intervocalic before a back vowel

Confusion of and

Confusion of singletons and geminates

Elimination of imparisyllabic nouns

Adaptation of 3rd-decl. adjectives to the 1st class

Adaptation of 4th-decl. feminine nouns to the 1st decl.

Adaptation of 3rd/4th decl. feminines to the 1st decl. via diminutive suffix

Adaptation of neuter plural to the first declension

Elimination of the ablative

Alteration of nom. (in the third declension) to

Reduction of the endings and to

Loss of the masculine flexion -us

Metathesis, assimilation, dissimilation, etc.

See also

Notes

References

Sources

  • Barnett, F. J. 2007. The sources of the "Appendix Probi": A new approach. The Classical Quarterly 57(2). 701–736. doi:10.1017/s000983880700064x.
  • Elcock, William Dennis. 1960. The Romance Languages. London: Faber & Faber.
  • Rohfls, Gerhard. 1969. Sermo Vulgaris Latinus: Vulgarlateinisches Lesebuch. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
  • Leppänen, V., & Alho, T. 2018. On The Mergers Of Latin Close-Mid Vowels. Transactions of the Philological Society. doi:10.1111/1467-968x.12130
  • Powell, Jonathan G. F. 2007. A new text of the "Appendix Probi". The Classical Quarterly 57(2). 687–700. doi:10.1017/S0009838807000638.
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2005. The “Appendix Probi” as a compendium of Popular Latin: Description and bibliography. The Classical World 98(4). 397–409. doi:10.2307/4352974
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2006. The Appendix Probi: A scholar's guide to text and context. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta.
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2017. Hypercorrection in the Appendix Probi. Philologus 161(2). 350–353. doi:10.1515/phil-2016-0119

External links