Latin Forms of Address From Plautus to Apuleius

by Dickey, Eleanor

• ISBN13: 9780199239054
• ISBN10: 0199239053
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780191553912
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

How did Romans address their children, their parents, their slaves, and their patrons? When one Roman called another 'dearest', 'master', 'brother', 'human being', 'executioner', or 'soft little cheese', what did these terms really mean and why? This book brings to bear on such questions a corpus of 15,441 addresses spanning four centuries, drawn from literary prose, poetry, letters, inscriptions, ostraca, and papyri and analysed during recent work in sociolinguistics. The results offer new insights into Roman culture and shed a fresh light on the interpretation of numerous passages in literature. A glossary of the 500 most common addresses and quick-reference tables explaining the rules of usage make this book a valuable resource for Latin teachers and all active users of the language, while the evidence for the investigations behind these conclusions will fascinate scholars and laymen alike. Original, jargon-free, and highly readable, this work will be enjoyed even by those with no prior knowledge of Latin.

Author Biography

Eleanor Dickey is Assistant Professor of Classics at Columbia University.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The sociolinguistic study of address forms	p. 3
Categories of address	p. 5
Rules of address	p. 7
Lexical versus address meaning	p. 10
Register	p. 13
Other linguistic contributions	p. 17
Previous work on Latin forms of address	p. 20
The scope of this study	p. 21
Latin literature and its presentation of the address system	p. 30
Addresses	p. 39
Names	p. 41
Titles	p. 77
Kinship Terms	p. 110
Terms of Endearment, Affection, and Esteem	p. 129
Insults	p. 163
Other Addresses	p. 186
The Use of mi and o	p. 214
Interactions	p. 231
Addresses between Known People without any Special Attachment to One Another	p. 233
Addresses to Strangers and Nameless Characters	p. 246
Addresses between Relatives	p. 257
Addresses between Spouses and Others with a Romantic Interest	p. 276
Addresses to Groups	p. 283
Addresses to and from Non-Humans	p. 298
Glossary	p. 305
Usage Tables	p. 366
Editions of Ancient Texts	p. 370
Abbreviations for Modern Works and Collections	p. 374
References	p. 376
Indices
Index of Words Discussed	p. 393
Index Locorum	p. 403
Index of Topics	p. 410
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