DE ORTU GRAMMATICAE

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND

HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE

General Editor
E. F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)

Series III - STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE SCIENCES

Advisory Editorial Board

Ranko Bugarski (Belgrade); Jean-Claude Chevalier (Paris)

H.H. Christmann (Tübingen); Boyd H. Davis (Charlotte, N.C.)
Rudolf Engler (Bern); Hans-Josef Niederehe (Trier)
R.H. Robins (London); Rosane Rocher (Philadelphia)
Vivian Salmon (Oxford); Aldo Scaglione (New York)

Volume 43

G.L. Bursill-Hall, Sten Ebbesen and Konrad Koerner (eds)

De Ortu Grammaticae
Studies in medieval grammar and linguistic theory
in memory of Jan Pinborg
DE ORTU GRAMMATICAE
STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL GRAMMAR
AND LINGUISTIC THEORY
IN MEMORY OF
JAN PINBORG

Edited by

G.L. BURSILL-HALL
Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C.
STEN EBBESEN
University of Copenhagen
KONRAD KOERNER
University of Ottawa

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY

AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

1990
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
De ortu grammaticae : studies in medieval grammar and linguistic theory in memory of
Jan Pinborg / edited by G.L. Bursill-Hall, Sten Ebbesen and E.F. Konrad Koerner.
p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series
III, Studies in the history of the language sciences, ISSN 0304-0720; v. 43)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Grammar, Comparative and general -- History. 2. Linguistics ~ History. 3. Pinborg,
Jan. I. Pinborg, Jan. II. Bursill-Hall, G.L. III. Ebbesen, Sten. IV. Series.
P65.D4 1990
415'.09'02»dc20 90-444
ISBN 90 272 4526 6 (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1990 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
Jan Pinbor£\

Photo Rigmor Mydtskov

 CONTENTS

Foreword ix

Introduction 1
G.L. Bursill-Hall & Sten Ebbesen
'De Magistro': Analyse eines Dialogs von Augustinus 17
Hans Arens
Domingo de Soto (1494-1560) and the Doctrine of Signs 35
E.J. Ashworth
Être: finitude et infini 49
. Carlos Bazán
Suppositio in Petrus Hispanus: Linguistic theories and models 69
Francis P. Dinneen, S.J.
Vernacular Grammar as a Caique of Latin Grammar: The case of
infinitive + skullende 87
Niels Haastrup
Master Peter's Mereology 99
D.P. Henry
Una et Eadem: Some observations on Roger Bacon's Greek grammar 117
Even Hovdhaugen
Un commentaire anonyme de l'"Ars Minor" de Donat 133
Colette Jeudy
Composition and the Verb in Grammatica Speculativa 147
L.G. Kelly
Transitivity, Intransitivity and Related Concepts in 12th Century
Grammar: An explorative study 161
C.H. Kneepkens
viii CONTENTS

AuctoritaSy consuetudo and ratio in St. Augustine's Ars grammatica 191

Vivien A. Law
De la logique à la grammaire: Remarques sur la théorie de la
determinatio chez Roger Bacon et Lambert d'Auxerre
(Lambert de Lagny) 209
Alain de Libera
Materials for an Archaelogical Analysis of Richard of Campsall's
Logic 227
A. Charlene McDermott
Topos and Figura: Historical cause and effect? 239
James J. Murphy
Supposition naturelle et signification occamiste 255
Claude Panaccio
A Hitherto Unpublished Medieval Grammatical Fragment on Latin
Syntax and Syntactic Figures 271
W. Keith Percival
Théories médiévales du pronom et du nom général 285
Irène Rosier &†Jean Stefanini
Dante and the Ars Grammatica 305
Aldo Scaglione
Robert Kilwardby: Figurative constructions and the limits of grammar 321
Mary Sirridge
Mental Reservation and Mental Language in Suarez 339
John A. Trentman
Index Auctorum 359
Index Rerum 365
 Foreword

This memorial volume has been somewhat long in preparation. For

that I must take full responsibility; at the same time and for that reason I
would like to thank various friends and colleagues who made the comple­
tion of this book possible; it is certainly true to say that without them it
would not have been finished.
My thanks to my friend and colleague Dr. E.F.K. Koerner, firstly for
the invitation to compile and edit the volume which allows me to express,
however imcompletely and inadequately, the esteem in which I held Jan
Pinborg and his contribution to our knowledge of medieval language study,
and secondly for his tolerance of my tardiness. My other co-editor, Dr. S.
Ebbesen has been invaluable; his knowledge of medieval language
philosophy and the scholastic tradition has prevented a number of mistakes
and his many fruitful suggestions have made this a much better volume. His
personal memoir, part of the introduction to this book, reveals the admira­
tion and affection that Pinborg could evoke in all those of us who came in
close contact with him. We invited Dr. Koerner to join the editorial team
simply because I for one realised that if ever this volume were to see the
light of day, we needed his editorial expertise. I am very grateful to him for
this.
My compliments go to our contributors, as much for their forbearance
as for the excellence of their scholarship. The production of this volume has
taken some years despite the fact that the papers were submitted in late
1984 and early 1985. Of the twenty-six people originally invited to contri­
bute a paper, twenty did so and I thank them for their patience; it is a mat­
ter of great regret that Jean Stefanini did not live to see the publication of
his contribution. The others were prevented from offering a paper as a
result of commitments and pressure of work; their regret at not being able
to contribute was very real, and together with the papers that appear in this
volume they constitute an expression of the sadness at the loss and the pride
we all feel at having known Jan Pinborg.
χ FOREWORD

My wife, Hilary, has been a constant source of encouragement; the

task of editing this volume has been difficult and often harrowing (I know
that my co-editors share this feeling), and were it not for her support, co­
operation and determination, I would most surely have withdrawn from the
project.

West Vancouver, B.C. G.L. Bursill-Hall

March 1990
 Introduction

Jan Pinborg (1937-1982)

This is not the usual kind of tributary volume when the author or
authors can express pleasure on introducing a collection of essays designed
to celebrate the achievements of a colleague who has reached his years of
mellow maturity. This book does nonetheless seek to give the recognition
due to the achievements of a younger scholar, Jan Pinborg, one who was
the leader in a field which in the last 20 years has been internationally rec­
ognised as one of very important intellectual activity, but one who died in
his prime. It is therefore a memorial volume to express our sense of loss
and at the same time to give thanks for our having known him as well as to
demonstrate the wealth of his scholarly interests and the extent of his influ­
ence.
This preface consists of two parts. The first part was written as a per­
sonal memoir by Pinborg's friend and colleague, Sten Ebbesen, the second,
a statement about Pinborg's contribution to our knowledge of medieval lin­
guistic speculation, has been written by Geoffrey Bursill-Hall; we have
added at the end a select bibliography of Pinborg's published work. It has
been, as can be well imagined, a distressing and difficult process for both
and the production of this volume has taken some years. The papers were
submitted late 1984 — early 1985.
The question is often asked why medieval schoolmen were so very
interested in language, grammar, logic, and meaning. It is not our concern
at this moment to answer this in extenso but rather it is our hope that this
volume of essays will provide further proof of the abiding interest of the
scholastic linguistic tradition, but more especially it will be a fitting tribute
to a scholar who seems to have shed a very special light on everything he
did and on everyone who knew him.
2 INTRODUCTION

Born, raised and trained in Denmark, Jan Pinborg spent about half his
short life as a student and teacher at the University of Copenhagen, devot­
ing a large part of his efforts to the editing of Danish medieval scholastics.
Another large part of his time was spent on administrative work at the Uni­
versity of Copenhagen and in Danish learned societies. But it certainly was
not provincial narrowness of mind that characterized him. In every matter
one could reckon on Pinborg to look beyond traditional divisions between
men, institutions, countries and disciplines. He was trained as a classicist,
obtaining his degree in 1962, but already then he was deeply involved in
medieval studies. He was a first-rate Latinist, very interested in Latin gram­
mar and stylistics. At the same time he had a strong interest in modern gen­
eral linguistics and in philosophy and the history of philosophy. He liked to
study the development of schools and universities and took a very active
part in the administration of his own university. He lived and worked for
the institute, the university and the country to which he belonged — but
liked nothing better than international cooperation. He was dedicated to
his work but no less to family life. Abstract thinking, going bird-watching
with his wife and children, and watching à game of soccer were activities
that all found a place in his life. With some people the ability to see beyond
the particular paralyses their power to deal with the particular. Not so with
Pinborg. His combined attention to part and whole and a strong will
ensured success in most of the tasks he faced in life.
The academic career was a fine one but not an unparralleled one.
After graduating 1962 he was for some years research assistant at the
Danish Society of Language and Literature and assistant professor of clas­
sics at the University of Copenhagen, holding for a period also a lectureship
in philosophy and in 1971/72 a guest lectureship at the University of Kiel in
Germany. In 1967 he became a doctor of philosophy and in 1973 a full pro­
fessor of classics in the University of Copenhagen at an early age but not
unheard of in those days when the university was still thriving on the post­
war baby boom and a generally favourable climate for higher education.
From 1972 to his death he was director of the Institute of Greek and Latin
Medieval Philology, one of the smaller departments of the faculty of
humanities.
A look at Pinborg's bibliography1 will convince anyone that he was not
afraid of putting things on paper. It contains some ninety books and arti-
 INTRODUCTION 3

cles, some of them quite substantial. A fine career in Academia, then. But
others have obtained titles, written papers and have died young without
leaving so many scholars with the feeling that it was their duty to produce a
memorial volume.
What makes Pinborg so special is that not only was his scholarly work
of unusually high quality but he also possessed extraordinary human qual­
ities which made him many devoted friends and left them with a sense of
bereavement when he passed away. The two adjectives that I have most
often heard used by scholars who knew him are 'kind' and 'modest.' The
choice of these words may reveal some surprise that many have felt when
they first met him in person after having read papers of his. Someone who
writes so learned papers with hardly ever a trace of a joke in them and who
has won world recognition as a leading scholar in his field — such a person
one is likely to imagine as severe and perhaps a little haughty. Pinborg
wasn't. He was not humble either; he was perfectly well aware of the fact
that he was a better scholar than most of his colleagues. But he was modest
and kind. He genuinely liked other people and he did not use his learning
to show off. Instead it served as a source of inspiration for others.
The following episode may illustrate the means by which Pinborg won
dedicated friends. Once, when his own teacher, Dr. H. Roos, was still alive
and in charge of the edition of Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii
Aevi, an undergraduate student was offered a job as assistant to the editor.
The first day on the job the student was shown a photograph of a medieval
manuscript — one of those terribly abbreviated scholastic texts. Dr. Roos
read the first five lines aloud and then told the student to go and start trans­
cribing the text. The young man had no experience whatsoever with
palaeography or scholastic texts, but armed with Capelli's dictionary of
abbreviations he sat down to work. Six hours later he had transcribed a
dozen lines and could leave his desk with the feeling that he had
accomplished something — however little — on his own and would soon
master the art of reading manuscripts. The success was not due to Capelli's
dictionary. It was due to Pinborg, who worked at a desk at the other end of
the same room. First he had a little chat with the beginner, unobtrusively
providing him with useful information in the course of this informal conver­
sation. Next, every half hour or so, Pinborg visited the newcomer's desk,
each time ostensibly on his way to somewhere else — to the kitchen to
make himself a cup of coffee, or to the lavatory. Each time he would drop
a word and wait just long enough for the student to ask a question if he
4 INTRODUCTION

liked asking one. In that way he let the apprentice have the experience of
himself fighting with the problems without permitting him to get stuck and
without leaving him with the humiliating feeling that he had had to incon­
venience his betters in order to find solutions. Pinborg just happened to be
there when help was needed.
By similar means Pinborg helped many younger scholars, lending them
a hand and supporting their self-respect at the same time. As a result, the
last ten years of Pinborg's life became the most fruitful so far for scholastic
studies in Copenhagen, with a group of dedicated pupils and friends, Danes
and foreigners, gathering round Pinborg.
Pinborg's personality was the decisive factor. But in all fairness it must
be mentioned that his work was also favoured by certain external cir­
cumstances. The Institute of Greek and Latin Medieval Philology had been
created in 1958 thanks to an active interest in the Middle Ages on the part
of — among others — the two full professors of classics in Copenhagen at
the time. One of them was Pinborg's teacher P.J. Jensen. The study and
edition of scholastic texts had enjoyed a sort of institutional framework
since the late 1940s when the Danish Society of Language and Literature
decided to issue the Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi. The
pioneer in the field was Heinrich Roos, S.J., who was one of the early
investigators of modistic grammar. It was he who introduced Pinborg to the
field of scholarship in which he was to do most of his work. Finally, there
was a fine tradition for linguistic studies at the University of Copenhagen,
and for his combination of classics with linguistics and logic Pinborg had a
model in J. Christensen who was first his teacher, later his colleague as pro­
fessor of classics, and a close friend as well. That there was no scarcity of
students of Latin in the years around 1970, and that in the 1960s and 1970s
it was not excessively difficult to raise money for scholarly work also played
a role.
Yet, for all this, the small size of Denmark and the correspondingly
small size of its learned milieus could easily have had the result that Pinborg
became an isolated man, the only one in his country to do research on the
medieval Trivium, and only peripherally connected with scholarly circles
abroad. It would not be correct to describe Pinborg as gregarious, but it
certainly was not in his nature to live and work in a vacuum. Co-operation
was essential to him, and just as he avoided isolation at home by actively
establishing ties of friendship and collaboration within the Danish environ­
ment, so he was active on the international level. At first his contacts were
 INTRODUCTION 5

mainly with Germans — partly because German was the foreign language
he knew best. Later the whole of Europe was included into his circle of
activity. In the early 1970s he was one of the founding fathers of the Euro­
pean Symposia on Medieval Logic and Semantics. If the symposia have
proved a strong force in the promotion of international collaboration, this is
not least because they are conducted in his spirit, being based on trust and
friendship with a minimum of formal organization. As the 1970s went on,
Pinborg also established close ties with North American scholars and took
part in joint projects. In the summer of 1982 he went to New Zealand to
lecture and to discuss medieval logic with fellow researchers. That was his
last contribution to international scholarly collaboration. By then he was
fatally ill, and soon after returning to Denmark he died of cancer,
bemourned by friends all over the world.

s(e * sf: % s(c sf:

It has now become a common-place to say that the Middle Ages was a
golden period in the history of linguistics, but what is not generally
appreciated is that the extent of our knowledge of the linguistic work of this
period is the result of the achievements of a handful of scholars. This
embraces not only medieval grammatical thought but medieval philosophy
and logic, the scholarly world of the Middle Ages, and the very rich manu­
script tradition. There is however one name that stands out, that of Jan Pin­
borg. Not only was he very knowledgeable about all these aspects of
medieval intellectual life but he was also able to knit them together in order
to present a fuller picture of medieval language thought.
It is well known that medieval language study grew out of the legacy of
the world of classical Greece and Rome, but why should the Schoolmen
have paid so much attention to the study of language, and in particular to
the study of sentence structure, the logic of such structure, and the semantic
properties of sentences and of their constituent words? Why did they pay so
much attention to the process of naming and labelling? That this was so is
clearly demonstrated in part by the wealth of the manuscript tradition, but
more especially by the very precise requirements, for instance, as set out in
the statutes of both Oxford and Paris, for the study of grammar: 2 the crea­
tion of the 'grammar' school, one of the many medieval creations from
which we have benefited enormously, was not a fortuitous event.
Many factors, to which I shall allude later, can be adduced to explain
6 INTRODUCTION

this very positive interest in language study but there is one factor, which
seems to have escaped the critics of medieval scholasticism, which may do
much to explain the depth and extent of medieval concern for language.
Modern man has recognised that ordinary language has its limitations, i.e.,
that it is not sufficient to allow him to talk about aspects of the world which
have become extremely important to him. The medievals too recognised
that ordinary language may have been sufficient to express their knowledge
of their world of experience and reality but also that it had its limitations.
Medieval man therefore realised that ordinary language, even the more
idealised language of Latin, was not sufficiently elaborated and precise to
allow him to talk successfully about God which was the principal preoccu­
pation of medieval intellectual speculations.
To create an instrument of this degree of precision may require a
rather novel linguistic theory though this is open to question. In this
instance it had to be one which provided a naming procedure, a syntax to
explain sentence structure, a semantics which will explain the meaning of
such sentence structure as well as the meaning of its constitutive terms, and
a logic set in a philosophical framework sufficient and precise enough to
allow them to go beyond the limits of ordinary discourse in order to explain
the nature of God.
What, one must ask, are the requirements of a linguistic theory and to
what extent did medieval theory satisfy these requirements? There seems to
be no complete agreement on the contents of a linguistic theory; it is agreed
however that at the very least it should contain a phonological, a grammat­
ical, and a semantic component. It should be able to establish the relevance
of formal logic to sentence structure and to set forth the requirements of the
contextual part of meaning in relation to the semantic component. The
important thing is that the theory provide the techniques to make the neces­
sary statements about meaning at all levels of language.3 It may open to
question whether this general theory should contain a 'logic' component but
it is beyond question that its formal techniques must be able to link its
analysis of sentence structure to logical analysis.
Medieval linguistic theory did not contain a phonological component; a
number of explanations for this may be offered, but it is quite clear that the
medieval grammarian was not concerned with man's articulatory processes,
though he was with man's expressive needs. Since these were stated in
essentially semantic terms, their actual mode of expression was of no con­
cern. The fact is that they were concerned above all with deep structure and
 INTRODUCTION 7

had little real interest in surface structure. This may well account for the
lack of interest in language description; the medieval grammarian was not a
collector of data, because he was not concerned about the differences
between the various vernaculars of Western Europe — an interesting
exception to this appears to have been Roger Bacon — nor was he
interested in the historical development of languages. He was however
deeply concerned with grammatical analysis, logical analysis and their
semantics. Much has been made of the similarity in interest and objective of
the medieval and modern linguist, but it is in this aspect of language study
that we may find the closest connection between medieval and modern
practices.
As I have said, the Schoolmen were not, it would seem, data collec­
tors, but they were concerned with the creation of an explanatory theory of
language. They lived and worked at a time when a number of powerful
intellectual factors had to be incorporated into their view of the world and
the universe and of man's relationship to his world, and by the same token
into their interpretation of language. I have already mentioned their need
for an instrument sufficient for their needs, but other factors which had a
profound impact on their intellectual world and ipso facto on their view of
language and their analytical techniques were the incorporation of the
whole of Aristotelian logical thought into their own intellectual processes,
the impact of theology, and the growth of philosophical study which
included the study of Avicenna, Averroes, and St. Augustine. This was
powerful stuff that the Schoolmen had to absorb.
Another factor was the rise of the university which prompted a revival
in learning and which shifted intellectual originality from the monastic
institution to the pedagogical institution. This meant that grammarians as
much as any group of masters were of necessity involved in pedagogy and
the preparation of appropriate materials. But these were perforce of a very
sophisticated nature, which had to be much more advanced in intellectual
content than the materials typically needed for the newly-created grammar
schools. It should be remembered that the many commentaries on Priscian,
especially the Priscian minor, were in the first place pedagogically intended.
All these factors suggest a possible explanation to account for the nature of
medieval interest in study of language — indeed the only aspects of lan­
guage study that they seem to have completely ignored were the historical
study of language and the study and teaching of 'foreign' languages (as it
would be called today), and this may in part account for their apparent
indifference to linguistic data.
8 INTRODUCTION

If history is the study of the res gestae, the actions of human beings that
have been done in the past,4 then the historian of medieval linguistic
thought will find his evidence only in those manuscripts that have survived.
Despite the ravages of time and depredations that have been such a charac­
teristic of war, there is nevertheless a richness to the medieval manuscript
tradition which fills one with awe!
Obviously then, the historian must have access to the primary source
materials but he has also a duty to make such materials available to his stu­
dents and critics alike;5 this is not always easy especially in the period prior
to the invention of printing. The student of medieval linguistics must not
only be his own palaeographer but he must have a close familiarity with the
manuscript tradition and all its complexities, e.g., the retrieval of textual
material temporarily misplaced (sic) among other textual material. Good
examples of this are Pinborg's identification of the Bruxelles, B.R. Cod.
10893-4, f. 63-126 as the second part (Priscian minor) of Michel de Marbais'
treatise, and his identification of the Oxford, Bodleian, Cod. Digby 55, f.
288r-244r as Roger Bacon's treatise "De Signis."
Where does Jan Pinborg fit into this account, in particular why did he
explore other aspects of medieval language study other than the purely
grammatical? Let it be said immediately that there is in fact nothing in this
brief account of medieval linguistic thought which was not well known to
him. One has only to compare the state of knowledge in the 1960s of
medieval grammatical thought with that of today. His contribution was all-
pervasive, but it can perhaps be illustrated by comparing two schemes of
understanding that have been proposed to describe developments in
medieval linguistic study. Wallerand6 offered a scheme of understanding
which consisted of four sub-headings, besides which we can set the scheme
proposed by Pinborg (1967):
 INTRODUCTION 9

The preponderance of Donatas Retention of the old

and Priscian definitions
Influence of Peter Helias Fusion of grammatical
and logical termini
Appearance of new Grammar established as
grammarians autonomous
Establishment of speculative Introduction of the idea of
grammar universal grammar
Refinement of the universalist
concept; extension of the
modus significandi
Synthesis of the Modistae

This schematisation is misleading since it omits, for instance, mention of

William of Conches and all mention of the nominalist grammarians of the
14th century, but these two important items were by no means ignored by
Pinborg, i.e., his pupils have provided us with a great deal of information
about William, and Pinborg himself in his Entwicklung (Pinborg 1967:139-
210) and other studies has told us more about the nominalist grammarians
than any other single person.
Pinborg's contribution was however much more powerful because he
was concerned to show that the Schoolmen did not see language study as
divided into arbitrary components and therefore, despite the fact that they
were conscious of the difference between grammar and logic (though the
border-line was then as it is now hazy) and that probably semantics pro­
vided them with the link between these two disciplines, they saw quite
clearly the intimacy and the inter-relationship between them — so much so
that by the time of the Modistae (who were both grammarians and logi­
cians) there was a conscious move to establish their mutual relevance. Pin­
borg was also concerned to show us that they did not see meaning as some­
thing attached to language but rather that language was semantically based;
they recognised too something of the inadequacy of ordinary language
when it talks about itself, e.g., their metalanguage, the meaning of which
cannot be understood from meanings of the words in ordinary language.
This will further help to explain the necessary association of grammar with
logic in that it provided them with a further refinement of their linguistic
statement.
10 INTRODUCTION

There is in fact an interesting parallel between the development of lin­

guistic theory in the Middle Ages and Pinborg's own scholarly career, the
lesson of which in both instances is that any autonomy of linguistics is not
simply a myth but is in fact a snare and a delusion. Medieval grammatical
theory proper starts with the 'minuscule' glosses attached to manuscript
versions of Donatus and Priscian dating from the late 11th century 7 but
matters really came to a head with William of Conches' (f1.1130) criticisms oí
the adequacy of Priscian's grammar. Thereafter until the mid-14th century
we have a period of 'modi significandi' during which time grammar sepa­
rated itself from the study of literature and also from language pedagogy; it
was studied by men who were trained in logic and philosophy, culiminating
in the treatises on the modes of signifying of the Modistae. These develp-
ments have been admirably described by Pinborg in his Entwicklung which
is still the most complete account of the refinement of crucial technical
terms, e.g., modus significandi, pars orationis, constructio. By the early
14th century, the theory of the modi significandi had worked itself out and
its limitations had become apparent. 8 Modistic theory had itself reflected a
change in direction that had occurred as a result of the earlier introduction
of the concept of universal grammar and the fusion of grammatical and log­
ical terms, the result being a complete change in the nature of grammatical
study. This is the period when logic dominates: there can after all be little
similarity between the teaching grammars of men such as Alexander de
Villa-Dei and Eberhardus Bethuniensis, on the one hand, and the
nominalist grammarians, on the other — the pity is that the Modistae and
Nominalists had nothing to say to each other. All this is brought out very
clearly in Pinborg's Logik und Semantik im Mittelalter.9 The third highlight
of his achievements is to be found in the Cambridge History of Late
Medieval Philosophy in which he, along with his colleagues, bring all this
together in an excellent synthesis. We do not find much exegesis in Pin­
borg's work, but then one might say that one man cannot do it all, and what
he did was to show us the main developments, to point out the details to be
filled in and where we could find the relevant evidence. This alone is no
small achievement and historians of medieval linguistics are permanently in
his debt.
I would like to end on a personal note. I first met Jan Pinborg in 1967,
but I never, I regret to say, came to know him closely. He was for me a con­
stant source of knowledge about so many aspects of medieval scholarship,
but one statement about the high regard in which he was held by his col-
 INTRODUCTION 11

leagues was a remark made to me by the late Richard Hunt, that if I was
not able to consult him especially on a matter of manuscript interpretation,
then I should consult Pinborg whose opinion was entirely trustworthy.
When I first met Pinborg, he had just published his Entwicklung and my
Speculative Grammars was in press; he became thereafter some one whom
I consulted regularly, albeit at a distance, but I am particularly grateful to
him for the invitation to publish my Census of Medieval Latin Grammatical
Manuscripts in his Grammatica Speculativa series and in the process he
demonstrated to me clearly the nature of the genuine scholar that he was,
because he was unstinting in the advice and help he gave me. One has
always special memories and anecdotes about people whom one admires
and respects. My co-editor in his personal memoir describes one such, and
I too have one memory that remains with me still. On the occasion of a visit
to his Institute in Copenhagen he was showing me some of the facilities of
this institute and we looked together at the microfilm of a manuscript on a
reader, and to my statement "That looks very difficult," he replied, "Oh
no! It's very easy." Imagine my consternation, and then I looked at him,
saw his shy smile and realised that he was pulling my leg; therein lies a very
serious comment about him — this was important scholarly material for
him but even so something that must be tinged with humanity and under­
standing.
We hope that this volume will say something of the sense of loss we all
feel at his early death; we hope too that it will say something to his wife and
sons, something of the very high regard and affection that his friends and
colleagues all over the world felt for him.

G.L. Bursill-Hall Sten Ebbesen

Simon Fraser University University of Copenhagen

NOTES
1. Cf. the bibliography of Pinborg's works compiled by N.J. Green-Pedersen, CIMAGL 41
(1982).
2. Cf. Gordon Leff, Paris and Oxford University in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries:
An institutional and intellectual history (New York & London: John Wiley & Sons, 1968).
3. Cf. J.R. Firth, "A Synopsis of Linguistic Theory, 1930-1955," Studies in Linguistic
Analysis (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957), p. 6.
12 INTRODUCTION

4. Cf. R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1956), p. 9.
5. This is one of the things that we must be particularly grateful to Pinborg for; he always
gave us the texts with which he had worked. Two such items are especially worth of men­
tion, i.e., the editions of the works of two of the more important Modistae, i.e., Boethius
of Dacia (1969d) and Radulphus Brito (1980). They are models of their kind.
6. Gaston Wallerand, ed., Les oeuvres de Siger de Courirai: Etude critique et textes inédits
(Louvain: Academia Lovaniensis, 1913; new ed., with additions and introd. by J. Pin­
borg, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1977).
7. Richard W. Hunt, The History of Grammar in the Middle Ages: Collected papers, ed. with
introduction by G.L. Bursill-Hall (Amsterdam: Benjamins 1980), pp. 1-5.
8. There is an interesting similarity between this state of affairs and the fact Pinborg had
decided that he had had enough of the 'modi significandi' and turned to the study of
medieval logic, cf. S. Ebbesen's encomium, CIMAGL 41 (1982), p. IV. It is also interest­
ing to remember that Chomsky in the first part of his Language and Mind refers to an
similar sense of having "reached the end of the road" by many linguists in the late 1950s.
9. One should consult the excellent review article by F.P. Dinneen, S.J., in HL 1:2. 221-49
(1974).
 INTRODUCTION 13

Jan Pinborg — Selected Publications

(These are ordered chronologically and are taken from the "Bibliography
of the Publications of Jan Pinborg" by Niels J. Green-Pedersen in
CIMAGL 41 (1982), VIII-XII).

1961. "Interjektionen und Naturlaute. Petrus Heliae und ein Problem

der antiken und mittelalterlichen Sprachphilosophie."  & M.
22.117-138.
1962. "Das Sprachdenken der Stoa und Augustins Dialektik." C. & M.
23.148-177.
1964a. "Die Aristoteles-Quaestionen des Magister Nicolaus von Amster­
dam." G & M. 25.244-262.
1964b. "Eine neue sprachlogische Schrift des Simon de Dacia." Scholas­
tik 39.220-232.
1964c. "Mittelalterliche Sprachtheorien. Was heisst Modus Signifi-
candi?" Fidens Quaerens Intellectum: Festskrift tilegnet Heinrich
Roos, S.J., 66-84. Copenhagen: Frost-Hansen.
1967. Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter. (= BGPTMA,
42:2.) Münster: Aschendorff; Copenhagen: Frost-Hansen.
1968. "Die Erfurter Tradition im Sprachdenken des Mittelalters." Mis­
cellanea Mediaevalia 5.173-85. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
1969a. "Die Handschrift: Roma Biblioteca Angelica 549 und Boethius
de Dada."  & M. 28.373-393.
1969b. "Pour une interprétation moderne de la théorie linguistique du
moyen âge." Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 12.238-243.
1969c. "Miszellen zur mittelalterlichen lateinischen Grammatik: Ein
frühes Compendium Modorum Significandi." CIMAGL 1.13-20,
1969d. Boethii Daci Modi Significandi sive Quaestiones super Priscianum
Maiorem. Ed. by Jan Pinborg & Heinrich Roos (= CPDMA, 4.)
Copenhagen: Gad.
1969e. "Topik und Syllogistik im Mittelalter." Sapienter Ordinare:
Festgabe für Erich Kleineidam, 157-178 (= Erfurter Theologische
Studien, 24.) Leipzig: St. Benno.
1970a. "Walter Burleigh on the meaning of propositions." C. & M.
28.394-404.
1970b. (With Sten Ebbesen). "Studies in the Logical Writings Attributed
to Boethius of Dacia." CIMAGL 3.1-54.
14 INTRODUCTION

1971. "Bezeichnung in der Logik des XIIIten Jahrhunderts." Miscel­

lanea Mediaevalia 8.238-281. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
1972. Logik und Semantik im Mittelalter: Ein Überblick. Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.
1973a. "Petrus de Alvernia on Porphyry." CIMAGL 9.47-67.
1973b. "Radulphus Brito on the Elenchi." CIMAGL 9.80-82.
1973c. "A New Manuscript of the Quaestions on the Posteriora
Analytica attributed to Petrus de Alvernia (Clm.8005)."
CIMAGL 10.48-62.
1973d. "Neues zum Erfurter Schulleben des XIVten Jahrhunderts nach
Handschriften der Jagiellonischen Bibliothek zu Krakow." Bulle­
tin de Philosophie Mediévale (édité par la SIEPM) 15.146-151.
1973e. "Some syntactical concepts in medieval grammar." . & M. Dis-
sertationes IX.496-509.
1973f. "Textsemantische Probleme in der Sprachtheorie und Logik des
Mittelalters." Sprache und Sprachverständnis, 12. Forschungs­
gespräch des IFZ, Salzburg, 135-169. Salzburg: Anton Pustet.
1974a. "Antike Grammatiktheorie und Mittelalterliche Grammatik­
theorie." Grundzüge der Literatur- und Sprachwissenschaft II:
Sprachwissenschaft, 91-104; 531-2. München: Deutscher Taschen­
buch Verlag.
1974b. "Zum Begriff der Intentio secunda: Radulphus Brito, Hervaeus
Natalis und Petrus Aureoli in Diskussion." CIMAGL 13.49-59.
1974c. "Zur Philosophie des Boethius de Dacia: Ein Überblick." Studia
Mediewistyczne 15.165-185.
1975a. Augustine, De Dialectica. Translated with introduction and notes
by B. Darrell Jackson from the text newly edited by Jan Pinborg.
(= Synthese Historical Library, 16.) Dordrecht-Boston: Reidel.
1975b. "Petrus de Alvernia on the Categories." CIMAGL 14.40-46.
1975c. "The Commentary on 'Priscianus Maior' Ascribed to Robert Kil-
wardby." Selected texts edited by Karen M. Fredborg, Niels J.
Green-Pedersen, Lauge Nielsen, and Jan Pinborg. Introduction
by Jan Pinborg & Osmund Lewry, O.P. CIMAGL 15.1-146.
1975d. "Classical Antiquity: Greece." Current Trends in Linguistics ed.
by Thomas A. Sebeok, vol. 13: Historiography of Linguistics, 69-
126. The Hague-Paris: Mouton.
1975e. "Die Logik der Modistae." Studia Mediewistyczne 16.39-97.
1975f. "A Note on Some Theoretical Concepts of Logic and Grammar."
Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 29e année 113.286-96.
 INTRODUCTION 15

1975g. "Radulphus Brito's Sophism on second Intentions." Vivarium

13.119-52.
1976a. Boethii Daci Quaestiones super librum Topicorum. Ed. by Niels
J. Green-Pedersen, & Jan Pinborg (= CPDMA, 6). Copenhagen:
Gad.
1976b. The Logic of John Buridan: Acts of the 3rd European Symposium
on Medieval Logic and Semantics. Ed. by Jan Pinborg. (= Opus-
cula Graecolatina, 9.) Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum.
1976c. "Diskussionen um die Wissenschaftstheorie an der Artistenfakul­
tät." Miscellanea Mediaevalia 10.240-268. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter.
1976d. "Some Problems of Semantic Representation in Medieval Logic."
History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics, ed.
by Herman Parret, 254-78. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruy­
ter.
1976e. "Nochmals die Erfurter Schulen im XIVten Jahrhundert."
CIMAGL 17.76-81.
1977. Sigerus de Contraco, Summa Modorum Significandi. Sophismata.
New edition on the basis of G. Wallerand's editio prima, with
additions. Ed. by Jan Pinborg. (= SiHoL, 14.) Amsterdam: Ben­
jamins.
1978a. "An Unedited Part of Roger Bacon's "Opus Maius: De Signis."
Ed. by Karen M. Fredborg, Lauge Nielsen & Jan Pinborg.
Traditio 34.75-136.
1978b. "Radulphi Britonis Sophisma Omnis homo est omnis homo." Ed.
by Niels J. Green-Pedersen & Jan Pinborg. CIMAGL 26.93-114.
1979a. "The English Contribution to Logic before Ockham." Synthese
40.19-42.
1979b. Universitas Studii Haffnensis: Stiftelsesdokumenter og Statutter
1479. Udgivet af K0benhavns Universitet ved Jan Pinborg. Eng­
lish Translation by Brian Patrick McGuire. Copenhagen.
1980a. Radulphus Brito, Quaestiones super Priscianum Minorem. Ed.
with introduction by Heinz W. Enders & Jan Pinborg (= Gram­
matica Speculativa, 3:1-2.) Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Fromann-
Holzboog.
1980b. "Radulphus Brito on Universals." CIMAGL 35.56-142.
1980c. "Can Constructions be Construed? A problem in medieval syn­
tactical theory." HL 7:1/2.201-210.
16 INTRODUCTION

1981a. (With Sten Ebbesen). "Bartholomew of Bruges and his Sophism

on the Nature of Logic." CIMAGL 39.iii-xxvi; 1-76.
1981b. "Roger Bacon on Signs: A newly recovered part of the Opus
Maius'." Miscellanea Mediaevalia 13:1.403-412. Berlin-New
York: Walter de Gruyter.
1981c. "Walter Burley on Exclusives." English Logic and Semantics
from the End of the Twelfth Century to the Time of Ockham and
Burleigh: Acts of the 4th European Symposium on Medieval Logic
and Semantics, ed. by J.A.G. Braakhuis, C.H. Kneepkens, L.M.
de Rijk, 305-330. (= Artistarium, Supplementa, I.) Nijmegen:
Ingenium.
1981d. "A Logical Treatise Ascribed to Bradwardine." Studi sul XIVsec­
­lo in memoria di Annelise Maier (= Storia e Letteratura, Rac-
colta di Studi e Testi, 151), 27-55. Rome: Edizione di Storia e Let­
teratura.
1982a. The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy from the
Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism,
1100-1600. Ed. by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny & Jan
Pinborg. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
1982b. (With Sten Ebbesen). "Gennadios and Western Scholasticism:
Radulphus Brito's Ars Vetus in Greek Translation."  & M.
33.263-319.
1982c. "Anonymi Quaestiones in Tractatus Petri Hispani I-III Traditae
in Codice Cracoviensi 742 (Anno fere 1350)." CIMA GL 41.1-
170.
1982d. "The 14th Century Schools of Erfurt: Repertorium Erfordiense."
CIMAGL 41.171-192.
1982e. (With Sten Ebbesen). "Thott 581, 4° or 'De ente rationis,' 'De
defínitione accidentis,' 'De probatione terminorum.'" English
Logic in Italy in the 14th and 15th Centuries: Acts of the 5th Euro­
pean Symposium on Medieval Logic and Semantics, ed. by A.
Maierù, 111-146. Naples: Bibliopolis.
1982f. "Opus Artis Logicae." CIMAGL 42.151-164.
1984a. (With Sten Ebbesen). "Thirteenth Century Notes on William of
Sherwood's Treatise on Properties of Terms." CIMAGL 47.103-
141.
1984b. Medieval Semantics: Selected Studies on Medieval Logic and
Grammar. London: Variorum.
 'De Magistro'
Analyse eines Dialogs yon Augustinus

Hans Arens
Bad Hersfeld

Die folgende Darstellung ist nur die kritische Betrachtung dieses unter
des Augustinus Namen überlieferten Textes und beabsichtigt nicht, vermit­
tels seiner des großen Mannes Auffassung von Sprache, speziell vom
sprachlichen Zeichen darzulegen, was schon hinreichend geschehen ist (s.
Literaturangaben); doch wird sich aus ihr vielleicht der berechtigte Zweifel
an der Authentizität dieses Textes ergeben.
Unter den erhaltenen 106 Werken des Augustinus steht De Magistro in
Peter Browns1 Liste an 12. Stelle nach Contra Academicos, Soliloquia, dem
1. Buch von De Libero arbitrio, De Genesi contra Manichaeos etc. Es ist
weder formal noch inhaltlich ein Meisterwerk, das behauptet auch sein
deutscher Übersetzer C.J. Perl nicht, und bei Brown wird es nur in der
Werkliste genannt, sonst übergangen. Obwohl darin ständig von 'nomen'
und 'verbum' die Rede ist, ist es doch keine linguistische Schrift, sondern
eine philosophische, die beweisen will, daß nicht die, die sich Lehrer nen­
nen, wirklich Lehrer sind, sondern nur einer, Gott selber. Ihr Gegenstand
ist also nicht primär die Sprache, sie ist es in der Antike nur für die Gram­
matiker, für niemand sonst.
Laut Perl (S.XV) hatte Augustinus den Plan einer Buchreihe mit dem
Titel "Über die freien Künste," die wohl zur Unterrichtung seines Sohnes
Adeodatus gedacht war. Er arbeitete daran 387 in Cassiciacum. Von dem
Geschriebenen ist außer "De musica" alles verloren, vor allem leider das
einzige vollendete Buch "De grammatica." In seinen Retractationes von
426/27 sagt er: "Zur selben Zeit [nämlich im Jahre 387 oder 388, als sein
Sohn 16 Jahre alt war] habe ich ein Buch geschrieben mit dem Titel "De ma-
18 HANS ARENS

gistro." Darin wird erörtert, erforscht und gefunden, daß es außer Gott kei­
nen Lehrer gibt, der den Menschen das Wissen lehrt, gemaß dem Wort, das
auch im Evangelium geschrieben steht: "Einer ist euer Lehrer, der Chri­
stus." (In der Übersetzung von Perl S.XVII). "De magistro" ist ein rah­
men- und einleitungsloser Dialog Augustins mit seinem Sohn, von dem der
Vater in den Confessiones versichert, daß alles, was dieser im Dialog äu­
ßert, tatsächlich seine Gedanken waren. Nicht lange nach der Vollendung
des Dialogs (389) muß der Sohn verstorben sein. Laut Perl wurden die in
Cassiciacum geführten Dialoge von Teilnehmern oder einem Notarius mit­
geschrieben. Brown (S.103) urteilt: "Unvermeidlich haben daher diese
Dialoge all die Fehler ihrer Vorzüge. ... Dialoge, die sich als Machwerk
von Amateur-Philosophen erweisen, können eine sehr quälende Lektüre
sein. Da gibt es Abschweifungen, inkonsequente Gedankensprünge und ei­
nen allgemein falschen Gebrauch des Arguments."
Obwohl das Lehr- und Beweisziel sicherlich für Augustinus ebenso von
Anfang an feststeht wie für Platon in seinen Dialogen, läßt es sich doch in
den ersten zehn Kapiteln von insgesamt vierzehn nicht ersehen: das ist be­
fremdlich und bedenklich und ohne lange Abschweifungen zweifellos nicht
möglich, und die Partner sind sich ihrer sogar dann und wann bewußt.
* **

Es beginnt mit Augustins (A.) Frage an Adeodatus (Ad.): "Was wol­

len wir deiner Meinung nach bewirken, wenn wir sprechen?" (d.h.: wozu
sprechen wir?) Antwort: lehren oder lernen (docere aut discere). (Be)leh­
ren, das ist: jemand etwas (subjektiv oder objektiv Wahres), das er noch
nicht weiß, sagen, es ist also dasselbe wie 'etwas mitteilen', und 'lernen' ist
'erfahren'; 'docere' hat ja keineswegs nur die zu 'Lehrer' passende Bedeu­
tung, sondern eine allgemeine wie 'discere' auch. Der erste Teil der Ant­
wort stimmt überein mit Kratylos 388B: "Was tut man, wenn man mit dem
ónoma (Name, Wort) als Werkzeug (órganon) benennt? — Einander etwas
lehren (didáskein) und die Dinge (prágmata) sondern der Art nach. Das
Wort ist also ein Werkzeug der Belehrung (didaskalikón) und der Unter­
scheidung (oder Sonderung) des Wesens (diakritikón tes usías)." Beides
wird weder abgeleitet noch erklärt, und vor allem die diakritische Eigen­
schaft des Wortes bedarf der genauen Bestimmung. Was Sokrates vom Be­
nennen (onomázein), einem Teil des Redens, sagt, bezieht Ad. richtiger
auf das Sprechen. Wenn im Kratylos das Wort fälschlich als ein Werkzeug
 'DE MAGISTRO' 19

der Benennung bezeichnet und mit Hilfe eines handwerklichen Beispiels

ein Scheinbeweis geführt wird, werden in De magistro z.T. falsche Fragen
gestellt und ein Beweis gar nicht geliefert. — Ad. meint mit seiner Ant­
wort: sagen und fragen, wird aber belehrt, daß das Fragen nichts als ein
Mitteilen eines Begehrens ist. Man spricht also immer, um mitzuteilen, sagt
A. der in den letzten Kapiteln die These verficht, daß der Mensch mit Wor­
ten nicht belehren kann.
Das Sprechen wird sogleich (158, 45) definiert als: "Qui enim loquitur,
suae voluntatis signum foras dat per articulatum sonum" (Wer spricht, gibt
mittels artikulierten Lautes ein Zeichen seines Willens nach außen); diese
Definition ist neu, soviel ich weiß, findet sich so weder bei Platon noch bei
Aristoteles noch Dionysios Thrax und wird auch von A. nicht wiederholt,
stattdessen aber öfter wörtlich die des Wortes: "quod cum aliquo significatu
articulata voce profertur" (was in artikulierten Lauten mit einer Bedeutung
geäussert wird), welches die gängige Auffassung ist. Nach A. wäre aber der
einzige Wille der zu belehren. Ausnahmen, sagt Ad., Singen und Beten. A.
aber behauptet dagegen, daß man zu beiden des eigentlichen Sprechens
nicht bedürfe: Singen gebe es auch ohne Sprache ('cantare' sage man auch
von Musikinstrumenten und Vögeln), und Beten geschehe lautlos im Gei­
ste. In beiden Fällen, sagt er, handelt es sich nicht um Belehren, sondern
um Erinnern, sich selbst oder andere. Ganz allgemein gilt, daß die Sprache
(locutio), d.h. die Lautsprache, geschaffen ist (instituía) zum Belehren
oder Erinnern (commemorare). Dies wird nicht durch Herleitung und Bei­
spiel einsichtig gemacht. Sophismen liegen nicht fern. Als Jesus seine Jün­
ger beten lehrte, lehrte er sie Worte; er tat dabei nichts anderes als lehren,
wie man im Gebet sprechen müsse. Und Ad. erklärt: "Er lehrte sie nicht
Worte, sondern die Dinge selbst durch die Worte, mit denen auch sie selbst
sich erinnerten (commonefacere), von wem und was sie erbitten müßten,
wenn sie im Geiste beteten. Darauf Α.: "Du verstehst ganz richtig, und du
bemerkst wohl zugleich; daß, wenn jemand behauptet, daß wir auch ohne
Lautgebung innerlich im Geiste sprechen, weil wir Worte denken, wir auch
in solchem Sprechen nichts anderes tun als erinnern, indem nämlich das
Gedächtnis durch Wiederholung (revolvendo) von in ihm bewahrten Wor­
ten die Dinge wieder hervorruft (facit venire in mentem), deren Zeichen
die Worte sind." Man könnte demnach vielleicht sagen, daß das Erinnern
ein Aktivieren des Wortgedächtnisses ist oder ein Aktualisieren von etwas
Vergangenem. Das geschieht aber nicht nur speziell beim Singen und Beten
eines gespeicherten Liedes oder Gebetes, sondern bei allem Sprechen.
20 HANS ARENS

Freilich kann man das eine singen und das andere sprechen, ohne den In­
halt der Worte (die 'res') zu realisieren. (Auf diese Möglichkeit wird A.
noch zurückkommen). Der Sophismus liegt m.E. in der Trennung von ver­
bum und res, als ob das Gedächtnis die Wörter ohne ihre Bedeutungen,
d.h. als reine Schälle speichere, die die Bedeutungen wieder hervorrufen
(können).
Das 2. Kapitel geht davon aus, daß die Wörter Zeichen sind und daß
ein Wort2 nur dann ein Zeichen sein könne, wenn es etwas bezeichne (si­
gnificare aliquid). (Was das ist, wird nicht erwogen, vielleicht, weil es
selbstverständlich scheint). Anscheinend um diese Überzeugung zu er­
schüttern, fordert A. seinen Sohn auf, die Bedeutung jedes Wortes in dem
Vergil-Vers "Si nihil ex tanta superis placet urbe relinqui" (Soll denn nach
Götterbeschluß aus der mächtigen Stadt nichts bleiben — Aeneis 2, 659) zu
bestimmen, was nicht befriedigend geschehen kann. (Man hätte erwartet,
daß in einem solchen Satz aus 8 Wörtern alle 8 Wortarten vertreten sein
würden; das ist aber nicht der Fall). Bezüglich 'si' wird gesagt, es könne
nicht durch ein anderes Wort ersetzt und erklärt werden, es drücke Unge-
wissheit aus, und diese existiere nur im Geist. Aus der Tatsache, daß 'nihil'
'id quod non est' bezeichne, folge, behauptet Α., daß dies zwar ein Wort,
aber kein Zeichen, die obige Überzeugung also falsch sei. Ad. läßt sich da­
durch nicht täuschen, er ist der richtigen Überzeugung, daß es das Wort in
der Sprache nicht gäbe und man es nicht gebrauchen würde, wenn es nichts
bedeutete. A. schlägt vor zu sagen, 'nihil' bezeichne eine 'affectio animi'
(was genau des Aristoteles Ausdruck 'páthēma tēs psychēs' entspricht) und
es auf sich beruhen zu lassen, damit nicht absurderweise NICHTS sie in ihrem
Gespräch aufhalte. So mischen sich hier Ernst und Scherz. Gegenüber Ad.s
Versuch zu erklären, was das dritte Wort, 'ex,' bedeute, besteht A. darauf,
daß er nicht Worte durch Worte, Zeichen durch Zeichen ersetze, sondern
"ilia ipsa," die Dinge selbst, zeige, deren Zeichen sie sind, und damit wird
ein neues Thema angeschnitten: Kann man die Bedeutung von Wörtern oh­
ne Worte angeben, oder können die Zeichen nur durch Zeichen erklärt
werden? Die Unsinnigkeit seiner Forderung muß dem Frager selbst bewußt
gewesen sein, aber der grundätzliche Unterschied der Bedeutungsweise
von Substantiven einerseits und Konjunktionen und Präpositionen andrer­
seits wird nicht festgestellt, wird bei 'si' nur angedeutet.
A. fragt nun also, ob man denn nicht, was 'Wand' sei, durch bloßen
Fingerzeig erklären könne. Dies wird so ausgedrückt: "tres istae syllabae
quid significent, cum dicitur paries" — so umständlich lautet die Umschrei-
 'DE MAGISTRO' 21

bung für 'das Lautgebilde' bzw. für die nicht vorhandenen Anführungszei­
chen durchweg und ähnlich noch in den folgenden tausend Jahren. Ad. er­
widert, daß dies Verfahren nur möglich sei (a) bei einem Nomen, das (b)
etwas Konkretes bezeichne, welches (c) gegenwärtig sei. Dies Konkrete sei
zu verstehen mit allen seinen sinnlich wahrnehmbaren Eigenschaften, von
denen jedoch nur die sichtbaren zeigbar seien. A. verweist dagegen auf die
Fähigkeit von Tauben und Schauspielern, alles, was sie wollen, körperlich
auszudrücken, wobei aber immer die Geste ein Zeichen sei, so daß also das
Lautzeichen Wort durch eine andre Art von Zeichen ersetzt werde, als hät­
ten der Taube, der Tänzer und der Mime für jedes Wort eine Geste, nicht
Ausdrucksformen für ein Ganzes. Er fragt aber nach einer Bedeutungsdar­
stellung ohne Zeichen, was Ad. für unmöglich hält; man bedürfe zumindest
des Zeigefingers. (Daß auch die Vorzeigung des Gegenstandes noch keine
eindeutige Antwort auf die Frage nach einem Wort ist, weil dabei unklar
bleibt, was an ihm wesentlich, was unwesentlich ist, wird nicht bedacht).
Diese Darstellung sei, wenn nach der Bedeutung eines Verbs gefragt wer­
de, durch Vorführung der betreffenden Tätigkeit möglich, sofern es eine
bezeichnet, die man darstellen kann und die man im Augenblick der Frage
nicht gerade ausübt, es sei denn das Sprechen selber, weil dieses immer
nur wieder durch Sprechen, also durch Zeichen erklärt werden könne. A.
trifft nun folgende scholastische Unterscheidung: Wenn man spricht, be­
zeichnet man durch Wörter die Wörter selbst oder andere Zeichen (wenn
man z.B. 'Geste' oder 'Buchstabe' sagt) oder etwas, das kein Zeichen ist
(z.B. 'Stein'). Letzteres, der Normalfall, interessiert ihn hier nicht, "denn
man lehrt oder erinnert vermittels Zeichen dieselben oder andere Zeichen"
(es sei denn, daß man die Bedeutung eines Verbs handelnd demonstriert).
Das Wort richtet sich an das Gehör, die Geste an das Auge, das geschriebe­
ne Wort, Zeichen eines Zeichens, auch an das Auge.
Es beginnt nun ein umständliches Verwirrspiel mit NOMEN und VERBUM,
das auf der simplen Tatsache beruht, daß beide Wörter eine allgemeine und
eine spezielle, grammatische Bedeutung haben, ersteres 'Name,' 'Benen­
nung,' 'Substantiv' (4- Adjektive), letzteres 'Wort' und 'Verbum.' NOMEN
bezeichnet z.B. Wörter wie Romulus, Rom, Tugend, Fluss, die selber wie­
der Zeichen sind, jedoch von Dingen. Man kommt überein, alles was man
bezeichnen kann, ohne selbst Zeichen zu sein, 'significabilia' zu nennen
(ein Wort, das nur bei Varro vorkommt, jedoch im aktiven Sinne) und zu
'visibilis' 'audibilis' neu zu bilden (es ist selten, daß man Zeuge einer Neu­
schöpfung wird). Was nun 'enthüllt' wird, ist nichts als die Bildung von
22 HANS ARENS

Oberbegriffen: der Oberbegriff aller Bezeichnungen für sinnlich oder gei­

stig wahrnehmbare Dinge ist 'Nomen,' der Oberbegriff von Nomen ist
'Wort.' ("et nomen verbum est" klingt verblüffend wegen der Äquivoka-
tion, ist aber trivial). Während jedes nomen ein verbum sei, sei doch nicht
jedes verbum ein nomen, z.B. Wortarten wie 'si' und 'ex.' Und jedes Wort
ist ein Zeichen (also auch 'si,' 'nihil,' 'ex'); aber nicht umgekehrt.
Die nächste Frage ist, ob Bezeichnendes und Bezeichnetes immer ver­
schieden sind. Nein. 'Zeichen,' z.B., bezeichnet nicht nur alle Zeichen je­
der Art, sondern ist als Wort selber eins; dasselbe gilt für 'Wort' und für
'Nomen,' nicht aber für 'Konjunktion.'
Die nächste Frage: Welche Zeichen bezeichnen sich gegenseitig? Die­
se Spezialität erscheint noch abseitiger. Beispiel wiederum 'nomen' und
'verbum': 'Substantiv' bezeichnet 'Wort,' und 'Wort' bezeichnet 'Substan­
tiv.' Es sind dies also Begriffe, die im Verhältnis Genus zu Spezies stehen.
Obwohl 'verbum,' Wort, der umfassendere Begriff ist, will A. nun bewei­
sen, daß nicht nur jedes nomen ein verbum, sondern auch jedes verbum ein
Nomen ist. (Hier wird noch mehr als zuvor deutlich, daß beide Wörter gar
nicht übersetzt werden können, ohne ihre vexierende, hier aber funktionale
Zweideutigkeit zu verlieren). A.s Beweis ist im Prinzip, nicht in der Durch­
führung, folgender: Das Subjekt eines Satzes ist ein Nomen (oder Prono­
men). Man kann von jedem Wort etwas aussagen. Jede Wortart kann also
Subjekt eines Satzes sein. Mithin ist jede Wortart ein Nomen. So oder so
ähnlich wird man, in Gleichsetzung von ónoma und hypokeimenon, nomen
und subiectum, auch in den folgenden Jahrhunderten (z.B. in Periherme-
neias-Kommentaren) denken, ohne doch, wie auch A. und Ad., es so allge­
mein zu formulieren und den Unterschied zwischen, z.B., einem Verb als
Aussage und als Gegenstand eines Satzes genau zu erfassen.
A. führt nun aber noch einen andern, 'etymologischen' Scheinbeweis:
alles Gesprochene trifft das Ohr (aurem verberare), damit es wahrgenom­
men werde, und wird dem Bewußtsein (memoria) anvertraut, damit es er­
kannt werden könne (ut nosci possit). (Es war und blieb üblich, 'verbum'
non 'verberare,' 'schlagen, klopfen' abzuleiten, dem einzigen, von 'verbe­
na' abgesehen, buchstäblich mit 'verbum' verwandten Wort, 'nomen' aber
von 'notamen,' einem von den Grammatikern Diomedes und Servius ange­
nommenen Wort, das soviel wie 'nota,' '(Kenn)zeichen,' heißen sollte, wo­
bei 'nomen' offenbar als 'Name' verstanden wurde). Nach A. aber wird die­
selbe Sache, das Wort, einmal als Gehörseindruck 'verbum' genannt und
als Geisteseindruck (oder Begriff) 'nomen' — ein origineller und interes-
 'DE MAGISTRO' 23

santer Gedanke. Mit Recht hält jedoch Ad. dies noch nicht für einen wirk­
lichen Identitätsbeweis. Der Vater muß also einen neuen Versuch machen,
und er bekennt: "Wenn es mir gelingt, es so zu sagen, wie ich's meine.
Denn es ist eine so verwickelte Sache, in Worten von Wörtern zu handeln,
wie ein Verflechten und Reiben von Fingern an Fingern, wobei nur der be­
treffende selber unterscheiden kann, welche Finger jucken und welche Fin­
ger ihnen helfen wollen." (Nam verbis de verbis agere tam implicatum est).
Das ist die Erkenntnis des Grundproblems der Sprachwissenschaft, daß
Gegenstand und Mittel der Darstellung dasselbe sind: Sprache. Der Ver­
gleich mit den verflochtenen Fingern aber zeigt an, daß vor allem eine Ver­
wirrung der Elemente der Sprache und der 'Metasprache' gemeint ist. A.
unternimmt nun einen mißglückten Beweis, das "omne verbum nomen." 2
Kor 1, 19 heißt es: "Non erat in Christo est3 et non, sed est in illo erat." (In
Christus war nicht Ja und Nein, sondern Ja war in ihm). Er schließt nun
aber nicht, daß, wenn eine finite Verbform Subjekt eines Satzes sein kann,
schlechthin jede Wortart diese Funktion haben könne und deshalb ein No­
men sein müsse (dies leitet er erst später umständlich ab), sondern er stellt
die Gleichung auf: "est in illo erat" = "est appellatur, quod in illo erat";
"appellatur" = "nominate"; womit aber etwas genannt wird, ist sein Na­
me, nomen; 'est' ist also Verbum und zugleich Nomen. Ad. bemerkt nicht,
daß die erste Gleichung nicht stimmt, daß hier nur eine Wortmanipulation
vorliegt und daß auch die Schlußfolgerung falsch ist. Er gibt sie daher, der
Scheinlogik gehorchend, zu, bleibt jedoch bei seinen überkommenen rein
linguistischen partes orationis, die übrigens auch A. nicht verwirft; woraus
erhellt, daß er hier nur ein sprachliches Spiel treibt. Er fährt nun folgender­
maßen fort: Alle Wortarten sind also Benennungen von etwas; das zeige
sich klar im Vergleich verschiedener Sprachen, die dasselbe Etwas ver­
schieden benennen. Man braucht nur immer zu fragen: "Wie nennen die
Griechen das, was wir N nennen?". So stellt er lateinisch-griechische Wort­
gleichungen für alle Wortarten außer dem Nomen auf und führt folgende
an: quis = τις, volo = θέλω, bene = καλώς, scriptum = γεγραμμένον, et =
καí, ab = από, heu = οι. Dies alles seien verschiedene Benennungen, also
Namen, nomina für dasselbe. Aber er verwendet keinen Gedanken darauf,
welcher Art das Bezeichnete denn sei. Vielmehr beruft er sich nun auf die
anerkannten Lehrer (zu denen Cicero gehört), denen zufolge ein Nomen
(im Nominativ) und ein Verbum ( in der 3. Person) eine Ausage bilden, die
auch verneint werden kann. Wenn man nun die Formulierung 'Si homo est,
animal est' der Form 'Quia homo est, animal est' vorzieht und sagt: "placet
24 HANS AKENS

si," "displicet quia," hat man zwei vollständige Aussagesätze gebildet, in de­
nen das Verbum offenbar 'placet' und 'displicet' heißt, das Nomen dem­
nach aber 'si' und 'quia.' Offensichtlich ergeben die beiden Sätze, so ge­
schrieben, d.h. ohne Markierung von 'si' und 'quia' als bloße vocabula, und
ohne die vorangehenden Sätze keinen Sinn, sondern scheinen Satzbruch­
stücke. — Zu den sich gegenseitig bezeichnenden Zeichen wird noch 'voca-
bulum' hinzugefügt, ein Synonym von 'nomen': Somit sind also 'nomen,'
'verbum' und 'vocabulum' Wörter, die sich selbst und alle andern Wortar­
ten bezeichnen. Aber Ad. erkennt, daß, während 'nomen' eine allgemeine
und eine spezielle Bedeutung hat, dies auf 'vocabulum' nicht zutrifft, inso­
fern es keine pars orationis ist. Zwischen beiden bestehe also nicht nur ein
lautlicher, sondern auch ein semantischer Unterschied. Hingegen bestehe
zwischen 'nomen' und 'ónoma' nur ein laulicher. Als Ergebnis der bisheri­
gen Untersuchung faßt A. zusammen: Wir haben Zeichen gefunden, die 1)
sich selbst bezeichnen, 2) einander bezeichnen, 3) gleiche Bedeutungen ha­
ben (ohne jedoch völlig synonym zu sein, wie 'nomen' und 'vocabulum')
und 4) sich nur lautlich unterscheiden. Der Normalfall bleibt also ausge­
schlossen.
Das ganze VII. Kapitel bringt Ad.s gescheites Resümee, das manches
klarer erscheinen läßt als zuvor, vor allem die behauptete Synonymie. Er
leugnet nicht expressis verbis die völlige Synonymie, stellt jedoch fest, daß
sie in den Sätzen 'omne nomen verbum' und 'omne verbum nomen' nicht
bestehe, weil man z.B. frage: "Quod est huic rei nomen?" und niemals
"Quod est huic rei verbum?" M.a.W.: die behauptete Gleichheit wird
durch den Sprachgebrauch nicht bestätigt: die beiden Wörter sind nicht in
jedem Kontext vertauschbar. Das ist nun in doppelter Hinsicht verwirrend:
ein schlagend richtiges Argument, aber ist es richtig angewandt? Ad. ge­
braucht hier 'nomen' im Sinne von 'Name,' aber die beiden Gleichungen
meinen doch nicht nur 'Jeder Name ist ein Wort' und 'Jedes Wort ist ein
Name,' sondern auch. Die Äquivokation ist unaufhebbar, und nur, wenn
man die Mehrdeutigkeit von VERBUM und NOMEN ständig berücksichtigt, und
nicht durch Übersetzung zerstört, haben alle Ausführungen ihre Richtig­
keit; das gilt genauso für die griechischen Entsprechnungen ONOMA und
RHEMA und andere linguistische Begriffe.
Auch A. ist von der Darstellung seines Sohnes beeindruckt. Rück­
blickend gesteht er: "Aber wohin ich mit dir auf so großen Umwegen zu
kommen mich bemühe, ist an dieser Stelle schwer zu sagen." Es sei jedoch
nicht bloße Spielerei gewesen, sondern eine Verstandesübung, die auf ein
großes Ergebnis ziele.
 'DE MAGISTRO' 25

Mit Abschnitt 22 beginnt nun also der Hauptteil, und zwar mit der ver­
blüffenden Frage, "utrum homo homo sit."4 Er stellt sie, um zu sehen, ob
der Hörer primär an das Wort oder an die Sache denkt oder sich einer
Zweideutigkeit bewußt ist (wird jedoch auf die Dauer unerträglich töricht).
Nun ist homo = homo auf jeden Fall richtig, ganz gleich, ob das Wort oder
der Begriff homo gemeint ist, und Ad. sagt das auch, und damit wäre die
dumme Frage erledigt, ob er die Silben ho 4-  sei. Wenn man aber mit
dem ersten homo das Laut-oder Schriftgebilde, mit dem zweiten jedoch sei­
ne Bedeutung, den Begriff Mensch meint, so ist das erste das Zeichen des
zweiten, nicht aber mit ihm identisch, umsoweniger, wenn der konkrete
Mensch vorschwebt. A. weist darauf hin; daß der Sohn bei der Frage
"utrum homo homo sit" nur homo als Klang und Sinn aufgefaßt habe, nicht
aber auch die beiden andern Wörter. Wären ihm alle nur Klänge gewesen,
hätte er gar nicht geantwortet. Er habe aber 'utrum' und 'sit' gleich bedeu­
tungsmäßig genommen, und nur darum habe er eine Antwort gegeben.
Warum habe er also allein homo "et secundum id quod sonat et secundum
id quod significat" genommen? Das ist reine Sophistik und hat mit der
Wirklichkeit nichts zu tun: das Wort ist immer eine phonosemantische Ein­
heit, und wird von jedem in seiner Bedeutung erfaßt, es sei denn, man höre
eine fremde Sprache, oder, wenn es die eigene ist, bei völliger Geistesab­
wesenheit. Insofern hat A.s Frage also keinen Sinn, und wenn man das er­
ste homo als die bloße Lautform und das zweite homo als die (abstrakte
oder konkrete) Bedeutung nimmt, auch dann nicht. Das gedankliche Nive­
au ist beklagenswert. Wenn Ad. auf die Frage, ob durch die Verbindung
der Silben ho und mo homo werde, sagt, daß er das nie zugeben werde,
muß er doch homo (sofern nicht gesagt wird "id quod dictum est homo"
oder ähnlich) immer in seiner Bedeutung, und zwar der konkreten, auffas­
sen, sonst wäre die Bejahung doch selbstverständlich. Das Gespräch gerät
in Niederungen wie diese: "Was sagst du, wenn ich dich frage, ob homo ein
Nomen ist? — Was sonst als ein Nomen? — Wie ? wenn ich dich sehe, sehe
ich ein Nomen?" usw. ad nauseam. Als Schluß steht, was am Anfang fest­
stand, "ut auditis signis ad res significatas feratur intentio"; dabei wird zeit­
lich auseinandergezogen, was eins ist: das Hören der Zeichen und Verste­
hen des Bezeichneten.
Im 9. Kapitel wird eine falsch gestellte Frage unzulänglich behandelt.
Ausgehend von der Reihe Zeichen, bezeichnete Sache, Kenntnis des Zei­
chens oder Wortes, Kenntnis der Sache, wird die Frage nach der Rangord­
nung gestellt, was also besser, mehr wert etc.5 ist: die Sache oder das Wort,
26 HANS ARENS

die Kenntnis der Sache oder des Wortes etc. Die Vergleichung eines Wor­
tes mit einer Sache ist sinnlos, und außerdem ist zu fragen, was denn mit
"Kenntnis des Wortes" und was mit "Kenntnis der Sache" (cognitio nomi-
nis, cognitio rei) gemeint ist. Das ist wiederum eine scholastische Spaltung,
die die sprachliche Wirklichkeit nicht berücksichtigt. Es kommt doch selten
vor, daß man lediglich ein Wort, aber nicht seine ungefähre Bedeutung
kennt. Das Wort existiert normalerweise nur im gesprochenen oder ge­
schriebenen Kontext und vermittelt so seine Bedeutung. Wenn ich das
Wort Kolibri kenne, weiß ich i.a., daß es einen winzigen Tropenvogel be­
zeichnet; Kenntnis des Wortes und Kenntnis der Sache sind eine Einheit, es
sei denn, daß man sage, solange man ein Kolibri nicht gesehen habe, kenne
man die Sache nicht. Man kann andrerseits alles über das Kolibri wissen, so
daß das Wort, wenn man es vernimmt oder gebraucht, völlig mit Bedeu­
tung gefüllt ist, ohne daß man je eins gesehen hat, während einer, der etli­
che gesehen hat, nicht mehr weiß als 'kleiner bunter Vogel.' Was ist also
hier die "cognitio rei?"
Die argumentative Methode ist kindlich. Es wird mit zwei Wörtern
operiert, mit 'caenum' (Kot) und 'vitium' (Laster): mit ihnen will Ad. be­
weisen, daß A. nicht recht hat mit seiner Behauptung, daß die bezeichne­
ten Dinge höher zu schätzen sind als die Zeichen, weil 'caenum,' das durch
Veränderung eines Buchstabens zu 'caelum' (Himmel) werde, ebenso wie
'vitium' lautlich völlig unanstößig sei. Das Wort habe keine der negativen
Eigenschaften der Sache. Die Frage, ob es vielleicht auch keine der positi­
ven habe, wird bezeichnenderweise nicht gestellt. Man könnte ja auch ar­
gumentieren, daß das luftig leichte, bunte Wesen, das die Wissenschaft 'Pa-
pilio' nennt, einerseits mit dem geschmacklosen Namen 'butterfly,' ande­
rerseits mit dem grotesken Namen 'Schmetterling' benannt werde, somit al­
so die Sache dem Wort überlegen sei. Wäre man wirklich primär an der
Sprache und ihrem Verhältnis zur Realität interessiert, so würde man viel­
leicht erkennen, daß Wort und Ding keine vergleichbaren Eigenschaften
haben, außer bei Onomatopöie. Ad. erklärt, daß das durch Zeichen her­
vorgerufene Wissen höher zu schätzen sei als das Zeichen, nicht aber auch
die Sache höher als das Zeichen. Warum hat man denn überhaupt ein Wort
für eine so widerliche Sache geschaffen? Ad. weiß es nicht, er weiß nur,
daß, wenn er selbst das Wort gebraucht, es geschieht, um seinen Gespräch­
spartner über eine Sache zu belehren oder an sie zu erinnern, m.a.W.: das
Wort ist geschaffen, um eine Mitteilung über die Sache zu ermöglichen.
Wieso aus dem Zeichen ein Wissen hervorgeht (scientia evenit), wird nicht
 'DE MAGISTRO' 27

erklärt. A. Da das Wort für die Kenntnis einer Sache geschaffen sei, habe
es geringeren Wert als diese, denn grundsätzlich sei alles, was für etwas da
sei, niedrigeren Ranges als das, wofür es da sei (was sich auch theologisch
nicht halten läßt). Es sind vorgegebene Überzeugungen dieser Art und eine
Allgemeinheit und Abstraktheit des Denkens, die dem betrachteten Ge­
genstand, der Sprache, nicht gerecht werden.
Verwirrung tritt m.E. bei dem Beispiel 'Laster' ein: die Kenntnis des
Wortes habe viel geringere Bedeutung als die Kenntnis der Laster; "in wem
aber die durch das Wort bezeichnete Sache ist, den zwingt sie, lasterhaft zu
sein; so sehen wir, daß nicht das dritte (cognitio nominis) das vierte (cogni-
tio rei), sondern das vierte das dritte übertrifft (excellere), denn die Kennt­
nis des Wortes ist wertlos im Vergleich mit (vilis prae) der Kenntnis der La­
ster." Aber was heißt das? Kann man die Laster rein theoretisch oder aus
Anschauung kennen oder nur praktisch, indem man sie selber hat? Letzte­
res kann doch unmöglich der übergeordnete Wert sein. A. hält es nunmehr
für erwiesen, daß "die Kenntnis der Dinge, die bezeichnet werden, wenn
auch nicht der Kenntnis der Zeichen, so doch den Zeichen selbst vorzuzie­
hen ist (potior esse)." Das heißt: Es kommt auf die Dinge an, nicht auf die
Wörter. Die Dinge muß man kennen, freilich auch die Wörter, sowenig
Wert sie auch haben. Das sogenannte Wertlose hat eben darin seinen Wert,
daß man es kennen muß. Das ist der Widerspruch. Es ist offensichtlich, daß
A. das Wort abwerten will, und darum will er nun diskutieren, welcher Art
die Dinge sind, die ohne Zeichen durch sich selbst gezeigt werden können.
Ohne daß das gegenwärtige Thema abgeschlossen wäre, kehrt er so zu ei­
nem früheren Thema zurück.
Zunächst wird festgestellt, daß lehren nicht dasselbe wie sprechen und
wie bezeichnen ist, und A. kommt zu dem überraschenden Ergebnis, daß
es anscheinend überhaupt nichts gibt, das ohne Zeichen gelehrt werden
kann (was doch schon längst durch das Vormachen von Tätigkeiten wider­
legt war). Wenn aber dem so ist, erkennt man fast ausschließlich durch
Worte. Dies wird aber durch A. selbst widerlegt mit dem Beispiel des Vo­
gelstellers, der durch ostentative Verrichtung seiner Tätigkeit einen wißbe­
gierigen Zuschauer über sein Gewerbe belehrt, wenigstens wenn dieser in­
telligent ist und das Wesentliche vom Unwesentlichen zu unterscheiden und
von den gesehenen Einzelheiten auf das Ganze zu schließen vermag. Dies
ist also nichts als eine Wiederholung des Beispiels vom gezeigten Gehen.
Und so gebe es tausend Dinge, die ohne Worte vorgeführt (monstrare)
werden können; er verweist nochmals auf die Schauspieler und macht
28 HANS ARENS

dann, der fruchtlosen Diskussion vielleicht überdrüssig, einen logischen

Salto mit dem Hinweis auf alle Erscheinungen der Natur, durch die Gott
sich uns offenbart, und führt von nun an (Abschn. 33-46) allein das Wort,
um seine These zu entwickeln, zu der der Dialog nicht hingeführt hat.
Während der erste Satz von A. 31 lautete: "Es hat sich also ergeben,
daß nichts ohne Zeichen gelehrt wird...," heißt der erste von A. 33: "Bei
genauerer Betrachtung wirst du vielleicht nichts finden, das durch seine
Zeichen gelehrt wird." Er bietet als Beweis: "Wenn mir ein Zeichen gege­
ben wird und ich nicht weiß, welche Sache es bezeichnet, kann es mich
nichts lehren, wenn ich es aber weiß, was lerne ich dann durch das Zei­
chen? Denn das Wort zeigt mir nicht die Sache, die es bezeichnet..." Das
scheint selbstverständlich, m.a.W.: Weder ein Wort unbekannter noch be­
kannter Bedeutung sagt mir etwas Neues. Damit wird aber lediglich eine
falsche Annahme als falsch erwiesen. Denn menschliche Kommunikation
geht nicht in isolierten Wörtern vor sich, sondern in kontextuell oder/und
situativ gebundenen Sätzen, und so deutet sich auch ein unbekanntes Wort
teilweise oder sogar gänzlich selbst. Und ein Satz, der aus lauter Wörtern
besteht, die dem Hörer bekannt sind, d.h., deren Bedeutung er kennt, ent­
hält gleichwohl Mitteilung von noch Unbekanntem, also Belehrung. A.
verwendet nun für seine Zwecke das unbekannte Wort aus Daniel 3, 94
'sarabarae,' das solange ein leerer Schall bleibe, bis man uns den bezeich­
neten Gegenstand gezeigt habe. Das Wort als Zeichen gewinnt man also
durch die Kenntnis der Sache, nicht umgekehrt. Dies wird umständlich wie­
derholt ausgeführt. Er behauptet schließlich: "Die Wörter fordern nur auf
(admonent), die Dinge zu suchen (quaerere res), stellen sie aber nicht vor,
daß wir sie kennen (non exhibent, ut norimus). Derjenige belehrt mich, der
einem meiner Sinne oder dem Geiste etwas darstellt, was ich erkennen will.
Durch Wörter also lernen wir nur Wörter, ja den Klang, das Geräusch der
Wörter; denn wenn das, was [für mich] kein Zeichen ist, kein Wort sein
kann, weiß ich, obwohl ich es gehört habe, nicht, daß es ein Wort ist, bis
ich weiß, was es bedeutet." Und so fort. Es bleibt bei der Trennung von
Kenntnis des Wortes und Kenntnis der Sache, und an 'Satz' oder 'Rede' ist
kein Gedanke. Man könnte meinen, er denke immer nur an Vokabeln ei­
ner fremden Sprache, jedoch in diesem Falle würde die Nennung des Ei­
gensprachlichen Gegenwerts genügen. (Sarabarae, 'Pluderhosen,' ist wahr­
scheinlich persischer Herkunft. A. hat von Hieronymus die Form sarabal-
lae und hält dies für eine Kopfbedeckung). Schließlich (Anfang Abschn.
38) rückt er mit der Lehre heraus, auf die er allein abzielte, ohne sie jedoch
 'DE MAGISTRO' 29

als gemeinsame Erkenntnis entwickeln zu können: "Bezüglich alles dessen,

was wir geistig wahrnehmen, befragen wir nicht einen Sprecher, der von
außer uns tönt, sondern die Wahrheit, die in uns unsern Verstand leitet
(menti praesidentem), wobei vielleicht Worte uns aufgefordert haben zur
Befragung. Der Befragte aber belehrt, nämlich Christus, von dem es heißt,
daß er im inneren Menschen wohne; das ist die unwandelbare Kraft (virtus)
Gottes und ewige Weisheit. Zwar befragt jeder Verstand (rationalis anima)
sie, doch öffnet sie sich ihm nur, soweit er es wegen seines guten oder bö­
sen Willens zu erfassen vermag. Und wenn der Menschengeist sich täuscht,
ist es sowenig die Schuld dieser Wahrheit, wie es die Schuld des Lichtes ist,
wenn die körperlichen Augen sich oft täuschen; dies Licht befragen wir
nach den sichtbaren Dingen, daß es sie uns zeige, soweit wir sie erkennen
können."
Hierzu ist zunächst zu bemerken, daß der Apostel (Eph 3, 16f) nicht
sagt, Christus wohne im Menschen, sondern er betet darum: "ut det vo-
bis... virtute corroboran per Spiritum eius in interiorem hominem, Chris­
tum habitare per fidem in cordibus vestris." Das ist also etwas ganz ande­
res. Ebenso war im vorhergehenden Abschnitt ein als Argument dienendes
Zitat aus Jesaja (7, 9) falsch; es heißt nicht "Wenn ihr nicht glaubet, werdet
ihr nicht verstehen," sondern; "Glaubet ihr nicht, so bleibet ihr nicht"
('Permanebitis,' nicht 'intellegetis'), im selben Sinne auch 2 Chron 20, 20.
(Weder der Herausgeber des lateinischen Textes noch der Übersetzer weist
darauf hin).
Er fährt fort: Wir erfahren alles Körperliche durch unsere Sinne, das
Geistige in der Vernunft von der inneren Wahrheit; so ist klar, daß wir
durch Wörter nichts lernen (oder erfahren) als den Klang, der unsere Oh­
ren trifft — so spricht der Rhetor Augustinus! Daß letzteres einfach falsch
ist, wurde schon oben gesagt. Es ist hier nicht der Ort, von A.s seltsamer
Erkenntnistheorie zu handeln, die das Entscheidende in "das innere Licht
der Wahrheit" verlegt, von dem die Bibel nichts weiß und das auch nicht et­
wa nur die transzendente Wahrheit meint, sondern jedes Urteil, dessen un­
fehlbare Richtigkeit es nicht etwa gewährleistet, da seine Wirksamkeit ja
doch wieder durch Willen und Vermögen des Einzelnen beschränkt wird;
an der menschlichen Fehlbarkeit ändert sich somit nichts. — A.s Argumen­
tation ist durchaus fehlerhaft und linguistisch nicht von Interesse. Es läßt
sich jedenfalls die paradoxe Tatsache nicht leugnen, daß "Wir lernen durch
Worte nichts" sowie die gesamten Ausführungen A.s in Abschn. 33-46 eine
Belehrung des Sohnes darstellen, die auf keine andere Weise hätte gesche­
hen können.
30 HANS ARENS

Über ein konstruiertes Beispiel kommt A. schließlich zu der Feststel­

lung, daß man nicht einmal von jedem Sprecher behaupten könne, er wisse
und halte für wahr, was er sage, und drücke es deutlich aus, so daß sich sein
Geist in seiner Rede spiegle. Er kommt zu folgenden Einschränkungen,
welche zeigen, daß er mehr vom praktischen Gebrauch der Sprache weiß,
als bisher in Erscheinung getreten ist:
1) Der Sprecher mag das, was er sagt, gar nicht wirklich wissen.
2) Die die Unwahrheit sagen und täuschen, verbergen ihre Gesinnung, statt
sie zu enthüllen. Erstere denken, was sie sagen, aber wissen nicht, ob es
wahr ist. Sie können auch zu lügen meinen und sagen doch die Wahrheit.
3) Auch unabsichtlich geschieht es, daß man die gedachten Dinge nicht mit
den richtigen Wörtern bezeichnet, indem man
a) eine Rede, die man im Gedächtnis hat, weil man sie schon oft
abgehaspelt hat, spricht, während man an etwas anderes denkt
(was z.B. oft geschehe, wenn man ein geistliches Lied singe):
b) sich verspricht, d.h. unwillentlich, durch einen Irrtum der Zunge
andere Wörter als gemeint hervorbringt, also lapsus linguae.
4) Ein privater, nicht dem allgemein Üblichen entsprechender Wortge­
brauch, den nur der Redner und einige wenige verstehen, der Partner aber
und die meisten Zuhörer nicht — Quelle unzähliger Streitigkeiten. Diesem,
sage man, sei durch Definition vorzubeugen. Aber wer könne definieren?
Und die Lehre vom Definieren sei selbst umstritten.
5) Hörfehler.
Dies sind eindeutig die Erfahrungen eines Rhetors und Diskussionspart­
ners. Er gibt imerhin zu, daß, wenn man jemandes Worte in bekannter
Sprache vernommen und verstanden hat, man wissen könne, daß jener
über die bezeichneten Dinge nachgedacht habe; aber erfahre man auch, ob
es wahr sei? Eine rein rhetorische Frage. Er betrachtet dann die Lehrer, die
man fälschlich so nennt; die Schüler glauben wirklich von ihnen, statt aus
sich zu lernen, während jene doch nichts tun als "admonere."
Überraschend beginnt A. sein Schlußwort mit der Bemerkung: "Die
Nützlichkeit der Wörter, die, genau betrachtet, nicht gering ist, wollen
wir... ein andermal untersuchen." Er wolle nur nicht, daß ihnen mehr Wert
beigemessen werde, als ihnen gebühre. Wir sollen "nicht nur glauben, son­
dern zu verstehen beginnen [vgl. das Jesaja-Zitat], wie wahr mit göttlicher
Autorität geschrieben stehe, daß wir auf Erden niemand unsern Lehrer
nennen sollen, weil der eine Lehrer aller im Himmel ist." Dies bezieht sich
 'DE MAGISTRO' 31

auf Mt 23, 8, 10: "Vos autem nolite vocari rabbi; unus est enim magister (gr.
didáskalos) vester, omnes autem vos fratres estis. ...Nec vocemini magistri
(gr. kathëgëtaí); quia magister vester unus est, Christus." (Luther hat mit
seiner Übersetzung "Meister" den Sinn verunklärt). Die hier gemeinten
Lehrer sind nicht irgendwelche, sondern — wie die Pharisäer und Schriftge­
lehrten sich anmaßen — Lehrer des Lebens und des Heils; hier handelt es
sich um "den Weg, die Wahrheit und das Leben," und das ist Christus al­
lein. Es ist also deutlich, wie Α., indem er die biblische Aussage verallge­
meinerte, ihren Inhalt profanierte und verfälschte; denn in seinen Darle­
gungen handelt es sich nicht um die WAHRHEIT, sondern um die Wahrheit all­
täglicher Aussagen. Indem er dann ferner das erbetete Innewohnen Christi
zu einer Tatsache machte, so war er das innere Licht der Wahrheit in jedem
Menschen. Und da er — scheinbar nach Jesaja — das Glauben die Voraus­
setzung des Verstehens nannte, so führte der Glaube an die von A. entwik-
kelte Lehre zur Wahrheit, oder konnte zu ihr führen; diese Wahrheit aber
bedurfte des Wortes der Lautsprache nicht. Das ist jedoch etwas anderes
als die radikale Lehre, daß man durch die Worte weder etwas lehre noch et­
was lerne. Und A.s Argumente waren weit davon entfernt, sie zu deduzie­
ren. Der Nachweis, daß die Worte nicht einfach signa waren, sondern viel­
mehr Signale oder Anrufe an den Hörer, sich zu erinnern oder die innere
Wahrheit zu befragen, war zu schwierig, um gelingen zu können.
Aber Ad. resümiert am Schluß und erklärt sich völlig überzeugt (was
nicht glaubhaft ist): "Ich habe durch die Aufforderung (admonitio) gelernt,
daß der Mensch durch Worte nur aufgefordert wird zu lernen..."
Dieser frühe Dialog weist die Mängel auf, die Peter Brown genannt
hat (s.o.). Man hat manchmal Zweifel, ob der vorliegende Text wirklich
authentisch ist, dessen Verfasser zuerst beweisen zu wollen scheint, daß
man nur durch Worte belehren kann, dann aber das Gegenteil vertritt. In­
dem er die Sprache so entwertet, verwirft er sein eigenes Arbeitsmaterial
und demütigt sich. So entsteht das Paradoxon, daß er seinen Sohn in Wor­
ten darüber belehrt, daß man mit Worten nicht belehren kann. Die von A.
begründete sogenannte Illuminationslehre hat etwas sehr Künstliches, und
ihre Grundlagen, wie sie in unserem Texte in Erscheinung treten, sind Irr­
tümer. Ob man eine Aussage für wahr oder falsch hält, hängt — nach gel­
tender Auffassung — von dem Urteil des Verstandes ab, das auf empiri­
schen Kenntnissen und logischen Schlüssen beruht, die dem menschlichen
Denkvermögen eigen sind, und dieses ist es denn wohl, das man als die
göttliche Gabe bezeichnen kann, das "innere Licht," das jedoch nicht
32 HANS A R E N S

gleichzusetzen ist mit dem "Licht der Wahrheit," das der Mensch eben
nicht besitzt, der auch bei A. dem Irrtum unterworfen bleibt. Die Mängel
unseres Textes sind voi allem folgende:
1) Es werden Behauptungen für Argumente, Argumente für Beweise
genommen, Beispiele zu wenige gegeben, und es wird niemals der Versuch
gemacht, den Sprech- und Denkvorgang genauer zu analysieren.
2) Es ist immer nur von Wörtern statt von Sätzen und Sprache die Re­
de.
3) Es werden auf das Objekt immer wieder objektfremde Denkopera­
tionen angewendet und im Zusammenhang damit auch falsche Fragen ge­
stellt, was beides zu Scheinergebnissen führt. Daher drängt sich gelegent­
lich das Wort 'scholastisch' auf. Hier sind Ansätze zu dem, was dann schon
bei Boethius deutlich ausgebildet ist.
4) Es werden falsche Aussagen von dem anfänglich so kritischen Ad.
ungerügt gelassen, so wenn A. zwischen den Worten "glauben" und "durch
die Worte lernen" unterscheidet oder nur das Sprechen von gegenwärtigen,
wahrnehmbaren Gegenständen wahr nennt, das von "Abbildern" vergan­
gener Wahrnehmungen, Eindrücke, Erkenntnisse aber falsch oder unwahr
(falsum).
5) Bescheidene Abdankung des Rhetors und Präzeptors mischt sich
mit dem Selbstbewußtsein des Wahrheitskünders und der rhetorischen
Wiederholung derselben These als Ersatz für neue Argumente.

Korrekturzusatz. Man vergleiche mit Augustins Verfahren das rein philoso­

phische des Aquinaten in De Magistro (Quaestiones disputatae de vertíate,
quaestio XI), jetzt als kommentierte Separatausgabe bei Meiner, Philos.
Bibl. Band 412, 1988.

ANMERKUNGEN
1. Der Heilige Augustinus, dt. Übersetzung von 'Augustine of Hippo.'
2. Alle HSS haben hier signum statt verbum. Und kurz darauf heißt es abermals, daß "omne
signum aliquid significet" falsch ist.
3. Da das Lateinische kein eigenes Wort für 'ja' (gr. naí) hatte, wurde Affirmation in einem
ganzen Satz ausgedrückt: 'sic est,' 'ita est,' schließlich einfach 'est,' das somit ein Ein­
wortsatz ist.
4. Um die Zweideutigkeit von HOMO nicht aufzuheben, darf man im lat. Text nicht " "
setzen, die er nicht kennt. Die Daursche Ausgabe tut dies zuweilen.
 'DE MAGISTRO' 33

5. A. gebraucht für den ungenauen Begriff 'antecellere, anteferre, anteponere, pluris habe­
re, pluris pendere, carius habere, excellere, praeponere.'

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Aurelius Augustinus. 1970. [5th  A.D.] De magistro liber unus. Cura et

studio Klaus-Detlef Daur. (Aurelii Augustini Opera, pars II, 2: 157-204.
Corpus Christianorum, series latina, t.XXIX.) Turnholti: Typographi
Brepols Editores Pontifiei.
. Der Lehrer. De magistro liber unus in deutscher Sprache von Carl
Johann Perl. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1959.
Brown, Peter. 1975. Der Heilige Augustinus, Lehrer der Kirche und Er­
neuerer der Geistesgeschichte. (Augustine of Hippo, übersetzt von Jo­
hannes Bernard.) München: Wilhelm Heyne.
Jackson, B. Darreil. 1969. "The Theory of Signs in St.Augustine's De doc­
trina Christiana." Revue des études augustiniennes 15. 9-49.
Johnson, D.W. 1972. "Verbum in the early Augustine." Recherches augu­
stiniennes 8. 25-53.
Kuypers, K. 1934. Der Zeichen- und Wertbegriff im Denken Augustins.
Amsterdam.
Markus, R.A. 1957. "St.Augustine on Signs." Phronesis 2. 60-83.
Mayer, Cornelius Petrus, OSA. 1969. Die Zeichen in der geistigen Entwick­
lung und in der Theologie des jungen Augustinus. (= Cassiciacum, 24:1).
Würzburg.
De Rijk, Rudolf P.G.. 1968. "St.Augustine on Language." Studies Present­
ed to Professor Roman Jakobson by his Students, ed. by Ch.E. Gribble,
91-104. Cambridge, Mass. 1968: M.I.T.
Ruef, Hans. 1980. Augustin über Semiotik und Sprache: Sprachtheoretische
Analysen zu Augustins Schrift 'De Dialectica' mit einer deutschen Über­
setzung. Bern: K.J. Wyss Erben.
Simone, Raffaele. 1972. "Sémiologie augustinienne." Semiotica 6. 1-31.
Wienbruch, Ulrich. 1971. "'Signum,' 'significado' und 'illuminatio' bei Au­
gustin." Der Begriff der repraesentatio im Mittelalter: Stellvertretung,
Symbol, Zeichen, Bild. Hrg. von Albert Zimmermann, 76-93. Berlin:
W. de Gruyter.
 Domingo de Soto (1494-1560)
and the Doctrine of Signs

E J . Ashworth
University of Waterloo

Doctrines of signs permeated medieval culture, being found in such

diverse fields as medicine, rhetoric and theology (Maierù 1981). However,
despite Augustine's important insight that words could be treated as one
type of sign (Markus 1957; Jackson 1969) it seems true to say that the
notion of a sign as such was not of central importance to medieval logicians.
Certainly words were spoken of as being signs, but no attempt was made to
place them in a wider setting. Peter of Spain in his Summulae Logicales had
focussed on the notion of a vox or utterance, so that the distinction between
significative and non-significative was introduced only in a linguistic context
(Peter of Spain 1972:1-2) and his commentators were thus given no incen­
tive to go beyond this context. William Ockham did give a general defini­
tion of sign in his Summa Logicae, but he immediately said that he did not
intend to use the word 'sign' in this wider sense (William Ockham 1974:8-
9); and his remarks were later echoed by Albert of Saxony (Albert of
Saxony 1522:f.2ra). The only medieval exceptions to this trend in the field
of linguistic sciences seem to have been Robert Kilwardby, who discussed
signs as such in his grammatical work (Kilwardby 1975:1-7) and Roger
Bacon who, when writing on logic, followed Augustine in firmly subor­
dinating the notion of a linguistic sign to the notion of a sign in general
(Roger Bacon 1978:81-84; Pinborg 1981:405). One of Jan Pinborg's many
achievements was to find and publish Roger Bacon's treatise De Signis.
Hence, it seems appropriate that in a volume devoted to Pinborg's mem­
ory, some attention should be paid to another logician, Domingo de Soto,
who attempted to place linguistic signs in a wider context.
36 EJ. ASHWORTH

It must be recognized that Soto was not the first sixteenth century
author to focus afresh on the notion of a sign. Humanism had resulted in
new attention being paid to the rhetorical concept of sign (cf. Melanchthon
1854:cols.750-751, and Melanchthon 1846:cols.704-706) and various fif­
teenth and sixteenth century logicians referred to the definitions of sign
found in Cicero (Versor 1572:f.6v; Raulin 1500:sig.g 5ra) and Quintilian
(Sanchez Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 5vb). Another factor which should be taken
into account was the renewed interest in medieval metaphysics and theol­
ogy which characterized many of the great sixteenth and seventeenth cen­
tury writers. However, of the early sixteenth century writers I know only
Pedro Sanchez Ciruelo paid attention to the work on signs found, for
instance, in Thomas Aquinas (Sanchez Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 5vb-6ra); and it
seems to have been the Jesuits of Coimbra who were responsible for bring­
ing together the rich theological tradition of the Middle Ages with the new
logical tradition {Conimbricensis 1607:II cols.7-33). This new logical tradi­
tion, found in such authors as Tomas de Mercado (1571:f.3vb-5va), Alonso
de la Vera Cruz (1572:22 A-23 A), Francisco de Toledo (1596:208 A-209 B)
and Diego Mas (1621:II 7 B-10 A) stems almost entirely from Domingo de
Soto. He it was who classified the subject-matter, and set up the framework
within which his successors would discuss the topic of signs.1
The main inspiration for Soto's work was obviously the then-standard
Parisian doctrine of signification, which was directly derived from Peter of
Ailly's Conceptus et Insolubilia. In this work, Peter of Ailly (c. 1350-1420)
had, without elaboration, remarked that "a term is a sign" (1980:16; cf.
Stanyol 1504:sig.a 3r, Sanchez Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 5va, Enzinas 1533:sig.b
3rb); that "to 'signify' is the same as to be a sign of something" (17; cf. Buri­
dan 1977:22) and that something can be a sign in two ways (17). It can itself
be an act of knowing a thing, or it can lead to an act of knowing. In the sec­
ond case, there is a further division to be made, since the act of knowing
can be either primary or secondary (18). He also gave a definition of 'sig­
nify' which reappeared in text after text "... to 'signify' is to represent (a)
something, or (b) some things or (c) somehow, to a cognitive power by vit­
ally changing it" (16). In the hands of various early sixteenth century logi­
cians at Paris, Peter's remarks had been elaborated into a doctrine which
Soto found profoundly misleading; and which he therefore set out to re­
work completely.
Soto's starting point was the same as Peter of Ailly's in that he
intended to present a theory which could be used to account for the signifi-
 SOTO AND THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNS 37

cation of terms in propositions; and in that he accepted the prevalent view

that signification was "primarily an epistemological, not a semantical, rela­
tion" (Spade 1975:216). He also initially agreed with Peter that to signify
was the same as to be a sign ("significare enim et signum esse idem sunt":
Soto 1529:f.5ra). Moreover, his basic definition of 'significare' is fairly close
to Peter's. He wrote that "to signify in the general sense is for something to
represent something other than itself to a cognitive power" ("significare
generaliter dictum est potentiae cognitivae aliud a se repraesentare" f..5ra).
This definition looks even closer to Peter's when one notes that Soto later
stated that 'aliud' implicitly included 'aliqua' (some things) and 'aliqualiter'
(somehow) (f.6ra-va). However, these additions, which are needed in
order to account for the sense in which collective terms such as 'populus'
and syncategorematic terms such as 'omnis' and 'non' can be said to have
signification, need not concern us here.2 The definition of 'signum' which
Soto gives immediately following his definition of 'significare' is, as it
should be, precisely parallel: "A sign is a thing representing something
other than itself to the cognitive power" ("Signum est res aliud a se potentiae
cognitivae repraesentans" :f.5ra).
For our present purposes it is the function of 'repraesentare' in the
definition of both 'signum' and 'significare' that is crucial; for it was in his
account of 'repraesentare' that Soto began to differentiate himself from his
predecessors at Paris. He wrote that one could begin to understand the
notion of representing by considering the etymology of the word, which
according to him had to do with making a thing "as if present" to the know­
ing subject ("Est enim repraesentare quasi rem praesentem faceré":f.5ra. Cf.
Sanchez Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 6va: "Repraesentare vero est rem aliquam
praesentare et quasi praesentem facere cognoscenti.") However, no simple
identification should be made between representing a thing and making a
thing known, since the four ways in which something could make an object
known included the inappropriate category of efficient cause (f.5rb). Here
Soto is explicitly disagreeing with Juan de Celaya (c. 1490-1558) and Fer­
nando de Enzinas (d. 1523) who had both claimed that to represent just is
to make known (Celaya [1516?]:sig.a 7r; Enzinas 1533:sig.A 6ra-rb) and
that for something to make known effective just is for it to be the efficient
cause of a concept or act of understanding. In this sense, our mind itself
represents and hence signifies effective. Similar positions had been adopted
by earlier authors. George of Brussels had included the soul and God, as a
concurrent cause, among the things which could be said to represent
38 E.J. ASHWORTH

(George of Brussels 1504:f. lixva; cf. Raulin 1500:sig.g 4va); and in some­
what similar vein Sanchez Ciruelo had written that signification can be
effective or formal. Effective signification is the function either of an instru­
mental sign, such as a word, or of a principal efficient cause, such as the
man himself who speaks or writes (Sanchez Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 6vb). Soto
rejected all attempts to include such causal activity under the heading of
representing or signifying because they overlook some crucial distinctions.
A power which makes something else known by being a principal or a con­
current cause does not thereby function as a sign since it is not through
direct awareness of the power that the knower is led to further knowledge.
Nor does this power represent. It is the concepts or the images involved
which make the object as if present.
The three remaining categories of facere cognoscere were facere cog­
nosces (i) objective, (ii) formaliter and (iii) instrumentaliter. Soto's next
move was to argue that although facere cognoscere objective could legiti­
mately be regarded as a type of representation, it could not be regarded as
a type of signification. As a result significare could not be equated with
repraesentare, any more than repraesentare could be equated with facere
cognoscere (f.5rb-va). In this Soto was explicitly rejecting the views not
only of Celaya and Enzinas (Celaya [1516?]:sig.a 7r; Enzinas 1533:sig.A
6ra-rb) but of others such as Stanyol, who had remarked that the words 'sig­
nificare9 and 'repraesentare' could be used interchangeably (Stanyol
1504:sig.a 3v: "'significare' et 'repraesentare' convertibiliter de se invicem
dicuntur"; cf. Hieronymus of St. Mark 1507:sig.A 6v: "... repraesentare seu
significare ..."). The point at issue, the nature of objective representation,
goes back for our purposes to Peter of Ailly, who had discussed the notion
in his Conceptus et Insolubilia (1980:18,72). However, it must be noted that
Peter's use of the word 'objective' seems to have been broader than that
found in such later authors as Celaya. His view seems to have been like that
of Raulin who wrote: "Una res potest repraesentare aliam, uno modo for­
maliter et alio modo objective; unde repraesentare objective est esse objectum
et causa alicuius cognitionis, sicut imago regis repraesentat regem objective"
(Raulin 1500:sig.g 5ra). Raulin thus seems to include what other authors
called instrumental representation under the heading of objective represen­
tation. In Soto we find a careful distinction between three ways in which an
object can be related to our concepts (f.5rb). Given a statue of an emperor
and our concepts of a) the statue and b) the emperor, we can say that the
statue is merely motive with respect to b), in that it awakens the concept
 SOTO AND THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNS 39

without being its original cause; we can say that the emperor is merely ter-
minative with respect to the statue which represents him; and we can say
that the statue is both motive and terminative with respect to a). It is only
when an object is both motive and terminative that it represents objectively
in the proper sense. Thus a thing was said to represent objectively in so far
as it produced a primary concept of itself. In this sense everything in the
world represented objectively, since everything which exists has the power
to cause a concept or cognition of itself in an observer. Various authors
went on to identify this kind of representation with a category of natural
signification, namely significare naturaliter communiter (George of Brussels
1504:f.lixvb; Hieronymus of St.Mark 1507:sig.A 6v; Stanyol 1504:sig.a 3r;
Enzinas 1533:sig.A 8ra. Cf. Soto 1529:f.5rb). Sanchez Ciruelo had pointed
out that such a doctrine led to the conclusion that all sciences dealt with
signs, since all objects 'signify' in this way; and he argued that a sign must
be defined as something which represents something other than itself (San­
chez Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 5vb). Soto obviously agreed, for he added the
phrase 'aliud a se' to his initial definition of sign precisely in order to pre­
vent the category of objective representation from counting as a type of sig­
nification. A thing can represent itself, but it is improper and inappropriate
to say that it does so by virtue of being a sign ("satis enim improprie et abu­
sive dicitur res signum suiipsius":f.5rh).
Soto's main conclusion from his initial investigation was that just as a
sign represented in only two ways, formally and instrumentally, so there
were only two types of signification, formal and instrumental (f.5rb-va). I
shall begin by considering formal signification. For something to signify for­
mally was simply for it to be a concept or an act of knowing (f.5va). This
definition was found in Peter of Ailly (1980:17,72) and, as Pinborg pointed
out, can be traced back to Boethius (Pinborg 1981:407). However, it could
be seen as problematic in three respects. First, the Jesuits of Coimbra were
worried about its historical antecedents, and took care to point out that the
division into formal and instrumental could be found at least implicitly in
such solid authorities as Albert the Great and Aquinas. (Conimbricensis
1607 II, col. 17: "Haec adduximus, ut non videatur absque veterum auctori-
tate introducta haec signorum divisio in formalia et instrumentalia"). Sec­
ond, the category of formal signification might seem at odds with the causal
definition (said by Spade [1982:188] to be the central medieval definition of
signification as "to establish an understanding." Few authors in our period
even mentioned this definition, but Raulin took up the point and claimed
40 E J. ASHWORTH

that although it was true that a concept could not be regarded as a cause of
itself, this did not prevent a concept from being significative, since the
causal definition applied only to instrumental signs3 (Raulin 1500:sig.g 5ra-
rb). Thirdly, the classification of concepts as significative and hence as signs
seemed at odds with the definition of sign given by Augustine when he
wrote "Signum est enim res praeter speciem, quam ingerit sensibus, aliud
aliquid ex se faciens in cogitationem venire ..." (Augustine 1962:32). Soto
dealt with this point explicitly in later editions of his Summulae when he
argued that Augustine was speaking only of instrumental signs (Soto
1554:f.2vb). Raulin had earlier made the same point in relation to Cicero's
definition of sign (Raulin 1500:sig.g 5ra-rb). It seems that all the sixteenth
century authors who discussed the matter were committed to the notion
that concepts were formal signs; and some were so firmly committed as to
say that concepts were significative in the fullest possible sense (Stanyol
1504:sig.a 3v: "Et hoc modo significare est proprissime significare, cum nihil
rem aliquam perfectius repraesentet quam propria illius rei notitia." Cf.
Hieronymus of St.Mark 1507:sig.B lr)
It should be noted that concepts as formally significative were also said
to signify naturaliter proprie (see George of Brussels 1504:f.lixvb;
Hieronymus of St. Mark 1507:sig.A 6v; Enzinas 1533:sig.A 8ra; Soto
1529:f.5va). According to Pinborg, this attribution of natural signification
to concepts is perhaps first found explicitly in Roger Bacon (Pinborg
1981:407,409). However, while it is of some historical interest to trace the
origins of the linked theories that concepts have formal signification and
that they are natural signs common to all, it is in the treatment of signs
which are both instrumental and natural that we find the most important
parts of Soto's discussion.
Soto defined an instrumental sign as one which, by virtue of a preexis­
tent cognition of itself, represented a thing other than itself (f.5va: "Signifi­
care instrumentaliter dicitur res quae praeexistente sui cognitione, aliud a se
repraesentat") He explained that two conditions had to be met. First, one
must apprehend the sign itself. For instance, the written word 'homo' can
represent nothing to a blind man. Second, one must know the sign's rela­
tion to its signifícate. A speaker of Greek will not recognize that the Latin
word 'homo' represents human beings (f.5va); if I have no knowledge of
the emperor, seeing his statue will not produce an awareness of him (f.5rb);
and if I have never seen a fire, I will not think of fire when I see smoke
(f.5vb). Other authors had put the same general point in terms of a sign's
 SOTO AND THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNS 41

leading to "secondary or rememorative acts of knowing" (Peter of Ailly

1980:18; cf. William Ockham 1974:8-9; Sanchez Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 6vb;
Enzinas 1533:sig.A 8ra). Whereas a formal sign, or a concept, just is an act
of knowing the appropriate object, an instrumental sign will only lead to an
act of knowing the object signified if the sign is placed in a context of prior
knowledge of that object and its link with the sign. When the sign itself is
cognized (...praeexistente sui cognitione...) an awareness of the concept
which represents the signifícate can then be produced. So far Soto's charac­
terization of an instrumental sign seems unexceptionable; but to understand
what he does with it we have to follow him in his sudden transition (f.5va)
to the second, very traditional, classification of signification into natural
and conventional.4
According to Soto, signs are naturally significative if and only if they
have signification by virtue of their very nature and hence, in principle at
least, represent the same for all. Signs are conventionally significative if and
only if they acquire their signification by some institution or choice (Soto
1529:f.5va-vb). One could add that the latter do not, in principle at least,
represent the same for all (Versor 1572:f.7v). Given these definitions, three
cross-classifications of signs immediately become possible. Since the pair
'formal/conventional' is ruled out by definition, a sign must be either both
formal and natural or both instrumental and conventional or both instru­
mental and natural. As has already been noted, concepts belong to the first
group, since they are both formally and naturally significative. It seems
obvious that articulate utterances or properly linguistic signs belong to the
second group, as both instrumental and conventional.5 It was generally
agreed that a variety of non-vocal signs also belonged to this group, includ­
ing the circle which indicated the presence of wine for sale (e.g. Raulin
1500:sig.g.5ra), the sounding of a trumpet as a signal in battle (Sanchez
Ciruelo 1519:sig.B 6ra), and the use of fingers to ask permission to speak in
a monastery (Soto 1554:f.3ra). This leaves the third group, that of signs
which are both natural and instrumental for further analysis and discussion.
One of the two main problems associated with this category of sign had
to do with the treatment of non-articulate utterances such as groans and
animal noises. There was general agreement that such signs as smoke and
animal footprints were natural instrumental signs (cf. Augustine 1962:32)
but it was not clear whether groans could be classified in the same way. The
problem had a long history. Augustine himself deliberately laid it aside
(Augustine 1962:33) but Roger Bacon had examined the question at length.
42 EJ. ASHWORTH

He argued that the notion of 'nature' involved was ambiguous (Roger

Bacon 1978:86). Smoke is a natural sign in the sense that it is to be
explained in terms of the nature of a substance or essence, on the basis of
which inferences can be made; but groans and animal cries are natural in
the sense that they are produced by the instinctive activity of an agent — an
activity which does not involve either the deliberation of reason or the elec­
tion of the will (Roger Bacon 1978:83). In the late fifteenth century Versor
was to put forward a somewhat similar view, though he was concerned with
utterances rather than signs in general. He argued that a significant utter­
ance was one that was ordained to represent an object, either by some
institution or by some natural instinct (Versor 1572:f.7r). Groans and other
such noises had natural signification because they were produced by a natu­
ral instinct in order to express passions and emotions (f.7v). He recognized
that a groan could be counterfeited by a man who was not ill, but he
remarked that this would not change the signification of the groan, pro­
vided that the man retained the usual form of utterance and the usual
bodily gestures (f.8r). Little was added by sixteenth century authors.
Hieronymus of St.Mark, Celaya and Enzinas all listed the category of signi­
ficare naturaliter ex instinctu naturae (Hieronymus of St.Mark 1507:sig.A
6v; Celaya [1516?]:sig.B 2v; Enzinas 1533:sig.A 8ra). Hieronymus of
St.Mark and Celaya both used groans and other such utterances as their
examples; and Hieronymus of St.Mark noted that the signs involved were
species relative ("sed significare naturaliter ex instinctu naturae est apud
omnes eiusdem speciei idem repraesentare ...": sig.A 6v. Otherwise, the
only new feature is found in Enzinas, who put smoke and facial expressions
back into the category of signs signifying naturally by virtue of instinct, a
move which seems to destroy the point of this separate category of natural
signification altogether.
One of the features which made the classification of the last three
authors mentioned less than ideal was that, like Versor, they introduced it
only in the context of terms. They then gave just three categories of natural
signification: significare naturaliter proprie, which was identified with for­
mal signification; significare naturaliter communiter, which was identical
with the so-called Objective signification' rejected by Soto; and significare
naturaliter ex instinctu naturae (Hieronymus of St.Mark 1507:sig.A 6v;
Celaya [1516?] sig.B 2r; Enzinas 1533:sig.A 8ra). Since Soto was talking
about signs in general, he was able to introduce the general category of nat­
ural instrumental signification, and then to subdivide it along the lines that
 SOTO AND THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNS 43

Bacon had followed. Soto's starting point seems to have been Enzinas's dis­
cussion, for he took care to say that although people did include smoke in
the category of signs which signify ex instinctu naturae, a distinction must in
fact be made between smoke and such utterances as groans (f.5va). The
smoke represents a fire because it is the effect of the fire; but it was not
instituted or ordained by nature to be representative. On the other hand,
even if a groan can be said to represent illness as an effect represents its
cause, it does so in a peculiar way. It is as if, he wrote, the groan was insti­
tuted solely to be a sign of illness, and to bring it about that the sick person
should seem to be asking for medicine without a conscious effort (f.5va:
"quasi invito infirmo, expostulet medicinam In his later edition he wrote
that nature made groans solely so that they could express and signify illness;
but smoke was not made in order to signify anything (Soto 1554:f.3ra). 'Na­
ture' here seems to be a personified force, by strong contrast with the dis­
tinctions made nearly three centuries earlier by Roger Bacon.
The other main problem which arose in the context of natural instru­
mental signs concerned certain kinds of sign whose signifiance seemed at
least to be linked with human institutions and conventions. In Hieronymus
of St.Mark, Celaya, and Enzinas we find a category of conventional signifi­
cation which was called ex consuetudine, by virtue of custom. Hieronymus
of St.Mark was very brief. He merely noted that an utterance could be said
to signify its speaker, and that this was "ex consuetudine audiendV'
(Hieronymus of St.Mark 1507:sig.B lr). Enzinas spoke of signification "ex
usu et consuetudine,'" and cited the case of a bell whose sound at one time
signifies reading and at another time, lunch. He noted that this was an
improper form of conventional signification (Enzinas 1533:sig.A 8ra-rb).
Celaya had a more lengthy discussion (sig.B 4r-v). He used two examples:
a dog whose appearance signals the appearance of a certain man, and a
statue of Hercules. He argued that the statue could not be classified as hav­
ing natural signification because it could lose its signification, and because
a peasant would not recognize it as being a statue of Hercules. Hence, he
said, the only alternative is to classify the statue with the dog as being a sign
which signifies conventionally by virtue of custom.
Soto first introduced the category of significare ex consuetudine as if it
were an alternative to both significare naturaliter and significare ad placitum
(f.5va-vb). He made an initial distinction between significare ex con­
suetudinaria impositione and significare ex mera consuetudine (f.5vb). The
first kind of signification was genuinely conventional, for it was founded on
44 E.J. ASHWORTH

the initial imposition of a word, and it involved a word's extended use, as

when 'Nero' is used to stand for cruel men in general.6 In his discussion of
the second case, Soto took up Celaya's examples of the dog and the statue,
and he added a third example. Napkins on the table are, he said, a cus­
tomary sign of lunch. He agreed that in each case a voluntary human cus­
tom of some sort was involved, and that if the custom or habit were to
change the signs would cease to be signs. However, despite the context of
custom, the actual relationship which makes the sign a sign is a natural one.
The statue represents a man by virtue of its similarity (cf.Roger Bacon
1978:86), and the napkins represent lunch because they are the effect of
lunch viewed as a final cause. Moreover, he added, napkins were not
invented in order to signify lunch, but rather that it should be carried out
decently ("...mappae non sint inventae ad significandum prandium sed ut
decenter fiat...":f.5vb). Soto's comments tended to show not only that
Celaya was wrong to regard customary signification as a subspecies of con­
ventional signification, but also that customary signification could be
assimilated to natural signification. In the later editions of his work he
made this point explicitly and as a result did not include significare ex con-
suetudine as a separate category (Soto 1554:f.3rb).
Once Soto had completed his general classification of signs, he came
up against another problem, this time specifically to do with linguistic signs.
According to Aristotle, spoken words were signs of concepts; yet there
seemed to be an obvious sense in which spoken words were signs not of
concepts but of actual things.7 In order to deal with this issue, Soto intro­
duced a distinction. When I utter the word 'homo' I signify men in the sense
of making them known {faceré cognoscere), and I definitely do not make
known my own concept of man. On the other hand, I do express {expri­
mere) the fact that I have such a concept, and I do so in order to cause my
hearers to form similar concepts (Soto 1529:f.6ra). Facere cognoscere and
exprimere are two types of signification, the second being a less general
kind which pertains only to written and spoken words (f.6ra). In the later
edition of his work Soto put the same point in terms of a distinction
between two kinds of instrumental sign, one of which leads the cognitive
power to form a concept of a thing, and the other of which expresses the
presence of a concept. Thus a vocal sign can represent both a thing and a
concept, but in different ways (Soto 1554:f.3rb-va). The whole matter was
put more generally by the later author, Francisco de Toledo, who intro­
duced the notion of manifestive and suppositive signs. A manifestive sign,
 SOTO A N D THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNS 45

he wrote, is one which leads to the knowledge of another thing. Thus a

sound can be a manifestive sign that reading is to occur. A sign which is
both manifestive and suppositive is one which not only manifests another
thing, but can be used in place of it. Thus a Viceroy both manifests or
makes known the king and acts in his place. Utterances are signs of both
kinds. On the one hand, they manifest concepts; on the other hand they
both manifest and stand for actual things (Toledo 1596:209 A). Clearly
Toledo did not find it awkward that a linguistic sign could perform several
significative functions at once. Indeed, he had already pointed out that all
utterances signify their utterer in the same way that smoke signifies fire, i.e.
as an effect does its cause, so that one and the same sign can have both nat­
ural and conventional signification (Toledo 1596:209 A).
These last remarks point to one of the main strengths of the doctrine of
signs developed by Domingo de Soto and his immediate successors. While
many of the distinctions made seem to be ordinary, common-sense distinc­
tions without much philosophical novelty, they enable one to place the lin­
guistic sign in the context of signs in general. As a result one gets a much
better apprehension of the various uses which can be made of a single utter­
ance. At the same time, it is made perfectly evident that the doctrine of sig­
nification developed by medieval and post-medieval logicians was not, and
should not be confused with, a theory of meaning in the contemporary
sense. To say that words signify things is to say that they make things
known; to say that words signify ideas is to say that they express ideas; and
we are not given any license to identify the meaning of words with either
type of signifícate.8

NOTES
1. There is a curious tendency among linguists to attribute Domingo de Soto's achievements
to the much later John of St.Thomas (1589-1644). For instance Arens (1984:509) refers to
John St.Thomas's "remarkable faculty for systematization" in relation to a series of dis­
tinctions about signs taken directly from Domingo de Soto; and Deely (1983:116) calls
him "the earliest systematizer of the doctrine of signs." In fact John of St.Thomas's dis­
cussion of signs (John of St.Thomas 1930:9A-10A, 646A-722A) draws very heavily not
only on Soto but also on the lengthy and more ontologically oriented discussion in the
Coimbra commentary. He comes at the end of a tradition, not at the beginning.
2. Soto's explanation of significare aliqualiter was not exactly the same as Peter of Ailly's.
For some discussion see Ashworth (1982).
3. Raulin uses the word 'objective,' in the wider sense discussed previously.
46 E J . ASHWORTH

4. Some people presented this just as an alternative classification: see Conimbricensis 1607
II, col. 16-17. John of St.Thomas attempted to justify the use of two divisions by arguing
that the first concerns the relation of signs to the cognitive power involved and the second
concerns the relation of signs to the object signified: John of St.Thomas (1930:9B-10A).
5. There was some discussion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the notion that
linguistic signs could have natural meaning: see Ashworth (1981:307-308).
6. It should be noted that proper names have significado and are subject to imposition in
just the same way as common nouns. Soto's example of primary imposition is a baptism
ceremony in which 'Franciscus' is instituted to signify the baby, see Soto (1529:f.5 vb.).
7. For a survey of medieval discussion of the question whether words signify ideas or things,
see Ashworth (1981); and for a survey of post-medieval discussion, see Ashworth (1987).
8. For a fuller discussion of this issue see Ashworth (1984).

REFERENCES

Albert of Saxony. 1522. Perutilis logica. Venice. (Repr., Hildesheim: G.

Olms, 1974.)
Arens, Hans. 1984. Aristotle's Theory of Language and its Tradition. Texts
from 500 to 1750. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Ashworth, E.J. 1981. '"Do words Signify Ideas or Things?' The scholastic
sources of Locke's theory of language." Journal of the History of
Philosophy 19:299-326.
. 1982. "The Structure of Mental Language: Some problems discus­
sed by early sixteenth century logicians." Vivarium 20. 59-83.
. 1984. "Locke on Language." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14.
45-73.
. 1987. "Jacobus Naveros (fl. ca. 1533) on the Question: 'Do Spoken
Words Signify Concepts or Things?'." Logos and Pragma: Essays on the
philosophy of language in honour of Gabriel Nuchelmans ed. by L.M. de
Rijk & H.A.G. Braakhuis, 189-214. Nijmegen: Ingenium Publishers.
Augustine. 1962. De Doctrina Christiana (= Corpus Christianorum Series
Latina, 32.) Turnholt: Brepols.
Buridan, John. 1977. Sophismata. Ed. by .. Scott. Stuttgart-Bad Cann-
statt: Frommann Holzboog.
Celaya, Juan de. [1516?]. Dialecticae Introductiones. Aureliacii.
[Conimbricensis]. 1607. Commentarii Conimbricensis in dialecticam Aris-
totelis. Cologne. (Repr., Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1976.)
 SOTO AND THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNS 47

Deely, John N. 1983. "Neglected Figures in the History of Semiotic

Inquiry: John Poinsot." History of Semiotics ed. by Achim Eschbach &
Jürgen Trabant, 115-26. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Enzinas, Fernando de. 1533. Termini perutiles et principia dialectices com­
munia. Toledo.
George of Brussels. 1504. Expositio in logicam Aristotelis. Lyon.
Hieronymus of St.Mark. 1507. Compendium preclarum. Cologne.
Jackson, B. Darrell. 1969. "The Theory of Signs in St.Augustine's De Doc­
trina Christiana." Revue des études augustiniennes 15:9-49. (Repr. in
Augustine: A collection of critical essays ed. by R.A. Markus, 92-147.
New York: Anchor Books, 1972.)
John of St.Thomas. 1930. Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus. I.Logica. Ed.
by B. Reiser. Turin: Marietti.
Kilwardby, Robert. 1975. "The Commentary on 'Priscianus Maior'
ascribed to Robert Kilwardby." Selected texts ed. by Karin Margareta
Fredborg, Niels J. Green-Pedersen, Lauge Nielsen & Jan Pinborg.
Introd. by Jan Pinborg, "The Problem of the Authorship," by Osmund
Lewry. (= CIMAGL, 15) Copenhagen.
Maierù, Alfonso. 1981. "'Signum' dans la culture médiévale." Miscellanea
Mediaevalia 13. 51-72.
Markus, R.A. 1957. "St.Augustine on Signs." Phronesis 2:60-83. (Repr. in
Augustine: A collection of critical essays ed. by R.A. Markus, 61-91.
New York: Anchor Books, 1972).
Mas, Diego. 1621. Commentaria in Porphyrium et in universam Aristotelis
logicam. Mainz.
Melanchthon, Philip. 1854. Compendiaría dialectices in Opera. (= Corpus
Reformatorum, 20.) Brunsvigae. (Repr., New York & Frankfurt am
Main, 1963.)
. 1846. Erotemata dialectices. Opera. (= Corpus Reformatorum, 13.)
Halis Saxonum. (Repr., New York & Frankfurt am Main, 1963.)
Mercado, Tomas de. 1571. Commentarii lucidissimi in textum Petri Hispani.
Seville.
Peter of Ailly. 1980. Peter of Ailly: Concepts and Insolubles. Ed. and transi,
by Paul Vincent Spade. (= Synthèse Historical Library, 19.) Dordrecht-
Boston-London: D. Reidel.
Peter of Spain. 1972. Tractatus called afterwards Summule Logicales, ed. by
L.M. de Rijk. Assen: Van Gorcum.
48 E.J. ASHWORTH

Pinborg, Jan. 1981. "Roger Bacon on Signs: A newly recovered part of the
Opus Maius." Miscellanea Mediaevalia 13:403-412.
Raulin, Johannes. 1500. In logicam Aristotelis commentarium. Paris.
Roger Bacon. 1978. "An Unedited Part of Roger Bacon's Opus Maius: 'De
signisV' Ed. by Karin Margareta Fredborg, Lars Nielsen & Jan Pinborg.
Traditio 34.75-136.
Sanchez Ciruelo, Pedro. 1519. Prima pars logices ad veriores sensus textus
Aristotelis. Alcalá.
Soto, Domingo de. 1529. Summulae. Burgos.
. 1554. Summulae. Salamanca. (Repr. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1980.)
[This is the 3rd edition, despite a title page reference to the 2nd edition.]
Spade, Paul Vincent. 1975. "Some Epistemological Implications of the Bur-
ley-Ockham Dispute." Franciscan Studies 35:212-222.
. 1982. "The Semantics of Terms." The Cambridge History of Later
Medieval Philosophy ed. by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny & Jan
Pinborg, 188-196. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Stanyol, Angel. 1504. Termini. Barcelona.
Toledo, Francisco de. 1596. Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in univer-
sam Aristotelis logicam. Cologne.
Vera Cruz, Alonso de. 1572. Recognitio summularum. Salamanca.
Versor, Johannes. 1572. Petri Hispani summulae logicales cum Versorii
Parisiensis clarissima expositione. Venice. (Repr. Hildesheim: G. Olms,
1981.)
William Ockham. 1974. Summa Logicae. Ed. by Philotheus Boehner,
Gedeon Gal & Stephen Brown. (= Opera Philosophica, 1.) St.Bonaven-
ture, New York: Franciscan Institute.
 Etre:finitudeet infini

. Carlos Bazán
Université d'Ottawa

Une certaine analyse philosophique peut conduire à l'affirmation de la

contingence métaphysique de l'être fini. Si telle conclusion est atteinte, elle
a un impact direct et immédiat sur l'ordre du langage. De quels termes s'en
servir, en effet, pour nommer le fondement dont l'existence est postulée
nécessairement par l'analyse en question? Remarquons d'abord que le be­
soin de postuler ce fondement est conséquence d'une mise en question de
l'être fini quant à son être: le fondement ne saurait donc être qu'infini. Est-
il toujours possible d'utiliser le terme 'être' pour nommer ce qui est au-delà
des êtres? La philosophie est née et elle s'est développée en Grèce dans un
contexte linguistique et théorique où 'être' est une notion mariée indissolu­
blement à la finitude, à la détermination, à la limite qui la rend justement
intelligible. Lorsque la pensée est arrivée à l'affirmation d'un infini positif,
deux chemins s'offraient devant elle: ou bien garder le lien entre 'être' et
'finitude,' rendant ainsi impossible d'utiliser 'être' pour nommer de façon
adéquate l'infini; ou bien produire le divorce entre 'être' et 'finitude,' ren­
dant ainsi possible d'élargir le champ de signification de l'être par une libé­
ration sémantique de portée énorme et décisive sur le plan de la pensée et
du langage. Le but de cette communication est de montrer que la différence
entre la métaphysique de Plotin et celle de Thomas d'Aquin est fondée sur
le choix divers qu'ils ont fait devant ces deux possibilités sémantico-ontolo-
giques. Le point de départ sera la justification de l'existence du lien entre
'être' et 'finitude.' Nous le ferons en présentant, de façon succinte, les vues
d'Aristote sur la signification d"être,' car elles synthétisent de façon claire et
rigoureuse les limites sémantiques de cette notion. Ensuite nous exposerons
le dépassement de la finitude opéré dans le système de Plotin, où la plus
haute intuition de Platon, à savoir, celle du Bien qui est au delà de l'essen-
50 . CARLOS BAZÁN

ce, est insérée dans une vision du réel qui synthétise les meilleurs apports
de la philosophie antique. Finalement, nous étudierons comment Thomas
d'Aquin a libéré la notion d'être de celle de finitude et nous essaierons de
signaler les causes et les conséquences d'un tel tour de force intellectuel.

1. Aristote ou lafinitudede l'être

Que "l'être se prend en plusieurs acceptions" est peut-être une des

thèses les plus connues d'Aristote (cf. Met. , 2, 1003 a 33-34; 1003 b 5; E,
4,1028 a 5; Z, 1, 1028 a 10; K, 3,1059 b 33). La question est de savoir quel­
les sont les différentes significations de ce terme qui constitue, pour ainsi
dire, le coeur du langage. La première distinction qu'il convient d'établir
est celle dont parle Aristote dans les Réfutations sophistiques: "ce n'est pas
le même d"être ceci ou cela' que d'être absolument'" {Top. IX (Ref.
Soph.) 5,167 a 2). Dans le dernier cas 'être' signifie ou exprime la réalité ou
existence de ce à quoi il est attribué comme verbe substantif, autrement dit
il exprime le fait qu'il γ a ce dont on predique l'être. Par contre, le premier
sens du terme 'être' indique une relation entre termes, dont l'un est attribué
à l'autre au moyen précisément du verbe être en fonction de copule judica­
tive. Le "présupposé d'existence" propre de la logique aristotélicienne exi­
ge que la vérité de n'importe quelle relation soit toujours fondée sur la réa­
lité des termes comparés, qui est une autre façon de dire que la question
quid est présuppose la question an est (cf. Anal Post. I, 1, 71 a 26-27) ou
que l'essence présuppose l'existence.
L'être prédicatif, celui qui établit une relation entre un sujet et un at­
tribut, est susceptible encore de recevoir des distinctions suivant la nature
de l'attribut. Si l'attribut dit ce que la chose est, si le prédicat exprime l'es­
sence de la chose, alors on parlera de l'être par essence; si par contre cet at­
tribut se limite à dire comment cette chose est, on parlera de l'être par acci­
dent. Remarquons que ces distinctions de l'être prédicatif se greffent sur
l'être substantif ou absolu: en effet, c'est d'un sujet qui existe (être substan­
tif) qu'on essaie de détreminer ce qu'il 'est' (être prédicatif) en lui donnant
un attribut capable d'exprimer son être. Si l'on dit, par exemple, que "So-
crate est homme" on sera parvenu à exprimer son essence; si l'on dit "So-
crate est blanc" on n'aurait exprimé que son être accidentel. Jusqu'ici nous
avons affaire à des prédicats attribués à un sujet qui existe, qui, seul, mérite
le nom d'ousia, c'est-à-dire, de substance ou réalité.
Si l'on se situe sur le plan des sujets existants (de l'être absolu) on
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 51

s'aperçoit, dit Aristote, que leur réalité n'est autre que Vessence (cf. Met.
Z, 6, 1031 b 19-20; 1032 a 1-2), mais qu'ils possèdent aussi des manières
d'être qui les affectent diversement: il s'agit des accidents pris non pas com­
me des prédicats, mais comme des déterminations réellement existantes
dans le sujet (cf. Met. A, I. 1069 a 16-22). Evidemment ces réalités ont un
être (substantif) amoindri, car elles ne peuvent pas exister sans leur sujet
dans lequel elles greffent par inhérence. Mais on peut dire, de façon légiti­
me, qu'il y a des accidents dans le sujet, et par conséquent on peut leur at­
tribuer l'être pris substantivement. Cet 'être' donc possède, lui-aussi, des si­
gnifications diverses selon qu'il nomme le sujet existant (substance) ou les
déterminations qui l'affectent réellement tout en étant distinctes de son es­
sence (les accidents). Ici on a affaire avec des réalités existantes: il y a des
réalités qui existent en soi, il y a d'autres dont le propre est d'exister dans
un sujet par voie d'inhérence. Le terme 'être,' au sens substantif, c'est-à-
dire au sens ou il exprime ce qui existe, reçoit alors une double signification:
ou bien il exprime la substance, ou bien les accidents. 'Substance' et 'acci­
dents' sont les genres suprêmes, les catégories, dans lesquels s'articule l'être
qui désigne quelque chose d'existant.
Nous pensons donc que la portée des 'catégories' est fondamentalement
ontologique et non logique, et cela n'est qu'une réaffirmation du présuppo­
sé d'existence et de la priorité de l'être substantif sur l'être prédicatif. Que
les catégories ont un sens ontologique peut être mis en évidence si l'on se
rappelle que l'être prédicatif exprimait la relation qu'un attribut entretient
avec un sujet existant. Ces attributs signifient ce que le sujet existant est, et
ils peuvent dire ce que le sujet est par essence ou par accident. Dans un tex­
te, à première vue déroutant, du livre Δ de la Métaphysique, Aristote re­
prend la distinction de l'être prédicatif qui peut être dit de l'être par acci­
dent (kata sumbebekós) ou de l'être par essence (kath'autó), et il donne
comme exemple du premier la proposition 'le juste est musicien,' car l'attri­
but 'musicien' ne s'applique au sujet 'juste' que par hasard, étant distinct de
l'essence du 'juste' comme tel. Mais ce qui intéresse de signaler c'est que le
sujet dont l'attribut est prédiqué est lui-même un accident que l'on suppo­
se existant d'après ce que nous avons expliqué. Le texte continue: "l'être
par essence reçoit autant d'acceptions qu'il y a de sortes de catégories" {Met.
Δ, 7, 1017 a 7-23; cf. E, 2). Comment est-il possible que ces catégo­
ries, qui comprennent non seulement l'essence (substance) mais aussi les
accidents, puissent être les principes de distinction de l'être par essence?
C'est parce que les catégories indiquent premièrement les modes d'être de
52 . CARLOS BAZÁN

réalités existantes ('être' au sens primordial, simpliciter) desquelles sont

prédiqués des attributs au moyen d'une relation établie par l'être (au sens
prédicatif). Lorsque ces attributs disent ce que le sujet est on est devant une
prédication essentielle, même si la réalité existante est un accident réel.
Ainsi donc, pour reprendre l'exemple donné plus haut, si l'on dit "Socrate
est blanc" on a prédication accidentelle de l'être, car il n'est pas de l'essence
de Socrate d'être blanc; mais si l'on dit "la blancheur de Socrate est une
qualité" on a une prédication essentielle de l'être, car il est de la nature
même de l'accident réel existant en Socrate d'appartenir à la catégorie de
qualité. Les catégories indiquent donc les modes essentiels d'être des réal­
ités existantes, les modes essentiels auxquels peut se réduire ce qui est (au
sens d'être existant).
L"être' semble donc être le dénominateur commun à toutes ces
catégories. Peut-on le considérer un genre suprême dont les catégories
seraient les espèces? On connaît la réponse d'Aristote: étant donné que les
différences qui déterminent un genre lui sont extérieures, si P'etre' était un
genre, ses différences devraient venir de l'extérieur de l'être, c'est-à-dire,
du non-être, ce qui est manifestement impossible. Dans le cas de l"être,' les
différences qui permettent d'articuler ses différentes significations partici­
pent nécessairement de l"être,' alors qu'en fait aucune différence ne par­
ticipe de son genre: "pour cette raison, l'être et l'un ne sembleraient pas
devoir être posés comme genres" {Met. K, 1, 1059 b 31-35; cf. B, 3, 998 b
25). L"être' donc n'est pas un genre, mais un 'transcendental'; un simple
prédicat, le plus universel même des prédicats {Met. I, 2, 1053 b 16-23), qui
signifie "l'existence comme quelque chose de donné" (Met. Z, 17,1041 b 4-
6). S'il en est ainsi, l'"être ne signifie rien en dehors de la substance, de la
qualité ou de la quantité" (Cf. Met. I, 2, 1054 a 9-19), c'est-à-dire, en
dehors des catégories qui, elles, sont les genres suprêmes qui articulent de
façon intelligible le transcendental 'être.'
Puisque l"être' ne signifie rien d'autre qu'un simple donné (le fait
d'être-là), le penseur doit se tourner vers les catégories, car c'est en elles
que se trouve la clé de la signification de l'être. Parmi tous les sens indiqués
par les catégories, "on voit clairement que l'être au sens premier estl'essen­
ce, qui indique précisément la substance" {Met. Z, 1, 1028 a 10-15; cf. , 2,
1003 a 33-34, 1003 b 5). De fait "les catégories autres que la substance ne
sont pas des êtres proprement dits, mais des qualités et des mouvements de
l'être," {Met. A, 1, 1069 a 19-22) elles sont appelées 'êtres' par la relation
qu'elles ont avec la notion de substance. {Met. Θ, 1, 1045 b 25-30) Et puis-
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 53

que l'être appartient à la substance d'une manière primordiale (πρώτως) et

aux autres catégories d'une manière dérivée (επομένως), (Met. Ζ , 4, 1030
a 20-24, cf, 1030b 5; K, 3, 1059 b 31-35) on comprend dès lors que pour
Aristote "la question toujours posée: qu'est-ce que l'être? revienne à ceci:
qu'est-ce que la substance?" (Met. Z, 1, 1028 b 3-7). Cette réduction de la
question de l'être à celle de la substance doit être éclaircie.
La substance en effet peut signifier soit le sujet concret existant en soi,
soit l'essence de ce sujet. Le premier sens est prédominant dans l'Organon
(particulièrement dans le Traité des catégories), mais dans la Métaphysique
on assiste à un changement progressif du centre d'intérêt de l'analyse. En
effet "puisqu'on doit connaître l'existence de la chose comme quelque cho­
se de donné, il est évident que ce qu'on cherche, c'est pourquoi la matière
(le sujet) est telle chose" (Met. 1041 b 4-6). Puisque l'être substantif n'indi­
que que le fait d'être-là de la chose, le véritable intéret du philosophe doit
s'orienter à déterminer "la cause en raison de laquelle la matière (le sujet)
est quelque chose de défini, et c'est cela qui est la substance de la chose"
(Met. Z, 17, 1041 b 8-9). La véritable question pour le philosophe n'est pas
pourquoi les choses sont (cela est de l'ordre du donné), mais pourquoi elles
sont ce qu'elles sont.1 La question de l'être devient la question de l'essence,
car c'est celle-ci qui accorde un sens précis à la première question (P'être'
ne l'oublions pas, ne signifie rien en dehors des catégories). C'est pourquoi
"connaître ce qu'est chaque chose c'est connaître sa quiddité" (Met. Z, 6,
1031 b 19-20). En réalité "non seulement la substance et la quiddité ne font
qu'une chose, mais encore leur définition est la même" (Ibidem, 1032 a 1-
2). Donc la question de l'être se réduit à celle de la substance, et celle-ci, à
celle de la quiddité qui peut être exprimée dans une définition (Met. Z, 5,
1031 a 12-14). Or, puisque "c'est la substance formelle de chaque être qui
est la cause première de son être" (Met. Z, 17,1041 b 27-28), la question de
l'être et celle de la substance reviennent en dernière analyse à une question
sur la forme. Cette dernière, en effet, est le principe d'actualité de ce qui
existe, ou entélechie. Alors, si l'être et l'un se prennent en plusieurs accep­
tions, "leur sens fondamental, c'est l'entélechie" (De anima II, 1, 412 b 7-
9). L'équivalence entre 'être,' 'essence' et 'forme' est ainsi achevée. Dans
l'unité intelligible de la forme et de la définition qui expriment ce que les
choses 'sont' s'épuise la recherche, car dans cette essence on a trouvé la dé­
termination immuable, objet propre de la pensée (Met. K, 6,1063 a 10-15).
Penser est toujours penser un être déterminé: on ne sort de l'imprécision du
simple prédicat 'être' que lorsqu'on se situe au plan de l'essence et de la for-
54 . CARLOS BAZÁN

me qui lui confèrent un sens défini. Le mariage entre 'être' et 'finitude' est
ainsi confirmé. Même le Bien en soi (que Platon situait au-delà de l'être)
est placé par Aristote à l'intérieur de la série positive des substances (Met.
A, 7, 1072 a 30-37). Même l'Etre séparé et immobile, "s'il existe une subs­
tance de cette nature," doit être conçu comme substance; et tout parfait
qu'il soit, il n'est pas moins déterminé et fini,2 car "que l'Infini soit séparé,
chose en soi, ce n'est pas possible" (Met. K, 10,1066 b 1 et 11). Et puisque
l'Un et l'être "sont identiques et d'une même nature," l'Un non plus
n'échappe à la finitude (Met. , 2, 1003 b 23 sqq.).

2. Plotin ou l'Infini qui n'est pas.

Notre analyse de la pensée de Plotin présuppose la démarche ascen­

dante qui s'élève, à partir du monde sensible et de l'Ame qui le contient et
l'anime, jusqu'au monde intelligible, ou plutôt jusqu'à la Deuxième Hypos­
tase, qui est elle-même la dualité insurmontable de l'Intelligence et de
l'Etre. Puisque c'est ici que l'on trouve l'Etre véritable, c'est ici que l'on
doit saisir la signification d'être': des trois Hypostases, c'est la deuxième
qui nous intéresse comme point de départ, car c'est en elle que l'être se
trouve dans sa plus haute perfection.3
Cet Etre absolu est à la fois Intelligence et Intelligible. En tant qu'In­
telligible il comporte une multiplicité, une altérité foncière (Enn. VI, 9, 8
[30-40]), qui est fruit de son caractère forcément déterminé. Comme l'avait
montré Platon, pour que l'être réponde à la loi de sa perfection, qui est
Y identité avec lui-même, il faut en même temps qu'il soit autre vis-à-vis des
autres déterminations.4 Cette altérité réciproque des intelligibles, fruit de la
détermination inhérente à la notion d'être, ne disparaît pas même si on
considère la totalité des intelligibles dans leur unité diversifiée, et cela pour
la même raison, à savoir son caractère défini et limité: "l'être, qui mérite
véritablement le nom d'être, c'est l'être réel, c'est-à-dire qui est l'être d'une
manière totale à qui il ne manque rien de l'être... il est donc défini et limité"
(Enn. III, 6, 6 [10-20]). L'altérité que même la totalité de l'Être ne peut
abolir est celle qui le distingue de l'Intelligence. Au niveau de la Deuxième
Hypostase, l'unité de l'Intelligence et de l'Intelligible n'exclut pas leur dua­
lité relative, car, comme l'a montré J. Moreau, si l'identité entre la pensée et
l'être exprime l'idéal de la connaissance, leur dualité est la condition de son
exercice.5 La Deuxième Hypostase est "la multiplicité réelle, c'est l'Intelli­
gence et l'Intelligible pris ensemble" (Enn. III, 8, 9, [5-15]). La multiplicité
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 55

de l'Intelligible provient du fait que la vision de l'Intelligence ne peut saisir

l'Un dans sa simplicité, mais elle le refracte dans la multiplicité de l'être;6 la
dualité de l'Intelligence et de l'Être est due au fait qu'il s'agit de termes cor­
rélatifs, "l'Intelligence faisant subsister l'Etre en le pensant, et l'Être, com­
me objet de pensée, donnant à l'Intelligence la pensée et l'existence"
{Enn. Y, 1,4 [27-29]).
Cet Etre parfait, objet fixe auquel se termine l'Intelligence, est marqué
par la détermination et la finitude. Rien ne saurait montrer plus clairement
que ce texte fondamental:
...l'Un n'est aucune des choses qui sont en l'Intelligence; mais de lui vien­
nent toutes les choses. Et c'est pourquoi ces choses sont des essences (ού-
δίαι); car chacune d'elles a une limite et comme une forme; l'être ne peut
appartenir à l'illimité, l'être doit être fixé dans une limite déterminée et
dans un état stable (το δέ ôv δει ουκ εν άοριδτω οίον θεωρείδθαι άλλ'
ορω πεπςχθαι και στάσει); cet état stable, pour les intelligibles, c'est la
définition et la forme (óρισμός και μορφή), d'où ils tirent aussi leur réali­
té {Enn. V, 1, 7 [21-25].
On retrouve, chez Plotin, la même équivalence entre 'être,' 'essence,'
'forme' et 'définition' que nous avions trouvée chez Aristote. Nous limitons
le rapprochement entre les deux grands penseurs à ce lien entre 'être' et fi­
nitude, sans méconnatre les différences profondes qui séparent les deux
métaphysiques. Jean Trouillard a montré clairement qu'il ne faut pas croire
que le plotinisme est une philosophie de l'Un au delà de l'être, mais qu'au
niveau de la Deuxième Hypostase tout se passe comme dans la métaphysi­
que d'Aristote (Trouillard 1955:39). En effet, cet 'être' marqué de finitude
est, chez Plotin, objet et terme de l'Intelligence, et ce terme est idée. Dans
l'acte de la pensée, "l'intelligence se fait être, et l'être se fait intelligence"
{Enn. VI, 2, 8 [18]) ou, pour reprendre la formule parménidienne, "penser
et être, c'est la même chose."7 Le réel (l'être véritable) apparaît ainsi
comme intérieur à la vérité, et celle-ci comme intérieure à l'esprit. On
pourrait s'étendre sur cet 'idéalisme' de Plotin,8 mais ce qui nous intéresse
c'est seulement de mettre en relief que cet être, si étroitement lié à l'Intelli­
gence, est un être toujours dé-fini, dont la finitude explique, en tant qu'elle
comporte détermination et par conséquent opposition, que l'altérité doive
être placée, avec le même, parmi les 'genres' premiers {Enn. VI, 2, 8 [33-
48]). Ce qu'il faut mettre en relief c'est que l'Etre parfait, celui de la
Deuxième Hypostase, celui qui ne saurait se trouver en défaut sous le rap­
port de l'être, comporte cependant détermination (finitude) et altérité.
56 . CARLOS BAZÁN

C'est justement cette caractéristique de l'être, et la dualité inhérente à

la Deuxième Hypostase, qui l'empêchent d'être postulée comme fonde­
ment dernier: "l'intelligence, en effet, n'est donc pas simple mais multiple;
elle manifeste une composition, intelligible, il est vrai" (Enn. V, 4, 2[9]),
mais cela suffit pour la disqualifier en tant que principe premier. La compo­
sition est le signe d'une relativité qui affecte les termes du composé. Puis­
que l'être et l'intelligence son mutuellement relatifs, on n'a pas encore at­
teint, avec eux, l'absolu. Celui-ci exige donc une totale simplicité. Et puis­
que la relativité est liée à l'altérité, et celle-ci à la détermination (finitude),
l'absolument simple doit être infini (Enn. IV, 3, 8 [35-38]). Dans le système
de Plotin la pensée grecque s'élève jusqu'à une notion positive d'infini. Il
est question maintenant de savoir si le terme 'être' est un terme adéquat, ou
du moins utilisable, pour le nommer.
Remarquons que la démarche qui mène à l'Infini passe par une criti­
que de l'être parfait.9 Celui-ci a été saisi comme étant synonyme d'essence
et de forme, et par conséquent comme étant indissolublement lié à la finitu­
de. C'est la raison pour laquelle le terme d'être est intrinsèquement inap­
proprié pour nommer l'Infini. Plutôt que de libérer la notion d'être' de cel­
le de 'finitude,' Plotin choisi un chemin différent. Puisque l'être implique
détermination, l'Infini ne saurait 'être': "certes, ce principe n'est rien, rien
de ce dont il est le principe; certes, rien ne peut être affirmé de lui, ni la
substance, ni la vie; mais c'est qu'il est supérieur à tout cela. Faites abstrac­
tion de l'être pour le saisir; vous serez étonnés..." (Enn. III, 7, 6 [27-29]).
Puisque l'être veut dire 'essence,' l'Infini ne saurait 'être,' car l'essence est
principe de détermination et finitude: l'Infini est donc "au delà de l'essen­
ce," et "au delà de l'être" (Enn. III, 9, 9; V, 3, 17; V, 4, 1; V, 4, 2; VI, 7,
40; VI, 8, 16; etc.). Et comme la Pensée ou intelligence dit rapport à l'être,
l'Infini doit aussi être "au delà de la pensée,"10 car il est au delà de tous les
genres suprêmes. La raison en est toujours la même: tant l'être que la pen­
sée, aussi bien que les genres suprêmes, sont finis car ils ont une forme qui
les rend opposés les uns les autres, c'est-à-dire, multiples: "L'intelligence
est quelque chose, et elle est un être... mais ce terme (l'Infini, l'Un) n'est
pas quelque chose... il n'est pas non plus un être, carl'être a une forme... il
n'est ni en mouvement ni en repos... il est en soi, essence isolée des autres,
ou plutôt elle est sans essence puisqu'il est avant toute essence, avant le
mouvement et avant le repos; car ces propriétés se trouvent dans l'être et le
rendent multiple" (Enn. VI, 9, 3 [35-45]). Etant donné que l'être et la pen­
sée sont liés à l'essence, l'ascension vers l'Infini exige un dépassement de
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 57

l'ordre de l'être, seul moyen d'arriver à postuler "ce principe merveilleux

qui n'a en lui ni essence ni pensée, mais qui est solitaire en lui-même" (Enn.
VI, 7, 40).
C'est sur la base de cette identité entre l'être et la finitude que l'on
peut comprendre pourquoi Plotin a critiqué Parménide d'avoir assimilé
l'Un à l'être, comme c'est sur la base du caractère fini et relatif de la Pensée
que l'on peut saisir pourquoi Plotin à critiqué Aristote d'avoir attribué la
pensée à Dieu (Enn. V, 1, 8; cf. V, 6, 1; VI, 7, 37; VI, 7, 41). De l'infini on
ne peut pas dire qu'il 'est,' car pour le faire il faudrait ajouter la forme, qui
est le compagnon inséparable de l'être, ce qui nous forcerait à dire "il est
ainsi"; or l'Infini est au delà de toute détermination, au delà de tout 'ainsi'
(Enn. VI, 8, 9 [40-41]). Ce n'est pas qu'un être soit fini; mais c'est la totalité
même des êtres (l'être parfait) qui est finie; c'est pourquoi il y a un hiatus
infranchissable entre l'Infini et cette totalité (Enn. VI, 7, 42). La seule fa­
çon qu'on puisse dire qu'il est "tous les êtres" c'est dans un sens causal, car
tous les êtres proviennent de lui, mais en lui-même "il n'est pas un être"
(Enn. VI, 7, 32 [14] et [29], car "il est trop haut et trop grand pour être ap­
pelé l'être (Enn. V, 3, 14 [16-17]).
Que l'Un-Infini soit la cause de l'être et de l'intelligence n'implique
donc pas qu'il soit 'être' et 'intelligence' au sens pur. Il est propre du néo­
platonisme que la cause première soit d'un tout autre ordre que son effet
car, comme l'explique Plotin, "il n'est pas nécessaire qu'un être qui donne
possède ce qu'il donne" (Enn. VI, 7, 17 [3-4]). L'Infini est cause de l'être
(essence), et la cause qui fait voir l'essence; et pour qu'il exerce cetten cau­
salité il faut qu'il ne soit lui-même aucune des choses qui proviennent de lui
(Enn. V, 2,1 [3-5]). L'être toujours fini n'est que la trace de l'Un-Infini qui
n'est pas être: c'est pourquoi on peut dire que le mot être, einai, dérive du
mot un, en" (Enn. V, 5, 5 [13-14]). L'être est toujours ousia et forme, limi­
te et détermination; mais ce qui produit l'être est lui-même sans forme, et
par conséquent sans essence (Enn. V, 5, 6 [1-6]; VI, 7, 17 [17-18]; VI, 7,
32). Cette forme ou finitude est le bien propre de l'être, dont il ne saurait
s'en passer; mais elle est aussi la cause de sa radicale inadéquation pour
nommer l'Infini.
Mais l'être est l'objet et le terme de l'intelligence, aussi bien que le
principe structural de notre langage attributif. Comment alors penser ou
dire l'Infini qui n'est pas être? Si l'analyse métaphysique oblige à postuler
l'Un, cela ne veut pas dire que nous puissions le saisir en lui-même: "sans
le saisir par la connaissance, nous ne sommes pas tout à fait sans le saisir;
58 . CARLOS BAZÁN

nous le saisissons assez pour parler de lui, mais sans que nos paroles l'attei­
gnent en lui-même" {Enn. V, 3, 14 [4-6]). Ceci parce que l'Intelligence se
nourrit d'essences, et notre langage exprime ces essences dans une structure
attributive. C'est cette structure qui cause des problèmes majeurs, car elle
opère sur la base du verbe être qui relie une détermination à un sujet par
voie d'attribution, établissant ainsi une dualité incompatible avec la simpli­
cité de l'Un: "ne disons pas: "c'est ce qui est un," afin d'éviter d'énoncer
l'un comme un attribut d'un sujet autre que lui" {Enn. VI, 9, 5). Dans ces
conditions le seul rapport avec l'Infini consiste "à sortir du langage pour
nous éveiller à la contemplation" {Enn. VI, 9, 4), qui est une présence su­
périeure, à la science et à intuition intellectuelle, toutes les deux confinées
au domaine de l'être et de la finitude. Comment notre intelligence pourrait-
elle comprendre une chose qui n'est pas? C'est pour cela que, face à l'Infini
il vaut mieux "nous en aller en silence, et, dans l'embarras où nous ont mis
nos réflexions, il faut cesser de questionner" {Enn. VI, 8, ll[i-3]). Mais si on
décide de parler de lui, et d'utiliser des mots qu'on ne devrait pas employer
en toute rigueur, au sein d'une structure attributive essentiellement inadé­
quate, alors il faudra être conscient que ces mots, "il faut les entendre tou­
jours avec un comme si" {Enn. VI, 8, 13 [45-50]).
La métaphysique de Plotin a gardé le lien intrinsèque entre 'être' et 'fi­
nitude' propre à la pensée grecque. En ce faisant il s'est vu obligé, une fois
postulé l'Infini comme fondement dernier, de sortir des cadres de la pensée
et du langage. Il affirme ainsi, d'une façon inégalée jusqu'alors, la transcen­
dance du Premier, mais il risque d'établir un fossé infranchissable qu'un
langage du "comme si" ne saurait aucunement remédier.

3. Thomas d'Aquin ou l'infinition de l'Être

Si l'univers aristotélicien est caractérisé par la finitude de l'être, et ce­

lui de Plotin par l'Infini qui n'est pas être, l'univers de Thomas d'Aquin
(1225-1274) est présidé par un Etre Infini. Que s'est-il produit, au niveau de
l'analyse métaphysique du réel, et au niveau du langage, pour permettre la
libération sémantique de la notion d"être' vis-à-vis de la finitude à laquelle
elle était enchaînee dans la philosophie clasique? car c'est justement d'une
libération dont il s'agit, semblable à celles que Thomas a effectuées au sujet
de la notion d"éternité' — qui n'est plus forcément liée à celle de 'nécessité
métaphysique' —, et au sujet de la notion de 'forme substantielle' — qui,
du moins pour ce qui concerne l'âme humaine, n'est plus liée existentielle-
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 59

ment à la matière. Le système de Thomas garde avec le néoplatonisme

cette similitude profonde qui consiste à affirmer l'Infini comme source du
fini. Mais la différence fondamentale c'est que Thomas désigne l'Infini avec
le terme 'être.' Cela n'aurait pas été possible sans une transformation très
profonde de la signification de l'être, et cela même lorsqu'il est attribué aux
êtres finis. Pour reprendre l'avertissement de Trouillard, mutatis mutandis,
il ne faut pas croire que le thomisme est une philosophie de l'Être infini,
mais qu'au niveau de l'être fini tout se passe comme dans la métaphysique
d'Aristote. Puisque l'être est saisi par notre intelligence à partir du fini,
c'est déjà dans l'ordre du fini qu'a dû se produire la libération sémantique
dont nous parlions afin de rendre possible cet 'excessus' qui consiste à pos­
tuler un Être infini. Nous essaierons de voir la démarche de Thomas telle
qu'elle se présente dans les oeuvres qui appartiennent au début de sa car­
rière, c'est-à-dire à son premier enseignement parisien. Les formules par­
fois hésitantes que l'on repère dans ces oeuvres témoignent des difficultés
de l'effort théorique acompli par Thomas; les analyses métaphysiques et les
conclusions auxquelles il arrive mettent en évidence qu'une nouvelle
conception de l'être doit être comptée parmi les intuitions initiales de sa
philosophie.
Signalons que les premières oeuvres de Thomas sont marquées par un
effort d'établir une terminologie philosophique propre, tout en assimilant la
terminologie de ses prédécesseurs, particulièrement d'Aristote, mais aussi
d'Avicenne, d'Averroès et de Boèce. Il y a des passages, ou même des oeu­
vres entières, où Thomas ne fait que s'approprier la terminologie aristotéli­
cienne par une analyse de la signification de mots. C'est le cas, par exem­
ple, du petit traité De principiis naturae (1252-1256), où l'on trouvera
difficilement des éléments proprement thomistes. Dans son Commentaire
sur le Livre des Sentences, de longs éclaircissements sur la notion d"être'
sont donnés dans la ligne d'un aristotélisme pur, et rien ne semble indiquer
des apports nouveaux; 11 et la même chose arrive lorsque Thomas explique
la notion de 'substance' (II Sent. d. 37, q. 1 a. 1 c). Le premier chapitre du
De ente et essentia s'inscrit aussi dans cet horizon aristotélicien de compré­
hension de l"être,' c'est-à-dire de l'être comme prédicat dont la significa­
tion est précisée par les catégories; 12 chose intéressante à remarquer: le
genre de la 'substance,' qui est la signification primordiale du concept ana­
logique d'être, est attribué à Dieu (substantia prima que Deus est). Au cha­
pitre 2 du même traité est réaffirmé ce caractère premier de la substance et
de l'essence: essentia est secundum quam res esse dicitur; et à l'intérieur de
l'essence, la priorité revient à la forme: per formant igitur efficitur ens actu
60 . CARLOS BAZÁN

et hoc aliquid. Toujours dans la ligne de l'aristotélisme, Thomas explique,

dans les Questions disputées sur la Vérité (1256-59), pour quelle raison l'être
ne peut pas être un genre et de quelle façon son sens est précisé soit par les
catégories (en tant que modes spéciaux d'être), soit par les autres transcen-
dantaux (en tant que modes généraux qui affectent tout être - v. Q. de Ver.,
q. 1, a. 1 c). Dans tous les passages que nous venons de citer il s'agit du
terme ens; ils ne contiennent pas des élaborations sur le terme esse lequel,
comme nous le verrons, contient la clé de l'apport thomiste à la significa­
tion de l'être. Il est intéressant de noter que parfois 'ens' et 'esse' se recou­
vrent, tout comme si Thomas n'était pas encore parvenu à établir les dis­
tinctions qui s'imposent.13
A la lecture aristotélicienne du réel, que Thomas va dépasser sans re­
nier, s'ajoutent d'autres, d'inspiration néoplatonicienne, (surtout celle
d'Avicenne) que Thomas va à assumer pour les dépasser également. Le
chapitre 3 du De ente et essentia est capital pour comprendre le tournant
décisif que va prendre la pensée de Thomas, car il laisse transparaître les
sources qui inspirent l'enrichissement thomiste de la notion d"être.' En ef­
fet, sur la base d'une distinction établie par Avicenne (Met. V, 1 et 2), Tho­
mas soutient que l"essence' est susceptible d'une double considération: "se­
cundum rationem propriam et hec est absolute consideratio ipsius... alio
modo secundum esse quod habet in hoc vel in illo." L'être qu'elle possède
dans les choses est singulier; celui qu'elle possède dans l'intelligence est
universel; mais l'essence, considérée absolument, fait abstraction del'esse.
Une distance a été établie entre l'être et l'essence, et Thomas ne fera que
l'approfondir. En effet, puisque l'essence d'une chose (ce que la chose est,
c'est-à-dire ce qu'on lui attribue comme genre appartenant à la première
catégorie), peut être comprise sansl'esse, il faut dire que celui-ci doit lui ad­
venir de l'extérieur, pour faire composition avec l'essence. De cela Thomas
conclut: patet quod esse est aliud ab essentia vel quidditate.14
Il est vrai qu'Aristote avait déjà distingué la question quid sit de la
question an sit, et que cela pourrait faire soupçonner que la thèse de Tho­
mas peut être réduite à l'aristotélisme. Mais il ne faut pas oublier que pour
Aristote l'être substantif, celui qui est attribué au sens existentiel, "ne signi­
fie rien en dehors des catégories." Il est un simple prédicat qui exprime une
situation de fait: il y a. L'esse que Thomas fait entrer en composition avec
l'essence est, avec celle-ci, un principe composant de la chose.15 Que l'esse
ne soit pas "un simple prédicat," mais un principe du réel apparaît claire­
ment si l'on tient compte du contexte où cette notion est introduite dans le
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 61

chapitre 4 du De ente: là il est question de savoir si les substances intelligen­

tes sont simples ou composées. Après avoir refuté Avicebron et son hylé-
morphisme universel (postulé à partir du seul type de composition réelle
connu dans l'aristotélisme), Thomas soutient que ces substances ne sont pas
simples (comme l'aurait dit Aristote dans le cadre de sa métaphysique de la
forme), mais composées de forme et esse. Une fois établi l' esse comme co-
principe de l'essence il fallait assurer l'unité du composé. Cela ne pouvait
être fait que par une composition d'acte et de puissance. Le moment est
décisif pour l'avenir de la métaphysique thomiste: on aurait pu considérer
l'être comme un principe potentiel que l'essence viendrait déterminer, mais
Thomas prend la solution inverse et fait de l'essence l'élément potentiel, et
de l'esse le principe d'actualité. 16 La forme, dernier principe d'actualité
dans la métaphysique aristotélicienne, est dépassée par un acte plus fonda­
mental: esse est magis intimum cuilibet rei quam ea per quae esse determina-
tur (II Sent. d. 1, q. 1, a. 5 ). Si l'essence exprime ce que la chose est (ip-
sum quod est ipsa), l'esse est le principe par lequel elle subsiste (id quo sub­
sista). (De ente,  4) Le principe aristotélicien selon lequel la forme est le
principe de l'être (forma dat esse), doit pas conséquent être précisé: la for­
me ne peut plus être considérée cause efficiente de l'esse qui est son acte. 17
L'introduction de l'actus essendi comme principe réel d'actualité, dif­
férent de l'essence, devait se traduire par une précision terminologique
concernant la notion d'être (ens). En effet, si l'acte d'être (esse) est la sour­
ce première d'actualité de "ce qui est" (ens), ce terme 'ens' doit avoir un
rapport direct avec esse: hoc nomen 'qui est' vel 'ens' imponitur ab ipso actu
essendi (I Sent., d. 8, 9. 1, a. 1). Si parfois Thomas a repris, au début de sa
carrière, les formules aristotéliciennes qui réduisent la signification de l'être
au fait d'être-là, à un simple prédicat dont la signification est précisée par
l'essence (cf. Supra n. 11), les formules qui expriment sa propre pensée
rattachent plutôt le terme 'être' (ens) à un acte (esse) qui, comme tel, est
principe d'intelligibilité de l'essence. C'est parce que la signification d"être'
n'est plus liée à l'essence, mais à l'acte de l'essence, que ce terme ne peut
pas être considéré un genre, car il est propre du genre de signifier une cer­
taine quiddité ou mode d'être. 18 Pour remplacer le terme d"être' lié à l'es­
sence Thomas, à la suite d'Avicenne, propose le terme 'chose,' car, en ef­
fet, il est propre de toute chose d'être toujours 'quelque' chose. 19 La dis­
tinction entre 'ens' et 'res' sera maintenue par Thomas tout le long de sa
carrière; elle fera l'objet de controverses. 20 Ce qui intéresse de remarquer
c'est que le terme 'être' est rattaché maintenant à un acte, et non plus au
62 . CARLOS BAZÁN

principe de limitation et de finitude de cet acte (l'essence). La libération

sémantique de la notion d'être vis-à-vis de l'essence est appuyée sur la dis­
tinction que Thomas établit, sur le plan réel, entre les deux co-principes de la
chose: in creatura differt essentia rei et esse suum (I Sent., d . 2 , q . l , a . 4 a d
lm). Cette introduction de l'actus essendi établit aussi une distinction entre
le sujet qui l'exerce (l'être au sens d'ens)et l'acte lui-même (esse). C'est
dans la lumière de cet acte que Thomas relit la Métaphysique: uesse duplici-
ter dicitur, ut patet per Philosophum in V Met... Uno modo, secundum
quod est copula verbalis significans compositionem... Alio modo esse dici­
tur actus entis in quantum est ens."21 Être au sens d'esse ne signifie plus "un
simple prédicat qui ne signifie rien," mais la racine de la perfection de ce
qui existe (ens).
La distinction entre 'ens' et 'esse' est finement élaboré par Thomas
dans son commentaire sur le De hebdomadibus de Boèce (1256-1259).
D'abord sur le plan notionnel, où 'esse' est présenté comme signifiant in
abstracto la perfection d'être, tandis que 'ens' ou 'quod est' signifie "in con­
creto" ce qui existe ou sujet de l'acte d'être (In Boetii De hebdomadibus,
lect. II, n.22-25). Ensuite il élabore la distinction qu'il faut établir, sur le
plan réel, entre le sujet concret existant et son acte d'être (Ibidem, n. 31-
34). Sur le plan notionnel la différence n'est pas établie sur un degré inégal
d'universalité: tant 'esse' qu"ens' sont 'communissima,' mais le terme 'ens'
vis-à-vis du terme 'esse' a un rapport de participation comme celui qui
existe entre le concret et l'abstrait; l' esse par contre n'implique pas de rap­
port de participation à quoi que ce soit. La notion d'esse est aussi présentée
comme fruit d'une abstraction précisive, qui exclut tout élément étranger à
la notion,22 tandis que celle d"ens' est fruit d'une abstraction totale qui per­
met de désigner la totalité du sujet existant par voie d'indétermination de
ces caractéristiques particulières, mais sans les exclure. En définitive, les
différences sont celles qui existent entre la notion qui exprime le sujet de
l'être (ens) et l'acte d'être (esse). Cette distinction notionnelle présuppose
une distinction réelle: sicut esse et quod est differunt in simplicibus secun­
dum intentiones, ita in compositis differunt realiter. En réalité, dit Thomas,
il faut dire que même les êtres non matériels sont composés car, bien que
leur essence ne comporte pas de matière, leurs formes pures entrent en
composition avec l'acte d'être: quaelibet forma est determinativa ipsius
esse, nulla earum est ipsum esse, sed est habens esse (In Boet., De Hebd.,
lect. II, n. 34. cf. De ente, c.5). La contribution fondamentale du commen­
taire sur le De hebdomadibus est d'avoir montré que l'acte d'être (esse) ne
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 63

participe pas de quelque chose, ni contient quoi que ce soit d'étranger: de

soi il ne dit pas finitude; mais la détermination et la limite lui viennent du
sujet qui participe de cet acte, de la modalité (essence) d'après laquelle le
sujet exerce cet acte.
Par une démarche métaphysique qu'il serait inapproprié de développer
ici, Thomas montre que tout être (ens) qui participe de l'acte d'être (esse),
c'est-à-dire, qui exerce cet acte de façon finie, et l'ordre tout entier des
êtres finis, doit avoir comme cause un être qui soit pur acte d'être, c'est-à-
dire, un être infini.,23 La possibilité de parler d'un être infini a été ouverte
après que Thomas a montré que la notion d'esse neque participat aliquid...
neque habet aliquid extraneum admixtum (In Boet De hebd., lect. II, n. 32).
S'il a choisi d'appeler cette cause première un être infini c'est parce que,
contre l'avis de Plotin, et à la suite d'Aristote, il considère que "la chose qui
possède éminemment une nature est toujours celle dont les autres choses
tiennent en commun cette nature" (Met. a, 1, 993 b 24-25). Puisquel'esse est
communissimum, sa cause ne peut être qu'un Être subsistant, c'est-à-dire,
un acte d'être non limité par la puissance. Ainsi donc, Thomas non seule­
ment a libéré la notion d'esse de celle de finitude, mais en ce faisant il a ren­
du possible de postuler un être infini réel: un être qui ne soit qu'esse subsis­
tens.24 L'exigence d'unité et de simplicité de la cause première que Plotin
avait si rigoureusement établie, et qui ne pouvait pas être satisfaite par sa
notion d'être fini (et par conséquent multiple), peut être parfaitement rem­
plie par l'Esse Subsistens de Thomas: "talis res que sit suum esse non potest
esse nisi una" (De ente, c.4), car la multiplicité est toujours fruit d'une
détermination incompatible avec l'infinitude. Cette infinitude assure à Dieu la
transcendance que Plotin voulait lui assurer en lui refusant le terme 'être.'
En effet, dit Thomas, il ne faut pas confondre YEsse subsistens avec Yesse
commune (la notion d'acte d'être): si le premier est infini parce qu'aucune
addition peut lui être faite, le second est tel qu'il n'inclut aucune addition
sans pour autant inclure le rejet des additions: Dieu est distinct non pas par
une détermination qui l'opposerait aux créatures, mais par son infinité
même.25 Pour la même raison l'être infini n'est pas dans un genre car, com­
me l'avait montré Avicenne, pour qu'une chose soit dans un genre il faut
que l'essence soit distincte de l'acte d'être.26 Et par conséquent il transcend
tous nos concepts, tirés des créatures, et prédiqués des sujets par voie d'at­
tribution: la théologie négative d'une métaphysique de l'être infini n'est pas
moins rigoureuse que celle d'une métaphysique de l'Un qui est au delà de
l'être (fini).27
64 . CARLOS B A Z Á N

La métaphysique de Thomas est une métaphysique de l'acte d'être.

Elle a comme clef de voûte la libération sémantique de la notion d'être vis-
à-vis de l'essence qui la détermine: ens non dicit quidditatem, sed solum ac­
tum essendi. C'est parce que l'être (ens) n'est plus lié à la finitude qu'il peut
être attribué à l'Infini: 'qui est' est maxime proprium nomen Dei inter alia
nomina" (I Sent. ,d.8, q.l,a.l). Mais puisque le terme ens est enraciné dans
l'acte d'être (esse) et celui-ci est radicalement distinct selon qu'il s'agisse
d'un esse subsistens ou d'un esse receptum (De ente, c.5), il faut dire que le
terme ens n'est pas attribué à Dieu et aux créatures de façon univoque.28
Dans la métaphysique de Thomas tant Yens que l'esse ont été dégagés de la
finitude à laquelle on les attachait pour les rendre intelligibles. Sur le plan
notionnel, le terme 'être' fruit d'une abstraction sine precisione, peut être
dit indéterminé parce que sa nature n'implique point, par elle-même, une
détermination. Sur le plan réel Dieu est infini parce qu'il est de sa nature de
n'être point déterminé. La libération sur le plan notionnel permet d'attri­
buer l"être' en même temps à l'Infini qui est pur acte d'être, et au fini qui
exerce cet acte de manière déterminée (participatum). Le langage possède
dorénavant un terme capable de dire analogiquement les deux grands or­
dres du réel.
Cette étude doit être complétée par une étude des sources immédiates
de Thomas,29 et de l'évolution de sa métaphysique de l'acte d'être. On
pourrait montrer alors que, sous l'influence peut-être du néoplatonisme,
Thomas réserve le terme Esse à l'infini,30 tandis qu'il tend à restreindre le
terme ens à l'ordre de ce qui participe de façon finie à l'acte d'être.31 Le ter­
me ens serait ainsi devenu l'équivalent de notre 'étant' et, comme tel, il se­
rait inapproprié pour exprimer l'Être infini.

NOTES
1. Si la philosophie est née de l'étonnement, il est clair que, pour Aristóte, il s'agit de
"l'étonnement de ce que les choses sont ce qu'elles sont" {Met. A, 2, 983 a 12-13).
2. Met. K, 7,1064 a 30 b 9. voir thèse contraire chez J. Moreau, Plotin ou la gloire de la pen­
sée antique (Paris, 1970), p. 83, no. 40.
3. Enn. V, 1, 10 (1-4): "il y a d'abord l'Un qui est au-delà de l'Etre...puis, à sa suite, l'Etre
et l'Intelligence, et, au troisième rang, la nature de l'Ame." (Nous utilisons l'édition Bré-
hier).
4. Enn. VI, 7,13 (43): "le même dans cet être est également l'autre," cf. V, 1, 4 (39-40). Cf.
PLATON, Soph. 256e: "Tout être implique, avec son contenu, une infinité de non-être."
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 65

5. Moreau (1970:66). Pour la dualité insurmontable de la Pensée et de l'Etre, cf. Enn. V, 1,

4 (25-35).
6. Enn. V, 3, 11; cf. VI, 7, 15. C'est le regard de la Deuxième Hypostase tournée vers son
principe qui la constitue à la fois comme Intelligence et être: cf. V, 2 , 1 (9-13). Elle est le
foyer de tous les êtres: V, 5, 5.
7. Enn. V, 1, 8; cf. Enn. 4, 2 (45): "l'être est identique à l'intelligence"; Enn. VI, 7, 40 (15-
16): "pensée et essence ne sont pas des choses différentes."
8. L'expression de J. Moreau est utilisée aussi par J. Trouillard (1955:39, n.l).
9. N'oublions pas que dans la deuxième Hypostase se trouve la substance "entière et totale"
de l'être, celle "à qui rien ne peut plus manquer et à qui du non être ne saurait absolu­
ment pas s'ajouter" [Enn. III, 7, 4 (37-43)].
10. Enn. V, 3, 12 (48-52); VI, 7, 40; VI, 7, 39: "(Platon) a raison de mettre l'altérité là où il
y a intelligence et essence."
11. Cf. Il Sent. d. 37, q. 1, a. 2 ad 3 m: "Ens dicitur dupliciter. Uno modo quod significat es-
sentiam rei extra animam existentis... Alio modo secundum quod significat veritatem pro-
positionis." Cf. d. 34, q. 1, a. 1 c ; III, Sent. d. 6, q. 2, a. 2.
12. De entey  1: "ens dicitur dupliciter: uno modo quod dividitur per decern genera, alio
modo quod significat propositionum veritatem... "essentia" sumitur ab ente primo modo
dictum... "essentia" significat aliquid commune omnibus naturis per quas diversa entia in
diversis generibus et speciebus collocantur."
13. Cf. I Sent. d. 19, q. 5, a. 1 ad 1 m: "esse dicitur dupliciter, uno modo secundum quod ens
significat essentiam rerum prout dividitur per decern genera; alio modo secundum quod
esse significat compositionem quam anima facit; et istud ens Philosophus, V Met., appel­
lat verum."
14. De ente, c.4, lin. 102-103; cf. / / Sent.d. 1, q. 1, a. 1: "ipsarum rerum naturae non sunt hoc
ipsum esse quod habent; alias esse esset de intellectu cuiuslibet quidditatis, quod falsum
est, cum quidditas cuiuslibet rei possit intelligi etiam non intelligendo de ea an sit."
15. In I Sent. d. 8, q. 1 a. 1: "in omni quod est (est) considerare quidditatem suam, per quam
subsistit in natura determinata, et esse suum, per quod dicitur de eo quod est in actu."
16. De ente,  4, lin. 149-152: "oportet quod ipsa quidditas vel forma ... sit in potentia
respectu esse ... et illud esse receptum est per modum actus." Cf. In Boet., De Trinitate,
q. 5, a. 4, ad 4m.
17. De ente,  4, lin. 131-133: "Non autem potest esse quod ipsum esse sit causatum ab ipsa
forma vel quidditate rei, causatum dico sicut a causa efficiente. ..."
18. / Sent., d. 8, q.4, a.2 ad 2m: "ens enim non est genus... in quolibet genere oportet signifi­
care quidditatem aliquam, ut dictum est, de cuius intellectu non est esse. Ens autem non
dicit quidditatem, sed solum actum essendi, cum sit principium ipsum."
19. / / Sent., d. 37, q.l, a.l: "Simpliciter enim dicitur res quod habet esse ratum et firmum in
natura; et dicitur res hoc modo, accepto nomen rei secundum quod habet quidditatem vel
esentiam quandam; ens vero, secundum quod habet esse, ut dicit Avicenna..."
20. Cf. Siger de Brabant, Quaestiones in Metaphysicam, Introductio, q.7 (pp. 44-45 éd. Dun-
phy); Henri de Gand, Quodlibet X, q.7 (pp. 151 sqq. éd. Macken), etc.
66 . CARLOS B A Z Á N

21. Quodlibet IX, q. 2, a.2, cf. Ill Sent., d.6, q.2, a.2, où Thomas oppose l'actus entis à l'es-
sentia, mais pas clairement.
22. Pour la différence entre une abstraction cum precisione et sine precisione, cf. De ente, c.2.
23. De ente,  4, lin. 136-141 : "omnis talis res cuius esse est aliud quam natura.. .habet esse ab
alio. Et quia omne quod est per aliud reducitur ad id quod est per se sicut ad causam pri-
mam, oportet quod sit aliqua res que sit causa essendi omnibus rebus eo quod ipsa est esse
tantum." La création (donation de l'être) est pour Thomas objet de démonstration ration­
nelle; cf. ll Sent., d.l, q.l, a.2.
24. Cf. De ente, c.4, lin. 114-115: "aliqua res que sit esse tantum ita ut ipsum esse sit subsis­
tens." Cf. / / Sent., d. 37, q.l, a.2: "illud tamen verissime et primo dicitur ens cuius esse
est ipsum quod est, quia esse eius non est receptum sed per se subsistens."
25. De ente, c.5, lin. 18-29: "Hoc enim esse quod Deus est huiusmodi conditionis est quod
nulla sibi additio fieri possit. Unde per ipsam suam puritatem est esse distinctum ab omni
esse ... Esse autem commune sicut in intellectu suo non includit aliquam additionem, ita
non includit in intellectu suo precisionem additionis, quia si hoc esset, nichil posset intel-
ligi esse in quo super esse aliquid adderetur." Cf. 1 Sent, d.8, q.l, a.2, ad 3m; d.8, q.4, a.l
ad im et 2m.
26. In Boet. De Trinitate, q.6, a.3; II Sent., d.3, q.l, a.6c; cf. I Sent., d.19, q.4, a.2; Dieu par
conséquent n'est pas "substance": / Sent, q.4, a.2.
27. Cf. De ver., q.10, a. 11, ad 10m: ens quod primum est causalitate excedit improportiona-
liter omnes alias res, unde per nullius alterius cognitionem sufficienter cognosci potest."
Cf. ibid. a.l2c; In Boet. De Trin, q.6, a.l ad 2m et a.3.
28. De ver. q.2, a . l i e : "impossibile est aliquid dicere univoce praedicari de creatura et
Deo."
29. Particulièrement d'Avicenne. Il faudrait montrer le passage de la notion d'être comme
accident de l'essence à celle de l'être comme acte de l'essence. Il serait fondamental aussi
de mettre en relief, dans l'analyse du De hebdomadibus comment Thomas ramène à ses
propres intuitions de base les expressions de Boèce.
30. Summa contra Gentiles, I, 43, 8: "Ipsum esse absolute consideratum infinitum est."
31. In lib. De causis, prop. 6 (éd. Saffrey, p.47): "ens autem dicitur id quod finite participat
esse."

REFERENCES

Aristote. Les seconds Analytiques, Traduction par Jules Tricot. Paris: Vrin,
1965.
Aristote. Les Réfutations sophistiques. Ibid., 1950.
Aristote. Traité de l'âme. Ibid., 1965.
Aristote. Métaphysique. Ibid., 1966.
 ÊTRE: FINITUDE ET INFINI 67

Henricus De Gandova. Quodlibet X. Ed. par Raymond Macken. (= Opera

Omnia, XIV.) Leuven & Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981.
Moreau, Joseph. 1970. Plotin ou la gloire de la philosophie antique. Paris:
Vrin.
Platon. 1950. Le sophiste. Traduction par Léon Robin (= Oeuvres com­
plètes, 2.) Paris: Gallimard.
Plotin. Ennéades. Texte établi et traduit par Emile Bréhier. Paris: Les Bel­
les Lettres, 1960.
Siger de Brabant. Quaestiones in Metaphysicam. Édition revue de la repor-
tation de Munich. Texte inédit de la reportation de Vienne. Ed. par Wil­
liam Dunphy (= Philosophes médiévaux XXIV.) Louvain-la-Neuve:
Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1981.
. Quaestiones in Metaphysicam. Texte inédit de la reportation de
Cambridge. Edition revue de la reportation de Paris. Ed. par Armand
Maurer (= Philosophes médiévaux, XXV.) Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut
Supérieur de Philosophie, 1983.
S. Thomas De Aquino. Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lombardi.
Ed. par Pierre Mandonnet & M. F. Moos. Paris: Lethielleux, 1929-1947.
. Questiones disputatae De veritate. (Cura et studio Fratrum praedi-
catorum). (= Opera Omnia, iussu Leonis XII P.M. edita, tomus XXII.)
Roma: Ed. di San Tommaso, 1975.
. De ente et esentia. (= Opera Omnia, tomus XLIII.) Ibid., 1976.
. In librum Boethii De Hebdomadibus Expositio. Ed. par R. Spiazi.
(= Opuscula Theologica IL) Roma: Marietti, 1954.
. Expositio super librum Boethii De Trinitate. Recensuit Bruno
Decker. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965.
. Super Librum De causis Expositio. Ed. critique par H.D. Saffrey.
Fribourg & Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1954.
. Quaestiones Quodlibetales. (Cura et studio R. Spiazzi, 9e ed.)
Roma: Marietti, 1956.
. Summa contra Gentiles. Roma: Apud sedem Commissionis
leoninae, 1934.
Trouillard, Jean. 1955. La procession plotinienne. Paris: Presses Univer­
sitaires de France.
 Suppositio in Petrus Hispanus
Linguistic theories and models

Francis P. Dinneen, S J .
Georgetown University

Technical terms are to be interpreted within their own systems. Ordi­

nary words are made technical to remove them from the inconsistency of
normal use, but even technical coinages (e.g., gas) gradually acquire conno­
tations, especially terms about Meaning. Mathematical and Geometric
terms are eminently consistent. But to have value other than intrasystemic
consistency, they should relate to, or be applicable to, data not exhausted
within the system. They should have extrasystemic relevance. 'Relate to'
and 'be applicable to' can be distinguished from 'signify,' 'mean,' 'refer to,'
'or stand for' — all equivalents for two technical terms in Petrus Hispanus'
Summulae Logicales (Bocheński 1947; de Rijk 1972: all references are to de
Rijk's text), i.e., significatio and suppositio.
What signs like 360, 180 and 90 stand for is precisely definable through
a complex of mutual relations, but they do not refer of themselves to any­
thing outside a Number System. Terms like Circle, Right Angle, and Paral­
lel are both definable and precisely relatable within a Geometric System,
and using mathematics or visual figures, are precisely applicable outside the
Geometric System to concrete bodies, even though figures like circles and
triangles must be represented in two dimensions (which numbers lack
entirely), while bodies have three dimensions.
So we can distinguish between the sense and reference of terms.
Within the number system, the sense and reference of 360,180 and 90 coin­
cide. Outside the number system, the senses of Circle, Right Angle, and
Parallel can be expressed numerically; even though Circles and Right Ang­
les are not numbers; and they are applicable to bodies, even though circular
70 FRANCIS P. DINNEEN, S.J.

and angular figures are not bodies. The isomorphism among numbers,
geometric figures, and bodies is reckoned precisely through a deliberately
reversible process of abstraction. Isomorphism is such an abstraction.
Isomorphism here is a relational identity, not an identity of sense, and
not simply an identity of reference. It can be considered an identity of refer­
ence to the extent that we entertain objects as isomorphically related, from
which we have artificially abstracted the qualities that; distinguish them.
For example, tires are round, but being 3-dimensional are not 2-dimen-
sional circular figures; 2-dimensional circular figures are very apt models
but having dimensions are not Circles, which are relationships within
Geometry; and defining Circle in terms of the number 360, we can employ
the numerical relations among 360, 180, and 90 to characterize Circle,
Right Angle, and Parallel Lines, without identifying them with numbers.
We say that there is a formal but not a material or substantive identity
among elements of a number system, a geometric system, and a body sys­
tem.
Hispanus opposes Signification and Supposition much like sense and
reference. Each is a technical term. For Hispanus, term (terminus) itself is a
technical term. It is distinguished from word (dictio), locution (vox), or part
of speech (pars orationis) because those expressions are appropriate when
discussing multiple ordinary or grammatical functions, while term is
reserved for discussing only two logical functions that a grammarian's word,
locution, or part of speech may serve: that of being relatable to another
term as subject or predicate oía.proposition.
Hispanus is quite clear about this. Just as a Number is not a Circle, nor
a Circle a circular figure, nor a circular figure a tire, he says that neither are
Subject-as-Subject nor Predicate-as-Predicate identical with what is Subject
or what is Predicate (XII.6). What is Subject is linguistically manifested in
or instantiated by some word, locution, or part of speech. Since the sense of
Subject-as-Subject is different from the sense of what is Subject, the refe­
rent of these technical terms cannot be identical. But since what is subject
is manifested in or instantiated by some expression, that expression can be
considered as involving the same referent of 'Subject-as-Subject' or 'what is
Subject,' but from two different points of view. In the tradition within
which Hispanus writes, they can be said to be materially identical but for­
mally different (though Hispanus opposes suppositio materialis to per­
sonalis). More modern terminology says they are etically identical, emically
distinct, or that the same thing can be considered at different levels of
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 71

analysis: what [i] stands for can be defined within a phonetic system in
terms of tongue-position, lip-configuration, and voicing. Latin [i] can be
symbolized /i/ because of its functional, not just compositional, contrast
with four other vocalic qualities. Etically identical [i] can be discussed emi-
cally by technical terms like phoneme, syllabic, morpheme, word, clause or
sentence ("Go!") at different levels of analysis, from different points of
view: materially, we have to do with the numerically identical sound; for­
mally, they are quite distinct.
Hispanus is less clear in his definitions of Signification and Supposition
as properties of a term. Technical terms should be precisely defined. But
there are at least two different kinds of precision. One lists elements of
composition positively, another indicates function or distinction negatively
or relationally. Signification is positively defined as "conventional represen­
tation of a thing by a locution" (VI.2); Supposition as "acceptance of a sub­
stantive term for something" (VI.3). They are relatively defined because
Supposition presupposes Signification: "Supposition and Signification differ
because Signification is the imposition of a locution to signify a thing, but
Supposition is the acceptance of that term, already significant of a thing, for
something" (ibid.). Both are subcategorized and related, but the chief
interest is in the sense and reference of common nouns, discussed as the
Signification and Supposition of common terms.
In Latin and English, there are ambiguities inherent in the expressions
used in these definitions. Each can be interpreted as a State, Process or
Action, i.e., imposition, acceptance, signification or supposition are equally
compatible with the unchanged situation that, or with the ongoing process
of, or with the deliberate single or repeated acts of imposing, accepting, sig­
nifying or standing for. The stative interpretation is more compatible with a
lack of directionality (i.e. perspective of neither speaker nor hearer), the
processive and active versions neither demand nor exclude it.
This is one of three kinds of ambiguity Hispanus calls Equivocation
(VII.28ff: different significations of a word, independent of construction),
while Aristotle's book exemplifies one of three kinds of Amphiboly (identi­
cal signification in different syntactic structures), yielding two suppositions,
one with Aristotle in the role of Agent, the other in the role of Benefactive.
One kind of Equivocation is due, not to the (Principal) Signification of
these words, but to a subcategory of Signification, the Consignification of
(what we, not Hispanus, call) the derivational affix -tio.
With circle as an example of a common term, we can see what His-
72 FRANCIS P. DINNEEN, S.J.

panus says about its kind of meaning. The 1966 Unabridged Random
House Dictionary entry for Circle is:
— n. 1. a closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance
from a point within it called the center. Equation: x 2 +y 2 =r 2 . 2. the portion
of a plane bounded by such a curve. 3. any circular or ringlike object, for­
mation or arrangement: a circle of dancers. 4. a ring, circlet, or crown. 5.
the ring of a circus. 6. a section of seats in a theater: dress circle. 7. the area
within which something acts, exerts influence, etc.; realm; sphere: A politi­
cian has a wide circle of influence. 8. a series ending where it begins, esp.
when perpetually repeated; cycle: the circle of the year. 9. Logic, an argu­
ment ostensibly proving a conclusion but actually assuming the conclusion
or its equivalent as premise; vicious circle. 10. a complete series forming a
connected whole; cycle: the circle of the sciences. 11. a number of persons
bound by a common tie, coterie: He belongs to a fashionable circle. She
told no one outside the family circle. 12. Govt, an administrative division,
esp. of a province. 13. Geog. a parallel of latitude. 14. Astron. a. Rare, the
orbit of a heavenly body. b. See meridian circle. 15. Survey, a glass or
metal disk mounted concentrically with the spindle of a theodolite or level
and graduated so that the angle at which the alidade is set may be read. 16.
a sphere or orb: the circle of the earth. 17. a ring of light in the sky; halo.
— v. t. 18. to enclose in a circle; surround; encircle: Circle the correct
answer on the exam paper. The enemy encircled the hill. 19. to move in a
circle or circuit around: He circled the house cautiously. 20. to change
course so as to pass by or avoid collision with; bypass; evade: The ships
carefully circled the iceberg. He circled Chicago to save an hour's driving
time. — v. /. 21. to move in a circle or circuit: The plane circled a half hour
before landing. 22. Motion Pictures, Television, to iris (usually fol. by in or
out). [ < L Circul(us), equiv. to circ(us) (see CIRCUS) + -ulus -ULE; r.
ME cercle < OF; r. OE circuí < L] — circle, .
— Syn. 11 CIRCLE, CLUB COTERIE, SET, SOCIETY are terms
applied to more or less restricted social groups. A CIRCLE may be a
pleasant little group meeting chiefly for conversation; in the plural it often
suggests a whole section of society interested in one mode of life, occupa­
tion, etc.: a sewing circle; a language circle; in theatrical circles. CLUB
implies an association with definite requirements for membership, fixed
dues, and often a stated time of meeting; an athletic club. COTERIE
suggests a little group closely and intimately associated because of great
congeniality; a literary coterie. SET refers to a number of persons of similar
background, upbringing, interests, etc., somewhat like a CLIQUE (see
RING1) but without disapproving connotations; it often implies wealth or
interest in social activities; the country club set. A SOCIETY is a group
associated to further common interests of a cultural or practical kind: a
Humane Society.
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 73

Discussion of kinds of ambiguity can also be useful for distinguishing

theories from models, and models in a theory from models of a theory. Lin­
guistics is not obviously a discipline sufficiently developed to justify an
adequate distinction between theory and model, but the difference is easy
to grasp: given a theory of water flow, the problem of how to plug a leak in
the dike leads to two compatible models or courses of action: one is to plug
the hole from the dry side. But a plug with water pressure behind it is
theoretically and practically superior, so plugging from the wet side is pref­
erable. Either procedure works, but if the 'plug' is your finger, the second
option could involve the inconvenience of drowning. Here, alternative
models have empirical consequences.
Immediate Constituent and early Transformational Generative Syntax
did not just involve different models compatible with the same theory, but
were consequences of different theories about the domain, constituents,
and relations among elements as linguistics studies them (Chomsky 1957).
1 took its domain to be within uttered sentences, TG to be among sen­
tences; 1 took its basic constituents to be mostly overt morphemes and
grammatical constructions of them; TG took the elements to be grammati­
cal categories, finding the morphology-syntax distinction dubiously valid;
1 took relations among its constituents to be dependencies in utterance,
TG said they held among similar structures underlying different utterances,
or different structures underlying identical utterances. When later TG
admitted the relevance of positive semantic considerations, the two theories
diverged further, since semantic information was only negatively relevant
in 1 analysis: THAT formatives meant something, and THAT minimal
differences signalled difference in meaning was admissible, but not consid­
erations of WHAT or HOW they had meaning.
As long as terms involved in theories or models remain intrasystemic,
they can be evaluated in terms of internal consistency. The applicability of
linguistic theory or its models (e.g., within a psychological theory) is
another matter, particularly when its domain is interpreted as having to do
with the Competence of an ideal Speaker-Hearer, or with the Performance
of an actual speaker or hearer.
Thus, if early Generative Semantics differed from 'Standard Theory'
only as a 'notational variant' (Chomsky 1971:187) one could assume central
tenets of the 'Standard Theory' remained intact, although different models
or techniques for representing and testing it were used (Lakoff 1971:236).
While some said GS implied no more directionally than basic theory, Chafe
74 FRANCIS P. DINNEEN, S.J.

clearly held that his model did: in it, either temporally or logically, forma­
tion of semantic content precedes its linearization, symbolization, and
encoding into its phonetic signal (Chafe 1970:55 ff.). Directionality can cor­
relate with the perspective of a Speaker or Hearer, and still concern ideal
Competence rather than concrete Performance. Chafe's image of Semantic
Structures as multi-dimensional Mobiles stresses the problem of re-present­
ing them in a two dimensional model of speech. In either case, a semantic
component shifts from an interpretive to a generative role, but distinct
semantic and syntactic components remain. If their roles were indifferent,
then distinction between surface and underlying representations, and some
role for transformations to relate them were apparently central to 'Standard
Theory.' Variety in positing just what got transformed, what transforma­
tions there were, and how these factors interacted in different models, were
implicitly defined as compatible with the same theory.
There is little reason to suspect that moderns exceed medieval or
ancient man in intelligence but ample evidence that we are superior in
information and descriptive technology. Technical terms within models are
therefore less profitably taxed as descriptively inadequate, while one can
learn a good deal from the implications and isomorphisms among theoreti­
cal ones, when weighing how they are involved in explanation. It may be
easier to distinguish theory and compatible models for completed studies
than for ongoing research: Hispanus' work presents such a closed corpus. It
appeared in an age of synthesis that took some basic theoretical assump­
tions as certain, within a range of optional formulations describable as 'no-
tational variants.'
One such variant assumed some senses result from intellectual activity,
other senses from passive encounters with properties as immediate as heat.
So heat as technical term in thermodynamics can share reference or suppos­
ition with the ordinary term, but differ in empirical vs intellectual significa­
tion. When a physicist protests his soup is too hot, he need neither be said
to invoke his scientific theory nor be taxed with ignorance or denial of it.
When Goldilocks said the father bear's porridge was too hot, she did so in
ignorance of thermodynamics. Yet both complaints are comparable in sig­
nification and supposition.
In a similar vein, Competence, as attributed to infants, children,
and adults, has occasioned disputes about defensible senses of knowledge.
This involves what others call analogical and Hispanus calls proportional
use (VII. 157). A term is proportionally or analogically employed in much
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 75

the same way as isomorphic. But when terms are used analogically, the
ratios do not hold among quantities, but among systematically varying qual­
ities, senses proportioned to experiencers, experiences and perceived com­
municative needs. Knowledge as an analogical concept is involved in de
Saussure's example (1959[1916]:151) about a difference between significa­
tion and content: an English host can 'know' the distinction of cow and
beef, but fail to perceive the communicative need of answering a French
guest's question, "What do you call that?", by telling him when beef, not
cow, is used, occasioning the gaffe of asking for cow at table. But this fail­
ure is one of attending, not of knowing, since knowledge is stative, but
attention is processive or active with respect to a state of knowledge.
One medieval cognitive theory 'knew' that the universe and objects of
experience in it are structured; that essential and accidental properties are
mentally abstracted from encounters with them, some spontaneously,
others with great effort; that what language can report faithfully is primarily
what we make of those encounters, since concepts are mentally abstracted,
not impressed upon us physically. Just as parts of language re-present our
cognition through sounds with properties quite unlike thoughts or things,
cognition and intellection re-present things and their properties by means
different in nature from what they report.
Hispanus' Summulae includes an imperfect (but ancient) verbal and
visual model of things language reports, the tree of Porphyry (see diagram
on the next page).1
This model,2 so reminiscent of early TG trees, and Plato's definitional
technique by dichotomy, provided a vocabulary for labelling, relating, and
distinguishing things logically, with man as most familiar. At the bottom are
the most concrete (individuals like Plato), inferiors or members of the class
(species) man, which is related to a higher class, and that to still higher
classes-of-classes, to which man belongs. Most generic genus is that class
which cannot, at the same time, be species of a genus (i.e. a class-member
which is itself a class); most specific species is that which, being a class, can­
not consist of classes. Properties [e.g. rational] through which one [e.g.
man] belongs to a class [e.g. rational animal] are called constitutive; their
contraries [e.g. irrational] by which one [e.g. man] is excluded from a class
[e.g. irrational animal] are called divisive differences. Rational is constitu­
tive syntagmatically (of a species) and divisive paradigmatically (of a
genus). A primitive not definable through Genus and Species is being, and
every being, at its own level, was said to be one, good and true. SUB-
76 FRANCIS P. DINNEEN, SJ.

MOST-GENERIC GENUS

1. SUBSTANCE

+ corporeal — corporeal

2. BODY

+ animate — animate

3. ANIMATE
BODY

+ sensitive — sensitive

4. ANIMAL

+ rational — rational

5. RATIONAL
ANIMAL

+ mortal - mortal

6. MOST SPECIFIC MAN SPECIES

7. Plato Socrates
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 77

STANCE in this series is most generic genus, of which BODY is a species;

BODY in turn is a genus, of which ANIMATE BODY is a species; ANI­
MATE BODY is then a genus, of which ANIMAL is a species; ANIMAL
is a genus, of which RATIONAL ANIMAL (a common essential definition
of man) is a species. So the tree presents a set of subaltern genera and
species, of which the most specific is MAN, and Individuals like Plato are
members of that class, without themselves being classes. From another
perspective, individuals are said to be first substances, while those above
are second substances. Only individuals (like tires) exist physically; species
and genera as such are mental entities (like Circle, which can only exist in
a mind).
All terms above Plato and Socrates were made technical but some
acquired connotations in common use (esp. substance). The tree-model was a
framework within which logicians related a term to its superiors and
inferiors, making visual what was meant by saying a term like man did or
did not refer to individuals, or referred to mankind diffusely (VI.9). But
the model is clearly not the theory, and in many ways hardly isomorphic
with it. Roots, trunks, and branches have little in common with the mental
processes of isolating what things as different as tires, circular figures,
Geometric concepts and Numbers have in common ancl how they differ.
More revelatory of the relationship of conceptual inclusion would have
been the image of a target, with a bullseye surrounded by 6 concentric cir­
cles. But this would be less suggestive of higher-lower relations, or of how
divisive and constitutive differences are related.
Like terms in a geometric system, genus, species, and individual as well
as substance, 'animal and man (or even S, NP and N) are relational, but in
a way characteristic of language called hyponymy or class-inclusion, neatly
shown in the target image, less clearly in the Porphyrian Tree. These terms
also contrast in the kind of referents demanded by their senses. Words in a
semantic hyponymy are also generally in parallel distribution in the sen­
tences of a language; they can therefore share grammatical function, and
there are other intralinguistic consequences, as well. One is an isomorphism
between hyponymy and the subordination of functions associated with com­
position at lower levels to higher level functions.
One kind of isomorphism accounted for neatly by transformation is the
intralinguistic interdependence between question-words and what they
elicit as answers, and between generic and specific words of the same and
different types. These were among the criteria Aristotle used in isolating
78 FRANCIS P. DINNEEN, S.J.

the list of Categories Hispanus and the medievals employed as a basic,

descriptive metalanguage. Aristotle's Greek is more succinct than any
translation can be, when he says that such one-word answers mean:
ousian... ê poson ë poion ë pros ti ë pou ë pote ë
keisthai... ë echein ë poiein ë paschein. Categories 4, lb 26-272
The positive expression of these Categories in Nominal form are: Sub­
stance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Posture / Position, State
/ Costume / Condition, Action, and Passion / Passivity. Greek, Latin, and
English share correlatives like where? — there, when? — then, but Latin
parallels Greek lexically where English uses phrases (qualis — talis : what
kind? — that kind; quantus — tantus : how much? — so much). Such expres­
sions are relatable generically or as PROforms to more specific expressions,
as PROnouns are to nouns.
Pronouns are in parallel distribution with nouns, differ from their ante­
cedents in sense, and can have the same referents.3 Nominalized Categories
can sometimes function as PROforms for hyponymic inferiors. Such factors
facilitated semantic identification of grammatical categories. For a Cate­
gory is a class, and saying something belongs to a class is a categorial state­
ment, and the category in that functional relation is called Predicate. What
is said to pertain to, or belong to, or to be a Category, is called Subject, and
Hispanus lists eight ways in which something can be said to 'be in' another
(III.2ff), even though the relationship can usually be expressed by 'is.' One
reason for this is found in distinctions Hispanus makes about ordinary and
technical terms.
The dialectician technically restricts terms to locutions which function
as Subject or Predicate. These are categorematics, all other expressions are
syncategorematics, not terms (1.8): they do not signify a singular (Plato) or
universal (man), so they cannot suppose for (refer to, stand for) either
(VI. 1). But determinations like necessity or time can be predicates or just
concomitants, since clauses containing modals (to have to run is hard) or
temporal adverbs (to run later is best) can be subjects (XI.7), but time is not
the Signification, but the Consignification of runs in 'he runs.'
Hispanus uses the expression Syncategorematic for words, consignifica­
tion for grammatical morphemes, Signification about most expressions,4
and Principal Signification mostly about (what we, not he, can identify as)
lexical roots, less often of constructions (VII.33, XL7). Technically, Signifi­
cation is substantival (man) or adjectival (white) but while "substantival
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 79

nouns are said to stand for (supponere), adjectival nouns, and verbs as well,
are said to couple (copulare)" (VI.2). Copulatio is therefore a noncognate
subcategory of Signification and is defined parallel to it as "the acceptance
of an adjectival term for something" (ibid.). The nonexistential use of is is
to link properties to Subjects: in 'Man runs,'
man is Subject and runs Predicate, and what links the pair is called the
copula, which is clear by analyzing 'Man runs' into 'Man is running.' (1.7)

Unlike Signification, a subcategory, the Consignification of albus in

homo albus ('white man') restricts the Supposition of homo to males, leav­
ing the Signification of 'man' unaffected, just as run or ran differently
restrict what men in 'white men run,' 'white men ran' refers to in time and
number, not its sense, the universal or particular signified. Lacking definite
and indefinite articles, Latin homo currit signals a universal or particular as
ambiguously as English A man runs (where Man runs is only universal) but
Hispanus would say that idem homo currit ('the same man runs') as a rela­
tive clause supposes more unambiguously for a singular than a proper name
does (VIII.6).
Of what is Porphyry's Tree taken to be a model? In what sense can the
Categories be considered a model? Hispanus distinguishes between Predic­
ables and Predicaments:
Predicable taken in its proper sense is the same as Universal, but they dif­
fer, because a predicable is defined by being predicated universally, but a
universal by being universal. (II.2)
Materially (etically) identical, they differ formally (emically). In Mod-
istic terminology, Signification pertains to Modi Intelligendi, Predicables to
Modi Significandi, Predicaments to Modi Essendi:
... signification is not properly sub- ...proprie non est significatio substan-
stantival or adjectival: a thing is sig- tiva vel adiectiva, sed aliquid sig­
nified substantively and adjectivally, nificatur substantive et aliquid adiec-
since being adjectival or substantive tive, quia adiectivatio vel substan-
are modes of things that are signified, tivatio sunt modi rerum quae sig-
not modes of signification. nificantur, et non significationis.
(VI.2)

Here Hispanus is speaking mainly of modi significandi, so the Porphy-

rian Tree and the Categories provide verbal — kinds of PROforms — for
ways words signify things, and only indirectly for ways we think, or the
ways things are. But an inevitable ambiguity necessitated Modistic distinc-
80 FRANCIS P. DINNEEN, SJ.

tions of active and passive modes (Bursill-Hall 1972:32 et passim): the

expression modi significandi corresponds indifferently to "ways of signify­
ing things" or to "Ways things can be signified"; modi intelligendi to "Ways
we understand things" or "Ways things can be understood" and a root of
the Stative, processsive or active interpretation of signification and supposi­
tion comes to light again.
Nominal and verbal circle illustrate this. They share what Hispanus
calls Principal Signification, but differ in Consignification.5 Verbs are spec­
ifiable for construction types (synthesis) by PROforms in case Grammar.
Chafe (1970:95 ff.) distinguishes four types [State ('wood is dry'), Process
('wood dries'), Action ('Harriet sang'), and Action/Process ('Michael dries
the wood')]. Cook (1979) syncretizes Action and Action/Process as differ­
ing mainly in freely deletable surface objects. For both, State excludes
Agent, Imperative, and Progressive; Process excludes Agent and Impera­
tive, tolerates Progressive; Action demands Agent, tolerates Imperative
and Progressive. Like Aristotle, Chafe uses questions to distinguish types:
BE-questions uniformly elicit a State, but HAPPEN or DO ambiguously
elicit Action or Process.

Expressed positively, other PROforms might be:

State BE wood IS dry
Process COMETO BE wood BECOMES dry
Action/Process CAUSE (COMETO) BE Michael CAUSES wood
to BE(COME) dry
Action BEHAVE Harriet BEHAVES (as
specified by root)

In Porphyrian perspective, what may favor BEHAVE (and its discon­

tinuity with the other three) is that the generic lexical significations in
Chafe's Action verbs demand specifically related Patients (Cook's 'Ob­
jects'), while Patients of Action/Process verbs are not hyponymous (we
sing specific songs, dance specific dances, but can dry anything wet); behave
may then neither demand Agent (like Action/Process) nor exclude it (like
Process). Many surface verbs are ambiguously stative, agential or proces­
sive (among them, signify and suppose). A distinction does not constitute a
decision.
Modistic distinctions are clear where Case grammar decisions can be
vague. For both, roles strongly associated with surface modes of significa-
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 81

tion need not correspond to how we understand things or to the ways things
are: "The sun rises" is ambiguously active or processive in mode of signifi­
cation. Is it Stative in mode of understanding paralleling 'the ways things
are' in a heliocentric universe? Does language or biology decide Case Roles
for the verb itch? On which of these three bases does one decide Case
Roles?
In language, functions commonly identified with the composition of
structures at one level can be subordinated to those at another (e.g., syntac­
tically or phonologically signalled questions as pragmatic requests or com­
mands); in a debatable example from Hispanus:
A reciprocal (relative) is called that, not because it is what-is-undergoing
something (patiens), but because it superimposes a patient mode on agent
substance. Patient is one thing, mode of patient another, as is clear from
the fact that a nominative can be a patient, like 'Socrates is being struck/ but
cannot have the mode of patient. That is why mode of patient is always in
oblique cases. It is thus clear that patient is one thing and mode of patient
another ... A reciprocal is what signifies an agent substance under a patient
mode. (VIII.3,4)
"I see three," "I see three of them" and "I see three men" can have
identical pragmatic supposition, but the modes of signification differ. In "I
see three," three is substantial and particular, but its supposition is indeter­
minate because no signification is given; three of them is substantial, but less
definite than three men, since Hispanus would say of them takes its signifi­
cation from its antecedent, its supposition from the mode of anaphora;6
while in three men, three taken syncategorematically is linked to, not
directly predicated of 'men,' and if taken categorematically, there are two
predications: "I see men" and "Men are three."
The Categories and Porphyrian tree differ because categorial terms
may have neither signification nor suppositions in common, while the sig­
nifications in Porphyry's terms are hyponymically related, and suppositions
can be identical. What the Categories and Porphyrian tree have in common
as verbal models (analogous to underlying representations) is a classifica­
tion, interpretable indifferently as stative, processive, or active.
Chafe's suggestion that verb roots be regarded either as State, Process,
Action or Action/Process intrinsically or by derivation (1970:122)7 is rele­
vant here because roots of words like circle are indifferently nominal or ver­
bal, static or dynamic. Stative classification of verbals can derive from an
indeliberate process, a deliberate Action/Process or behavioral Action;
82 FRANCIS P. DINNEEN, S.J.

alternatively, indeliberate, deliberate and behavioral classification can pre­

suppose an intrinsic, stative, relationship, and so be derived. Definition 18.
ambiguously defines a Process, Action, or Action/Process; cautiously in 19.
and carefully in 20. require a surface Action/Process interpretation, while
21. is compatible with behavioral Action. "A circle results when a radius
rotates around a center" is a Process definition of Circle; "Rotate a radius
around a center and you make a circle" an Action/Process definition, and
"Rotating a radius around a center results in a circle" is compatible with a
behavioral Action definition.
That responsibility for human behavior is often undecidable would be
reflected by retaining an opposition between Action/Process and Action.
Preferring one way of understanding modes of signifying over another may
be due more to psychological than the linguistic factors to which Modistic
distinctions point, without explaining how we decide to relate surface and
underlying representations of different kinds.
Hispanus distinguishes Fallacies caused by surface factors of language
(Modi significandi) from extralinguistic modi essendi. Linguistic fallacies
are Equivocation, Amphiboly, Composition, Division, Accent and Word
Figure; the extralinguistic are fallacies of Accident, Simply or After-a Fash­
ion, Irrelevant conclusion (Ignoratio Elenchi), Begging the Question
(Petitio Principii), Non-Cause as Cause, Consequent, and Many Questions
as One (VII.26). He denies isomorphism between surface structures and
semantic interpretation: "every fault of word or construction is made
because we do not signify the same thing by the same words and groups"
(ibid.); distinguishes actual, potential and imaginary polysemy (VII.90),
and concedes that linguistic faults are differently evaluated for different
speech acts (XII. 10, XI. 18). These suggest that applying the abstract rela­
tions of Porphyry and the Categories is not a straightforward enterprise.
Another shortcoming of the Categories and the Porphyrian Tree as
models for, rather than models within, Hispanus' linguistic theory is that its
metalinguistic terminology is more directly related to its ordinary language
source than the geometric and mathematical terms involved in calling
tires 'circular.' Conceptual re-presentation of experiential data should show
as much distance from it as the disparity between the nature of sounds and
what sound sequences stand for as signs. Expressing essential concepts like
'rational animal' in positive terms obscures the negative role of insightful
discrimination.
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 83

What links the 'synonyms' of definition 11. are not the spatial attri­
butes of definition 1. but one of its consequences, the + inclusion alluded to
in definition 2. and 3. Hispanus does not deal with the differences in conno­
tation. But central to the concept of an analogous (proportional) term is
systematically discountable isomorphism, that is, identity of relation
despite the inapplicability of properties like the undimensional character of
numbers, the 2-dimensional nature of figures, and the 3-dimensional prop­
erties of bodies. Paralleling Hispanus' distinction of Suppositio for nominais
and Copulatio for adjectivals and verbs. The Random House entry for cir­
cular, ad), contains 7 entries, while round, adj, requires 20.
The category of Substance is relational by its opposition to the other
categories as its Accidents. But any category can be reified (i.e., have a sub­
stantial mode of signification or understanding, regardless of its mode of
existence), since each can be counted, evaluated for usefulness, and iden­
tified as a genuine example of its type, and so compared to others of its
same level, as a 'thing.' What is involved linguistically was a central concern
of the Modistae; in the Summulae, metaphysical implications were not.
Platonists would regard the Signification of Circle, for instance, as having
supposition in an Ideal World, of which one is reminded upon contact with
circles or wheels. Hispanus' view that Signification and Supposition were
indifferent to existence is just as compatible with the Platonic or the Moder­
ate Realist view of Circle as a mental construct derived from, and reapplic­
able to, empirical experience of bodies. Its Signification then correlates
with an Appellation (i.e.. that subtype of Supposition existents have, as
opposed to fabrications like chimera (X.l), or combined significations like
square circle which "destroy rather than restrict" supposition (XI.4), but its
existence is mental. This position would make Hispanus' interpretation of
"The man acted irrationally" interesting.
These positive traits of the Categories and Porphyrian terms fail most
notably as a model for (not in) a linguistic theory, because they obscure the
catalytic role of concepts. While it seems impossible to express the grounds
of an insight without invoking some positive experiential factors that trigger
it, failures in retelling a joke to someone who doesn't get it, in making
another appreciate the crucial point of a proof, or in communicating the
perspective one must assume to grasp "fair play" to somebody who is baf­
fled by the concept, suggest that Signification and Supposition as Hispanus
presents them are in need of supplement. Whether that is the province of a
linguistic theory is debatable.
84 FRANCIS P. D I N N E E N , S J .

The assumption that it is a concern of linguistic theory could justify the

study of "Language Itself" proposed under the rubric of Modi Significandi
and those who take the object of linguistics to be an ideal Speaker-Hearer's
Competence. Actual speakers or hearers cannot detail all options "Lan­
guage Itself' provides, but perhaps a linguistic theory should.

NOTES
1. Representations are abstract, for they leave something out, so have faults, and Por­
phyry's Tree is no exception. Not represented in the diagram are the rules by which
they are to be interpreted: Platonic Divisions are to be read as either-or-options like most
of a Porphyrian Tree; Chomsky an trees as both and demands at categorial level, like Por­
phyry's, as a mixture of both.
2. Read one way, this may suggest that "SUBSTANCE # 1 or the most inclusive = highest con­
cept (like Chomsky's S) because it is not itself a subdivision of a higher one. Sub-types/
species are both distinguished (either-or) and constituted by oppositions like +corporeal
or —corporeal, etc. from complementary but nonidentical perspectives. Results of Divi­
sion by these oppositions constitute levels # 2 , 3, 4, 5, and 6 — until we get to individuals.
On level 7, (both) Plato (and) Socrates are two instances of billions without themselves
being either general or species (like Chomsky's surface lexical items)."
Read another way, it says: "SUBSTANCE (1) can be ±corporeal, if +corporeal, then it is
BODY (2), which can be ±sensitive; if -I-sensitive, then it is ANIMAL (4) which can be ±ra­
tional; if + rational, then it is RATIONAL ANIMAL (5); if RATIONAL ANIMAL, then it can be
±mortal; if +mortal, then it is MAN (6), of which (7) Plato and Socrates are two of innum­
erable instances."
3. Where ä means 'or': ousian is an abstract nominal; the words poson and poion are indefi­
nite pronouns (translated phrasally as "of some quality?", "of some sort?") as is 'ti' in the
phrase pros ti ("related to something?"), while keisthei, echein, poiein, and paschein are
infinitives equivalent to "be located," "have," "do or cause," and "undergo."
4. But "A Relative of diversity [...] stands for something other than what it recalls.. .in 'Soc­
rates is running and another is debating' ... 'another' recalls Socrates and stands for some­
one other than Socrates ... And in this way it recalls Socrates to mind." (VIII. 10).
5. Cf. Aristotle, On Interpretation: "Of themselves, rhëmata ('verbs') are onomata ('nouns')
and they signify (semainei) something... but not if it exists or not... but they consignify
(prosêmainei) some kind of combination (synthesis) unspecified without the terms
involved (synkeimenön)." [III.20-26] Summulae: "... In 'a citizen is white' (albus), the
term 'citizen' is restricted to males and not whites, so 'white' restricts it as to its consignifi-
cation, which is gender, and not as to its principal signification." (XI.7)
6. "A substantive relative...recalls what is numerically identical with its antecedent... A
Relative of Identity...recalls and stands for the same thing. In 'Socrates... who is debating,
is running'... 'who' recalls and stands for Socrates.' Sibi and sui are reciprocal." (VIII.3)
7. Chafe's divisions characterize the kind of synthesis that Aristotle says verbs consignify
(prosêmainei: cf. fn. 5); as onomata they signify what cognate subjects (and objects?)
 'SUPPOSITIO' IN PETRUS HISPANUS 85

(hypokeimena) specify. Hispanus (VI.2) suggests that verbs, unlike even those nouns cog­
nate with them, are not used to stand for (supponere) what they can signify but to link
(copulare) their lexical content (significatie) principalis) to their subjects. What they might
consistently signify is constructiontype (synthesis). Hispanus does not distinguish con-
struction-as-construction from what is construction.

REFERENCES

Aristotle. 1955 [1938]. Categories, On Interpretation. (Bekker's text in) The

Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, Univ. Press.
Bocheñski, I.M. 1947. Summulae Logicales Petri Hispani. Rome: Marietti.
Bursill-Hall, Geoffrey. 1972. Grammatica Speculativa of Thomas of Erfurt.
London: Longman.
Chafe, Wallace. 1970. Meaning and the Structure of Language. Chicago:
Chicago Univ. Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. 's-Gravenhage: Mouton.
. 1971. "Deep Structure, Surface Structure and Semantic Interpreta­
tion." Steinberg & Jakobovits 1971.183-216.
Cook, Walter Α., S.J. 1979. Case Grammar: Development of the Matrix
Model. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press.
Lakoff, George. 1971. "On Generative Semantics." Steinberg & Jakobovits
1971. 231-296.
de Rijk, L.M. 1972. Tractatus called afterward Sumulae Logicales. Assen:
Van Gorcum. (English translation by Francis P. Dinneen, S.J., Amster­
dam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1990.)
de Saussure, Ferdinand. 1959 [1916]. Cours de linguistique générale. Paris:
Payot. (English translation by Wade Baskin, Course in General Linguis­
tics. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.)
Steinberg, Danny D. & Leon A. Jakobovits, eds. 1971. Semantics. Cam­
bridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Vernacular Grammar as a Calque of Latin Grammar
The case of infinitive + SKULLENDE

Niels Haastrup
Roskilde University Centre

At the end of the chapter on "Speculative Grammar" in The Cam­

bridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy Jan Pinborg (1982:268-69) dis­
cusses briefly what happened to the doctrine of the Modistae after their
eclipse, when their doctrine came to be used only as a pedagogical device
without any philosophical or universalist ambitions. He refers to
Aurifaber's important text: Determinatio de modis significandi written in
1333 (Pinborg 1967a:268n.40), the whole text is edited in Pinborg
(1967a:215-16):
Et qualiter diversimode conside­ And thus, the logician and the gram­
rent loycus et grammaticus, patet marian have different points of view,
in modo ponendi superius posito as is evident from the claim made
per auctoritatem Linconiensis, above on the authority of the Lincol-
que incipit sic "ars loyce." Unde nian with the incipit Ars loyce. And
nunc dico, quod considerant eas- so I now declare that they consider
dem partes diversimode: loycus the same parts in different ways. The
quidem ut ilia consideratio videtur logician in the way that he studies
esse communis omni lingue; what is common to all languages, the
gramaticus autem non sic univer- grammarian for his part does not take
saliter, quia non considerat, ut this universal point of view, because
sint communia omni lingue, cum he does not study what is common to
aliqua considerat gramaticus all languages, since a Latin gramma­
<***> lingua latina tantum rian studies features that are found in
invenitur, et iste grammaticus gre- Latin only, and the Greek gramma­
cus congruentia lingue grece. Item rian those that pertain to the Greek
considerant diversimode, quia ad language. And they have different
diversas fines, ut patet. points of view, because they have dif­
ferent objectives, as is evident.
88 NIELS HAASTRUP

It is characteristic of Aurifaber's time that he refers to Greek and Latin but

not to the vernaculars (cf. the quotation from the Exercitium below).2 The
quotation from Aurifaber is also indicative of the abandonment of the plan
to find universals in the structure of language. Instead every language was
now said to have its own grammar, only logic which works with mentis con-
ceptus being universal. In this article I want to consider the same question
but from a different angle, i.e., that of the vernaculars (cf. Blatt 1957).3
For people who had a vernacular as their mother tongue (which was
true for all men in the Middle Ages), the way to all knowledge and learning
was through Latin. They therefore experienced Latin as a foreign language,
as an object outside of themselves and as one governed by rules, viz. those
of grammar. Students had to experience on their own bodies (so to speak)
how important the rules of grammar were. If one considers their situation,
it is not difficult to see how it could come about that the concepts of Latin
and the rules of its grammar were 'ontologized.' Latin was the carrier of all
learning and its vocabulary therefore had to appear as closer to the mentis
conceptus than that of the mother tongue. It was the mentis conceptus they
had to learn to work with in their academic training. No articulated gram­
mar of the mother tongues was available.
In his unpublished dissertation Coleman attempts to show that the
modi significandi were conceived as a solution to the problem that arose
because the octo partes orationis were thought of as eternal entia, and yet
proved difficult to align with the reality of language (Coleman 1977). The
rules of grammar were not conceived of as useful abstractions from the
competence of the native speaker or from language use. Therefore it was
not surprising that in translations and language teaching attempts were
made to improve the imperfect vernaculars by adapting them to Latin
grammar.
In a ms. from Erfurt (Cod.D2, early 15th C ; cf. Census, 81.102), we
find a text which clearly demonstrates the status grammar had in elemen­
tary language training, before the teacher could think of using language
teaching to introduce the boys to logic, which would have meant touching
on the conflict between the ambitions of the Modistae and the logicians
(Heath 1971). Here we are on a pre-academic, pedagogical level. We quote
from fol.l6v-17r (Haastrup 1968:14):
Et ex Ulis regulis patet manifeste, And from these rules it is evident
quod pueri precipue informandi sunt that boys should first of all be trained
in grammatica positiva, nam ut patet, in practical grammar, because — as is
 VERNACULAR GRAMMAR AS A CALQUE OF LATIN GRAMMAR 89

impossibile est eos informan in obvious — it is impossible to teach

grammatica regulari absque ydeo-
mata latino, quod manifestat eis
grammatica positiva, ut patet in
Eberhardo et in aliis multis libris.
Ista autem grammatica positiva
maxime acquiritur per usum et exer-
cicium puerorum, quod quidem ex-
ercicium valde viget opponendo et
respondendo qua propter summe
consulendum videtur rectoribus
scholanum, vt primo teneant pueros
ad hoc, vt unus alteri obiiciat
aliquod vocabulum per dicendum
questionem quottidie, et alter
respondeat secundum posse et soluat
exponendo obiicienti, qui tarnen —
verbi gracia — qui idoneor et habun-
dacior latinitate inter scholars primo
presideat inter eos, ita quod unus-
quisque cerium numerum voca-
bulorum de aliquo puta de artificia
et eius attinentibus vel aliqua de
specie animalium et proponant ipsi
respondenti. Et etiam debet infor-
mationem puerorum diligenter vigi­
lare in hoc congrue exprimere men­
tis conceptum.
them scientific grammar without
Latin, the language which they learn
from practical grammar, as is obvious
if one thinks of Eberhard and several
other books. This practical grammar,
however, is best acquired by using
the language and by drilling — and
the most useful exercise is that of
question and answer. A good piece of
advice for schoolmasters therefore
seems to be that they should enjoin
upon their pupils the asking of ques­
tions. Every day one should ask
about a word, and the other one
should explain it to him as well as he
can. But the one, who is fittest and
most eloquent in Latin amongst the
pupils, should first of all be their
chairman, and in this way every one
should ask the respondent about a
certain number of words, e.g. from
some craft or a species of animals.
Besides one must pay close attention
to training the pupils in congruous
expression of mentis conceptus.

I am not in any position to judge how typical this form of teaching was. For
obvious reasons it is difficult to generalise about foreign language teaching
in the Middle Ages.
Considering how widespread the teaching of Latin was in Western
Europa the sources available to us are surprisingly few and scattered. We
know that teaching that is planned in advance and controlled by the teacher
is not always 'fail' proof. Seen from the vantage point of modern language
pedagogy we have to assume that the use of Latin as the medium of instruc­
tion and the language of the liturgy in general functioned as an immersion
program in spite of the pedagogy used and the concept of language which it
imparted. It is possible to evaluate the results from the Latin writings which
students subsequently produced (Haastrup 1963:266-67). It is also possible
to get an impression of how the vernacular functioned in teaching by exa­
mining glosses and translations into the vernacular.
90 NIELS HAASTRUP

In this article I want to shed some light on one instance of this. I shall
take as my point of departure an elementary textbook, Exercitium
puerorum grammaticale, the earliest imprint known to us is an edition from
1485. I quote the 1491 edition fol.2,a (Müller 1882:17-18):
Cum multiplex sit idioma laycum. As lay people speak many different
Gallicum, Italicum, Hyspanicum, languages, French, Italian, Spanish,
Anglicum, Scoticum, Goticum, English, Scottish, Gothic, German,
Almanicum seu Teutonicum. Et and German, in turn, is divided into
teutonicum iterum diuersificatur High-German, Low-German and
per altum bassum et medium, ideo Middle-German, it would be impossi­
pro omnibus istis in unum tradere ble — considering their number — to
vulgare cuiuslibet casus temporum propose translations of cases, tenses
et modorum erit impossibile, ea and moods, with respect to each ver­
propter scolarium rectores debent nacular. Therefore each schoolmas­
quisque pro suo idiomate fingere ter should for his own vernacular
signa teutonicalia out artículos invent signa teutonicalia or articuli
vulgares sex casuum, ita quoque vulgares for the six cases and further
vulgare temporum et modorum et for vernacular features concerning
in Ulis pueros introducere confor- tenses and moods, and he should
miter ad maternum idioma hoc teach these features to the boys
enim plurimum conducet et ad according to their mother tongue.
latine loquendum et ad debite This procedure leads to proficiency in
traducendum. speaking Latin as well as in translat­
ing properly.

What is important are the concepts signa teutonicalia aut articuli vulgares,
which are supposed to be used in teaching in order to mark the inflectional
forms of Latin in the vernacular, i.e. declension, conjugation, cases, tenses,
and moods (Haastrup 1968:172-73; Isirig 1970:21-45).
Even if we cannot find this concept, i.e., signum teutonicale in older
writings, we shall use it here as a convenient operational term. I should
however like to restrict myself to talking about tenses and moods and to
focus on a certain construction, which is built around the present participle
of the Germanic auxiliary scolan, German sollen, Danish skulle, as a
marked translation of the future participle, the gerundive, and the gerund
of Latin. The use of scolan as auxiliary and signum teutonicale is also known
from translations of future-I and present subjunctive; cf. the distribution in
the old concept of the conjugation paradigm (Haastrup 1968:18; Serbat
1978:265; Holz 1981:187-88), were the present subjunctive is conceived of
as a future tense (= future optative):
 VERNACULAR GRAMMAR AS A CALQUE OF LATIN GRAMMAR 91

indicative imperative optative subjunctive "conjugatie· peri-

phrastica" indicative

future amabis amato/ames ames amaveris amaturus es

(pass. : amandus es)

present amas ama amares ames amans es

In this context it is also important to be aware of the periphrastic

forms. On the one hand they were considered more erudite, on the other
hand they were part of paraphrases which were used in order to construct
correct logical propositions with subject, copula, and predicate: Homo cur-
rit is periphrased as homo est currens Heath 1971:42-43), or homo amabitur
as homo amandus est. The construction consisting of infinitive + suilende
(German)/skullende (Danish) has a long history in the German and later in
the Nordic language areas.
It is found for the first time in the Old High German glosses as a trans­
lation of the active future participle, e.g., in Notker's Psalter: manige
arbeite lidin sulinde I multa mala toleraturi (Piper 1882-83:381.20), but also
as a translation of the passive (the gerundive), e.g., in Notker's Boëthius
(Piper 1882-83:277.4): dero geskehen sulndon dingo / gerendarum rerum. It
seems as if the construction had spread from St.Gallen, and indeed most
examples are to be found in mss. from the 10th to the 12th Century. In the
German area only a few scattered instances from the following centuries
are to be found, one of which I shall comment on shortly.
The old examples, of which we have over 30 textually independent
ones, always place the inflected present participle suilende after the infini­
tive. Seen from the point of view of the rules of Old High German word
order, the 'principle of weight' is the decisive factor for the word order.
Obviously then suilende was regarded as a heavier constituent. Seen how­
ever from the point of view of Latin word-order rules or rather from the
point of view of the abstract ideas held about these rules in the schools,
which were connected with the term ordo naturalis we might expect sul-
lende to be placed before the infinitive. But obviously one did not think of
rules of this kind in this connection. We have to assume, that suilende was
on the contrary conceived of as an inflectional element and therefore it was
placed after the infinitive. Its function was to mark the construction as
92 NIELS HAASTRUP

future (scolan) and as a participle (-ende), with the additional advantage

that -nd- aslo occured in one of the Latin forms of which the construction was
supposed to be a translation, viz. the gerundive or passive future participle.
The use of the suilende construction appears to have been quite rare in
German in the later Middle Ages, but it flourished in Scandinavia, espe­
cially in the 15th Century where we find it as a suffix — skullende (cf.
Uecker 1980, for the Norwegian examples). The oldest recorded examples
come from Sweden. The first is to be found in a diploma dated 1344 in
Lödöse close to modern Gothenburg: .. arsgröthe sik eghneskulende ..
(Haastrup 1969:116) where the underlying Latin construction seems to be ..
sibi appropriaturum.
It is interesting that the first examples are to be found in the language
of diplomas, but not in the conventionalised parts. Thus the construction
cannot really have been taken over from an ars dictaminis. We have rather
to see the appearance of this construction as a result of instruction in Latin
in the schools. This conjecture is corroborated by the fact that there are a
considerable number of constructions with skullende in the learned Brigit-
tine translation-litterature, especially in Vadstena itself (Ahlberg 1942).
Here the use of the construction exceeds by far what we know from Ger­
man tradition. The oldest Danish examples are also to be found in the lan­
guage of diplomas, though in these instances it is more a matter of tradi­
tional formulas in salutations, etc. Even so, the most extensive use of the
construction occurs in a Danish text, the oldest Danish Bible translation
(Genesis to Books of Kings, the examples edited in Haastrup 1968) from
the end of the 15th century, which was translated after the Latin Vulgate
and therefore contains convenient material for our investigation, com­
prehensive and easy of access.
Let me illustrate different uses of the construction, which I shall clas­
sify according to Latin grammatical categories in two groups, i.e.,
A: within a periphrastic conjugation, B: outside of a periphrastic conju­
gation.
Ad A: In the case of a periphrastic conjugation (of either the active
future: amaturus sum instead of amabo, or the passive future: amandus sum
for amabor).
In translating the active future in the periphrastic conjugation the skul-
/ercde-construction alternates with another translation, viz. the finite skal +
infinitive, i.e., the usual translation of future indicative. However, the skul-
lende-construction is preferred if afiniteform of skulle occurs in the immedia-
 VERNACULAR GRAMMAR AS A CALQUE OF LATIN GRAMMAR 93

tely preceding context. This means that in the old Bible we can expect
amaturus sum to be translated as either jœk skal œlske or jœk œr œlskeskul-
lende.
In translating the passive future participle (i.e. the gerundive) in the
conjugatio periphrastica the skullende-construciionis used alternatively to a
finite form of skulle + veere/vorde (English: be) + the present participle of
the main verb in question. Thus we can expect amandus sum to be
rendered as either jœk œr œlskeskullende or jœk skal vœrelvorde œlskende.
If the translator chooses the skullende-construction there is no difference
between the translations of the active and the passive future participle. On
the other hand, there is a difference if the translator chooses the alterna­
tive, that is either the finite form of skulle + infinitive (for the future active)
or a finite form of skulle + vœrelvorde + the present participle (for the
future passive).
With a single exception, i.e., a deviant type of translation of the gerun­
dive, all these alternatives contain a form of skulle, finite or infinite, as a
marker of the future. The deviant translations of the gerundive consist of a
finite form of vœre (English: be) + the present participle. A translation of
this kind had no future marker, unlike the translations mentioned above,
but nevertheless it had a future time-reference owing to the fact that in
older Danish the present participle could be used as a passive but only in a
potential sense, e.g., œtende varer ("eating wares," i.e., "victuals").
Ad B. Apart from the conjugatio periphrastica the construction with
skullende is rarely found as a translation of the active future participle,
because this form does not occur too frequently apart from the form
futurusl-al-um which is translated as an adjective tilkommende. We shall
therefore restrict our discussion to the gerundive, but we will also have to
take into account the gerund, since the gerund is also translated by the con­
struction with skullende, which might be because in the schools the gerund
was formed by derivation from the gerundive (cf. Priscian, Keil 111:472;
Haastrup 1968:31). In this rendering of the gerund, skullende has become a
purely inflectional element without the temporal meaning otherwise con­
nected with it.
The distribution of infinitive + skullende is very complicated and its
description must take its point of departure from different angles (cf. my
monograph, Haastrup 1968). There is however one decisive distinction
which can be seen in the translations of the constructions with ad + gerun­
dive/gerund + object (separable only in the feminine) and which must have
94 NIELS HAASTRUP

its background in school grammar. We shall restrict ourselves to that one.

In medieval school grammar, very often no distinction was made
between the ordo naturalis on the one hand, i.e., rules for the order of the
constituents and logical dependency-analysis on the other hand. Terms like
post se and ante se are ambiguous and were used on both levels, but this
ambiguity is not obvious if the examples used in teaching are chosen with
pedagogical care. If we describe the difference between the gerundive and
the gerund using the terminology used by Thomas of Erfurt (cf. Haastrup
1968:78),4 we then see that in the example adpuellam amandam, amandam
is construed 'intransitive,' it is a "secundum constructibile et dependet ante
se ad suppositum," i.e., the gerundive is a participle and as such it follows
its logical object. On the other hand, in ad amandum puellam we have
amandum as "primum constructibile," i.e., it is construed "transitive" and
"dependet post se," i.e., we are dealing with a gerund, a kind of infinitive,
which precedes its object. If we refer to our texts including the Vulgate, we
very often find the word order ad amandam puellam. This does not of
course contradict Latin grammar at all, but it is not construed according to
the ordo naturalis, because the 'secundum constructibile' is placed in front
of the "primum constructibile".
Let me take a few examples from the oldest Danish translation of the
Bible. The construction with skullende occurs in two kinds of constructions:
1) One of them we could call the typical gerund-construction, e.g., til at
eyœskullende landet: ad possidendum terram, where at is the marker of the
infinitive (cf. English to, German zu); 2) The other we could call the typical
gerundive-construction, e.g., til landet eyœskullende: ad terram possiden­
dam, where the construction with skullende is postposed according to the
rules for the gerundive.
In addition to these typical constructions we find a third in the Vulgate,
namely the constituent order ad possidendam terram, which is quite cus­
tomary but irregular as far as school grammar is concerned. What is
interesting is that the translator in these cases also uses the construction
otherwise used to translate the gerundive, in which the infinitive + skul­
lende is placed at the end, i.e., ad possidendam terram is translated by til
landet eyeskullœnde. But that was just a tendency rather than a general
rule.
It is obvious that a considerable number of the gerundival construc­
tions (including of course the examples in masculine and neuter gender)
have been interpreted as gerunds, which leads to a translation with at +
 VERNACULAR GRAMMAR AS A CALQUE OF LATIN GRAMMAR 95

infinitive + skullende + object. On the other hand, what we have called the
typical gerundival translation never occurs as a translation of gerundial con­
structions in the Vulgate. Therefore the translator could mark a difference
between translations of gerund and gerundive, if he had so wanted, but he
did not always take the advantage of this possibility.
The aim of the present article has been to find possible explanations
for the use of the construction with -skullende in grammar teaching in
schools. But so far I have not mentioned any evidence from the kind of
texts where we might well have expected this evidence in the first place,
i.e., from real school grammars. This kind of evidence does exist. A Danish
example occurs in the translation of the Rudimenta of Despauterius, which
Chr. Therkelsen Morsing, Rector of the school in Copenhagen, issued in
1519. Here we find the following text, f. 22r (Haastrup 1968:128; cf. also
the facsimile-edition by Pinborg & Dal 1979):
...Amaturus et amandus cuius Amaturus amandus, which tense?
temporis, futuri, quare, quia Future. Why? Because any participle
futuri temporis est omne par­ that ends in -rus or -dus is of the
ticipium in rus et dus desinens. future tense. How is the participle to
Quomodo declaratur participium be rendered in the mother tongue?
in vernacula lingua, presens sic The present like this, Amans
Amans elsckendes, docens lœren- elskendes, docens leerendes. The
des, Preteritum sic, amatus past like this, amatus elsket, doctus
elscket, doctus lœrdt. Futurum in lœrdt. The future in -rus is often to be
rus declaratur septus per rendered by means of a relative
relatiuum vt amaturus qui amabit. [noun], as amaturus, qui amabit. But
In dus vero sic amandus the one in -dus like this, amandus
elsckesscullendes. elsckesscullendes.

Pinborg drew my attention to the fact, that it could also be found in the
pedagogical tradition from Erfurt — at least in a text found there. In the
ms. Erfurt, Cod. D5 (cf. Census 81.105.5), which is dated 1476, we find
(Haastrup 1968:30), f.56v-57r:
Item participium futuri temporis Furthermore the future participle is -
in dus formatur a genitiuo singu- dus is formed from the genitive singu­
lari sui participa presentís tem­ lar of its present participle by chang­
poris mutando tis in dus ut legens ing -tis into -dus, as legens legentis; -
legentis tis in dus fit legendus. Et tis into -dus gives legendus. And it is
teutonizatur per suilende warden translated in German by suilende
ut homo est verberandus homo est warden e.g. homo est verberandus,
suilende warden geslagen. Item homo est suilende warden geslagen.
oracio participa futuri temporis in Further the phrase with the future
96 NIELS HAASTRUP

dus potest mutari in unam participle in -dus can be transformed

oracionem de verbo futuri tem- to a phrase with the future tense in
poris passiuo ut homo est ver- the passive e.g. homo est verberandus
berandus i.e. verberabitur. i.e. verberabitur etc.

It is striking that the skilled grammarians of Erfurt have a different word-

order from the one we found in the translation. In Erfurt skullende was not
considered an inflectional element, but as a participle placed in the sen­
tence at its proper place in front of its infinitive.
Nevertheless the trend is the same, i.e., it was an attempt to adapt the
vernacular to the categories of Latin grammar. As far as I can see, the
reason for this is not just the general tendency to give the vernaculars pre­
stige by copying Latin, which can be found in learned texts of many differ­
ent kinds (Blatt 1957). It is also evidence of the fact that the grammar of
Latin was not just considered as the grammar of that one language, but also
as the closest possible one could get to a universal grammar although the
existence of such universal grammar was not recognised after the descent of
the Modistae into philosophical obscurity. It is a pity that it is not possible
to have a look into a medieval schoolroom in order to hear, whether signa
vulgaria like infinitive + skullende occurred in teaching and examination. It
has to be assumed that this is where they came from.

NOTES
1. I would like to thank Hartmut Haberland and Sten Ebbesen for help with the English ver­
sion of this paper.
2. It is equally characteristic of Pinborg's modesty that he does not refer to the postscript he
wrote to a facsimile edition of three school grammars from the Renaissance (Pinborg &
Dal 1979) or to the Repertorium Erfordiense with which he was working up to the last
moment (Pinborg 1982b). Pinborg actually was interested in the role of pedagogics and
theoretical grammar with respect to the vernaculars.
3. I would like for a moment to revive the fruitful discussions I had with Jan Pinborg in the
mid-sixties when we were both young and preparing our respective doctoral dissertations
(Pinborg 1967; Haastrup 1968).
4. Pinborg explained these theories to me in the 1960s. For later comments on Thomas'
views on this topic, see Pinborg (1973:502-504, including footnote and reference to
Thomas' 92nd paragraph); cf. the edition by Bursill-Hall (1972:282-85), and the com­
ments in Hunt (1980:181-82), and Covington (1984).
 VERNACULAR GRAMMAR AS A CALQUE OF LATIN GRAMMAR 97

REFERENCES

Ahlberg, Märtha. 1942. Presensparticipet i fornsvenskan, en syntaktisk

studie. Diss., Univ. of Lund.
Blatt, Frans. 1957. "Latin Influence on European Syntax." Acta Congressus
Madvigiani, vol.V, Copenhagen.
Bursill-Hall, G.L., ed. 1972. Thomas of Erfurt: Grammatica Speculativa.
London: Longman.
. 1981. A Census of Medieval Latin Grammatical Manuscripts (=
Grammatica Speculativa, 4.). Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-
Holzboog.
Census, vide Bursill-Hall, 1981.
Coleman, Timothy. 1977. Modistic Grammar. Unpubl. diss., Univ. of
Toronto.
Covington, Michael A. 1984. Syntactic theory in the High Middle Ages.
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Haastrup, Niels. 1963. "Zur frühen Pariserbibel auf Grund skandinavischer
Handschriften." Classica & Medievalia, 24.242-69, Copenhagen.
. 1968. Infinitiv + skullendey skolegrammatiske studier i Den œldste
danske Bibeloversœttelse. (= Universitetsjubilœets danske Samfunds
Skrifter nr. 429). Diss., Univ. of Copenhagen.
Heath, Terrence. 1971. "Logical Grammar, Grammatical Logic, and
Humanism in Three German Universities." Studies in the Renaissance
18.9-64, New York.
Holz, Louis. 1981. Donat et la tradition de renseignement grammatical,
CNRS, Paris.
Hunt, Richard W. 1980. Collected papers on the History of Grammar in the
Middle Ages. Ed. by G.L. Bursill-Hall. (= Studies in the History of the
Language Sciences, 5.) Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ising, Erika. 1970. Die Herausbildung der Grammatik der Volkssprachen in
Mittel- und Osteuropa (— Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft; Reihe A,
nr.47.) Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Müller, Johannes. 1882. Quellenschriften und Geschichte des deutschsprach­
lichen Unterrichts. Gotha: E.F. Thienemann.
Pinborg, Jan. 1967. Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter. (=
Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters,
42:4.) Münster: Aschendorff; Copenhagen: Frost-Hansen.
98 NIELS HAASTRUP

. 1982a. "Speculative Grammar." The Cambridge History of Later

Medieval Philosophy. Ed. by Norman Kretzman et al., 254-69. Cam­
bridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
. 1982b. "The 14th Century Schools of Erfurt: Repertorium Erfor-
diense." Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Age grec et latin 41:171-92.
Copenhagen: Univ. of Copenhagen.
& Erik Dal. 1979. Tre latinske Grammatikker. Donatus, Fundamen-
tum, Regulae. (Facsimilie-edit. with postscripts by J. Pinborg and E.
Dal). Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.
Piper, Paul. 1882-83. Die Schriften Notkers und seiner Schule. Freiburg im
Breisgau.
Serbat, Guy. 1978. "Le 'futur antérieur' chez les grammairiens latins." (=
Publications de la Sorbonne, série Etudes tome, 14.) Varron: grammaire
antique et stylistique latine pour Jean Collart, 263-72. Paris: Les Belles
Lettres.
Thomas of Erfurt. Grammatica Speculativa cf. G.L. Bursill-Hall, 1972.
Uecker, Heiko. 1980. Der Wiener Psalter. (= Editiones Arnamagnœanœ,
series , vol.27.) Copenhagen: Reitzel.
 Master Peter's Mereology

D.P. Henry
University of Manchester

Cod. Orléans 266, pp. 278-81 contains a highly interesting set of argu­
ments which defend the discussion of res (things) against those who claim
that one must restrict oneself to the region of voces (utterances) if one is to
avoid paradox. As pointed out by L. Minio-Paluello (1958), who edited this
text (in AI) it evinces signs of Abelardian authorship sufficient to justify its
being tentatively assigned to the Breton logician {AI XXXIX-XLI). As a
contribution towards a definitive verdict on these Sententie Secundum
Magistrum Petrum (as they are labelled) certain of the ensuing sophisms
concerning 'Totum' ('whole') will here be scrutinised. The broader issue of
vox as contrasted with res will be left on one side (cf. TAU IV) although it
looks very much as though the argument is directed against a position such
as that of Roscelin, which in the Dialectica Abelard describes as 'insane':
I recall, however, that my teacher Fuit autem, memini, magistri nostri
Roscelin propounded the insane Roscellini tarn insana sententia ut nul-
opinion that no thing consisted of lam rem partibus constare vellet, sed
parts. Thus he described parts in sicut solis vocibus species, ita et partes
the same way as that in which he adscribebat. (AD 554.37-555.2)
described species, i.e. as mere
utterances.
As far as our topic of wholes (and parts) is concerned, not only
Abelard's own text, but also the testimony of others, make it amply evident
that he did indeed maintain what has been called 'a very extravagant claim'
{TAU 151) that any pair of bodies, no matter how separate, are a third
body. Thus if one counts corporeal manifolds as bodies, then the two
human units who are scattered in Paris and Rome, and who make a pair,
constitute a case of this claim {AD 431. 28. 29, cf. AD 64.20.21, 576.5.7,
100 D.P. HENRY

and his treatment of the problem of increase as described in HLM III §8).
The testimony of the Alberic/Abelard debate confirms the breadth of this
claim {TA U 150-51) which in any case is overtly stated as a general principle
in the course of one of the most weighty passages of his on the increase
problem: Omnia ... plura simul accepta, sive continuata sive disiuncta,
totum sunt ad singula (every multiplicity, taken together, be it continuous
or discrete, forms a whole in respect of its individual parts) AD 422.4.5.
And surely enough, the same principle is attributed hypothetically to the
adherents of res (amongst whom would presumably be Abelard) in the pre­
sent Sententie: si rem ex re constare dicamus, et omnia plura unum totum
efficere ... (if we assert thing to be made up of thing, and every many to
constitute one whole) AI 114.13.14. This attribution forms the basis of
objections to the res proponents, and the main part of the section of the
Sententie which deals with wholes is engaged in replies to those objections.
Thus the first of the objections posed by "those who take 'whole' to be
a mere utterance" {qui 'totum' solummodo vocem esse confitentur: AI
114.7.8.) runs as follows:
Constat senarium ex quaternario (Objection 1): It is obvious that a six
et dimidietate eius (scilicet quater- is made up of a four and its half (i.e.
narii) perfici: quod falsum est si of the four). Yet this turns out to be
hoc in rebus conspiciamus; nullus false if we look at what holds at the
quippe quaternarius, qui per se level of things {res). For no self-sub-
est, per dimidiam partem sui sisting four can make up a six by
senarium perficere possit nisi alter means of its own half. Another
binarius extra addatur. {AI couple needs to be contributed from
114.7.12) the outside.
Although the replies to this objection occur at great length later in the text,
it is worthwhile to follow them through forthwith, since they serve to locate
the very general semantic possibilities of the situation in a most admirable
and accurate way. It is in order to circumvent any preemptive limitation of
those possibilities that 'senarius' and 'quaternarius' have been non-commi-
tally translated above as 'a six' and 'a four,' rather than by definitively indi­
vidual-level locutions such as the nominal 'a sextet' or 'a sixfold manifold,'
and so on. Indeed, the dual sense which the reply allocates to the pronoun
'its' in the following first section of the reply confirms this requirement of
translational noncommitment:
Cum dicitur senarius perfici ex (First reply to Objection 1): When the
quaternario et dimidietate eius, six is said to be made up of a four and
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOGY' 101

istud 'eius' ad hoc nomen 'quater- its half, then the force of these words
narium' duobus modis referri allows 'its' to be related to the name
potest secundum vim verborum, 'four' in two ways, i.e. as alluding
hoc est vel secundum personam either to individual objects or to the
vel secundum speciem sive species (or essence) or the four. This is
naturam quaternarii. Duobus because a relative expression can allude
quippe dictio relativa ad premissa to its antecedent expression in either of
refertur: modo quidem personali- two ways: (i) with reference to indi-
ter et quasi discrete (secundum vidual and as it were discrete objects,
scilicet identitatem persone), i.e. in such a way that individual same-
modo indifferenter  simpliciter ness is in question, or (ii) without any
secundum identitatem nature, id individual import and just with refer­
­­­ convenientie vel similitudinis ence to sameness of essence, i.e. with
rerum iuxta causam inpositionis reference to the accord or resemblance
premissi nominis. (AI 115.19.28) of things at the level of the reason basic
to the original introduction of the ante­
cedent expression in question.
The relevance of this distinction to the senarius-problem is readily apparent
in a preliminary sort of way. A six can be said to be made up of a four and
its half only in sense (ii), i.e., at a general level, revolving around what is
involved in being six-fold, being-four-fold, being half of four-fold, and so
on. This level of discourse deals, as the passage says, with the nature or
quiddity of things, and may hence, in accordance with a medieval usage, be
dubbed 'quidditative.'
However, the deeper significance of such quidditative discourse may
be brought out by presupposing the various contemporary logical systems
described in HLM and HQS as constituting a categorial language in the
sense of Lejewski (LSS). For present expository purposes, ad hoc English
approximations will be exploited. Thus we can say that as primitive gram­
matical notions one may take the proposition (index s) and the name (index
n). It is then possible to give a logical-grammatical characterisation of the
contrast being made in the reply to objection 1 (above) in terms of
Ajdukiewicz-style 'categorial indices,' as described in detail in LSS and
HQS. For the moment it suffices to say that the oblique stroke of the com­
plex categorial indices to be used below serves to separate out the product
(e.g., a proposition, s) from the requisite (e.g., a name, n) for that product,
in terms of the functor (i.e., incomplete expression) represented by that
complex index. For example, s/n is the complex categorial index of that
functor which requires a name (as shown by the right-hand 'n') in order to
form a proposition (as shown by the left-hand 's'). Hence an intransitive
102 D.P. HENRY

verb, or predicate, has its part of speech (or 'semantical category') rep­
resented by the sin index. The verb (instance of a functor) '....runs,' for
example, requires a name (e.g. 'Socrates,' index n) in order to form a
proposition such as 'Socrates runs' (index s).
Now it has been argued (HQS §3) that investigation of the status of
quidditative discourse in non-nominalist contexts shows it to involve the use
of verb-like functors as terms, with infinitives (e.g., 'to be ...') or participles
(e.g., 'being ...') as their natural-language counterparts. Thus the terms of
'To live is to be' or 'Living is being' ultimately have the s/n index, though
their own internal structures may be varied and complex, as HQS shows.
The '... is ...' of such sentences is accordingly a functor which forms a prop­
osition from two verbs (or verb-like expressions) and its index is thus sl(s/n
s/n). With this may be contrasted the s/(n n) which pertains to the more
familiar nominally-termed '... is ...' of propositions such as 'Socrates is lit­
erate,' 'Marcus is Tully,' and so forth. All the functors in question figure in
or are definable in terms of the categorial language adopted in HQS. This
provides an assurance that the comparatively loose and untechnical lan­
guage of the Sententie and of the present comment may in the end be rigor­
ously analysed and backed up by co-ordinates displaying the highest degree
of logical cogency.
Thus we now have points of reference for coming to terms with the
multiple medieval fashions of expressing quidditative discourse such as that
mooted in (ii) of the last passage above. Indeed, given the limitation of nat­
ural-language expression, the contrast between discourse at the sl(n n) level
and that at the sl(sln s/n) or quidditative level could hardly be better
stated. The 'personaliter et quasi discrete'' ('individually and as it were dis­
cretely') expression not only, as is well-known, anticipates the later
medieval 'suppositio personalis' terminology for characterising discourse at
the nominally-termed level (which comprises names alluding to individuals)
but also coheres with Abelardian usage such as that found in his glosses on
the Topics. There 'personaliter ab omnibus aliis rebus discreta' ('individu­
ally discrete from all other things') is used to point somewhat the same con­
trast as that which is now in question (DA 235.9.10). Here translation
which has a concrete ring about it is appropriate, e.g. 'A sextet is made up
of a quartet and its half helps to bring out the sl(n n) complexion of the
nominally-termed discourse. In contrast, 'Being sixfold is being a combina­
tion of the fourfold and its half would help to point in the direction of the
s/(sln s/n) sense. True, it would be possible, both in Latin and in English,
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOGY' 103

to frame appropriate reformulations which would ensure that the distinc­

tion between the two senses became clear by some other means. But then
the point of the whole exercise, which is precisely to make the contrast
between the quidditative and the nominally-termed levels, would be lost.
Lest there should be any doubt about this indeed being the point, the text
continues to stress it in other terms.
However, before going on to inspect such further reinforcements, it is
worthy of note that Master Peter has correctly sensed that the theory of
integral wholes, a theory which deals with concrete collections of discrete
objects (e.g. the various manifolds mentioned in the problem-sentence) will
most conveniently be couched at the nominally-termed level (as indeed is
our contemporary theory of parts and wholes, or 'mereology': HQS §4.5,
§6.9). Further, as the corresponding contemporary systems amply
demonstrate in HQS, the other, and more familiar, theory of wholes,
namely the theory of distributive wholes, suitably incorporates quid-
ditative-level discourse, with its verb-like terms. Abelard is well aware of
this contrast between integral and distributive wholes (HQS 239, AD
546.24-547.5, cf. 339.30.35, 574-5, and DA 166, 193). That this contrast is
also the concern of the present text and that mereological issues are cent­
rally relevant thereto is of course confirmed by the already-quoted mention
of 'toturri in the opening words of our section of the Sententie as well as by
the indubitably mereological texture of the next two objections. There still
remain, however, yet more replies to the first objection, i.e., we are still
concerned with the two levels of discourse brought into play in the last-
quoted extract from the Sententie:
Naturam quippe Boetius dicit (2nd Reply to 1st Objection): Indeed
'similitudinem verum nascentium' Boethius asserts that the nature is 'a
ac si aperte dicat easdem res esse likeness of the birth of things,' as if he
unius nature que operatione were openly proclaiming that these
nature similes sunt ad invicem. same things are of one nature, and
Onde hoc nomen quod est 'homo' resemble each other in the working of
nature dicimus, quod ex una their nature. Whence it is that we say
ipsius inpositione commune est that this name 'man' is the name of a
naturaliter multis rebus secundum nature, in that just as a result of its
hoc quod invicem sibi naturaliter introduction into the language it is
sunt similes (in eo scilicet quod naturally common to many things in
unaqueque eorum sit animal the sense that they resemble each
rationale mortale); hoc vero other by their nature (since every one
nomen 'Socrates' persone potius is a rational mortal animal). In con-
dicimus quam nature, quia per trast, we say that the name 'Socrates'
104 D.P. HENRY

ipsum discretio persone mon- is that of an individual object rather

stratur, non convenientia multa- than of a nature, since by it the dis­
rum rerum quibus datum sit se­ creteness of an object is indicated, as
cundum similitudinem alicuius opposed to the likeness with which
nature. (AI 115.31-116.11) many things are endowed, thanks to
the likeness of the same nature.
We plainly have here a further attempt to distinguish between discourse
concerning a nature (or quiddity, or essence) on the one hand, and dis­
course concerning named individuals such as Socrates on the other. It is at
this sort of juncture that a precise characterisation of the logical/grammati­
cal difference between There is exactly one man' (where the 'man' is that
of 'Man is species') and There is exactly one Socrates' would be of help.
Contemporary categorial language has no difficulty in this respect. (HQS
180-81). All the present text can do is to continue with ad hoc hints, the
next of which turns on appropriate replies to correspondingly diverse ques­
tions:
Et hanc interrogationem 'quid (3rd Reply to 1st Objection): Again,
est homo?' nature dicimus, istam we assert that the question 'What is
autem (quis est iste?' vel 'que manV concerns the nature, whereas we
est is ta?' dicimus esse persone; assert that 'Who is this?' regards the
unde, ad illud, vocabulum nature individual. Whence it comes about that
seu similitudinis respondemus we reply to the first with the word rele­
(quod videlicet multorum commu­ vant to the nature or likeness (namely
ne est secundum hoc quod sibi in- that which is common to many on
vicem similia sunt), ut 'homo,' account of their mutual likeness one to
'animal'; ad istud vero, voca­ the other) e.g., 'man,' 'animal.' In the
bulum persone seu discretionis second case, however, we reply with
(quod videlicet unam rem deter­ the word designating the personal indi­
minate ac discrete significat), vidual or discrete object (namely that
ut 'Petrus, ' 'Marcha. ' which signifies one thing determinately
(AI 116.11.18) and discretely) e.g., 'Peter,' 'Marcia.'
Here, not only is the theme of contrast reinforced, but two further
assets are acquired. First there is the reminder of the relation between the
question 'What is it?' ('Quid sit...?') and the nature or essence. The Latin
version of this question is, of course, the origin of the term 'quidditative,'
which not only has a well-known medieval counterpart, but which has also
been adopted as a label for the functorially-termed discourse (e.g. '... is ...'
of index s/ (s/n s/n)) which corresponds thereto. Secondly, this passage's use
of the qualification 'determinate' for the signification of individual objects
yields, by way of contrast, the indeterminate as the status of the terms of
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOGY' 105

quidditative discourse, and this, as the term-indices of the last-quoted illus­

trative quidditative '... is ...' display, is exactly right. For 's/n' is thus the
index of an incompleteness, an indeterminacy, which fulfills the require­
ment implied by our text. In any case, this notion of functorial indetermi­
nacy at the quidditative level is yet another of the items in the present text
which was to have a well-marked future medieval career (HQS §5.1).
It follows (continues the text) that as a particular case of the two-level
distinction, statements of identity can be pitched at either of those levels.
Thus 'Marcus is the same object as Tully' is at the individual-object level
('secundum personam': AI 116.19.21). In terms of our logical grammar, its
main functor, i.e., '... is the same object as ...' is of index sl(n n), with its
nominal terms indicating the individuals in question. The contrasting case is
exemplified when natures or species are being identified as the same (e.g.
those of Peter and Mark, in so far as they are both men or animals: AI
116.21.23). Here the functor of identity would have s/ (s/n s/n) as its index.
The thirteenth-century Boethius of Dacia has a corresponding contrast
when distinguishing the grammatical variety of plurals from an analytic
point of view. For him the '... are ...'of 'Socrates and Plato are men' is of
a part of speech diverse from the '... are ...' of 'Man and donkey are ani­
mals' (BMS, qu.68). We are now seeing how the first is nominally termed,
but the second, the quidditative statement, is not (cf. HQS §4.35).
The same duality of identity statements is next illustrated from Trinity-
lore. 'God-the-Father is not God-the-Son' negates identity at the indi­
vidual-person level, whereas the two persons in question have a common
quiddity, i.e., their Godhead, so that we have once again a contrast
between the two levels ('secundum eandem personam,' 'secundum
naturam': AI 116.26-117.7). In each of these cases there is no choice as to
the correct (i.e., truth-preserving) analysis.
However, duality of truth-preserving possibilities persists with refer­
ence to the interpretations of the Latin sentences, 'Homo sculpit quipingit'
and 'Homo sculpit et idem pingit' (AI 117.8.16). Relative to these Latin sen­
tences, the categorial indices may usefully be brought to bear to bring out
the difference between the nominally termed (s/(η η)) and the non-nomi­
nally-termed (s/(s/n s/n)) interpretations. English versions of the same sen­
tences do not stand in so great a need of such clarifications, though the
same possibilities of variety subsist. Thus 'The man who sculpts also paints'
or 'The man sculpts and the same man paints' are pushed by the articles
(non-existent in the Latin) in the direction of s/(η η) type functors. Use of
106 D.P. HENRY

italics without articles might give the contrasting sense at the level of some
functor of identity at the quidditative level, e.g., 'Man sculpts and also
paints.' (Two subsidiary points here illustrated are: (i) for certain ad hoc,
local, purposes, English may serve as a categorial language, and (ii) in gen­
eral, there may be myriads of alternative ways of resolving the difficulties
raised in the text undergoing analysis. However, a more consistent and
sympathetic solution is that which is relativised to a unitary set of logical
systems which in their turn are close in spirit to the medieval solutions.
These desiderata are fulfilled in the HQS systems and methods, both of
which are being exemplified (though somewhat remotely) in the present
remarks.
Most elegant and interesting is the presentation which then follows in
the Sententie of a contrasting instance in which the duality possible in the
previous case is not appropriate:
Nam cum dicimus 'nullum simile But when we assert 'No resembler is
est illud cui est simile,' si vera that which it resembles,' then if this
sit enuntiatio, accipienda est proposition is to be true, the relation in
relatio tantummodo secundum question must be taken solely in the
identitatem persone, ut videlicet sense of singular identity [cf. HQS
nulla res sit ea personaliter cui §6.5443] i.e. no thing is individually
similis sit. Ut, cum Socrates identical with that which it resembles.
sit similis homini (verbi gra­ This hence obviates our basing the
tia Platoni), non tarnen ideo truth that Socrates resembles a man
verum est simpliciter quod non sit (e.g. Plato) on a relation of non-iden­
homo, sed tantum quod non sit tity pitched at the man-as-such level. It
ille homo cui est similis. (AI merely requires that Socrates should
117.16.22) not be that [individual] man whom he
resembles.

From an English point of view, some of the trouble in this case

could be said to stem from the lack of articles, once again, in the original
Latin. Here, the difference between resembling man and resembling a man
is hence not directly visible, with the result that confinement to the conse­
quences of resemblance at the level of a singular identity, which is at the
individual 'personal' level, is an efficient enough way of making the point.
The specification of such identity (even when the latter is negated) ensures
that the non-quidditative s/(n n) is the relevant index, exactly as the argu­
ment requires. If this logical grammar of the present argument is accepted,
it yields interesting concomitant and independent confirmation of a claim
made elsewhere (HQS 230) that Descartes' discussion as to whether his
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOGY' 107

'idea of the sun' (a quidditative matter) more resembles the actual sun than
the sun as sensed is a piece of nonsense. (For an Aberlardian discussion on
resemblance, AD 360 may be consulted.)
Thus far, the main point of the various arguments has been to illustrate
how it is possible to interpret discourse somehow involving part-whole
problem-inferences in terms of res (things), without the inconsistency with
which the supporters of the vox (utterance) interpretation of such part-
whole talk threaten us with by means of their examples. The res, in their
turn, have been appropriately allocated either to the individual ('personal')
level, or to the level of the nature or species, as the case requires or allows.
The latter level need not be taken in a Platonic realist sense, notwithstand­
ing its anti-vox status, as HQS illustrates. Among the res considered at the
individual ('personal') level have been the concrete versions of a six (i.e.,
the sextet) and a four (i.e., the quartet) which are susceptible of considera­
tion as variously-related concrete collective classes in the mereological
sense. Now, however, we come to a case which is unequivocally mereolog­
ical, namely that of the house (made up of walls, roof, and foundation); this
is the usual medieval illustration of an integral whole (or concrete collec­
tion, or collective class in the modern sense.) Our text here overtly and
rightly states that consideration at the concrete level is here appropriate, as
it was in the resemblance-case. We thus have a further precise identification
of the level at which mereological questions proper are suitable pursued
(i.e., in terms of functors of index s/(n n), typically) and also an explicit
contrast of this with the quidditative-level discussion of wholes, parts, iden­
tity, non-identity, and so on, as contained in some of the previous exam­
ples. All this is another elaboration of the already-mentioned usual Abelar-
dian contrast between the integral whole (or 'collective class') and the dis­
tributive whole (i.e., the non-mereological sense of 'class' represented by
the quidditative level of discourse), cf. HQS 239. At any rate, the opening
sentences make clear that the prime point is the individual ('personal') level
of the discourse (so that s/(n n) would be its typical index):
Similiter et, cum dicimus 'si This last case [i.e. of the non-identity of
aliquod totum est, quelibet resemblers] is like that of the assertion,
pars illius totius est' vel 'eius- 'If some whole is, every part of that
dem totius/ ad personam facienda whole is' (or '... of the same whole ...').
est relatio. Quippe, cum omnis Here the relationship must be at the
domus totum sit, et paries sit level of the individual object. For
pars domus, non tarnen verum although every house is (a) whole, it is
108 D.P. HENRY

est quod, si domus est, queli-
bet pars domus est; alioquin
sequeretur quod, si hec domus
est, quelibet pars illius alterius
domus est (hoc scilicet per regu-
lam ostendi potest quod si domus
est, quelibet pars illius domus
est que est, non domus simplici-
ter). Nec hoc similiter verum
est quod, si hec domus est, hic
paries est (licet hic paries pars sit
domus); sed, si domus est, paries
eiusdem domus est que est (omnis
quippe domus ex aliquo pañete
constat, sed non omnis ex hoc).
(AI 117.22-118.3)
nevertheless not true that if (a) house
is, then every part of (a) house is;
otherwise it would follow that if this
house is, every part of that other house
is. What the rule is capable of showing
is that if (a) house is, then it is every
part of that house which is, and not of
house in general. Likewise, neither is it
true that if this house is, then this wall
is (notwithstanding the fact that this
wall is part of (a) house); rather, if (a
particular) house is, it is the wall of that
same house which is. This is because
although every house is made up of
some wall, nevertheless not every
house is made up of this wall.

Here the struggle is against the ambiguities of an article-free Latin in a

context where 'house' might be taken quidditatively rather than 'person­
ally.' It is the 'house' of 'this house' which must be understood, and not the
'house' of 'House is a species of building,' for example. Thus is confirmed
the nominally-termed nature of the mereological discourse indicated by the
use of the house example.
Other examples of the two levels of thing-centred discourse continue to
be given. 'Woman, who damned, also saved' has to be taken generically
(AI 118.4.9). 'Socrates is what he is' may be taken ''indifferenter' in the
sense that it may be taken either way, personaliter or at the quidditative
level (AI 118.18.23). This latter 'indifferenter' case completes the present
text's anticipation of Boethius of Dacia's three-fold classification of the
types of plurality. Two we have already noted above, and the indeterminate
third is mentioned in Boethius' summary which may now be quoted:
Tres numeri plurales sunt pos- Three types of plural number are
sibiles: unus scilicet designans rem possible, namely the one which
ut multiplicatam simpliciter non shows the thing as purely many, with­
determinando utrum per plures out making determinate whether a
species vel per plura individua, et quidditative or individual plurality is
alius designans rem ut multip­ in question; then there is the one
licatam per plures species, et ter- which indicates the thing as multip­
tius numerus pluralis possibilis lied in terms of a plurality of quid­
designans rem ut multiplicatam dities, and the third possible plural
per plura individua. (BMS number is that which indicates the
167.54-59) thing as multiplied in terms of a plur­
ality of individuals.
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOGY' 109

However, having noted that by now the Sententie have thus anticipated
and exploited all three of Boethius of Dacia's types of plurality in the dis­
cussion arising from the initial problem about 'totum,' we may concentrate
on the two other mereological problems which were also raised. The
semantic status of such problems has, as pointed out above, by now been
thoroughly established, and the theorising overtly involves manyness taken
personaliter, i.e., at the level of concrete individuals. (Subsequent discus­
sion is to show that the undividability etymologically contained in the word
'in-divid-ual' could turn out to be inappropriate.)
Here then is the next objection, allegedly originating, as before, from
the side of those who restrict discussion in this region of wholes and parts to
the level of voces, utterances, rather than of res ("things"):
Sed sic et istud obiciendum (Objection 2): Not only this, but a
videtur: quod si rem ex re further objection [to looking at what
constare dicamus et om­ holds at the level of things] appears to
nia plura unum totum effice- be possible. For suppose we assert:
re, utique, ubicumque erunt 1. Thing is made up from thing, and
duo instituía, ipsa quippe duo 2. Every many makes a whole [cf. AD
unum totum facient quod est 422.4.5],
diversum a singulis Ulis; et then it certainly follows that:
ita ubicumque sunt duo, sunt 3. Whenever two objects are estab­
tria (ipsa videlicet duo et totum lished, then those two make up one
ipsorum, quod est diversum a whole which is diverse from its indi­
singulis Ulis et predicatione vidual components. Under these cir­
remotum, cum neque hec pars cumstances, whenever there are two
sit ipsum totum neque ilia); there are three.
sed rursus, cum omnia plura This three is made up from the two in
unum totum efficiant diversum question and the whole composed of the
a singulis Ulis, ipsum totum two. This whole is diverse from each in­
iterum cum duabus partibus suis dividual component, and hence, when­
unum totum efficiet, et illud ever there are two, there are three, i.e.
rursus aliud cum partibus suis, the two in question and the whole of
et sic in infinitum. them, which is not only diverse from
{AI 114.13.23) each individual component, but also sus­
ceptible of diverse predicates, since nei­
ther one nor the other of the parts is iden­
tical with that whole. But yet again, as
every multiplicity makes a whole diverse
from its individual parts, the whole just
discussed will make one whole along with
its two parts, and this further whole yet
again with its parts, and so on to infinity.
no D.P. HENRY

This is certainly an outstanding piece of mereological insight. I have

heard this sort of thesis maintained in our own days by Professor Czeslaw
Lejewski, and it certainly expresses theorems obtainable in contemporary
mereology. As noted at the outset above, the principle numbered 2 in the
translation is definitely Abelardian. It recurs, as indicated, in AD 422.4.5,
and a discussion of its scope and import is usefully provided in TAU 150-1,
although here it would help if Abelard's views on creation and making were
taken into account (cf. HMT).
The third and (for us) final objection contains further mereological
sophistication:
Preterea hunc ternarium dicimus (Objection 3): Besides, we assert that
constare ex his tribus unitatibus, et this trio is made of these three [dis­
due unitates unum binarium crete] elements, and any two of those
quelibet reddunt. Quis neget hunc elements yield a pair. Who then can
ternarium ex duobus binariis con- deny that this trio is made up of [at
stare? Eadem quippe unitas cum least] two pairs? For indeed the com­
hac unitate unum binarium <et mon element along with this element
cum illa alium binarium> facit; et makes up one pair <and with that
ita ternarius duos in se continet other element another pair>, so that
binarios diversos ab invicem, cum the trio contains within it [at least]
hic binarius nullo modo sit ille, two non-identical pairs, as this pair is
cum talem habeat partem quam not that pair, since the latter has
ille non habet. (Si enim hic a proper part which the former lacks.
binarius hac unitate constat, ille (For if this pair's make-up involves
vero hac eadem non constat, pro- this element, and that pair's make-up
fecto ille hic non esse convincitur does not involve this same element,
per necessarium sillogismi con- then by a necessary logical conse­
plexionem). (AI 114.23-115.5) quence it is obvious that that pair is
not this pair.)

Comment on the up-to-date latitude of the mereological notions of part and

whole presupposed by these objections has been provided elsewhere (HQS
240-42). For present purposes it suffices to remark that the sense of 'part'
here presupposed is such that when two or more things are said to be parts
of some whole, they need not be totally outside one another, i.e., they need
not to be discrete (a term familiar to present-day mereologists). Thus the
various successive wholes of Objection 2 certainly overlap; so do the pairs
selectable from the trio of the third Objection (as Leibniz realised in his
observations on just this case: LPP 77). In short, relative to an aloof gen­
eral present-day theory of part and whole, there is nothing at which to
baulk in Objections 2 and 3. Some of it may sound a bit odd to unpractised
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOG Y' 111

ears, but it certainly should not frighten one into abandoning res-talk in this
area, as the vox-supporters suggest.
Unfortunately, the otherwise highly competent author of the Sententie
fails to achieve this level of generality, since he goes on to argue against
those objections. This fact, and the Abelardian nature of the presupposi­
tions of the objections themselves, diminish the probability that that author
is Abelard, unless it be an early Abelard who has not yet worked out the
full implications of what was later to appear in the vast amount of
mereological material covered in his Dialectica alone. Clearly, in a fully
general mereology, it is desirable to have a sense of 'part' which need not
entail discreteness. Only subsequently need discrete parts be considered.
Thus the assembled parts of an object which earlier were appropriate
ready-made components for that sort of object would tend to be discrete in
respect of each other. It looks very much as though the momentum of the
distinction between discrete individuals and quidditative res, so prominent
in the discussion recorded above, has carried forward into the details of the
mereological debate. (The actual Latin word 'discrete' or its derivative
occurs at least four times on the couple of pages concerned (AI 115-6) and
the cognate 'personalitef is even more numerous). Seen in this light, the
defects of the quite unnecessary replies to Objections 2 and 3 are patently
obvious:
Quod autem de infinítate supra (Reply to Objection 2): That which we
quoque opposuimus nichil est. mentioned above as an objection
Quippe, cum dicitur quod against us, and which involved infinity,
'quelibet plura unum totum integ- amounts to nothing. Indeed, when it is
raliter conficiunt/ talia plura said that 'every many integrally makes
accipimus que diversa ad invicem a whole' we take the many to have ele­
sunt, non solum predicatione ments which are mutually diverse not
verum etiam tota continentia con- only in respect of their predicates, but
stitutionis (ut videlicet alterum in also in respect of all the elements of
constitutione  alterum  their make-up (i.e. they are such that
aliquid alterius conprehendat) ; the one does not enter into the make­
totum autem quod ex duabus par- up of the other, nor does it embrace
tibus constat non est ab Ulis quas anything of the other). Thus the whole
continet diversum secundum which is made up of the two parts is
essentie sue capacitatem. Ideo not diverse from those parts which it
illud aliquid totum non conficitur contains in respect of the being of its
quasi diversa pars ab Ulis. bulk. Hence that whole does not
(AI 119.25-120.3) involve a part which is in some way
diverse from them.
112 D.P. HENRY

Here, as the subsequent text will confirm, the key word is 'diverse,'
which is to be contrasted with 'different.' (Aquinas has a further version of
this contrast, cf. HQS 194, 278.) Continuity with the previous discussion
would have been better preserved had our author persisted in his use of
'discrete' (as described above) instead of switching to the present 'diverse.'
At any rate, this terminology encapsulates the central point at issue. As
forecast, 'part' is now approximating in sense to 'ready-made component,'
and quite unnecessarily conveys the implication of mereological discrete­
ness. Of course, as a record of linguistic anthropology, as opposed to the
requirements of aloof theoretical generality, the 'we' of the passage may
well truly record how non-theoretically inclined folk would take 'Every
many integrally makes a whole,' but presumably such anthropology is far
from being the point at issue; its purposes certainly cannot be served by log­
ical discussions such as the present one.
It is in the reply to Objection 3 that the actual contrast between diver­
sity and difference is made explicit:
Hoc etiam modo refellitur quod (Reply to Objection 3): In this way is
dictum est 'conftci ex duobus refuted that which was said above
diversis binariis/ cum 'diversi' about 'being made up of two diverse
recte non dicantur cum eandem couples,' since 'diverse' does not really
contineant in quantitate sue apply to them in this case, for they
essentie partem. 'Diversum' incorporate a common part in their
itaque personaliter dicimus bulk. Thus 'diverse' is only properly
proprie quod, non solum pre- used at the level of individual objects
dicatione, verum etiam tota when the discrepancy between them is
essentie sue quantitate discre- not merely in respect of predicates, but
tum est (ut videlicet nichil aliud involves also an absolute discreteness in
sit in isto quam in illo secundum the being of their bulk, so that there is
quod superius ... concessimus no discrepancy between the one and
aliquem posse habere solam the other of these, in accordance with
domum, ut videlicet non haberet what was granted ..., namely, that it is
aliud a domo — hoc est ita diver- possible for someone to have a house
sum a domo ut, non solum pre- alone, i.e., they would not have any­
dicatione, verum etiam con­ thing other than a house, that is, any­
stitutione ab ea penitus disiunc- thing so diverse from a house that it
tum sit). Multa itaque specie would be totally distinct from it, not
seu genere differunt que hoc just on the predicate level, but also in
modo diversa non sunt, sicut respect of its whole make-up. There are
homo et manus ipsius . . . . Sicut, plenty of things which thus differ speci­
cum dicimus 'domum sufficienter fically or generically, but which are not
dividí per parietem et tectum diverse in the way described, as in the
et fundamentum,' ac si nullas case of a man and his hand . . . . Thus,
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOGY' 113

alias partes prêter istas tres when we say that house is adequately
habeat, 'alias' oportet intelligi split into wall, roof, and foundations,
non solum predicatione remotas thereby giving the impression that it
ab invicem, verum etiam diver­ can have no parts other than these, then
sas continentia constitutionis, 'other than' must here be taken to
ita scilicet ut  in istis con- allude to those 'parts' being discrepant
tineantur nec istas contineant, from those specified not only in respect
nee eandem partem cum aliquo of their predicates, but also as being
horum trium communicent (alio- diverse from them in their contribution
quin falsum esset istas solas to the make-up of the house, i.e. in
tres esse partes domus). such a way that they are not contained
(AI 120.4.25) in the latter, and the latter does not
contain them, nor is there any such part
which has a part in common with any of
the three. If these conditions are not
fulfilled, then it will be false that walls,
roof, and foundation are the sole three
parts of house.
A few remarks to assist in the understanding of this piece of prose
before any comment on its content may be profered. First, inspection of the
original text of Objection 3, as we now have it, will show that it does not
contain the word 'diverse' as alleged by this present passage, but this
scarcely affects the point of the argument. Next, the mention of it having
been granted that someone can have a house alone does not allude to the
present text. The point is clear enough: it is rather low-grade wit for some­
one to deny that it is possible for someone to have just a house, since this
will also involve having its parts. The witticism's shaft is avoided by ensur­
ing that 'just ...' or '... alone' here merely excludes extrinsic discrete diver­
sity. Abelard's Dialectica has a discussion of this point which uses the same
example as does the final part of the present Sententie, but this will not be
followed up here because of the extraneous considerations which it also
raises (cf. AD 346, and HMT). The collocation of 'personaliter' and 'dis-
cretum which occurs in the Latin of the last passage is to be found also in
the Abelardian DA 235. The example of the man and his hand which are
different in kind is to be found in Geyer's text of Abelard's Glosses on Por­
phyry (GA 535-6, which in turn provides further cross-references). This
gloss is, however, quite deliberately indecisive on whether this non-discrete
pair should be said to be numerically diverse. The categorical decisiveness
of the Sententie on this account is hence most significant.
From a mereological point of view, however, the interest of the pas­
sage lies in its appreciations of diversity and difference. Use of the former to
114 D.P. HENRY

characterise mereological discreteness is excellently done. However, one

cannot but reiterate that the notion itself is misapplied in responding to the
objections. Neither in those responses nor in the case of the 'three-parted'
house is it necessarythatpart should be specified as discrete, thus producing
a more restrictive notion than that of part in the theoretical, mereological
sense. However, it is in itself an interesting mereological problem to
attempt to specify part in this discrete sense and to compare it with part in
that more general sense, which will of course allow that it is impossible for
there to be just two objects (as in Objection 2) and that there are at least
three pairs as parts of the trio (as in Objection 3). Again, if the numbered
units in these objections are not themselves individuals in the style of the
mereological atoms, the definition of which was indeed glimpsed by
Abelard himself (HQS 242), then in each case there will be indefinitely
many more parts involved.
The paradox of the Sententie, at least in relation to the question of
Abelardian authorship, is that the objections to which the piece is mainly
engaged in replying evince a higher degree of generality than do the replies.
Again, the objections are for the most part coherent with well-known, if
not notorious, Abelardian theses. At the same time those misdirected
replies are not lacking in their own sort of mereological acumen. The fact
that the objections are attributed to the partisans of voces (utterances)
could suggest that the piece is an early one, dating from near to the time
when Abelard was hearing the 'insane' arguments of his master Roscelin. It
can be suggested that such arguments are intended to call attention to quite
valid points in the mereological area (cf. HMT). The later, and more gen­
eral Abelard could then have taken over the marrow of those points, thus
explicating the known Abelardian nature of some of the objections them­
selves.
Thus in the end it may well be possible, given a progressive sharpening
of our appreciation of the significance of the discussions contained in the
Sententie, to hypothesise more definitively as to whether Abelard was
indeed the author of the piece. One might even emit conjectures as to the
point in the chronology of his works at which it could feasibly be situated.
For this, however, a more comprehensive perspective of the mereological
aspects of his work is required, and this, for the moment, is lacking.
 MASTER PETER'S 'MEREOLOGY' 115

REFERENCES

AD = Abaelardus, Petrus, Dialectica. Ed. by M.L. de Rijk. Assen: Van

Gorcum, 1956.
AI — Minio-Paluello, L., Twelfth-Century Logic II: Abaelardiana Inedita.
Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1958.
BMS = Boethius of Dacia, Modi Significandi. Ed. by Jan Pinborg & Hein­
rich Roos (= CPDMA, 4). Copenhagen: Gad, 1969.
DA = Dal Pra, M., ed. Pietro Abelardo: Scritti di Logica. Florence: La
nuova Editrice, 1969.
HLM = Henry, D.P. Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. London: Hutchin­
son, 1972.
HMT = Henry, D.P. "Abelard's Mereological Terminology." Medieval
Semantics and Metaphysics: Studies dedicated to L.M. de Rijky Ph.D. on
the occasion of his 60th birthday, 65-92. Nijmegen: Ingenium Publishers.
HQS = Henry, D.P. That most subtle question (Quaestio Subtilissima): The
Metaphysical Bearing of Medieval and Contemporary Linguistic Discip­
lines. Manchester: Manchester University Press., 1984.
LPP = Leibniz, G.W. Philosophical papers and letters. Tr. & ed. by L.E.
Loemker, 2nd ed. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969.
LSS = Lejewski, Czeslaw, "Syntax and Semantics of Ordinary Language".
Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 49, 1975.
TAU = Tweedale, M.M. Abailard on Universals. Amsterdam: North-Hol­
land, 1976.
 Una et Eadem:
Some observations on Roger Bacon's Greek grammar*

Even Hovdhaugen
University of Oslo

0. Roger Bacon has been regarded by many historians of linguistics as

one of the leading proponents of the medieval theory of universal gram­
mar. One sentence from his Greek grammar (Grammatica vna et eadem est
secundum substanciam in omnibus Unguis licet accidentaliter varietur) is fre­
quently quoted as stating most clearly and unconditionally the basic princi­
ple of universal grammar.
It will be argued in this article that universal grammar played a very
marginal role in Bacon's linguistic work. Bacon was primarily interested in
the study of language for practical ends and for promoting true scientific
knowledge in the service of theology. To achieve this aim a new kind of
grammar was needed, viz. short, elementary, and contrastive grammars,
such as his own Greek grammar.

1. The Problem

Few periods in the history of linguistics have been more in the focus of
attention than the 13th century and yet, the Greek grammar written by
Roger Bacon (Nolan 1902) has received little attention, although it is the
only grammar of Greek written by a prominent linguist of that century and
in fact one of the very few attempts at a practical, descriptive grammar writ­
ten in that period at all.

* I wish to thank Christoph Harbsmeier, FrØydis Hertzberg and Hanne Gram Simonsen for
comments and criticism on an earlier version of this article and Sten Ebbesen for his thorough
comments on my final version.
118 EVEN HOVDHAUGEN

ten in that period at all.

Apart from referring to Bacon's Greek grammar as something
unique in the 13th century historians of linguistics are however usually con­
tent to quote one sentence from it (Grammatica vna et eadem est secundum
substanciam in omnibus Unguis licet accidentaliter varietur) as stating most
clearly and unconditionally the basic principle of universal grammar (cf.,
e.g., Bursill-Hall 1971:12, 38; 1972:19; 1975:201; Lyons 1968:15-16; Reichl
1976:105; Robins 1967:76-77, 91). We are faced with a problem which so
far seems to have passed unnoticed: Why did Bacon, if he was the most
ardent universalist of them all, bother to write an elementary grammar of a
language other than Latin? This was a task none of his contemporary lin­
guists ever tried to perform and probably saw no point in even attempting.
In addition, how is this grammar related to theories of universal grammar
which were current at that time?
Scholars have taken quite opposite views concerning Bacon's position
with regard to universal grammar. One view which is most explicitly stated
by Gilson (1955) and Bursill-Hall (1971, 1972) argues that Bacon played a
fundamental part in the development of the theory of universal grammar,
that he "conceived the possibility of a general grammar, i.e., the general
grammar of human language" (Bursill-Hall 1971:31) and that he had the
"belief that there is only one grammar for all languages" (ibid. p.77).
Reichl (1976:109) has a rather different view: "Obwohl häufig als Kron­
zeuge der universalistischen These der spekulativen Grammatik zitiert (...),
war Bacon doch in erster Linie an den einzelsprachlichen Grammatiken
interessiert." Recently Rosier (1984:30-31), in an article mainly based on
Bacon's first linguistic work, Summa Gramática, has interpreted the differ­
ences between the Modistae and Bacon as far as universal grammar is con­
cerned in the following way:
L'on fait souvent remonter à Bacon la thèse de l'universalité de la gram­
maire si chère aux Modistes. Or si l'universalité posée par les modistes est
nécessaire à leur conception de la science et se trouve donc posée a priori,
celle que défendait Bacon était au contraire a posteriori et dépendait d'une
analyse philologique. En effet, en montrant que dans les dialectes on peut
trouver les mêmes propriétés générales de la langue mère, et que dans les
langues on peut trouver les propriétés de la langue originelle, Bacon pose
que les propriétés générales des langues se retrouvent dans chacune d'elles
et sont universelles. Cette universalité repose sur des principes
étymologiques et de comparaison des langues, sur des observations
empiriques, non sur des conditions de scientificité valables pour toute dis-
 UNA ET EADEM 119

cipline. Si les Modistes, par conséquent, raisonnent sur une seule langue,
le latin, lieu des propriétés posées comme universelles, Bacon considère
les langues, dans leur multiplicité et leur variété. Précisons pourtant que
seules méritent pour lui d'être prises en compte les "langues sapientielles,"
à l'exclusion, donc, des langues vernaculaires.
I shall in this article attempt a re-evaluation of Roger Bacon's attitude
towards universal grammar in general and his use of the term grammatica in
particular.

2. Universal Grammar in the 13th Century

As Fredborg (1980:71-73) has pointed out, discussion during the 12th

century was mainly concentrated on the question whether there existed sev­
eral species grammaticae (i.e., different variants of grammatical descrip­
tions for individual languages) or not. Petrus Helias mentioned that gram­
mars had been composed for Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac (besides, of
course, Latin) and that it also was possible to write grammars for other lan­
guages, e.g., French. This possibility was not as remote as Petrus Helias
and his contemporaries and successors seem to have imagined (cf. Fredborg
1980:72). Probably as early as 1200 the first grammatical description of
Provençal was written (Marshall 1972:lxx) and furthermore about 1240
(Marshall 1969:63) a rather extensive Provençal grammar (in many respects
more extensive than Bacon's Greek Grammar) was composed. But these
Provençal grammars or any other descriptions of vulgar languages do not
seem to have been known to Petrus Helias, Robert Kilwardby, Roger
Bacon, the Modistae, or at least they were not considered by them worth
while mentioning.
13th-century grammarians were in agreement that some aspects of
grammar were universal and others subject to variation between different
languages. The language specific parts were of course primarily concerned
with the phonetic representation of words (Greek anthropos — Latin
homo) and suffixes. But there were differences concerning details among
the scholars concerned although most of them can be attributed to differ­
ences in wording and above all in interests and thematic scope. As illustra­
tive examples we can take the following two quotations, the first from De
ortu scientiarum (written ca.1250) by the premodistic Robert Kilwardby
(Judy 1976:218) and the second from one of the leading modistic scholars,
Boethius Dacus (Pinborg & Roos 1969:12-13):
 EVEN HOVDHAUGEN
Grammatica autem, quia partim
fundatur super naturam, partim
super humana instituía, quantum
ad id quod de natura habet, in
gradu certitudinis philosophicae
congrue collocari potest, quantum
ad id quod de humana institutione
habet, in gradu aliquo inferiori.
Coniunctiones enim partium
orationis in grammatica et consig-
nificationes venientes a natura sig-
nificatorum naturales rationes
adsciscunt. Inflexiones vero vo­
cales tales vel tales, et prolationes
illae vel illae non a natura sunt,
sed ab humana impositione.
..omnia idiomata sunt una gram­
matica. Et causa huius est, quia
cum tota grammatica accepta sit a
rebus — non enim potest esse fig-
mentum intellectus; illud enim est
figmentum intellectus, cui nihil
respondet in re extra animam — et
quia naturae rerum sunt similes
apud omnes, ideo et modi essendi
et modi intelligendi sunt similes
apud omnes illos, apud quos sunt
illa diversa idiomata, et per conse-
quens similes modi signiflcandi, et
ergo per consequens similes modi
construendi vel loquendi. Et sic
tota grammatica, quae est in uno
idiomate, est similis Uli, quae est
in alio idiomate. Quis enim
modus essendi et intelligendi et
signiflcandi et construendi vel
loquendi esse potest qpud unum
idioma, qui non sit apud aliud?
Non videtur esse possible.
Ponatur nomen vel verbum, quod
est apud graecos, unum oportet
esse in specie cum nomine vel
verbo apud nos. Modus enim sig­
niflcandi unus est, qui reponit
But since grammatica is based partly
on nature and partly on human con­
vention, it can as far as its natural
part is concerned be placed on the
level of philosophical certainty, but
as far as the part deriving from
human convention is concerned on a
somewhat lower level. Combinations
of parts of speech in grammatica and
their consignifications are based on
natural properties of the things sig­
nified and so follow the rules of
nature. But differences in the vocali­
zation of suffixes and differences in
their pronunciation are not by
nature, but by human design.
All dialects are characterized by one
grammatica. The reason for this is
that as the whole of grammatica is
based on things — it cannot be a fig­
ment of the intellect, because a fig­
ment of the intellect is something to
which no reality corresponds outside
the mind — and because the natural
properties of things are similar
among all, accordingly the modes of
being and the modes of understand­
ing are similar among all those who
have different dialects and accord­
ingly the modes of signifying are
similar and accordingly also the
modes of construction or speaking
are similar. And so the whole gram­
matica which is in one dialect is simi­
lar to that one which is another
dialect. For which mode of being and
understanding and signifying and
constructing or speaking can be in
one dialect and not in another? This
does not seem possible. For instance,
the noun or verb which the Greeks
have must in species be identical with
the noun and verb which we have.
For the mode of signifying which
 UNA ET EADEM 121

partem in specie partis; et si dif­ places a (particular) part (of speech)

ferentiae specificae sunt eaedem in
specie, ergo et ea, quae construun-
tur, sunt eadem in specie; et sicut
dictum est de nomine et verbo,
eodem modo dicendum est de aliis
partibus orationis et de tota gram­
matica, quae non est diversa qpud
diversa idiomata. Ipsa enim una
est necessario in specie, solum
diversificata secundum diversas
figurationes vocum, quae sunt
accidentales grammatical
in some specific class, is the same.
And if specific differences are the
same in species then also the things
construed are the same in species.
What has been said about nouns and
verbs also applies to the other parts
of speech and to the whole gram­
matica which does not differ among
different dialects. It is necessarily
one in species and differs only as a
result of different phonetic realisa­
tions which are the accidental aspects
of grammatica.

3. Roger Bacon and Universal Grammar

Linguistic studies play a far from marginal role in Bacon's extensive

production. The most important of his linguistic works in addition to the
Summa Grammatica (Steele 1940) and the Greek grammar and fragment of
a Hebrew grammar (Nolan 1902) are the Part Three of Opus Majus
(Bridges 1900; Burke 1928; Fredborg-Nielsen-Pinborg 1978), and large por­
tions of the Opus Tertium and Compendium Philosophiae (Brewer 1859).
Except for the Summa Grammatica which was probably written about 1250,
his other linguistic works belong most likely to the period 1270-1280 which
coincides in time with the decennium when some of the most important
modistic treaties were composed, e.g., the works of Boethius Dacus and
Johannes Dacus.
It has been argued (Rosier 1984) that already in Bacon's earliest lin­
guistic works there was a profound difference between his and the modistic
view of universal grammar; but there are also some very important differ­
ences between the Summa Grammatica and his later linguistic works. The
Summa Grammatica may not quite conform to the views current among
speculative grammarians of the period, but it is nevertheless clearly not the
work of an academic outsider, whereas his linguistic studies from the 1270s
are definitely so. In those works Bacon was occupied with aspects of and
approaches to language left more or less untouched by his contemporaries.
For example, he stressed the importance of a wide knowledge of languages
for theology as well as for administrative and commercial ends, and he drew
attention to the need to develop pedagogical material in order to raise the
122 EVEN HOVDHAUGEN

standard of language teaching. He adduced data from a number of lan­

guages (Hebrew, Syriac, French, and above all Greek) and devoted much
of his works to neglected fields like phonology, (i.e. the study of sounds and
/or letters), metrics, the study of loan-words, semiology, etc. On the other
hand we find very few instances in Bacon's works of the terminology used
and the topics treated in modistic grammar.
The context of Bacon's famous utterances on universal grammar was
quite different from the modistic one or for that matter from any among his
contemporary grammarians or language philosophers. The part of Bacon's
Greek grammar which contains the famous sentence reads as follows
(Nolan 1902:26-27):
Volo igitur potestatem grece I will therefore describe more exten­
grammatice plenius exponere et sively the power of Greek grammar and
precipue illud scribam, quo magis I will especially describe that which I
latinos estimo indigere. Primo think the Latins need most. But first I
igitur quedam extrínseca shall mention some external cir­
annotabo, quoniam uero varían- cumstances. Since a few things differ
tur aliqua apud diversas naciones among the various tribes of Greeks and
grecorum, et oportet quod de hoc it is necessary that these things be men­
fiat inferius mencio. Ideo in tioned below, therefore, first it should
primis notandum quod 5 et 6 fuer- be observed that there were 5 and 6
unt idiomata grece lingue. Idioma dialects of the Greek language. Dialect
enim est proprietas lingue deter- is a certain specific peculiarity of a lan­
minata, qua vna gens vtitur iuxta guage which one people uses according
suam consuetudinem. Et alia gens to its custom while another people,
eiusdem lingue vtitur alio idiom- though speaking the same language,
ate. Idion enim grece est proprium uses another dialect. For idion in Greek
latine, a quo idioma hoc est prop- is propnum ('proper, special, particu­
rietas. Et idiota qui est contentus lar') in Latin and accordingly dialect is
sua proprietate loquendi, nesciens a specific peculiarity {proprietas). And
proprietates sermonis aliorum. In idiota ('ignorant, uneducated, common
lingua enim latina que vna est, person') is he who is satisfied with his
sunt multa idiomata. Substancia own pecularity of speaking not knowing
enim ipsius lingue consistit in hijs the specific peculiarities of the speech
in quibus communicant clerici et of others. In the Latin language which
literati omnes. Idiomata vero sunt is one, there are many dialects. The
multa secundum multitudinem substance of the language itself consists
nacionum vtencium hac lingua. of those things in which all clerics and
Quia aliter in multis pronuciant et educated men agree. But the dialects
scribunt ytalici, et aliter hyspani, are many since there is a number of
et aliter gallici, et aliter teutonici, nations using this language. For Italians
et aliter anglici et centeri. Sic igitur in many cases speak and write in one
fuit apud grecos vna lingua secun- way, the Spanish in another, the
 UNA ET EADEM
dum substanciam sed multe prop­
rietates. Natura igitur ipsius lingue
grece consistit quantum ad ea in
quibus omnes naciones grece
communicabant et hec vocantur
communia. Alia fuerunt specialia
quatuor famosa scilicet atticum,
eolicum, doricum, ionicum.
Athenienses vsi sunt attico et alii
alijs et diuersantur, vt exemplari-
ter loquar, sicut burgundicum,
picardicum, et normanicum, et
multa alia que sunt idiomata eius-
dem lingue scilicet gallice. Prêter
autem has quatuor diuersitates,
famosa fuit vna de qua auctores
faciunt mentionem, et eciam in
qua est diuersitas ab aliis, scilicet
qua vtebantur boetes et ideo opor­
tet hic de hac fieri mencionem.
Quia igitur voló tractare prop-
rietatem grammatice grece, opor­
tet ut sciatur quod iste diuersitates
sunt in lingua greca secundum
quod inferius notabuntur nomina
istorum idiomatum. Et voco has
diuersitates idiomata et non lin-
guas vt multi vtuntur, quia in veri-
tate non lingue diurse sed prop-
rietates diuerse que sunt idiomata
eiusdem lingue. Cupiens igitur
exponere gramaticam grecam ad
vtilitatem latinorum necesse est
illam comparan ad grammaticam
latinam, tum quia latine loquor vt
in pluribus, sicut necesse est, cum
linguam grecam nescit vulgus
logui, turn quia grammatica vna et
eadem est secundum substanciam
in omnibus Unguis, licet acciden-
taliter varietur, turn quia gram­
matica latina quodam modo spe-
ciali a greca tracta est, testante
Prisciano, et sicut auctores gram­
matice docent euidenter. Et in hac
123
French in a third way, the Germans in a
fourth, the English in a fifth, and so
forth. Similarly, there was one lan­
guage among the Greeks, but many
specific peculiarities (of that language).
The nature of the Greek language itself
consists of those elements that were
shared by all Greek nations and these
elements are called the common ones.
But there were four other famous
peculiarities: Attic, Aeolic, Doric,
Ionic. The Athenians used the Attic
peculiarity and the others their
peculiarities and the differences were
similar to (to give a concrete example)
Burgundian, Picardian, and Norman,
and many others which are dialects of
the same language, viz. French. But
besides these famous peculiarities there
was one which the authors mention and
which has a peculiarity of its own and
that is the one which the Boeotians
used and accordingly it is necessary to
mention it here.
Because I therefore will treat the
specific peculiarity of Greek grammar it
is necessary to know that these variants
are found in the Greek language
according to the names of those dialects
which will be given later. And I call
these varieties dialects and not lan­
guages but different specific
peculiarities which are dialects of the
same language. Since I want to describe
Greek grammar for the benefit of Latin
speakers it is necessary to compare it
with Latin grammar both because I
speak Latin for the most part as is
necessary since the great mass does not
know to speak Greek, and because
grammatica is one and the same in all
languages although there are accidental
variations, and because Latin grammar
in a certain particular way is derived
from Greek grammar, as Priscian tes-
124 EVEN HOVDHAUGEN

comparacione gramatice grece ad tifies, and as authoritative writers on

latinam non solum est nécessitas
propter intelligendam gram-
maticam grecam, sed omnino
necessarium est ad intelligendam
latine grammatice, propter quam
principaliter componitur hie trac-
tatus.
grammatica openly teach. This com­
parison of Greek grammar to Latin
grammar is not only necessary for the
understanding of Greek grammar, but
altogether necessary for the under­
standing of Latin grammar, which is the
main reason for writing this treatise.

This lengthy quotation is in many respects revealing, especially if we com­

pare it with the quotations from Robert Kilwardby and Boethius Dacus
given above and the following short excerpt from Johannes Dacus' Summa
Grammatica (ca. 1280). Both in wording and in approach to language study
the latter is the modistic work most closely resembling Bacon's Greek
grammar:
Grammatica enim quantum ad As far as all its essential principles
omnia sua principia essentialia et are concerned and as far as all its
quantum ad omnes effectus suos essential effects are concerned which
essentiales, qui essentialiter sequun- follow essentially from its principles
tur ex suis prineipiis, in quantum as far as they exist, grammatica is
sua principia sunt, vna et eadem one and the same among all (men).
apud omnes est. Nichilominus Nevertheless, grammatica dif­
tarnen diuersa est gramática apud fers accidentally among different
diuersos diuersorum ydiomatum people belonging to different dia­
accidentaliter, quia vocaliter diuersa lects because there is a vocal differ­
est apud Grecum et Latinum. (Otto ence between Greek and Latin
1955:53). Grammar.
On several points we can observe important differences between
Bacon's view and those of the Modistae.
a) The Modistae and most of their predecessors were not, as already
suggested, interested in the existence of different languages and their gram­
mars. They mainly talked about dialects (accidental variants) of one lan­
guage and about species grammaticae, which, as far as they were recognised
(cf. Fredborg 1980), were considered to be subvarieties of one grammar.
Bacon on the other hand talked about different languages (e.g., Latin,
Greek, French, and Hebrew), all being subdivided into dialects (i.e.,
closely related variants of a specific language), and about each language
having its specific grammar (cf. Nolan 1902:xxvi-xxvii).
b) The Modistae subscribed to the theory of one single grammar (a
universal grammar) as a fundamental postulate which determined the
 UNA ET EADEM 125

limited set of linguistic problems they considered interesting to study and

the (very few) linguistic data they took into account. On the other hand,
universal grammar played a very marginal role in Bacon's whole linguistic
production and he avoided for the most part any discussion about problems
of universal grammar even in cases where it would have been rather natural
to do so. A case in point is his treatment of case inflection in Greek and
Latin (Nolan 1902:13); he simply says that the Greeks do not use the abla­
tive but instead use the dative and the genitive in cases where the Latins use
the ablative, without concern for the question whether there is a basic or
universal number of cases or not and which cases may be universal.
c) The Modistae were not at all interested in writing grammars which
were language specific; to Bacon this was an important and useful occupa­
tion, and he frequently stressed both the practical and pedagogical utility of
grammars as well as their general scientific importance (but never as an end
in themselves, only as an aid towards a general scientific synthesis).
Point c) will be dealt with more thoroughly in the last part of this
article, but b) does call for comments. Bacon's way of writing was
unique. He was a very prolific writer and worked with great haste (cf. Eas-
ton 1952:31-32). Many of his works were really nothing more than compila­
tions of quotations from his earlier works, merely rearranged, sometimes
with a few stylistic changes (Easton 1952:101). In the rather lengthy quota­
tion from his Greek Grammar given above there is scarcely a statement or
sentence which is not to be found (frequently several times) in his other
works (especially Opus Majus, Opus Tertium, and Compendium
Philosophiae), except for the one famous sentences about grammatica
being one and the same in all languages. This sentence or similar state­
ments do not occur anywhere else in Bacon's extensive production. If
something was important to Bacon, he would inform his readers by telling
them over and over again the same thing both in the same book and in his
next work. Since the famous sentence on universal grammar is a hapax
legomenon in Bacon's works and other remarks on universal grammar are
virtually absent, it seems legitimate to conclude that the concept of univer­
sal grammar was considered a very marginal one by Bacon. If Bacon
deserves a place in the history of linguistics (and in my opinion there is no
doubt that he does) it should be given to him on other premises.
There is however one point in his Greek Grammar where Bacon does
mention a universal aspect of language, and which clarifies to some extent
his view on universal grammar:
126 EVEN HOVDHAUGEN
Non est autem possible quod sint
in aliqua lingua, nisi quinque vo­
cales, differentes secundum sonos
principales, vt sunt a e i o v, quo­
rum quelibet habet sonum per se
distinctum et perfectum. (Nolan
1902:4)
Scimus enim quod in nulla lingua
sunt nisi quinqué vocales dif­
férentes in soni potestate substan­
ciali. Sed causam dare quare non
possum esse pauciores nee plures
nuncquam purus grammaticus
poterit ex sue sciencie potestate. Et
ideo stultum est quod alijs sciencüs
est proprium, in tractatu grammatice
complantare,  discipulus gram­
matice valet has causas concipere
quoniam sunt de proprietate mag-
narum scienciarum quas capere
non potest. Instruí indiget in gram­
matice rudimentis. (Ibid., p.58)
... oportet quod eis accidat error
nisi optime sciant potestates lit-
terarum quantum ad sonos sub­
stanciales, ut inquisitum est in hoc
opere, et non stent in nomine Ui­
tere et figura. Nam hic sonus est
naturalis et subicitur operibus
nature et ideo virtutibus celestibus
sicut a[nima]lia naturalia. Sed fi­
gura et nomen variantur apud
diversas gentes, quod non consi­
dérant multi, qui presumunt iudi-
care per litteras, quia soni potes-
tatem substancialem negligunt et
recurrunt ad nomina et figuras.
(Ibid.,p.83)
Bacon treated each science independently and he did not mix sciences (cf.
the quotation above); on the other hand he had specific and very strong
views on the relationship between sciences. They are all the basic bricks in
It is not possible that any language
have anything but five vowels which
differ according to the principal
sounds, i.e. a, e, i, o, u each of which
has a specific and perfect sound.
For we know that no language has
anything but five vowels differing
in the substantial quality of sound.
But no pure grammarian can ever tell
the reason why they cannot be fewer
or more from his science alone. And
accordingly it is stupid to incorporate
in a treatise of grammatica that which
belongs to other sciences and a disci­
ple of grammatica is not able to grasp
these reasons because they belong to
great sciences which he is not able to
comprehend. He ought to be
instructed in the rudiments of gram­
matica.
... it is necessary that they fall into
error unless they know very well the
powers of the letters as far as the sub­
stantial sounds are concerned as has
been investigated in this volume, and
do not keep to the name and form of a
letter. For this sound is natural and is
subjected to the workings of nature and
therefore to the celestial forces like
other natural things. But the form and
the name vary among different people,
something which many overlook as
they assume they can draw conclusions
on the basis of the letters because they
overlook the substantial power of
(each) sound and take recourse to
names and forms (of the letters).
 UNA ET EADEM 127

a general synthesis; this leads to a universal science which is of the utmost

importance for theology and which all scientific investigations have to serve
(Easton 1952:31,189). A certain fact may be relevant to and integrated into
one science although its proper understanding is to be found within another
science (cf. the quotations above and Easton 1952:72). A part of one
specific science cannot be completely interpreted except within the
framework of a complete knowledge of all sciences since "the part is useless
without the whole" (Easton 1952:72). As a scientist Bacon was seeking for
the truth and like many medieval thinkers truth was above all to be found
in nature (natura nihil facit frustra) (Easton 1952:170), e.g. the basic truth
of phonology is found in the sounds which unlike letters and names are ele­
ments of nature and not of human design. But the study of sounds is part of
other sciences than grammatica and accordingly the universal system of five
vowels has its foundation outside grammatica.
Another important aspect of Bacon's scientific approach was the stress
he put on scientific methodology (Easton 1952:167-85). His main device in
presenting and analysing the vast amount of data he collected was to con­
centrate on the relationship and basic similarity between different items,
thereby showing the degree of generality (or universality) they exhibit as
well as their connection with other data. This was also a very conspicuous
feature of his linguistic work. Over and over again he points to similarities
between languages in terms of phonological processes, structural features,
etc. He illustrates the elision of word final vowels before initial vowels in
the following word in Greek by drawing attention to similar phenomena in
French (de orliens > dorliens; cf. Nolan 1902:10) and the fact that Latin has
syllable final h only in interjections is compared with structurally similar
phonological deviations found in interjections of other languages (Nolan
1902:131).
As readers may have observed the word grammatica has in most cases
been left untranslated, the reason being that the word is in both classical
and medieval linguistics rather ambiguous. It may mean grammar in the
traditional sense of the word, but it is primarily used in the singular and can
most appropriately be translated as "linguistics, study of language, descrip­
tion of language, science of describing and analysing language." If taken in
this sense there is no conflict between Bacon's statement ("The science of
analysing and describing language is one and the same for all languages
although there are accidental variations") and his lack of interest on univer­
sal grammar. Bacon was interested in universal scientific methodology (uni-
128 EVEN HOVDHAUGEN

versal science, cf. Easton 1952) but not in universal grammar in the way the
Modistae were.

4. What kind of Grammar is Bacon's Greek Grammar?

Both from the point of view of classical and early medieval grammar
and from the point of view of universal grammar Bacon's Greek grammar
was rather unorthodox. The emphasis is placed on a constrastive Greek-
Latin phonology and a study of Greek loan words in Latin. It also included
a very short and somewhat unsystematic and simplified account of Greek
morphology, mostly in the form of a few selected examples of paradigms.
Syntax is not treated at all, perhaps because Bacon considered it as belong­
ing to logic. Whatever Bacon's sources may have been for the data he pre­
sents (cf. Nolan 1902:lx-lxiii) he certainly had no model whatsoever for the
structure of the grammar. It is definitely his own.
Bacon frequently stressed the importance — for science in general and
for theology in particular — of a wide knowledge of languages, and not only
a practical knowledge but above all a theoretical knowledge implying
acquaintance with the rules of the language in question, (cf. especially
Opus Majus, part III = Bridges 1900:80-125). It is not correct to say that he
ignored the vernacular languages (cf. Rosier 1984:31 and above) since he
does refer to them and gives more examples from them than any other lin­
guist of the 13th century. The importance of a knowledge of the vernacular
languages for practical ends (commerce and administration) and for prop­
agating the faith is not ignored (cf. Bridge 1900:119-22). But to Bacon the
most important aim is to promote true scientific knowledge in the service of
theology and to achieve that aim the languages in which the basic scientific
and religious texts were written, viz. Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and above all
Greek were of special importance. There existed plenty of grammars of
Latin, and Bacon probably knew of some grammatical descriptions of
Greek, though it is not clear whether he knew about the extant grammars
for Arabic and Hebrew. None of the existing grammars however were satis­
factory, in Bacon's opinion, because they treated languages in isolation,
and languages were not isolated. A significant part of the technical vocabul­
ary of Latin was Greek, and Latin grammatical description was based on
Greek and interspersed with elements of Greek grammar, e.g. the inflec­
tional morphology of nouns. A satisfactory grammar of Latin (or of any
other language) had to take facts such as these into account and would
 UNA ET EADEM 129

accordingly be a contrastive grammar. Bacon's Greek grammar is in fact

not a grammar of Greek, but rather a constrastive Greek-Latin grammar
treating those aspects of Greek grammar that were part of Latin grammar
or related to the proper interpretation of Latin texts.1
Such a comparative and contrastive approach to language description
is a logical consequence of Bacon's general philosophy of science and scien­
tific methodology. No knowledge is interesting, interpretable or useful in
isolation, but only as a part of whole and in relation to other and similar
phenomena. It has been claimed that the manuscripts we have of Bacon's
Greek grammar do not represent the final version but are preliminary
drafts, and further that he wrote or intended to write a more extensive ver­
sion (cf. Nolan 1902:xxxviii). The definite answer to this problem will prob­
ably never be found, but I doubt that he would or could have written a
work much different from what we have. His Greek grammar is completely
in accordance with everything else he wrote about language and languages
and his general views on the principles and aims of scientific studies.

NOTE

1. This restricted scope of grammatical description together with Bacon's ability to sys­
tematise and generalise data and his modest claims for the level of proficiency aimed at in
language teaching may lead to a more sensible interpretation of his claim to be able to
teach a foreign language in three days (cf., e.g., Brewer 1859:65-66).

REFERENCES

Brewer, J.S., ed. 1859. Fr. Rogeri Bacon opera quaedam hactenus inédita.
(= Rerum Britànnicarum MediiAevi Scriptores, 15.) London: Longman,
Green, Longman & Roberts. [Vol. 1 containing I. Opus tertium. II.
Opus minus. III. Compendium Philosophiae.]
Bridges, John Henry. 1900. The "Opus majus" of Roger Bacon. London:
Williams & Norgate. [Supplementary volume: containing — revised text
of first three parts; corrections; emendations; and additional notes.]
Burke, Robert Belle. 1928. The Opus majus of Roger Bacon: A translation.
2 vols. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
Bursill-Hall, G.L. 1971. Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages: The
doctrine of partes orationis of the Modistae. The Hague: Mouton.
130 EVEN HOVDHAUGEN

. 1972. Thomas of Erfurt: Grammatica speculativa. An edition with

translation and commentary. London: Longman.
. 1975. "The Middle Ages." Current Trends in Linguistics, ed. by
Thomas S. Sebeok, vol.13: Historiography of Linguistics, 179-230. The
Hague: Mouton.
Easton, Stewart C. 1952. Roger Bacon'and his Search for a Universal Sci­
ence. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Fredborg, Karin Margareta. 1980. "Universal Grammar According to
Some 12th Century Grammarians." HL 7.69-84.
, Lauge Nielsen & Jan Pinborg. 1978. "An Unedited Part of Roger
Bacon's Opus maius: 'De signis'." Traditio 34.75-136.
Gilson, Etienne. 1955. History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages.
London: Sheed & Ward.
Judy, Albert  1976. Robert Kilwardby O.P. De Ortu Scientiarum. (=
Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi, 4.) London: The British Academy;
Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
Lyons, John. 1968. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
Marshall, J.H. 1969. The Donatz Proensals of Uc Faidit. London: Oxford
Univ. Press.
. 1972. The Razos de trobar of Raimon Vidal and Associated Texts.
London: Oxford Univ. Press.
Nolan, Edmond & S.A. Hirsch. 1902. The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon
and a Fragment of his Hebrew Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press.
Otto, Alfred. 1955. Johannis Daci Opera. (= Corpus Philosophorum
Danicorum Medii Aevi, 1.) Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad.
Pinborg, Jan & Henrich Roos, eds. 1969. Boethii Daci Opera. (= Corpus
Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi, 4.) Ibid.
Reichl, Karl. 1976. Tractatus de grammatica: Eine fälschlich Robert Gros-
seteste zugeschriebene spekulative Grammatik. Edition und Kommentar.
(= Veröffentlichungen des Grabmann-Institutes, Neue Folge, 28.)
Munich-Paderborn-Vienna: F. Schöningh.
Robins, R.H. 1967. A Short History of Linguistics. London: Longman (2nd
ed., 1979.)
Rosier, Irène. 1984. "Grammaire, logique, sémantique, deux positions
opposées au XIIIe siècle: Roger Bacon et les modistes." HEL 6.21-34.
 UNA ET EADEM 131

Steele, Robert. 1940. Summa gramática magistri Rogeri Bacon necnon

sumule dialectices magistri Rogeri Bacon. (= Opera hactenus inédita
Rogeri Bacon, Fasc.XV.) Oxford: Clarendon Press.
 Un commentaire anonyme
de P'Ars Minor5 de Donat

Colette Jeudy
C.N.R.S., Paris

Comparativement aux nombreux commentaires de YArs maior de Do­

nat du Haut Moyen Age, rares sont les commentaires de l'Ars minor qui
nous sont parvenus pour la même période. Parmi les commentaires déjà
édités, citons ceux de Julien de Tolède,1 d'Erckanbert,2 de Sedulius Scot-
tus3 et de Remi d'Auxerre4. D'autres sont en cours d'édition, comme le
commentaire anonyme désigné par son incipit: Titulus quare dicitur?5 Dans
le cadre de cet article, nous voudrions montrer l'intérêt et le caractère par­
ticulier d'un commentaire anonyme inédit de YArs minor de Donat,
conservé actuellement à Berlin Ouest, à la Staatsbibliothek Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, sous la cote Lat. Fol. 641.
Le manuscrit a appartenu au célèbre collectionneur milanais, Carlo
Morbio (1811-1881)6, et il a été vendu aux enchères à Leipzig le 24 juillet
1889, sous le n° 379 par les antiquaires de Leipzig, Felix List (1824-1892) et
Hermann Francke.7 En 1905, il a été acheté par la bibliothèque de Berlin à
l'antiquaire de Munich, Emil Hirsch.8 De grand format, ce beau manuscrit
compte 257 feuillets de parchemin, réglés à la pointe sèche, de 370 mm. de
long sur 260 mm. de large. Il est surtout célèbre pour les fragments des
Agrimensores9 des f.lv-13v, copiés peut-être en Italie du Nord à la fin du
IXe siècle ou au début du Xe, en capitalis singulière, dont les lettres ont
plus d'un cm. de hauteur. C'est seulement en 1933 que Paul Lehmann10 a
attiré l'attention sur le reste du manuscrit, en corrigeant d'ailleurs les des­
criptions de Theodor Mommsen et de Carl Thulin. Rappelons brièvement
les textes qui entourent ce commentaire anonyme de YArs minor. Aux
f.l4v-16v, sur deux colonnes, figure un commentaire des chapitres De littera
134 COLETTE JEUDY

et De Sy liaba, de l'Ars maior de Donat, dont P. Lehmann signale l'étroite

parenté avec la grammaire de Pierre de Pise.11 Les Etymologies d'Isidore de
Seville occupent les f.l7r-214v, toujours sur deux colonnes. A la fin des
Etymologies, au bas de la 2e colonne du f.214v, commence notre commen­
taire anonyme de l'Ars minor, sous le titre INCIPIT ARS DONATI
GRAMMATICL D'où l'erreur de Mommsen et de Thulin, qui l'ont signalé
comme une copie de l'Ars minor et non comme un commentaire. Ce com­
mentaire qui s'achève au f.221ra, au milieu de la première colonne, par la
simple mention: EXPLICIT, est suivi de nouveaux extraits des Etymologies
d'Isidore, concernant les parties du discours en rhétorique (II, 7), les par­
ties du discours en grammaire (I, 6-14) et le chapitre De sententia (II, 11).
A la fin de ce chapitre, au bas de la deuxième colonne du f.222v, on lit de
nouveau le titre: INCIPIT ARS DONATI GRAMMATICI. Cette fois, il
s'agit bien de l'Ars minor de Donat (f.222vb-226vb), dans une version mix­
te, dont la recension de base correspond à la recension α.12 Aux f.226vb-
254vb, on trouve cinq glossaires, suivis des Distiques du Ps. Caton aux
f.254va-255vc, puis de la lettre de s. Jérôme à Paula aux f.255vc-256ra, en­
fin des Notae Vaticanae aux f.256v-257ra.13 A partir du f.14, le contenu du
manuscrit est donc essentiellement grammatical et centré largement sur les
Etymologies d'Isidore.
Paléographiquement, l'origine est certainement l'Italie du Nord
d'après Bernhard Bischoff. Les Etymologies d'Isidore et le commentaire de
Donat peuvent être datés de la fin du IXe, ou du début de Xe siècle, les tex­
tes qui suivent à partir du f.222v sont un peu plus tardifs, malgré maints ar­
chaïsmes. Une belle initiale à entrelacs jaunes et rouges orangé marque le
début du titre du commentaire exécuté en capitales et onciales rubriquées.
A l'intérieur du commentaire, chaque partie du discours est précédée d'un
titre en capitales et onciales rubriquées et commence par une initiale re­
haussée de brun orange ou de jaune.
Ce commentaire n'est connu actuellement que par cet unique témoin
et l'oeuvre semble bien être le reflet d'un enseignement oral. Dans le cadre
de cet article, nous proposons pour le moment une édition provisoire des
deux premiers chapitres: (De partibus orationis, et De nomine) et du début
du quatrième (De verbo). L'orthographe du manuscrit a été conservée pra­
tiquement inchangée, parce qu'il est difficile de croire que les fautes sont
dues seulement à des erreurs du copiste. Les bizarreries du texte peuvent
s'expliquer par la tradition orale. Pour des raisons pratiques, le texte a été
divisé en paragraphes et l'apparat inséré au fur et à mesure, avec des notes
explicatives.
 UN COMMENTAIRE ANONYME DE L"ARS MINOR4 DE DONAT 135

Incipit ars donati grammatici

§1 ARS (355,1) est ab artu dicta, eo quod artu praeceptu1 cuneta constringat, uel cer-
te ars comprehensio praeceptorum ad u<ti>litatem usui commodata. Quid enim
tam artum ut in sex casibus et tres coniugationes uerborum constringatur? Et artus
dicimus membra, unde et articuli diciti2 nuncupantur. Nihil est uerius3 arte<m>
nominan quam a tribus articulis cunctam4 Latinitatem conscribere posse5.
[f.215ra]. Interrogandum est, ubi ars proprium obtenet locum. Id est in mente,
quando cogitatur. Nam quando conscripta fuerit, species, non ars nominatur. Nam
et artificis6 cimentariis uel uelaraturis7 aut quibuslibet artificibus, dum cogitatur in
mente, ars nominatur; cum uero in opere profecía fuerit, species, non ars, dicitur.
§2 PARTES ORATIONIS8 (355,2) quare dicuntur? eo quod ratione9 Latinitatis in
.VIII. partes partiuntur, quia omnis pars plenitudinem suam appétit et omnis ple-
nitudo partibus suis adimpletur. Inter partiendum et diuidendum quid interest?
Partire est sicut1 haec partitur partiuntur+, diuid<er>e quod per manus distribue-
tur10. Quae est pars maxima et pars minima et pars incomparabilis? Pars maxima
est caelum et terra, pars minima est .1111.a pars momenti, pars incomparabilis est
inmensitas Dei.
§3 ORATIONIS (355, 2), id est oris locutionis, conpositum nomen ex corrupto et in­
tegro, ut oris [uel]11 ratio. Quibus modis intellegitur oratio? duobus modis, id est
quando rationabiliter loquimur uel pro uita ad Dominum rogamus.
§4 OCTO (355, 2) quare? ut enim12 alii putarent plus uel minus, quia apud quosdam
duae13 partes principales sunt14 nomen et uerbum adnumerantur. Apud quosdam
uero nouem dicuntur, quia articulum pro partem nonam compotant[ur]15.
§5 QVAE (355, 2)? grammaticus hie interrogat16 aut 17 quis ei respondit euide<n>
ter, id est ratio ei respondit, sicut A<u>gustinus dixit: ego interrogo et ratio mihi
respondit. Quibus modis? quae ponitur in scriptura tribus modis, aliquando pro in-
terrogatione, <***>, pro coniunetione generis feminini. Interrogandum quare no-

1 artu praeceptu: artis praeeeptis scribas coll. GL V.96.1

2 i.e. digiti
3 nihil est venus: cf. GL V.95.8
4-5 <quibus> cunctam Latinitatem scribere possumus vel sim. scribendum videtur
6 aut artificis cimentarí[as] uel uelaturi[s] aut cuiuslibet artifici[bu]s aut artifici<bu>s ci­
mentariis etc. scribas
7 an velariis scrbd. ?
8 orationes cod.
9 an <o>ratione<s> scrbd. ?
10 i.e. distribuitur
11 cf. GL V.96.19 "oratio dicitur elocutio, et dicta oratio quasi oris ratio"
12 enim: ê cod.: an cum scrbd.?
13 duo cod.
14 sunt: aut scillicet aut solum malimus
15 i.e. computant
16-17 intenogata ut cod.
136 COLETTE JEUDY

men prae omnibus partibus ponitur? id est quia singulis rebus inponuntur nomina
ut18 ex omnibus intellegantur, quia neque reliquas19 partes orationis sine nominibus
suis intellegi [non] possunt.
§6 DE NOMINE. NOMEN (355, 2) est quasi notamen uel notitia mentis, eo quod res
incognitas nostris mentibus suggerit. Quidam dicunt ut nomen compositum sit ex
duobus corruptis, ut notitia mentis. [f.215rb] PRONOMEN (355, 2), quia fungit20
officium21 nominis, ut ne iteratio22 nominis fastidium generit23 legentibus, ut si di-
cas: "Virgilius scripsit Bucolica, ipse scripsit et Georgica".
§7 VERBVM (355, 2) dicitur eo quod uerberato aere et motu linguae efficitur sonus.
'Ver' quasi uerberans, 'bum' quasi bucina[s]24. Numquid ceterae partes25 per26uer-
berationem aeris <r>esonant? Est27 enim possunt aliter28, nisi per uerberationem
aeris collegantur. Si ita est, quare ista pars solum uerbum dicitur? pro eo quod his
frequentius utimur in loquendum29, ut dicis: "Verba fecit in curia apud senatorem30
uel consultum31."
§8 ADVERBIVM (355, 3) dictum est quasi interiectum32 uerbum33, quia si34 non uer-
bum,35nihil ualet. Dicimus enim "eras"; si non ei addes uerbum "dicam" aut "le-
gam," uacare uidetur.
§9 PARTICIPIVM (355, 3) quasi "partem capiens," quia recepit36 a nomine genera et
casus, a uerbo tempora et significationes et reliqua.
§10 CONIVNCTIO (355, 3), eo quod coniungit elocutiones37 uel personas, ut dicimus:
"ego et tu eamus ad forum."
§11 PRAEPOSITIO (355, 3), eo quod praeponitur duobus casibus, ablativo et accusa-
tiuo. Nam quando postponitur, aduerbium significantis38 est.
§12 INTERIECTIO (355, 3) dicta est, quia interiacet ceteris partibus exprimendo ani-
mi adfectus.

18 ut: fort, et cod.

19 i.e. reliquae
20-21 i.e. fungitur officio; cf. GL V.96.31-32
22 iteratio scripsimus coll. GL V.97.2: et ratio cod.
23 i.e. generet
24 an bucina<n>s scrbd. ?
25 partis cod.
26 pro cod.
27-28 Est — aliter: Non enim possunt audiri vel sim. scribas
29 i.e. loquendo. Cf. GL .97.10
30-31 aut senatorem uel consulem aut, coll. GL V. 97.16-18, senatum uel populum scribendum
esse videtur
32-33 an adiectum uerbo scrbd.?
34-35 aut sine uerbo aut si non <est> uerbum scribas
36 i.e. recipit
37 elocutionis cod.
38 an significatione scrbd. ?
 UN COMMENTAIRE ANONYME DE L"ARS MINOR' DE DONAT 137

Item de nomine

§13 NOMEN EST PARS ORATIONIS CVM <CASV> CORPVS AVT REM <
PROPRIE> COMMVNITERVE SIGNIFICANS (355, 5-6). Quare cum casu?
Quia nullum nomen sine casu esse potest. Quare nomen, dum sex accedentiae39 illi
accedunt, tantummodo cum casu esse designatur? Hoc est quia aliae partes, prae­
ter casum, omnes accedentias, quae nomen habe[n]t, sibi uindicant, et ideo "cum
casu" dixit, quia nullae partes per casum declinantur praeter nomen aut pronomen
et participium eum nullum40 modum41 habere<t> nisi de nomine traheri[n]t42.
Quare non dixit cum comparatione[m]? quia non omnia nomina comparantur.
§14 Corpus namque est quod videtur et tangitur, res uero quae non uidetur nee tangi-
tur, ut pietas iustitia. Proprio uero proprietas hominis43 uel rei corporalis [f.215va]
designatur, ut si dicas: "Donatus grammaticus" et "Roma ciuitas." tAppellatio
uero communione retinet44, proprietas et appellationes+, sicut dicis: "flumen Pa-
dus" et "ors45 Ticinus."
Interrogandum est quod et quae sunt differentiae in nomine, in quibus omnia no­
mina contenentur46. Quattuor: corpus et res, proprietas et communio.
§15 NOMINI ACCEDVNT SEX (355, 6). Interrogandum est: et accedentiae unde no-
mini accedunt? Dum scimus quod nullum nomen sine casu accedentia esse potest,
id est quando ortum fuerit nomen, oritur etiam accedentia, uerbi gratia: sicut
cuiusdam arboris, cum tempus aestatis uenerit, fipsas quae inter cortices gerit, ac­
cedentia foliorum uel fructum demonstrat Quare sex dixit? quia discernit inter
uerbum et nomen, et non septem potenter, sicut et in uerbo.
Interrogandum est: inter accederé et <e>uenire et contingere quid interest? id est
accedunt mala, contingunt bona, eueniunt utraque, sed hanc regulam Cabri47 Dona­
tus proposuit.
§16 QUALITAS BIPERTITA EST (355, 7-8). Bipertitum quid est? participium prae-
teriti temporis ueniens a significatione generis deponentis. Aut propria aut appella-
tiua.
§17 CONPARATIONIS GRADUS (355, 9). Dicitur ab ascendo POSITIVUS, quia ab
ipso ascendent ceteros48. CONPARATIVVS (355, 10) dicitur dum conparantur a
positiuo. SUPERLATIVVS (355, 10) su<per>eminens 49 super positiuo et conpa-
ratiuo. Conparatiuus gradus generis est semper communis, ut 'hic et haec doctior.'
Nam superlatiuus tribus generibus saepe mouetur, ut 'doctissimus, doctissima,
doctissimum.'

39 i.e. accidentiae: accedentias cod.

40-41 i.e. nullo modo
42 i.e. traheret
43 homines cod.
44 cf. GL V. 137.31 "ergo omne nomen istas res retinet"
45 i.e. urbs
46 i.e. continentur
47 i.e. Capri
48 i.e. ceteri
138 COLETTE JEUDY

§18 QVAE NOMINA CONPARANTVR? APPELLATIVA DVMTAXAT (355, ΙΟ­

­1), id est praecipue, QVALITATEM AVT QVANTITATEM SIGNIFICANTIA
(355,11-12): qualitatem appellative, ut 'bonus, melior, optimus'; quantitas uero ad
mensuram magnitudinis uel paruitatis adiungitur: 'magnus, maior, maximus,' 'pa-
ruus, minor, minimus.'
In gradibus50 conparationis quantae regulae inueniuntur? id est .III., aequalis et
inaequalis et defect[at]iua. Aequalis, ut 'doctus, doctior, [f.215vb] doctissimus';
inaequalis, ut 'bonus, melior, optimus,' 'malus, peior, pessimus'; et defect[at]iua,
quae non per omnes grados51 exire possunt, ut 'mediocris' uel 'pius' et cetera.
§19 CONPARATIWS GRADVS CVI CASVI SERVIT (355, 12), id est adiungitur?
ABLATIVO utriusque numeri, singul<ar>is et pluralis. DICIMUS ENIM
"DOCTIOR ILLO" et 'doctior illis.' SVPERLATIWS GRADVS CVI CASVI
SERVIT? GENETIV0 52 TANTVM PLVRALI. DICIMUS ENIM "DOCTIS-
SIMVS POETARVM" (355, 13-14).
§20 GENERA NOMINVM .IIII. or Sunt (355, 14-15). Genus dicitur ad generandum53.
Interrogandum est: inter genus et gentem et generationem, quid interest? Genus
dicitur cunctum genus humanum; gentem dicimus una<m>qua<m>que gentem
Langubardorum siue Francorum; generatio ad generandum de pâtre in filio, de fi­
lio in nepote. Quattuor dicit[ur], ut54 non quinqué existimentur propter sexum pro-
miscuum. MASCVLINVM (355, 15) diriuatiuum nomen a "masculum" et mascu-
lus diminuitur a mare, primae positionis, FEMIN<INVM> (355, 15) a55 foetus
portandum56, NEVTRVM (355, 16) quia nec masculinum nec femininum, COM-
MVNE quia et masculinum et femininum sub uno dinuscuntur57: HIC ET HAEC
SACERDVS58.
§21 CAS VS NOMINVM SVNT SEX (355, 25). Quare sex dicit? ut non quinqué existi­
mentur, sicut apud Grecos, qui[a] illi genetiuo casu pro ablatiuo utuntur, uel ne
Septem potenter, propter illud quod dicitur .VIL sed sine praepositione.
§22 NOMIN ATIW S (355, 25) dicitur ad nominandum59, quia per ipsum omnes res
proprias et appellatiuas nominamus. GENETIVVS (355, 25) dicitur a generan­
dum60 uel possedendum61 ac si dicat62: "cuius filius est?" Respondet et dicit: "Virgi-
lii." Vnde DATIWS? ad dandum, ut si dicas: "cui das hanc rem?" respondetur:

49 sueminas cod.
50 gradui vel gradus vel gradiis cod., ut videtur
51 i.e. gradus
52 genetiuum cod.
53 i.e. a generando
54 ut: et cod.
55 Femininum a: femina cod.
56 i.e. portando
57 i.e. dinoseuntur
58 i.e. sacerdos
59 i.e. a nominando
60-61 i.e. generando uel possedendo. Similiter infra
62 dicas malimus
 UN COMMENTAIRE ANONYME DE L" ARS MINOR4 DE DON AT 139

"huic magistro uel huic basilicae." ACCVSATIVO63 (355, 26) ad a<c>cusandum

dicimus, ut si dicas: "quem accusas? Virgilium uel Donatum." Et quia sunt uerba
multa quae similiter hune casu<m> regulariter trahunt, ut si dicas: "lego librum
uel lego codices." VOCATIWM (355, 26) quia ab ipso vocamus, ut si dicas: "o
sánete" uel "o iusti." ABLATIWM (355, 26) ab64 auferendo dicimus, ut si dicas:
"a quale65 magistro uel doctore dedicisti66 lectionem? a Virgilio uel Donato."
§23 MAGISTER NOMEN (355, 28) grecum, quod latine dicit<ur> doctor. MVSA
(356, 4) carmen poeticum, ut musa memorat [f.216ra] causas.67
§24 QVAECVMQVE NOMINA ABLATIVO CASV SINGVLARI A VEL O FVE-
RINT TERMINATA GENETIWM PLVRALEM IN QUID MITTVNT (356,
31-32). Dum haec uocales68 litterae non ita in ordine positae sunt, quare has duas
uocales 'a' et ' < o > ' in regulam declinationis simul coniungit? id est, quia unam69
regulam in declinatione casus genetiui plurali<s>, datiui et ablatiui70 plurali<s>
tenere uidentur, ut 'ab 71 hac iustitia,' 'harum iustitiarum,' 'his' et 'ab his iustitiis,'
et 'ab hoc docto,' 'horum doctorum,' 'his' < e t > 'ab his doctis.'
§25 QVAECVMQVE NOMINA ABLATIVO CASO72 SINGVLARI E PRODVC-
TA VEL CORREPTA TERMINATA 73 FVERINT GENETIVVM PLVRALEM
IN QVID MITTVNT? SI CORREPTA FVERIT, [IN VM], (356, 33-34) ut 'ab
hoc pariete,' 'horum parietum,' D A T I W M ET ABLATIVVM IN BVS, ut 'his' et
'ab his parietibus.' SI PRODUCTA, IN RVM (356, 34-35), ut 'ab hac specie,' 'ha­
rum specierum' et 'his' et 'ab his speciebus.' Nam haec duae regulae f in genetiuo
casu pluralem a se mouentur, datiuum et ablatiuum in declinatione non descre-
pant1:74
§26 Quaecumque nomina ablatiuo casu singulari, I littera fueri<n>t terminata, gene-
tiuum pluralem IN <I>VM syllabam mittunt, ut 'ab hac resti,' '<h>arum restium'
inuenimus. Inuenimus autem, et75 e correpta, ablatiuo casu singulari, in 'ium' sylia­
ba genetiuum pluralem mittit76, ut 'ab hoc monte,' 'horum montium,' datiuum et
ablatiuum in 'bus,' ut 'his' et 'ab his restibus.'
§27 Quaecumque nomina ablatiuo casu singulari .V. littera fueri<n>t terminata, ge­
netiuum pluralem IN W M syllabam mittunt, ut 'ab hoc fluctu[m],' 'horum fluc-
tuum' et 'ab hac domo,' '<h>arum domuum,' <DATIVVM> ET ABLATIWM
OMNIA <IN BVS>, ut 'his' et 'ab his domibus.'

63 i.e. accusatiuum
64 aut cod.
65 i.e. quali
66 i.e. didicisti: fort, dedicasti cod.
67 cf. Verg. Aen. 1.8 "Musa, mihi causas memora'
68 uocalis cod.
69 unum cod.
70 ablatiuum cod.
71 ad cod.
72 i.e. casu
73 terminata supra lineam cod.
74 i.e. discrepant: deserpant cod. a.c.
75-76 an et <quae> ... mittunt scrbd. ?
140 COLETTE JEUDY

[f.216vb]

De verbo

§28 VERBVM EST PARS ORATIONIS CVM TEMPORE ET PERSONA[S] SINE

CASV AVT AGERE ALIQVID AVT PATI AVT NEVTRVM SIGNIFICANS
(359, 4-5). Verbum dictum est ex uerberatione[m] aeris et motum linguae sonus ef-
ficitur. Nam et ceterae77 partes ex uerberationem aeris colleguntur78, sed non uer-
ba dicuntur, praeter uerbum, quia unaquaque pars ex officio suo sibi uindicat no­
men. Nam haec pars, eo quod frequenter utimur in loquendo, ideo uerbum dicitur.
Interrogandum est si uox praecedit uerbum an uerbum uoce<m>. Vox praecedit
uerbum.
§29 Interrogandum <est> si uox formatur in uerbum79 an uerbum in voce. Id est uox
formatur in uerbo. Nam si uox non loqueretur, incondita manere uideretur.
Quibus modis praecedit omne[m] quod praecedit? .1111., urigine80 ut81 uox ante
uerbum, tempore ut flos ante fructum, electione[m] ut fructus82 ante florem, aeter-
nitate[m] ut Deus ante omnia saecula in aeternum.
§30 Vnde nascitur uerbum? folle uentris abstra<h>it plectrumque83 linguae guberna-
tur, inpressione labiorum perficitur.
Interrogandum: in<ter> uoce<m> articulata<m> et confusam quid interest?
Vox articulata est quae scribi potest, confusa est quae scribi non potest.
§31 Interrogandum est quod84 sunt officia85 uocis? .III86.: lingua labia et dentes87, quae
<si> unum ex his maculosum fuerit, uox incondita erit.
Interrogandum est quod sunt elimenta uocis? quod et c<h>aractere<s> littera-
rum.
§32 VERBVM EST PARS ORATIONIS (359, 4), id est octaua pars orationis. CVM
TEMPORE ET PERSONA (359, 4). Quare cum tempore et persona? Quia nul­
lum uerbum, quamuis defectiuum, his duabus accedentiis88 caret, sicut et nomina
sine casu esse non possunt.

77 ceteras cod.
78 collegitur cod.
79 i.e. uerbo
80 i.e. origine
81 et cod.
82 fructum cod.
83 i.e. plectroque
84 i.e. quot. Similiter inferius
85 sunt officia: sufficiat cod.
86 in cod.
87 dentis cod.
88 accedenti his cod.
 UN COMMENTAIRE ANONYME DE L"ARS MINOR4 DE DONAT 141

Une première constatation s'impose: le commentaire ne restitue pas

lemme à lemme le texte de Donat, dont il ne respecte pas toujours la pré­
sentation originale. Pourtant il s'agit bien d'un véritable commentaire et
non d'une "édition" complétée de l'Ars minor ou d'une paraphrase, comme
sont par exemple les grammaires de Paul Diacre et de Pierre de Pise. En
fait, l'auteur saute certains passages de Donat. Pour le nom, par exemple,
il ne donne que le début et la fin du chapitre de l'Ars minor et omet toutes
les formes déclinées, comme si l'enseignement du lexique n'entrait pas dans
ses préoccupations.
Le commentaire commence par une définition du mot ars, mot qui ne
figure d'ailleurs pas dans le texte de Donat, mais seulement dans le titre,
comme nous l'avons déjà remarqué. Dès 1933, Paul Lehmann a bien mis en
lumière l'étroite parenté de ce commentaire avec la grammaire de Pierre de
Pise, dont voici le texte:
Ars dicta est ab artu id est a constringendo, eo quod artis praecepta cuncta
constringat. Quid enim artius esse potest vel strictius, quam quando sex ca-
sibus et tribus coniugationibus tota Latinitas coartatur? Vel certe ars dicta
comprehensio praeceptorum ad utilitatem usui commodata. Sciendum est,
quod ars proprium locum tenet in mente, cum cogitatur. Nam quando
conscripta fuerit, species, non ars nominatur.14
On peut relever d'autres parallélismes, par exemple pour les deux sens
d'oratio, discours et prière:
"Interrogandum est, oratio quibus modis dici potest? Secundum Au-
gustinum duobus: quando aliquid rationabiliter loquimur, uel quando pro
peccatis uel pro uita Deum rogamus."15
En transcrivant ce commentaire, nous avons été frappé par sa ressem­
blance avec un autre traité grammatical plus ancien, d'origine irlandaise,
que l'on désigne, faute de mieux, par son incipit: Quae sunt quae 
ueritatem scripturae commendant?.16 On peut relever les parallèles suivants:
— à propos de "pars maxima, pars minima, pars incomparabilis.." (cf.
§2):
"Quae est pars maxima et quae pars minima? Pars maxima: est pars
mea Dominus in aeternum [Ps.72, 26] ..." (cf. ms. Amiens, BM 426,
f.3v, 1.23).
— à propos de la forme dialoguée, en questions et réponses, de l'Ars mi­
nor, même référence au célèbre passage des Retractationes, où s. Au­
gustin explique pourquoi il a écrit les Soliloquia sous la forme d'un dia­
logue entre lui et la raison (cf. §5):
142 COLETTE JEUDY

"Quot sunt quae hic grammaticus interrogat? id est se ipsum interrogat

secundum Augustini sermonem: ego et ratio quasi duo essemus; ego in­
terrogo, ratio mihi respondit. [cf. Retractationes II, 4, l]." 17
— à propos des accidents du nom, même discussion sur le verbe uaccide-
re" avec recours aux Differentiae et référence au grammairien Caper18
(cf. §15):
Accedunt, quia Caprus grammaticus dixit: accedunt mala, contingunt
bona, eueniunt utraque ... (cf. ms. Amiens, BM. 426, f.5, 1.25-27).
— à propos de "musa," même citation du v.8 de l'Enéide de Virgile (cf.
§23):
... uel musa (musica ars), sicut dicitur musa mihi me[mo]rat ca[u]sas [cf.
VERG. Aen. I, 8] (Amiens, BM. 426, f.5v, 1.22).
Pour le début du De uerbo, les rapprochements sont encore plus évi­
dents dans la discussion sur "uerbum" et "uox." Notons que dans le traité
Quae sunt quae ..., toutes ces questions ne figurent pas dans le chapitre
concernant le verbe mais dans l'"Expositio de uoce," qui suit les parties du
discours. Notre commentaire reprend seulement quelques-unes des ques­
tions de Quae sunt quae, dont voici le texte d'après le manuscrit 426 de la
bibliothèque d'Amiens, f.9, lignes 2-6:
Quibus modis praecedit omne quod praecedit. Da exempla de modis prae-
cedentibus. Si uerbum in uoee formatur an uox in homine gignitur? in quo
plectro gubernatur? in quo folle abstrahlt? quot et quae sunt officia uoeis?

Les réponses sont données quelques lignes plus bas:

Quattuor modis praecedit omne quod praecedit: aeternitate Deus ante
omnia, tempore flos ante fructum, electione fluctus [sic] ante florem, origi­
ne uox ante uerbum.18 Non enim uerbum in uoce formatur, sed uox in uer­
bum ... (lignes 15-19).
et un peu plus loin:
A quo gubernatur uox? a quo trahit? folle uentris abstrahlt et plectro lin­
guae gubernatur. Quot et quae sunt officia uoeis? tres sunt, dentés labia
lingua. Si maculosum ex his unum defuerit, locutio apta non erit (lignes 22-
25). w
Le commentaire de Berlin renvoie encore à un troisième traité gram­
matical, désigné aussi par son incipit: Aggressus quidam iuxta traditionem.20
On y retrouve le dialogue entre l'homme et la raison, allusion à s. Augus­
tin,21 et surtout la différence entre "genus, gens et gêneratio."
 UN COMMENTAIRE ANONYME DE L"ARS MINOR' DE DONAT 143

Genus. Inter genus et gentem et generationem hoc interest: genus dicitur

omne genus humanuni ab Adam, gens una quaque gens dicitur, ut Gotus
Hispanus, generatio uero dicitur, quae per parentes descendit in filios.22
Tous ces parallèles avec des grammaires malheureusement encore en
grande partie inédites et pourtant fondamentales, devraient permettre de
mieux situer ce commentaire anonyme, qui donne à plusieurs reprises une
interprétation religieuse des faits grammaticaux. Les citations bibliques
sont assez fréquentes, notamment dans le chapitre de l'adverbe. Ainsi, à
propos des adverbes démonstratifs 'en' et 'ecce,' le commentateur rappelle
la réponse de Samuel à l'appel de Dieu: "ecce adsum" (cf. Reg. I. 3, 4) et
la phrase de Ruben à propos du sang de Joseph: "en sanguis fratris nostri
Joseph exquiritur" (cf. Gen. 42, 22). A propos de 'ne,' il cite le verset 22 du
Psaume 37: "Ne discesseris a me, Deus" et à propos de l'interjection de
souffrance 'heu,' il invoque le prophète Jérémie: "Nam legimus: sibi pro-
pheta dolendo dicit: Heu heu heu Domine Deus" {1er. 32, 17). D'autres
exemples renvoient à la vie monastique, ainsi à propos de l'adverbe d'ex­
hortation 'eia': "Si haec in conuentu quorumdam animus titubauerit de
quacumque re faciendo, uox exhortantis potest exuere: eia fratres, fortiter
agite, nolite titubare."
Dans cette vie communautaire, le manuscrit semble jouer un grand
rôle: on le lit de différentes manières, on le copie, on le choisit aussi, com­
me le montre cet exemple à propos des adverbes exprimant le choix "po-
tius" ou "immo": "per electionem enim possumus dicere: potius uel immo
istum codicem quam ilium cupio habere."23
Seule une édition critique, avec étude des sources et parallèles,24 per­
mettra de savoir avec certitude où et quand ce commentaire a été écrit, ou
plutôt professé. Le choix du Pô et de Pavie comme exemples de fleuve et de
ville dans le chapitre concernant le nom (cf. §14) laisse supposer qu'il a pro­
bablement été utilisé pour l'enseignement de la grammaire en Italie du
Nord et plus précisement à Pavie. A première lecture, on est frappé surtout
par le caractère non seulement chrétien, mais monastique de ce commentai­
re, qui présente, avec le traité irlandais Quae sunt quae ..., à la fois de nom­
breux parallélismes et une communauté d'atmosphère.

NOTES
1. Éd. Maestre Yenes, Maria A.H. 1973. Julianus Toletanus episcopus, Ars grammatica, To­
ledo.
 COLETTE J E U D Y

2. Éd. Clausen, Wendell V. 1948. Erchanberti Frisingensis tractatus super Donation, Chica­
go.
3. Éd. Löfstedt, Bengt. 1977. Sedulius Scottus. In Donati artem minorem (- Corpus Chris-
tianorum. Continuado Mediaevalis, 40 c) Turnhout = Brepols, p. 1-54.
4. Éd. Fox, Wilhelm. 1902. Remigii Autissiodorensis in artem Donati minorem commentum.
Leipzig: Teubner. Pour une nouvelle édition, cf. Jeudy, 1977.
5. Cf. Jeudy, 1978, Bruxelles: Latomus.
6. Cf. l'article Morbio [Carlo] par Frati, Carlo. 1933. Dizionario bio-bibliografico dei biblio-
tecari e bibliofili italiani dal sec XIV al XIX (= Biblioteca di bibliografía italiana, 13). Flo­
rence: L.S. Olschki, 878-79.
7. Verzeichnis einer Sammlung wertvoller Handschriften und Bücher ... aus der Hinterlas­
senschaft des Herrn Cavalière Carlo Morbio in Mailand ... durch List und Franche in
Leipzig [24 Juni 1889], ed. by Wilhelm Meyer, 1936, 43 n° 379.
8. Dans le journal des acquisitions de la bibliothèque pour l'année 1905-1906, il porte le n°
188 avec ces mentions: "1905 erworben von Emil Hirsch, Antiquariat in München,
Karlstr. 6 — vorher: sächs. Generalconsul Max von Wilmersdörffer in München [1824-
1903]. — vorher: Carlo Morbio." Nous remercions vivement la bibliothèque de Berlin
pour ces renseignements précis sur l'histoire du manuscrit.
9. Mommsen, Theodor. 1909. Gesammelte Schriften, 7, 451-463. Berlin (reprint of Monats­
berichte der Berliner Akademie, 1861, 1014 ff); Thulin, Carl. 1911. Die Handschriften
des Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, 7-10 (= Abhandlungen der königlichen Preussis-
chen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 154 Anhang). Berlin, Akademie der Wissenschaften.
10. Lehmann, Paul. 1933. "Mitteilungen aus Handschriften, IV." Sitzungsberichte der Baye­
rischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos.- Hist, Abteilung 9. 3-8. München.
11. Édition partielle et insuffisante par Hagen, Hermann. 1870. Anécdota Helvetica, XCVI -
XCVIII et 159-171. En fait, il faut distinguer les deux versions de l'Ars de Pierre de Pise;
cf. Bischoff, Bernhard. 1973. Sammelschrift Diez . Sant. 66 (Codices selecti, 42), 27-30.
Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt.
12. D'après le classement de Holtz. 1981. Il était malheureusement trop tard pour son édi­
tion, quand nous avons pu lui signaler l'existence de ce témoin, dont nous avons obtenu
un microfilm en 1983.
13. Les glossaires mériteraient eux aussi une étude. Pour tous ces textes, que nous ne pou­
vons que mentionner brièvement, nous renvoyons à l'étude de P. Lehmann, citée supra
p.133, note 10. La lettre de s. Jérôme correspond à Yep. de l'éd. Hilberg (= CSEL, 54),
Wien, 1910, p.243-249.
14. Éd. Hagen (cit. note 11), p. 161, 1.24-29. Notons que la deuxième définition de l'Ars:
"comprehensio praeceptorum ad utilitatem usui commodata" figure déjà dans la gram­
maire du Ps. Asper, éd. Keil, GL. 5, 547,1.5.
15. Éd. Hagen, p.161,1.14-16.
16. Éd. d'extraits par Hagen, pp.XLI-XLIII; éd. en préparation par Michael Herren (Toron­
to, York University). Fine analyse de ce traité par Law. 1982: 85-87. — Nous citons le
texte d'après le ms. 426 de la Bibliothèque d'Amiens, quand il n'est pas édité par Hagen.
 UN COMMENTAIRE ANONYME DE L n ARS MINOR' DE DONAT 145

17. Éd. Hagen, p.XLII, 1.17-19. On retrouve la citation textuellement dans le De ortho­
graphia de Bède (GL. 7, 264, 1.20). Dans le De orthographia de Flavius Caper, la for­
mulation est différente: "Accidere aliquid aduersi dicito, contingere aliquid pulchri"
(GL. 7, 98,1.8).
18. Ce passage nous a permis de corriger le manuscrit de Berlin.
19. Pierre de Pise en compte quatre au lieu de trois (il ajoute "aer") et renvoie à s. Augustin,
cf. Hagen, p. 1611.2-3. On peut corriger le manuscrit de Berlin: sufficiat = s (sunt) + of­
ficia - in = .III. (tres).
20. Éd. d'extraits par Hagen, p.XXXIX-XLI. Cf. Vivien Law, op. cit. p.92-93.
21. "Cum dicitur 'partes orationis' quot sunt?" quasi homo interroget, et cum dicitur 'octo,'
quasi ratio respondet." (éd. Hagen, p.XXXIX, 1.29-31).
22. Éd. Hagen, p.XL, 1.6-9.
23. Le mot codex est employé huit fois comme exemple dans le cours du commentaire.
24. Il faut remarquer aussi dans le chapitre concernant le verbe l'emploi de l'ordinal : "Ver­
bum est octava pars orationis" (cf. §32), ce qui signifie que le verbe est l'une des huit par­
ties du discours, et non la huitième. Sur cet emploi de l'ordinal, cf. les remarques de
Holtz. 1983: 80 n.2.

RÉFÉRENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES

Asper. 1868. "Aspri Grammatici Ars." Ed. by Heinrich Keil. (= Gramma­

tici Latini V, 547-554). Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
Beda. 1880. "De orthographia." Ed. by Heinrich Keil (= Grammatici Lati­
ni VII, 261-291) .Ibid.
Erchanbertus Frisingensis. 1948. Tractatus super Donatum. Ed. by Wedneil
V. Clausen. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Flavius Caper. 1880. "De orthographia." Ed. by Heinrich Keil. (= Gram­
matici Latini VII, 85-107). Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
Hagen, Hermann, ed. 1870. Anécdota Helvetia. (= Grammatica Latini
VIII.) Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
Holtz, Louis. 1981. Donat et la tradition de renseignement grammatical:
Etude sur V'Ars Donati" et sa diffusion (IVe-IXe. siècle) et édition criti­
que. (Documents, études et répertoires publiés par l'Institut de Recher­
che et d'Histoire des Textes). Paris: Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique.
. 1983. "Les grammairiens hiberno-latins étaient-ils des Anglo-
Saxons." Peritia 2.170-184.
Jeudy, Colette. 1977. "Israël le grammairien et la tradition manuscrite du
commentaire de Rémi d'Auxerre à l'"Ars minor" de Donat." Studi Me-
dievali, 3a Serie, 18.185-248.
146 COLETTE JEUDY

. 1978. "Donat et commentateurs de Donat à l'abbaye de Ripoll au

Xe siècle (ms. Barcelone, Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Ripoll 46)."
Lettres latines du moyen âge et de la Renaissance, ed. by Guy Cambier,
Cari Deroux, Jean Préaux. (= Collection Latomus, 158), Bruxelles: La-
tomus.
Julianus Toletanus episcopus. 1973. Ars grammatica. Ed. by Maria A.H.
Muestre Yenes. Toledo: Publicaciones del Instituto provincial de inves­
tigaciones y estudios Toledanos.
Keil, Heinrich, ed. 1857-80. Grammatici Latini. 7 vols., plus 1 Supplemen-
tum, ed. by Hermann Hagen (1844-1898), 1870. Leipzig: .G. Teubner.
(Repr., Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1961.)
Law, Vivien. 1982. The Insular Latin Grammarians (= Studies in Celtic
History y 3.) Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press.
Lehmann, Paul. 1933. "Mitteilungen aus Handschriften, IV." Sitzungsbe­
richte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos. — Hist.
Abteilung 9.3-8. München.
Remi d'Auxerre. 1902. Remigii Autissiodorensis in artem Donati minorem
commentum. Leipzig: Teubner.
Sedulius Scottus. 1977. Sedulius Scottus: In Donati artem minorem. Ed. by
Bengt Löfstedt. (= Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis,
40c.) Turnhout: Brepols.
 Compositio and the Verb in
Grammatica Speculativa

L.G. Kelly
University of Ottawa

The place Thomas of Erfurt accords compositio among the accidents of

the verb is so central and his analysis of it so elaborate, that his theory is
often represented as the standard doctrine of the time (cf. Rosier 1983:230)
even though Bursill-Hall (1971:218) had already pointed out that Thomas
was among the first Modistae to elaborate a grammatical theory of com­
positio. Thomas's definition is this:
Compositio est modus significandi accidentalis verbi, mediante quo ver­
bum consignificat proprietatem inhaerentis secundum esse, et quo
mediante verbum distans a supposito, prius et principaliter ad suppositum
inclinatur.
There is a slight note of self-satisfaction in Thomas' comment that ancient
grammarians make no express mention of it. And certainly, it does not
appear in either Donatus or Priscian as a verbal accident (cf. Donatus
381:14-15):
Verbum est pars orationis cum tempore et persona sine casu aut agere
aliquid, aut pati, aut neutrum significans.
Nor could one really expect ancient grammarians to mention com­
positio as connected with the verb. It was a rhetoric term signifying the dis­
course structure of the sentence, or indeed of a whole speech (cf. Cicero,
De oratore III. 52.200 and Quintilian, Institutiones oratoriae IX). The
medieval application of the word to morphology and syntax is certainly due
to the opening chapters of Aristotle's Perihermeneias (16b 24): [ρήμα]
προσσημοiνει σύνθεσιυ τίνα. From the time of Boethius these words were
translated [verbum] consignificat quandam compositionem. Aristotle taught
148 L.G. KELLY

that the verb somehow contained in it the verb "to be," in that the semantic
aspect of most verbs could be decomposed into part of the verb "to be,"
together with a participle or some nominal part of the verb; or at least this
is how matters appeared to the thirteenth century:
Verbum enim quodlibet resolvitur in hoc verbum est et participium; nihil
enim differt dicere 'homo convalescens est' et 'homo convalescit' (Thomas
Aquinas, In 5 Metaphysicam 9c).
And, although the periphrastic construction the philosphers thought of as
the logical base is rare, it is found in Biblical Latin:
super speculum Domini sum stans iugiter per diem (Isaiah xxi.8).
In the Aristotelian tradition, compositio had three interlocking senses:
Prima est in rebus ipsis, secunda apud intellectum, tertia apud sermonem,
et posterior semper sequitur priorem et sibi conformatur in differentiis
suis... Et ex istis compositionibus in re existentibus accipitur compositio
apud intellectum et sermonem, et de istis diximus libro Perihermeneias.
Nulla enim est compositio vera quae causam suam non habeat in re
(Boethius Dacus, Tópica 6. 94-108; Kilwardby, 177.8).
Thus, like any other grammatical concept, compositio was discussed in an
intellectuel matrix implying modus essendi, modus intelligendi, and modus
significandi. According to Giles of Rome, a very highly respected pupil of
Aquinas, a modus essendi depend on three types of compositio: those
between matter and form, between subject and accident, and finally
between essence and existence (Quodlibeta VI, q.l). Underlying all the
three was the idea that compositio was constituted by joining potency to act
(cf. Bonaventure In I Sententias viii.2.i.2). Thomas Aquinas {Summa con­
tra Gentiles 11.54) notes that in substances composed of matter and form
there is a double "composition" of potency and act: the first composition of
matter with form, the second that between the substance resulting and
being by which the substance is in actu. Thomas Aquinas (2 Sentences
17.3.1.C) sees both as compositio substantialis which comes about per
modum materialis velformalis. But a being in act is in potency to further act
by compositio accidentalis and in Aquinas's words, comes to it per effectum
virtutis suae. It was a philosophical commonplace that any act rising from a
particular potency was congruent with it, or in terms that became familiar
in grammar, "proportionate to it."
Despite the relative agreement among philosophers the grammarians
had no common theoretical position on compositio. Of those Modistae
 'COMPOSITIO' IN GRAMMATICA SPECULATIVA 149

extant only Thomas of Erfurt and Radulphus Brito have extended discus­
sions of compositio as a feature of the verb. Indeed Thomas of Erfurt and
Martinus Dacus are the only grammarians who attempt a definition. There
are the few, mainly early, who say nothing about it at all, and it is men­
tioned as a part of theory by Pseudo-Albertus, Pseudo-Robert Grosseteste,
Robert Kilwardby and Simon Dacus. There is no doubt that grammarians
found it a problem, though as a rhetorical principle it flourished. But if a
grammarian was to uphold the principle that a scientific concept was idem
apud omnes, he had to come to terms with both the verb and compositio as
Aristotle was seen to have expounded it.
Let us now look at the beginning of Thomas of Erfurt's definition of
compositio: compositio est modus accidentalis verbi. The tradition is far
from firm. Boethius can be read as saying that compositio was not an actual
accident of the verb, but denoted its propria operado, its characteristic
function. His first commentary to the Perihermeneias {PL 64:311b= ed.
Meiser, p.66) takes the view that the function of the verb is to link together
two things to that truth or falsehood may be designated. In stating that the
intellectus (intelligible sense) is inherent in the whole utterance {oratio) and
not in individual words, it would seem that he agrees with Cicero and Quin-
tillian in seeing compositio as a feature of the sentence rather than of the
verb. But under pressure from Aristotle's σύνθεσις the word, compositio,
began to take on the sense it has in medieval grammar, and Boethius's
equivocal position was read with a certainty that distorted it. However the
position remains equivocal into the thirteenth century. Michel de Marbais
seems to think that compositio is a feature of both verb and participle in
construction:
Et vide, tu invenís quod iste modus compositionis reperitur in verbo et in
participio difierenter tarnen, quia in verbo habetur ex modo dicibilis de
altero, in participio autem ex modo uniti substantiae sive informantis
(Michel de Marbais, f.17. v.2: cf. Thurot 1869:190).
He seems to take it as prior to the modes of signifying, and indeed as essen­
tial. Duns Scotus seems to hold this view too: compositio is
... modus significandi in verbo secundum quod actus inclinatur ad substan-
tiam ... unde a quibusdam vocatur 'personatio'; alia est compositio desig-
nata per hoc verbum est, et non est modus significandi, sed est res verbalis
significata (Opus secundum super Perihermenian, Qu. VI. 11; Vol.1,
p.595).
150 L.G. KELLY

Martinus Dacus had been equally ambiguous. If, as he says, compositio

sumitur a modo formali... distantia, (54, 7-8), we can infer that he takes it
as accidental. But he treats of composition before the general and special
modes by which verbs are divided into substantival, adjectival, and vocati-
val. He thus seems to have been in the tradition Scotus refers to.
Though Thomas of Erfurt takes compositio as accidental, it holds a
special position as the modus communissimus from which the other acci­
dents of the verb flow. Certainly Simon Dacus (149:27-29 and 150:25)
agrees with him. Thomas argues that compositio does not give the verb esse
simpliciter but is apart from its intellectus specialis. Nor does it constitute a
special essential mode, because it does not constitute a special type of verb.
Therefore it is the basic accidental mode from which all the others rise, and,
as we shall see later, this puts him on the side of the philosophers who
developed Boethius's idea that compositio was at the base of the verb's
propria operatio. For a created entity operates through its accidents.
As the second mark of compositio Thomas writes (xxvii.52):
... (the mode) quo verbum consignificat proprietatem inhaerentis secun­
dum esse.
A philosophically trained grammarian followed his mentors in seeing com­
positio as pertaining to modus essendi, modus intelligendi, and modus sig-
nificandi (cf. Boethius Dacus, above). In practice, however, a large number
of discussions hurdled the modus intelligendi. Thus Thomas Aquinas
(Summa theologiae 1.3.4.1 ad 2) states that compositio denotes both the
act of being and the composition in a proposition by which subject and
predicate were joined. Because compositio in things was either substan­
tial , in that it constituted being, or accidentalis, in that it joined substance
and accidents, the thirteenth century had a handy explanation for Priscian's
division of verbs into substantialia (like esse, existerey fieri etc.) and acciden­
tal (like ridere). This division had been picked up by Garlandus Com­
potista, who proceeded to take up Aristotle's rather confusing statement
that verbs are nouns compounded with esse:
"Lego" significat me legentem et hoc quia lectio est in me (26.33-34).
It would seem that both these paraphrases, participle with esse and noun
with esse were acceptable to the early dialecticians. By the thirteenth cen­
tury, however, the modern paraphrase with the participle was standard.
Johannes Dacus (422.7.28), who, it must be remarked, was a contemporary
of Aquinas, explains that the paraphrase, mihi convalescentia est, for con-
 'COMPOSITIO' IN GRAMMATICA SPECULATIVA 151

velesco is unsuitable because the noun, convalescentia, signifies per modum

habitus and therefore rejects the nature of a verb. But because the partici­
ple in sum convalescens signifies per modum fluxus et fieri (even if per
modum indistantis) it does not reject the nature of the verb. The copula,
est, serves to counter the modus indistantis and to represent the participle as
inclining towards its subject.
Boethius in his second commentary to the Perihermeneias had already
made it clear that because being in created things came about only after
compositio (PL 64:432b = ed. Meiser, p.76), the central issue in verbal
composition was predication. As substance and accidents rise through the
composition of matter and form, every category predicates some type of
being about its subject (PL 64:432D). The linguistic theory of the Scholas­
tics reflected the physical in that they recognised in every noun as in every
thing a potency from which was generated act congruent to it. The sentence
reflected this by compositio enuntiabilis (Aquinas, Summa theologiae
1.14.14 ad 2) by which logical affirmation came about. In this construction
est was:
... nota compositions, forma ... qua res verbi refertur ad subjectum sicut
inhaerens sibi vel aliquid eius (Albertus Magnus, In Perihermeneias
I.iii.l).
The other important principle taken this time from Priscian was prop-
rium verbi esse, ut significat actionem vel passionem (Inst. XVII.ii.4). As
both of these are accidents in the Aristotelian sense, there seems to be little
difficulty in accepting Boethius's gloss that the copula, esse, signifies acting
or being acted on in some way or other, or following it up by having every
verb signify true or false because it denotes that its signifícate inheres in
some subject or other (Hunt 1941-43:26). As early as Petrus Helias gram­
marians were invoking the Biblical principle of the spolia Aegypti by taking
over dialectian's distinctions for their own purposes. Petrus Helias himself
is credited with the beginnings of the high medieval use of modus:
Non enim dicimus quod omne verbum significat id quod est actio et passio,
sed quicquid aliud significat modo actionis vel passionis significat (Hunt
1941-43:37).
Grammarians were preparing their own independence from dialectic; and
because they retained a grasp on traditional principle, their approach to
language shared a modified realism that was to enable thirteenth-century
philosophers and theologians to adduce grammatical argumentation as
accepted proof of points in their own disciplines.
152 L.G. KELLY

Language certainly followed reality. Just as the appropriate composi­

tion took a thing to perfection through leading potency to congruent act,
the verb perfected its suppositum. Pseudo-Robert Grosseteste is completely
in line with Aquinas's discussion in 2 Sentences 17.3.l.c:
Forma quaedam cum sit agens aut passionem inferens, in quantum perfec-
tio est, inferens est ut virtus compositionem. Igitur necesse est illam par­
tem quam substantiam significat agentem vel patientem simul com­
positionem significare quam complexionis est perfectio.
In the proposition Bonaventure (2 Sentences xxxvii.3) distinguishes three
types of compositio: componentis actio, componentis passio, in compositis
dispositio. These he classes in 2 Sentences i.i and iii.ql) as signifying differ­
ent genera, the technical term for 'voice'. This many philosophers and
grammarians saw voice as a result of compositio. For greater rigour in his
theory Thomas of Erfurt made voice an aspect of significado. This does
seem to be a development proper to the late Modistae; no philosophers
make this distinction, and indeed William of Occam writing more or less at
the time of Thomas of Erfurt, by relating active and passive verbs directly
to the categories of actio and passio, implies that genus is derived from com­
positio.
Philosophers had long discussed the essential link between actio, pas­
sio, and time. Abelard's Dialectica (122.14) is quite clear:
Verba enim principalem suam significationem, sive actio sive passio, sub­
jects rebus eas secundum tempora dimetiendo distribuit, ut 'curro' cursum
circa personam tamquam ei praesentialiter inhaerentem demonstrat.
This was further discussed by William of Conches and Petrus Helias, and it
may be that Thomas of Erfurt's significatio is actually due to Abelard rather
than to Petrus Helias. Petrus himself has a shorter definition of the issue
combining both Priscian and Aristotle:
Verba vero principaliter significant agere vel pati, sed cum tempore, id est
consignificato (Petrus Helias, f.35).
It is striking how all this is reflected in the thirteenth-century philosophers:
Bonaventure (2 Sentences ii.1.3) accords compositio both duration and exis­
tence in past or future. Aquinas (De anima 3.11.4) and Albert the Great (I
Perihermeneias iii.2) discuss the modus intelligendi of compositio: in making
an analysis of a real thing one takes past, present or future time as a mark
of its compositio. In Summa contra Gentiles Aquinas even applies this to
logical operations: "In operationibus enim ratiocinationis, compositione et
 'COMPOSITIO' IN GRAMMATICA SPECULATIVA 153

divisione, semper noster intellectus adiungit tempus."

Given the intellectual climate created by Abelard and his immediate
successors the Scholastics found it easy to argue that in having the verb sig­
nify both time and composition Boethius (Perihermeneias 3 (16B 6-25) had
meant that compositio was an accident of the verb. Tempus, after all, is an
equivocal word, meaning both "time" as the mensura of the verb, and
"tense" as an accidental mode of signification. It would not be unthinkable
to accord compositio the same equivocation (cf. Scotus, p.4 above). More
to the point as far as grammarians were concerned was developing the lin­
kage philosophers made between predication and time. Thomas Aquinas
(In Metaphysicam 10.3.1982) and William of Ockham (1.384) leave the
impression that compositio is at the base of both predication and time, as
one might expect. However, both of them point out that such predication is
accidental: as the compositio inherent in the verb has to be in proportion to
the features of the noun or pronoun subject, it must be either accidental or
give rise to accidents. However, William of Ockham labours the point men­
tioned by Thomas Aquinas that the way the predicate inheres in its subject
is contingent on the power the mind has to perceive and understand it. As
a contingent thing, compositio is therefore accidental. Again we are before
an equivocation, this time between the ancient rhetorical sense of the com­
positio in a sentence and Aristotle's sense of compositio in the verb.
Contingency and time imply change; indeed tempus is the mensura of
change for which the technical term is motus. Motus is a wide-ranging word.
From the root meaning of physical movement it took on that of emotion in
Classical Latin, and then by the thirteenth century it was often glossed by
mutatio; Duns Scotus (De rerum principibus 19.21) draws the logical con­
clusion that composition is the root cause of change, hardly a new doctrine.
But then the following argumentation develops the work of the generation
of Aquinas and Bonaventure to make time the mensura of compositio:
... aliud est esse variabile actu et potentia, subjectum motui et mutationi,
quale est esse omnium generabilium et corruptibilium, quorum mensura
est tempus.
In this aspect of the theory the arguments of grammarian and philosopher
are striking similar. For instance Bonaventure on the perennial argument as
to whether comets and planets are incorruptible, argues that because they
are created they are composed of parts, do not have suum esse, and are
therefore amenable to change; and he adds a tailpiece that God, not being
composed of parts, is the only thing with suum esse, and is immune from
154 L.G. KELLY

motus. One can expect then, that the verb would be taken to signify motus
because both grammarians and philosophers accepted that compositio
created the necessary conditions (Ps.-Albertus Magnus 12857:82-84). It is
therefore not at all out of place that in the early days of the theory modus
motus was the essential mode of the verb (cf. Kelly 1977 & 1979), and that
after modus esse became the standard term, modus motus remained as a
gloss.
Now that the second part of Thomas's definition has accounted for
tense, voice and some aspects of predication, let us pass to the third
(xxvii:52):
... quo mediante, verbum distans a supposito, prius et principaliter ad sup-
positum inclinatur.
And it is this that makes up the whole of the definition of compositio we
find in Martinus Dacus (53:27):
Et est compositio modus significandi sive intelligendi uniens extremum dis-
tans cum altero extremo.
Verbs were always taken to signify adjective in a rather startling anticipa­
tion of some modern theories which group verbs and adjectives (cf.
Bonaventure 1 Sentences 22.dub.3). But the key to the difference is the
word alterum. The adjective denotes a quality per modum indistantis, and
therefore has nothing to do with alterum. Bonaventure (1 Sentences
xxvii.l.dub.3) admits that both adjective and verb bring act to the noun,
but the verb brings act as egrediens, and therefore with distance and inclina­
tion towards the noun or pronoun rather than inherence in it. The word
alterum is equivocal to some extent. Like Aristotle's έτερον it does mean
"other" or "different," but the thirteenth-century commentaries on the
Perihermeneias show a tendency to take it in the sense of per se stantis (see
my edition of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, p. 168, n.13).
Petrus Helias characterises the verb in good Aristotelian terms as
dicibilis de altero, a locution still used by Michel de Marbais and Martinus
Dacus. Roger Bacon (Summulae logicales 238) characterises the construc­
tion of noun with verb as actualis compositio actus cum substantia sive cum
subjecto. The logician's assumption that this is the nominative case dates
right back to Aristotle and is largely unquestioned. Pseudo-Albertus
(12857:98) seems to introduce a new note, almost a complication, into the
discussion. In discussing the differences between verb and adjective he
remarks that the verb has a noun as suppositum, while an adjective, not
 'COMPOSITIO' IN GRAMMATICA SPECULATIVA 155

being capable of forming a proposition, does not. The reason is that the
adjective lacks the modus inclinabilis ad aliud. He then goes on:
Et exigentia nominativi est in ratione distantis; et ideo verbum refertur ad
substantivum sub ratione distantis, quia in verbo est compositio et etiam
modus.
One is the victim of terminology once again. If modus simply refers back a
couple of lines to modus inclinabilis ad aliud, it seems odd to imply that this
mode is different from compositio by this separate mention. But if it means
the grammatical accident of mood, this could be a reference to Priscian's
view that mood was inclinatio quaedam animi. Michel de Marbais and
Boethius Dacus follow the normal pattern of taking mood as affectus animi.
Michel takes it as deriving from the modus dicibilis de altero, and tense as
deriving from the modus fluxus et fieri, a view which seems to be shared to
at least some extent by Martinus Dacus (60.22). Boethius Dacus further
takes the mood of the verb as something that colours the res verbi. Martinus
Dacus and Thomas of Erfurt are much clearer on the issue. They relate
mood directly to compositio by making it qualitas inclinationis ad substan-
tiam, a phrase which may or may not have been inspired by Priscian.
Thomas of Erfurt is much more specific on the ramifications of the
theory. He teaches that the verb "inclines to its subject" by the proportion
between modus entis and modus esse, and thus the compositio which gives
shape to this "inclination" is in proportion to the appropriate modes of the
suppositum. He seems to assume that as the nominative is the casus rectus,
the "upright case," everything else bends to it. Radulphus Brito (1980:322)
develops the theory of compositio and the suppositum in a direction not
congruent with Aristotle, but not out of line with the many statements by
philosophers like Albertus Magnus that philosophical norms were not
entirely appropriate to grammar. Radulphus claims that any noun case that
can signify ut principium can act as a suppositum as long as the verb
supplies congruent modi significandi. In effect the compositio of the verb is
aliter et aliter informata according to the case of the principium as expressed
by noun or pronoun. In personal constructions the principle from which act
proceeds is the nominative. Thus far he is traditional. But he adds that in
impersonal constructions every case that can designate a principium (i.e. all
but the accusative) can be a suppositum. This opinion seems to be based on
certain parts of the commentaries on the Perihermeneias by Aquinas and
Albertus Magnus. It also seems to have been current among grammarians
156 L.G. KELLY

well before Radulphus Brito. Pseudo-Albertus Magnus (1285?:154) takes

some paints to underline the special role of the nominative as a suppositiun,
and secundum mentem Aristotelis distinguishes the role of an agent ablative,
admittedly a terminus a quo, from that of a proper suppositum.
The inclination of act to substance which is represented by the inclina­
tion of the verb to its subject gives rise to the "respective" modes of signify­
ing. The most obvious one of these is person which according to Pseudo-
Albertus Magnus (12857:142) is caused by the inclination of act to sub­
stance under a certain mode of speaking. A doctrine not at all different
from the traditional analysis by Priscian. Bursill-Hall (1971:238) notes how
Thomas of Erfurt in particular traces this back to compositio. This does
seem to have been the orthodox doctrine. Richard of Hambury, a master at
Oxford, distinguishes two aspects of the concept of 'person.' It is, first of all
the indication of who speaks, or who is spoken to, or who is spoken about.
Secondly the 'person' is a way of expressing the suppositum of the verb,
that is the substance from which act proceeds (Hunt 1964:178). But on the
other hand Duns Scotus sees this as only one part of the story. He sees per­
son as the essential element of compositio, which is either:
modus significandi in verbo, secundum quod actus inclinatur ad substan-
tiam ... unde a quibusdam vocatur 'personado' (Opus secundum super
Perihermenian, Qu.VI.ll; Vol.1, p.595).
or the very stuff of our verb.
The root of the problems with compositio was squaring the principle
that scientific concepts were idem apud omnes with the plain fact that com­
positio fulfilled only one of the criteria for an accident, i.e. that it gave rise
to the propria operatio of the verb. This much was clear from both philo­
sophical speculation on the way in which grammar reflected reality, and
from the eagerness with which philosophers and theologians drew on gram­
mar for their argumentation. But compositio did not fulfil the other
requirement for accidents, that of being obvious in the same way that tense,
mood and person were, except in the periphrastic futures and passives. The
other complicating factor was that grammar had definitely come of age:
Albertus Magnus in particular is very meticulous about distinguishing the
different objects of logic and grammar: logic had truth as its object, while
grammar had congruitas.
Hence its mixed reception among the early Modistae. The groundwork
had certainly been laid by Abelard, who was certainly no grammarian but
 'COMPOSITIO' IN GRAMMATICA SPECULATIVA 157

whose analysis of the verb laid the grounds for a semi-functionalist discus­
sion of the problem by the next generation. And by the time of Petrus
Helias compositio is a functionalist concept still very coloured by dialectic.
Though the medieval philosopher meant what he said about tracing the
theory back to Boethius, it is clear that it was by an inspired misreading
very heavily coloured by Abelard and Petrus Helias. The nub of the prob­
lem for the thirteenth-century philosopher and grammarians was account­
ing for the fact that one set of authorities, those depending directly on Aris­
totle, accorded compositio a central place, while the equally important
grammarians, Donatus and Priscian, did not. And it was Abelard's state­
ment that time was the measure of verbal action that allowed the twelfth
century to reconcile the seeming contradictions between grammarian and
philosopher. The story of the cross-fertilisation between grammarian and
philosopher in the second half of the thirteenth century has still to be traced
— there are glimpses of it in all the great philosophical and theological trac­
tates of the time.
It was this that was exploited by Thomas of Erfurt for whom com­
positio is a functional rather than a formal category. Hence his classification
of it as a modus communissimus. There are hints that he was not as original
or as bold as he seems, but his exposition of compositio is remarkable. The
other remarkable achievement is that of Radulphus Brito whose attempt to
extend the definition of the suppositum-appositum relationship flies in the
face of accepted philosophical theory on strictly grammatical grounds,
again functionalist. For he and certain others whom we know of only
because of extant refutations, distinguished the grammatical and philosoph­
ical idea of subject from the functionalist idea of agent and patient. It is
clear that Thomas of Erfurt's teaching on compositio was not arrived at in
isolation from philosophy — cooperation was demanded by the medieval
view that knowledge, divine and human was one. However the differences
in doctrine between grammarians like Thomas and Radulphus and their
philosopher mentors show just how mature grammar had become.

REFERENCES

Abelard, Peter, ca.1118. Dialectia. Ed. by L.M. de Rijk. Assen: van Gor-
cum, 1970.
158 L.G. KELLY

Albertus Magnus. (1200?-1280?). Opera omnia. Ed. by A. Borguet. 38

vols. Paris: Vivès, 1890-99.
Pseudo-Albertus Magnus. 1285?. Quaestiones Alberti de modis significandl
Ed. by L.G. Kelly. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1977.
Aquinas, Thomas. (1225-74). Opera omnia. Ed. by S.E. Fretté & P. Maré.
34 vols. Paris: Vivès, 1885.
Bacon, Roger. 1265?. Summa grammatices. Summa dialectices. Opera
Rogeri Bacon hactenus inedita. Ed. by Robert Steele, vol. 15. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1940.
Boethius. 480-524. Opera omnia. Ed. by Jean-Paul Migne. Patrología latina
63-64. Paris: Gamier, 1882.
Boethius Dacus. 1270. Modi significandi sive quaestiones super Priscianum
maiorem. Ed. by Jan Pinborg & H. Roos. (= CPDMA, 6.) Copenha­
gen: Gad, 1969.
Bonaventure. (1221-1274). Opera omnia. 10 vols. Quaracchi: College of St.
Bonaventure, 1882.
Bursill-Hall, Geoffrey L. 1971. Speculative Grammars in the Middle Ages.
The Hague: Mouton.
Donatus, Aelius. 4th century. Grammatica. Ed. by H. Keil. Grammatici
latini 4. (Repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1961.)
Duns Scotus, Johannes. (1266-1308). Opera omnia. Ed. by L. Wassington.
12 vols. Lyon, 1639. (Repr., Paris: Vives, 1891.)
Garlandus Compotista. 11th century. Dialectica. Ed. by L.M. de Rijk.
Assen: van Gorcum, 1959.
Hunt, Richard W. 1941-43. "Studies on Priscian I." Medieval and Renais­
sance Studies 1.194-231. (Repr. in Collected Papers in the History of
Grammar in the Middle Ages, ed. by Geoffrey L. Bursill-Hall, 1-38.
Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1980.)
. 1964. "Oxford Grammar Masters in the Middle Ages." Oxford
Studies presented to Daniel Callus, 163-93. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
(Repr. in Collected Papers, 167-97.)
Johannes Dacus. 1280?. Opera omnia. Ed. by A. Otto, (= CPDMA, 1.)
Copenhagen: Gad, 1955.
Kelly, L.G. 1977. "La physique d'Aristote et la phrase simple dans les ouv­
rages de grammaire spéculative." La grammaire des "modistes" aux
idéologues, ed. by A. Joly, 107-24. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille.
. 1979. "Modus significandi: An interdisciplinary concept." HL
6.159-80.
 'COMPOSITIO' IN GRAMMATICA SPECULATIVA 159

Kilwardby, Robert. 1260?. De ortu scientiarum. Ed. by Albert G. Judy.

Toronto: PIMS; London: British Academy, 1976.
Michel de Marbais. 1265?. Summa modorum significandi. Paris: Bib­
liothèque Nationale, MS lat. 16222.
Martinus Dacus. ca.1280. Martini Daci Opera. Ed. by H. Roos. (=
CPDMA, 2.) Copenhagen: Gad, 1961.
Petrus Helias. 1150?. Summa grammaticae. Cambridge: Gonville & Caius
College, MS 341/453.
Priscianus. ca.500. Institutiones grammaticae. Ed. by M. Hertz, Leipzig,
1859. (= Grammatici latini, ed. by H. Keil, 2-3; repr. Hildesheim: Olms,
1961.)
Radulphus Brito. 1320?. Quaestiones super Priscianum Minorem. Ed. by
H.W. Enders & Jan Pinborg. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-
Holzboog, 1980.
Pseudo Robert Grosseteste. 1260?. Tractatus de grammatica. Ed. by Karl
Reichl. Munich-Paderborn-Vienna: Schöningh, 1976.
Rosier, Irène. 1983. La grammaire spéculative des modistes. Lille: Presses
Universitaires de Lille.
Siger de Courtrai. ca.1300. Summa modorum significandi, Sophismata. Ed.
by Jan Pinborg. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1976.
Simon Dacus. ca.1290. Opera. Ed. by A. Otto. (= CPDMA, 3.) Copenha­
gen: Gad, 1963.
Thomas of Erfurt, ca.1310. De modis significandi sive Grammatica
speculativa. Ed. by Geoffrey L. Bursill-Hall. London: Longmans, 1972.
Thurot, Charles. 1869. Extraits de divers manuscrits latins pour servir à
l'histoire des doctrines grammaticales du moyen âge. Paris: Impr.
Nationale. (Repr., Frankfurt: Minerva, 1964.)
William of Ockham. 1310?. Summa totius logicae. Ed. by Philotheus
Boehner. New York: College of St.Bonaventure, 1951-54.
 Transitivity, Intransitivity and
Related Concepts in 12th Century Grammar
An explorative study

C.H. Kneepkens
University of Nijmegen

0. Introduction

Transitivity and intransitivity may be regarded as central concepts in

mediaeval linguistics, and, whether defined in a notional (semantic) or in a
formal manner (cf. Lyons 1968:350-51), they still belong to the basic
notions of current syntactic thought, although they are not given equal
prominence in every syntactic theory (cf. Busse 1974:109). Their origin can
be traced back to the linguistic reflections of Antiquity, but as is the case
with so many grammatical notions which have come down to us from that
period, they owe their elaboration into operational concepts with a natural
position within grammatical thought to the activities of the mediaeval gram­
marians.
The grammatical thinking of the early Middle Ages is characterized by
little originality in the domain of syntax, but at the end of the eleventh cen­
tury we can observe a remarkable change (Bursill-Hall 1971:23-24). From
this time on we find the two last books of Priscian's Institutiones gram-
maticae which deal with the constructio of the words frequently glossed and
commented upon (Hunt 1950). The grammarians of this period showed a
markedly increased interest in syntax, paying attention not only to the nor­
mative aspects, but also attempting to explain and systematize the syntactic
phenomena and to define the concepts they worked with. As to transitivity
and the related concepts of intransitivity and reflexivity we may notice that
in the course of the 12th century two distinct models, based on these
162 C.H. KNEEPKENS

notions, appear to have been developed for the purpose of categorizing

constructions. They existed side by side, and at the end of the century we
find each of them present in textbooks which would remain in high repute
over the next centuries, viz. the Doctrinale of Alexander de Villa Dei (ed.
Reichling 1893) and the so-called Absoluta cuiuslibet now attributed to
Peter of Spain {non-papa) (cf. Hunt 1975).
It is my intention in this contribution to discuss in more detail the effect
which these notions exerted on the doctrine of the constructio during this
period, which is generally considered crucial for the development of Euro­
pean thinking on syntax (Bursill-Hall 1980:XIX-XX), but which, in this
respect at least, has not yet been subjected to a separate investigation
(Thurot 1869: 230-32).
For a correct historical setting of the activities of the 12th century syn-
tacticians in this field we shall first have to pay some attention to the history
of these notions from their origin up to the 12th century.
According to Jan Pinborg, the roots of the notions of transitivity and
intransitivity must be looked for in theories concerning the logical predi­
cates developed by the Stoa, but we have to admit that up to the present
their earliest history is by no means clear (Pinborg 1975:90; cf. also Ver-
steegh 1977:82). The first tangible starting-point for a historical investiga­
tion is constituted by the writings of Apollonius Dyscolus (s. II A. D.). In
his Peri Syntaxeos (ed. Uhlig; tr. Householder 1981) this Alexandrian
grammarian frequently uses the terms 'metabasis' or 'diabasis' (i.e. "transi­
tion") and their derivatives and compounds in order to distinguish between
the two basic kinds of relationship that exist in a sentence between the sev­
eral participants and the predicate or verb. Besides, Apollonius noted the
phenomenon of the transition of the verb act from the agens not to a person
different from the agens, but to the agens himself, i.e. reflexivity, or as
Apollonius called it autopatheia, a notion that found its counterpart in the
notion of allopatheia.
Both cluster of notions, sc. (in)transitivity and (non-)reflexivity, were
combined by the Latin grammarian Priscian, who about 500 A.D. trans­
lated substantial parts of Apollonius' works, adapted them to the Latin lan­
guage and included them in his voluminous grammar. Priscian dropped
from his system the notion of allopatheia as being superfluous, and used
the Apollonian notions of transitivity, intransitivity and reciprocatio — in
which the modern concepts of both reflexivity and reciprocity were con­
tained — as constituent criteria for the basic division of constructions.
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 163

We may observe that, more than Apollonius, Priscian emphasized the

aspect of the transition of persons (person = persona: here used in the
meaning of referent). Every binary construction which involved a change of
persons was classed among the transitives ; not just those constructions in
which the action expressed by the verb was exerted on a person distinct
from the agens. When no change of persons at all was expressed, the con­
struction was classed among the intransitive constructions, or under special
conditions among the reflexive and reciprocal constructions. Furthermore,
we must bear in mind that the class of intransitive constructions included
not only combinations of subject nominative or predicate nominative with
the finite verb, but also constructions of an impersonal verb with a casus
obliquus which represents the acting person, as well as constructions of the
verb with an adverb: in all these combinations it was impossible to observe
any change of persons.
To these three notions, which were inherited from the Alexandrian
tradition, Priscian added a fourth which did not have a Greek root, as far as
I have been able to ascertain: the retransitio. Retransitivity only occurred in
a compound sentence consisting of a main clause and a subordinate clause,
if the person who had the role of the agens in the main clause, appeared in
the subordinate clause as the direct or indirect object or even as the posses­
sor of the direct or indirect object, whereas the patiens (or the indirect
object) of the main clause or his possession should reappear in the subordi­
nate clause in the agens position. In the latter case the patiens of the main
clause was present in the form of a possessive pronoun.
For the mediaeval grammarians a serious difficulty arose from the fact
that Priscian did not supply his readers with definitions or thorough descrip­
tions of these central notions. Certainly, he frequently employed them and
gave examples of transitive, intransitive, reflexive and retransitive construc­
tions in several places in his work, but the lack of definitions of these
notions, together with the absence of a definition of the term constructio
itself, was to become a source of serious uncertainty and confusion for the
mediaeval grammarians about these notions, which occupied such a central
position in their discipline. On the one hand, they found the four-part divi­
sion of the construction in their main and leading source, Priscian's
Institutiones, and also learned from it that the notions of transitivity and of
intransitivity were operating in two domains, viz. the domain of the verb act
[(in)transitio actus] and the domain of change of persons [(iri)transitio per-
sonarum]. But it was not certain whether this division should be applied at
164 C.H. KNEEPKENS

the binary level, i.e., the combination of two words, or at the level of the
sentence, or at both, nor whether the term constructio was used in order
to indicate the syntactic relationship between words or the syntactic struc­
ture of the sentence, in what might be called a formal interpretation, or the
sentence correctly construed, the oratio constructa, in what might be called
a material interpretation. Both problems, viz. that of the level at which and
that of a formal as opposed to a material interpretation of the term con-
structio, were to play a pivotal role in the fundamental discussions on the
doctrine of the constructio during the whole of the 12th century and was to
have its effect on the theories of transitivity and intransitivity in later cen­
turies (Covington 1984:42). This is why we must start by tracing briefly the
history of both problems in the period under discussion.

1. 'Constructio' in the 12th Century: A survey

Nearly all the grammarians of the period accepted that, apart from the
interpretation of the term constructio as "the act of the construing per­
son," it could be accepted at two levels. The first level is that of the binary
combinations of words, the constructio dictionis, which we may attempt to
describe as the syntactic behaviour of a word or a part of speech. Taken in
this way, constructio concerns a sort of property of a word already given in
the lexicon — or the syntactic relationship of a word with another word or
between two words in a sentence. In the third quarter of the century
another interpretation of this term was to be developed on the dictio level,
which was not restricted to binary combinations. It was used by some syn-
tacticians, as we shall see, in order to designate the syntactic component of
the words put together in a construction.
The other level is that of the sentence (or clause). Here we also meet
the interpretation of the term constructio as the construction of the words,
but now considered from the point of view of the result, the oratio: the sen­
tence construction. But whether oratio was understood as a "complete"
sentence or as an incomplete one depended on the possibilities provided by
the definitions given by the various grammarians. Furthermore, we must
take into account that this term constructio — and this is what all the 12th-
century grammarians do not cease to warn their pupils about — should not
be taken to mean the combination of sentences: the constructio orationum.
They all steadfastly refused to apply the term constructio to the conjunction
of sentences or clauses, and we must always bear in mind that in their
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 165

opinion the term constructio did exclusively concern the conjunction of

dictiones.
As far as the interpretation of the term 'constructio' especially at the
sentence level is concerned, no uniform opinion existed among the 12th-
century grammarians. We can in fact distinguish two main trends. First
there were those grammarians who held the view that this term was equiva­
lent to 'oratio constructa.' Thus they advocated what we have called above
the "material interpretation" of this term. These grammarians formed a
large and important group, and we find among them important masters
such as Master Guido of the Glosule (Kneepkens 1978), Peter Helias (ed.
Toison, 44:71-72), Peter of Spain {non-papa), the author of the Absoluta
cuiuslibet, and Master Nicholas of the Summa 'Ad lucem' (BH 72.7.3 &
286.2.4). Robert Blund was also acquainted with this interpretation, but he
did not design to discuss it. In later centuries we also meet this material
interpretation, e.g., in the works of John le Rus, Martin of Dacia and other
Modistic grammarians (Covington 1984:42).
The other interpretation of the term constructio at the sentence level
was purely formal, in the sense that it stood for the syntactic structure or
the syntactic component of the sentence. This view was defended expressis
verbis by William of Conches and the anonymous compiler of the gloss
commentary on the Priscianus minor, inc.: "Licet Multi in Arte" (hence:
LMIA; cf. Kneepkens 1976:13-15; BH 188.64); it was this interpretation to
which Robert Blund paid serious attention.
For the discussion of transitivity and related notions in connection with
the construction it will be appropriate to make a distinction in the 12th cen­
tury between the period up to Peter Helias and the period after this highly
influential grammarian. It is not my intention, in making this distinction, to
suggest that it would be possible to trace a rupture in grammatical thought
in this respect on doctrinal grounds. On the contrary! The various develop­
ments which originated in the first part of the century find their organic
continuation or end in the subsequent part. However, this distinction has
been made from the point of view of economy and can be justified by point­
ing at the appearance of independent textbooks in the second half of the
12th century, the Summae, which dealt exclusively with the constructio.
166 C.H. KNEEPKENS

2. Transitivity and Intransitivity in the Grammatical Writings of the

Period up to Peter Helias

Because of the defective manuscript tradition the theories of transitiv­

ity and intransitivity, developed within the doctrine of the constructio by
those masters who compiled and extended the syntaxis compartment of the
old Glosule, are scarcely known to us (Kneepkens 1978). As far as we can
see now, these masters followed the path set out by Priscian and made the
distinction between transitive and intransitive constructions, a distinction
which could be applied to binary combinations as well as to sentences.
Furthermore, they were acquainted with the two other Priscian types of
construction, sc. the reflexive and the retransitive constructions, and made
them objects of their studies, but their view of the mutual relationships
between these types and the place they occupied in the respective systems
remains rather vague.
An important innovation can be observed in the introduction of dis­
tinctions in the categories of the transitive and the retransitive construc­
tions, which these grammarians did not find in their sources. They intro­
duced the notion of proprius and its counterpart improprius in order to
make a distinction in both categories, viz. between the transitio propria and
the transitio impropria and between the retransitio propria and the retrans-
itio impropria respectively. It appears to have been a fruitful intervention,
for in some form or other we meet these distinctions in the writings of
nearly all the 12th-century syntacticians.
They used to speak about a transitio propria in a construction, if what
we would be inclined to call "a passive transformation" could successfully
be applied to a sentence with the result that the direct object of the sen­
tence became the subject of the passive sentence. This claim excludes a
construction of the following type:
(x) ego prebeo illi
— in which we are also confronted with two participants or, if one prefers,
NP's: one before and one after the predicate or verb, and which was clas­
sified by Priscian as transitive (IG. 17.66) — from being classified among
the subcategory of the "proprie" transitive constructions. In these construc­
tions, according to Master Guido, there is no transitio actus, but only a
change of persons. Such a transition he called transitio impropria (MS Lon­
don, BL Burney 238, f.l9va; BH 149.89).
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 167

As to the retransitive constructions we have seen that Priscian included

in this category both the constructions in which a personal pronoun and
those in which a possessive pronoun in the subordinate clause was co-refer­
ential with one of the participants of the main clause, the other participant
of the main clause being present in the verb of the subordinate clause. Mas­
ter Guido in turn distinguished between those compound sentences in
which a sort of chiastic construction appears of the form:
A →  +  → A,
sentences which he called the proprie retransitive constructions, and com­
pound sentences in which the retransitivity is based on the co-referentiality
of a possessive pronoun and a participant of the main clause. This type of
retransitive construction he qualified as improprie (improperly) retransi-
tive, and he listed four subtypes of this category, with the following struc­
tures (MS cit., f.27ra):
S(l) → 0(2) + S(2p) → O(l)
S(l) → 0(2) + S(2) → O(lp)
S(l) → 0(2) + S(2p) → O(lp)
S(l) → 0(2) + S(2p) → 0(2p)
An evident trend towards a reduction in the number of basic construc­
tion types can be observed in the second quarter of the 12th century. Wil­
liam of Conches (fl. 1125-50; cf. Jeauneau 1960; Fredborg 1981) reduced all
the constructions to two basic types, viz. to the transitive and intransitive
constructions, and considered the two other Priscianic types as subspecies
of these two. In his theory the class of intransitive constructions was sub­
divided into a subclass of simplices intransitivae and a subclass of com-
positae, by which name he indicated Priscian's reciprocae constructiones
(MS Paris, BN Lat. 15130, f.85rb; BH 208.226.2). So we see that in his
theory the Apollonian notion of autopatheia is clearly incorporated and
reinterpreted in the system of transitivity and intransitivity.
Furthermore, we can observe that a development which could already
be noticed in Priscian's work, sc. that of considering the transitio per-
sonarum as the notion which functions as a sort of genus to the transitio
actus, to the effect that a transitio actus always implies a transitio per-
sonarum, but not the other way round, was carried on by William of Con­
ches. He did not accept any transitio actus without a transitio personarum,
but in his view it was possible for the transitio personarum to occur without
any transitio actus, as we can see, e.g., in the combination:
168 C.H. KNEEPKENS

(χ) filius Socratis.

Constructions which are transitive in actu were in turn subdivided into
the simplices and the retransitivae. The latter category was not subdivided
by William into the propriae and the impropriae, nor did he apply a distinc­
tion based on the notions propriuslimproprius to the transitive construc­
tions as had been done by Master Guido.
Although there are serious indications that William of Conches was
aware of the application of the term constructio — which, as we must
stress, was always interpreted at the formal level in his theory — to sen­
tences and to binary combinations, he did not develop it into a distinction
operative within his theory of transitivity and intransitivity. This becomes
tangible inter alia in his answer to the question why a construction com­
posed of transitive and intransitive constructions has to be called transitive
rather than intransitive, as is the case, e.g., with the following sentence:
(x) Socrates videt Platonem.
This sentence consists of a transitive construction, viz. between the
verb videt and the accusative Platonem, and an intransitive one, viz.
between the nominative Socrates and the verb,1 whereas the construction of
the sentence as a whole is called transitive. William's solution is as follows:
Each construction which itself consists of more than one construction and in
which two words are transitively conjoined should be called transitive in
spite of the intransitive constructions which also occur in the larger combi­
nation they are part of. Several of the 12th-century grammarians were to
adhere to William's conclusion, although not all of them followed his
argumentation, and some added refinements in order to avoid less desirable
consequences, such as the classification among the transitives of the con­
struction of a sentence like
(x) Socrates Platonem videns sedet.
However, there was also a group of grammarians who wished to follow
a quite different track. The anonymous master of LMIA and Peter Helias
(ed. Toison, 44:61) call our attention to those syntacticians who sustained a
three-partite classification, viz. in (1) transitive constructions, (2) intransi­
tive constructions, and (3) mixed constructions (mixtae), a class to which
belong those constructions which are composed of both a transitive and an
intransitive construction.
William of Conches himself mentioned the existence of a three-part
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 169

division of a totally different character. In this division a special class was

reserved for the constructions involving words used personally and words
used impersonally, e.g., constructions of a finite verb with an adverb. The
advocates of this view, which was rejected by William, called such a con­
struction neutra.
We find the separation between the two levels of construction com­
pletely realised and clearly expressed in the work of Peter Helias. He made
the well-known three-part distinction in the interpretation of the term con­
structio as (1) the act of the person who is construing; (2) the 'being con­
strued' of the words called by Peter the 'passive' interpretation (this always
concerns binary combinations and regards the level of the constructio dic-
tionis);2 and (3) the sentence construed, viz. the oratio constructa (éd. Toi­
son, p.44:63seq).
At the level of the constructio dictionis Helias used the notions of trans-
itiOy intransitio and reciprocatio, the latter of which he observed in the con­
structio of a transitive verb and the object accusative of, e.g. the reflexive
pronoun such as can be found in the sentence:
(x) Socrates videt se (ed. Toison, 49:61-64).
At the level of the sentence construction he returned completely to
Priscian's four basic categories and explicitly rejected the reduction of the
reflexive/reciprocal constructions to a subspecies of the transitive construc­
tions (ed. Toison, 43:32seq.).3
The distinction between proper and improper transition which we have
met in the Glosule of Master Guido (see above, p. 166) also occurs in
Peter's Summa in the same context, but Peter speaks of transido recta and
places it in opposition to the transitio non recta (ed. Toison 93:54seq.). We
are confronted with the term constructio impropria in his analysis of the
construction of a verb with a prepositional phrase such as:
(x) Socrates sedet ad portam
The transitivity of this type of construction was defended by Priscian
(IG. XIV, 39), and this stimulated Peter, who always showed some reluc­
tance about rebuking Priscian's words to seek refuge in the traditional tool
of making a further distinction, which enabled him to save both Priscian's
wording and his own view. It was this kind of construction which induced
Peter to speak of a transitivity based on a change of cases only. I quote
from Peter Helias' In minorem (ed. Toison 43:17-27):
170 C.H. KNEEPKENS

It also happens that we are confronted with a transitive construction when

there is no transition of the verb act or passion nor of persons at all, but
when an oblique case by means of a preposition is put in construction with
a verb, as we can observe in 'Socrates sits at the doorway.' There are no
elements in this construction, between which a transition could happen in
a proper way, since the noun 'Socrates' and the verb 'sits' are mutually
construed intransitively. Nevertheless it is said to be a transitive construc­
tion, since the oblique case, while a preposition is adjoined to it, is put in
construction with the verb. This preposition somehow signifies a transition
of one person to another one, i.e. to the doorway, which is said to be a per­
sona in the large sense of the word. And this construction is said to be
transitive in an improper way, because it is transitive only on account of a
change of cases.

It would be incorrect to claim on the basis of this type of text that the 12th-
century grammarians were inclined to accept a formal notion of sentence
transitivity based only on a transition of cases, i.e., a difference of cases.
Peter Helias stressed that the accusative case portam has to be accepted as
a persona. But since persona was usually defined as a human being, he was
forced to add that here, i.e., in grammaticis, it has a wider meaning, viz. of
referent. Thus referential transitivity is found to rest on a referential diver­
sity. But Peter was reluctant to accept referential transitivity as the criterion
by which a construction at the sentence level could be accepted as transi­
tive. For Peter, the problem caused by this kind of construction was that he
did not yet have at his disposal a model for analysing the relationships
between all the words of a sentence which was able to establish the con­
structional relations between the verb sedet and the preposition ad. Thir­
teenth-century grammar was to make effort to solve this problem and intro­
duce the notion of servire (Thurot 1869:244).
A remarkable view of the notion of transitivity in the doctrine of con­
struction was voiced by the anonymous compiler of a collection of glosses
on the Priscianus minor which was preserved after the gloss commentary
LMIA. This master clearly postulated the transitive and the intransitive
construction as basic types, but within these types he distinguished between
the real or proper transitive (or intransitive) constructions and the construc­
tions that are transitive (or intransitive) propter aliquam similitudinem. In
his view a proper transitive construction can only be based on the presence
of a transitive verb of active voice and of two participants, one of which
represents the agens and the other the patiens. Constructions which are
called transitive because of a transition of persons only, are to be classified
as transitive propter aliquam similitudinem. According to the anonymous
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 171

author, the reflexive and reciprocal constructions can be regarded as trans­

itive, albeit improperly. However, if this improprietas encounters difficul­
ties, a three-part basic division of the constructions, viz. into transitive,
intransitive and reflexive (& reciprocal), would be a fair alternative.

3. Transitivity and Intransitivity in the Grammatical Writings of the Sec­

ond Half of the 12th Century

The oldest independent Summa on the constructio that has come down
to us is the work of another unknown master whose name in all probability
was Robertus (Kneepkens 1980:120). He must have been active as a gram­
mar master in the third quarter of the 12th century in Paris or its intellectual
dependencies. Although we cannot find any serious information about the
life of this master, and his Summa has only been preserved on one manu­
script (London, BL Harl. 2515; BH 149.122.1), the opinions voiced by this
master must have carried some weight in his time. The somewhat mysteri­
ous Italian master Uguccio — it has not been established yet whether he is
to be identified with the famous canonist Hugutio, the Bishop of Ferrara
— whose Summa, preserved in the MS München CLM 18908 (BH
176.177), still awaits editing, chose Master Robertus as his mentor in gram-
maticis (Kneepkens 1981:62). Furthermore, we are confronted in more
than one 12th-century grammar text with rejections of views held by Rober­
tus. However, before investigating in more details Robertus' theory of
transitivity and related notions, we must call attention to the problems
which Robertus' method of working, or rather his lack of method, raises.
As a rule, Robertus does not give definitions or adequate circumscriptions
of notions, and his terminology is often confused. Sometimes it is not even
possible to gather which of the opposite views presented is preferred by
Robertus himself. Furthermore, Robertus as 'a child of his time' is fond of
the instantia-technique:4 an argumentational method for denying a posited
conclusion by demonstrating that in a similar case the inference is not valid
so that it is "obvious" that a methodological error must underlie the
argumentation.
We meet Peter Helias' passive interpretation of the term constructio in
Robertus' theory, but now under the term modus construendi, which one
also comes across in the grammar written by Sponcius Provincialis.5 Rober­
tus advocated the view that two words can be construed only in a transitive
or intransitive way. On the other hand he apparently did not dare to aban-
172 C.H. KNEEPKENS

don the thesis of Priscian, who according to Robertus held that two words
could also be combined in a reflexive way (reciproce) — a view which was
also accepted by Peter Helias, as we have seen above. So he left open the
possibility of a reflexive construction at this level, too.
In Robertus' Summa the opinion was voiced that in constructions
transitio can be observed in three modes, two of which we have already
seen. The first is the transition of persons only, which is based on the diver­
sity of the referents of the words in question.6 It occurs in all the cases of
non-co-referentiality, as can be observed, e.g., in the combination:
(x) filius Socratis.
Next, Robertus calls attention to the transitivity based on the transition
of both persons and the verb act as it is found in sentences of the type:
(x) Socrates Platonem videt.
This construction expresses that the act of the verb is transferred from
one person, i.e., Socrates, to another person, i.e., Plato. The third mode of
transitivity is based on the transition of the verb act only without any diver­
sity of persons being expressed. This is a new type of transitivity, which
partly covers the constructions which were assigned to the class of the con­
structio neutra in the three-part division of the constructions referred to and
rejected by William of Conches (above, p.169). Robertus observed this
type of transition in incomplete but correct constructions such as:
(x) legere Virgilium
and
(x) parcitur Hesperie.
Although these constructions do not express a complete thought as
complete constructions ought to do, they are nevertheless constructions,7 so
that the question may be asked whether they are transitive, intransitive,
reflexive or retransitive. As both the infinitive legere and the impersonal
verb parcitur are "impersonal words" and as a consequence do not have a per­
son signified, no diversity of persons could, by definition, be expressed in com­
binations of such an impersonal or rather 'referentless' word with another
word. This implies that these constructions cannot be transitive through a
transition of persons. On the other hand Robertus noticed a sort of transi­
tion of the act of the verb to a person, viz. to the person of the noun used
in the combination. That is why he spoke of a transitio actus tantum.
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 173

In addition, Robertus' Summa also mentions intransitive, retransitive

and reflexive constructions. The class of retransitive constructions is split up
into two subclasses. This division is justified by referring to two accepta­
tions of the word retransitio, each based on a different etymology, The first
subclass contains complex sentences consisting of a main clause and a sub­
ordinate clause, the participants of which have the chiastic distribution we
have already seen in Master Guido's Glosule (above, p. 167):
A →  +  → 
Their retransitivity is based on a retransitio, in the sense of retro transitio.
The other subclass contains the constructions in which the retransitivity has
been completed by a possessive pronoun in the subordinate clause which is
co-referential with one of the participants of the main clause. The etymol­
ogy of retransitio in this interpretation is iterum transitio. So it appears that
this distinction actually covers the distinction already mentioned above
between the retransitio propria vs impropria that we have met in the writ­
ings of Master Guido (above, p. 167).
Robertus also dealt with some problems of categorisation which
became especially acute in the fields of the reflexive and the transitive con­
structions. They are of the utmost importance to us, since discussions on
problematic aspects generally not only test the internal consistency of a
theory, but also its coherence with theories on other linguistic phenomena.
As a consequence, they often force the author to expose his views in more
detail. As for the category of retransitive constructions the question was
raised about the place of a construction such as
(x) ego persuasi michi, ut te diligerem
in Robertus' system. The difficulty is that it consists of a reflexive construc­
tion and a transitive one. Two solutions are put forward: (1) it could be
classed among the retransitive constructions or (2) it could belong to a sort
of middle category called the constructio mixta. Robertus points to a com­
parable situation which caused trouble for the dialecticians. They had to
cope with difficulties regarding the categorisation of propositions which
have a subject consisting of terms of different quality, as is the case in, e.g.,
(x) omnis homo et quidam asinus currunt.
The question whether this kind of proposition should be classified among
the universal or the particular propositions, or whether it should constitute
a new class, viz. that of the mixtae, is discussed in the Ars Meliduna (ed. De
174 C.H. KNEEPKENS

Rijk, p.326) and in the Ars Emmerana (ed. De Rijk. p.154). It is obvious,
then, that Robertus was acquainted with contemporary logical discussions.
Other serious problems to be solved were generated by sentences in
which the subject and the object terms do have co-reference, but in which
this co-referentiality cannot be concluded from the mere surface structure
or appearance of the sentence. Examples illustrating this problem are:
(x) iste(l) diligit istum(l)
(x) Petrus(l) diligit Petrum(l)
(x) Marcus diligit Tullium.
Robertus' approach to such constructions is a formal one. In his view
reflexivity must be observable from the appearance of a sentence. Even a
blind man should be able to know whether a construction is reflexive or
not, when he hears the utterance. As a matter of fact this is the case when
the sentence:
(x) iste diligit se
is uttered, since our blind man does not need any exterior information or
support in order to arrive at the conclusion that the lover and the beloved
are one and the same person. And the same is true for a sentence like
(x) ego diligo me.
But the situation is entirely different in the other three sentences. In these
the hearer needs extra-linguistic support in order to be able to decide on the
reflexive character of the construction. So Robertus' conclusion is obvious:
this kind of construction should be regarded as transitive.
Robertus' theory of transitivity was strongly attacked by the anony­
mous grammarian who composed the Vth Quaestio of the first collection of
grammatical quaestiones in the MS Oxford, CCC 250,8 and by the English
grammarian Robert Blund (Kneepkens 1983:4-5) who in the 1170s wrote a
Summa in arte grammatica devoted entirely to syntactic matters. Unfortu­
nately, the last part of his work has not come down to us (Kneepkens
1981:62; BH 149.154.1). Both authors rejected the subdivision of transitive
constructions made by Robertus of Paris and especially attacked his theory
for neglecting the constructional levels. In addition, they declared that the
creation of a middle category of constructiones mixtae was an absurd enter­
prise. Our main source of information about their theories of transitivity
and related concepts is the first chapter of Blund's Summa, which deals
with the constructio in general.
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 175

However, before we can discuss their theory of transitivity, we first

have to pay attention to the interpretations of the term constructio by these
grammarians, since these are essential to their reflections on the topic at
issue. Blund mentions four distinct acceptations: two of them concern the
construction looked upon especially from the point of view of the word as
constructible unit, whereas the other two consider the construction from
the point of view of the results of word construction, viz. the sentence.
The first acceptation mentioned by Blund is constructio taken to be the
construction of a word with another word: the constructio dictionis cum dic-
tione. We must keep in mind that we have to accept Blund's constructio
here in a formal way, and not materially as the words combined. Another
point worth mentioning is that in each binary combination there are two of
these constructions, viz. the construction of the word A with the word 
and the construction of the word  with the word A, for, as Blund argues,
these relationships are not identical, even though they have the same terms.
Construction thus conceived of always concerns a one-way relationship.
Another point to be noted is that constructiones dictionis cum dictione
cannot involve all the words of a sentence, but only those two words
between which a relationship exists at the same level: determination is
required for a regular construction of a word with another word. To give an
example of the consequences of this claim: In Blund's view, there are con­
structions of the nominative Socrates with the verb videt and vice versa, and
of the verb videt with the object accusative Platonem and vice versa, since
the verb determines the subject nominative and in turn is determined by the
object accusative, but no construction involving Socrates and Platonem in
the following sentence, since the subject nominative does not determine the
object accusative nor the object accusative the subject:
(x) Socrates Platonem videt.
According to the anonymous author of the quaestio and Blund, all con­
structions at this level can be reduced to the basic types, viz. the transitive
or intransitive constructions. They define three ways of transition and of
intransition, each connected with the meaning of a preposition joined to the
term (in)transitio. Thus Blund arrives at the following scheme: a construc­
tion can be called (in)transitive (non) EX transitione, (non) IN transitione
or (non) AD transitionem. With the preposition ex, in and ad indicating a
cause (causa), a staying (manentia) and a purpose (finis), respectively. How­
ever, when we consider the constructions in more detail, it appears that it is
176 C.H. KNEEPKENS

the semantic categories of the verb act and of the persona, i.e., the referent,
that play a crucial role, to the effect that the transitive and the intransitive
constructions can be subdivided into two classes, based on the well-known
distinction between the (in)transitio actus and the (in)transitio personarum.
I think that at this point Blund's theory cannot be left wholly uncriticized.
But let us first consider his theory at work.
Blund's first category of transitive constructions, which he calls transi­
tive ex transitione is found in the combination of a transitive verb with the
object accusative. It is a transitio actus. The example is the construction of
the verb video with the accusative me in the sentence:
(x). transitive
reflexive
The trouble is that we might be inclined to accept a sort of de-per­
sonalisation of the verb, since Blund refuses to speak about a transition of
persons in this construction. However, if one considers the construction of
the accusative with the verb, one has to decide, according to Blund, to
assign reflexivity (reciprocado) to the construction, and to conclude on a
reflexive construction, which is a subspecies of the intransitive construction,
for it appears that the object accusative signifies the persona verbi as
patiens. So it turns out that, from this point of view, the verb is considered
to signify, or rather to include the meaning of a persona, a referent. But
Blund does not supply us with a conclusive argument why in the construc­
tion of the verb with the object accusative the referential transitivity was
left out of consideration.
The second category of transition is a case of referential diversity.
Transitivity based on this kind of transition can be observed in the combina­
tion of the subject noun with the predicate noun and vice versa, if a deter-
minatio relationship exists between them. It occurs in sentences like
(x) ego sum ille,
if it is obvious that a person different from the speaking person is indicated.
The construction is said to be transitive in transitione, i.e., as Blund says, in
diver sítate personarum; from another point of view it can be regarded as
intransitive, since the structure of the sentence is that of an intransitive con­
struction, because it is the function of the copula to indicate referential
identity and not diversity. Hence in a construction of the type "NP Cop
NP" the NPs are always considered to be co-referential, although not on
account of their real reference, but on account of the function of the
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 177

copula, so that we could even speak of a functional co-referentiality as

opposed to a real co-referentiality.
The third form of transition is also a case of referential diversity. Some
constructions are said to be transitive ad transitionem, which is explained by
means of the phrase ad diversitatem personarum. Such a transitivity is to be
observed in the sentence:
(x) Socrates possidet istam rem.
Although Blund fails to indicate which relationship he has in mind, we may
safely conclude that here the construction of the object accusative (istam
rem) with the verb is under discussion.
Intransitivity is reinterpreted by Blund by means of the term 'non-
transitivity,' and the same categories of transition are adduced, this time,
however, accompanied by the negative particle. The verb is non-transitively
construed, i.e., non ex vi transitionis, with the subject nominative in the
sentence:
non ex vi transitionis
(χ)
non ad diversitatem personarum
In the same sentence the phenomenon of being construed non-transitively,
i.e., non ad diversitatem personarum can be noticed, namely in the combi­
nation of the subject nominative with the verb. The third category of being
non-transitively construed has already been mentioned in our discussion of
the transitive construction, viz. the constructions involving the subject noun
and the predicate noun.
Unlike the transitive construction the intransitive construction of a
word with a word allows a subdivision, namely into the simplex intransitive
and the reflexive constructions, to which we have already paid some atten­
tion above (p. 176).
We find that we are now able to establish in an accurate manner the
relationships between the words construed in a sentence. Let us take, for
example the non-complex sentence:
(x) Socrates videt Platonem
The following four constructiones dictionis cum dictione occur:
(1) of the subject nominative with the finite verb: a construction "intransi­
tive non ad diversitatem personarum"
178 C.H. KNEEPKENS

(2) of the verb with the object accusative: a construction "transitive ex vi

transitionis"
(3) of the verb with the subject nominative: a construction "intransitive
non ex vi transitionis"
(4) of the object accusative with the verb: a construction "transitive ad
diversitatem personarum."
A point which deserves our attention is the fact that Blund refuses to
accept the combined notion of a transition of the verb act and persons,
which as we have seen was a traditional concept in the theories proposed by
his predecessors. Blund refers to this question in his discussion of the con­
structio) orationis, but I consider it useful to discuss it here. In Blund's opin­
ion the term transitio is equivocally used, if one speaks about a transitio
actus et personarum, since according to him transitio has a different mean­
ing in the combination with actus than in the combination with personarum.
In the former case it means the going forwards (of the verb act), in the lat­
ter the diversity (of the persons): combined in one utterance these mean­
ings are conflicting, so that the phrase transitio actus et personarum should
mean either "the going forward of the verb act and of the persons" or "the
diversity of the verb act and of the persons," which it does not.
The second interpretation of the term constructio at the word level is
peculiar to the theory which Blund and the Anonymus proposed. I have not
come across it in any other grammatical text of the period. In their theory
the term constructio dictionum is introduced, which was defined by Blund
as the ordinatio dictionum in oratione quas exigentia uel determinatio con­
ciliat. It regards the constructional relations between those words which are
joined together in a sentence or clause and between which a mutual seman­
tic relationship {determinatio) is at least claimed to exist. The difference
with the constructio dictionis cum dictione is evident, for unlike this latter
construction, which is only a one-way relationship, the constructio dic­
tionum is a two-sided relationship at least. It always includes the notion of
reciprocity. For instance, in the sentence:
(x) Socrates currit
we can observe two constructiones dictionis cum dictione, viz. of Socrates
with currit and the other way about. But there also exists a constructio dic­
tionum, viz. of or rather between Socrates and currit. The application of the
constructio dictionum is not only restricted to binary combinations such as
the example given or to combinations such as filius Socratis or bene legitur.
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 179

It also allows Blund to speak about the construction of all the words in a
sentence like
(x) Socrates est homo,
in which the predicate noun homo determines not only the substantive verb
or copula est, but also the subjet noun Socrates, albeit through the copula,
so that the necessary condition for a constructio dictionum, the mutual
determination, is met.
As a matter of fact the constructio dictionis cum dictione and the con­
structio dictionum between them cover the double interpretation of 'con­
structio' that we have found in Peter Helias' passive interpretation (see
above, p. 169, n.2).
The constructio dictionum has two species: the transitive and the
intransitive construction. The mutual aspect in this interpretation of the
term constructio is an impediment for the introduction of the transition of
the verb act as a criterion for the transitivity of a constructio dictionum,
since in the case of transitivity both the verb and the object accusative
ought to express the "thing that receives the verb act." So the criterion for
the transitivity or intransitivity of the constructio dictionum is formed by the
transition or intransition, i.e., the diversity or identity, of persons, and not
by the (in)transition of the verb act.
As mentioned above (p. 175), Blund appears to have been acquainted
with two interpretations of the term constructio at the level of the sentence.
In the first one this term has the same meaning as the combination oratio
constructa it is the material interpretation which was defended by Peter
Helias, for example. Blund did not pay any serious attention to this accep­
tation; he was far more interested in the acceptation of constructio as the
constructio orationis which he defines as the congrua ordinatio orationis ex
dictionibus: the well-formed ordering of a sentence considered from the
point of view of the words as the only independent and operative syntactic
basic units.
Constructio thus interpreted also has its species. Here too, we find a
division into two basic types: the transitive and the intransitive construc­
tion. The transitive construction is in turn subdivided into the simplex trans­
itive and the retransitive, the intransitive into the simplex intransitive and
the reciproca (= reflexive and reciprocal) construction.
So Blund's theory results in the same scheme as we have seen in the
Glosule of William of Conches, but in this case it is restricted to the con­
structio orationis:
180 C.H. KNEEPKÉÑS

simplex
transitiva
retransitiva
constructio
simplex
intransitiva
reciproca

In Blund's view transitivity at the level of the sentence construction is

founded on the transition of the verb act (transitio actus) from one person
to another one. This implies that the first NP is not allowed to be co-refer­
ential with the post-verbal NP, which, of course, is obligatory in such a con­
struction. Nevertheless it is not the diversity of persons, but the transition
of the verb act which is stressed. Moreover it is claimed that the main inten­
tion of the sentence must be to show this transition. This condition has been
added in order to avoid problems with constructions composed of a subor­
dinate transitive construction and a main intransitive construction such as
can be found in a sentence like
(x) Socrates videns Platonem sedet.
Blund re-introduces this principle in his discussion of some constructions
which are ambiguous as to their constructional status, as e.g.
(x) ego video me vel te.
Irrespective of the possibility that I do not see myself at all, the construction
of this sentence must be regarded as reflexive {reciproca), since as Blund
asserted, omnis constructio secundum ostensionem iudicanda sit, non secun­
dum ueritatem rei. He repeatedly appeals to the ostensio instead of to the
significado as the criterion for assigning a construction to the class of the
transitive or that of the intransitive constructions. However, it would be
incorrect to conclude from his words that Blund approached the classifica­
tion of the constructiones orationis from a (more) formal point of view. We
must bear in mind that for Blund the notion of the ostensio of a construc­
tion is not purely formal, but has an important semantic aspect. This
becomes manifest when we consider the classification of the constructions
of the following sentences:
(x) homo videt hominem (1)
(χ) homo possidet hominem (2)
(χ) homo gignit hominem (3)
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 181

all three of which have the same formal and morpho-syntactic structure.
Nevertheless, unlike Robert of Paris (above, p. 174), Blund calls the con­
struction of the first sentence an intransitive, viz. a reflexive one, since, as
he argued, the possibility that a man sees himself cannot be excluded. But
the state of affairs signified by the sentences (2) and (3) is totally different.
It is not possible, at least in Blund's view of the world, that a man produces
or possesses himself. Apart from their ordinary meaning the difference
between these sentences is that the semantic structure of the verbs of sen­
tences (2) and (3) necessarily contains an element of alteritas, which the
semantic structure of videre lacks. This implies that the constructions of
sentences (2) and (3) must be transitive. It is clear, then, that the judge­
ment on the transitivity or intransitivity of such constructions is founded not
only on the formal structure of the sentence, but also on the meaning of the
verb and on the co-referentiality of the NPs involved.
Blund applies the distinction between the retransitio in a strict sense
and in a broad sense (or improper retransitio) to the retransitive construc­
tions, although he does not supply his readers with a clear definition of the
notion of retransitio as such. He offers an elaborate scheme of sixteen
retransitive and related constructions, and declares only six of them to be
really retransitive. This enables us to deduce the conditions which a con­
struction has to meet in order to be classified as really retransitive:
(1) retransition only occurs in a construction of a sentence compounded of
a main clause and a subordinate clause, each of which has itself a transitive
construction, and not a reflexive one;
(2) the participants must have the following distribution:
W → X + Y → Ζ,
in which W and X represent the persona agens and patiens of the main
clause respectively, whereas either Y is co-referential with X or Ζ with W;
(3) the remaining participant must be either co-referential with the other
participant of the main clause or its possession.
In all the remaining ten cases Blund speaks of improper retransitivity.
The subdivision of the intransitive constructions into the reflexives and
the simple intransitives does not present any further problem. On the other
hand serious difficulties do exist concerning the classification of those con­
structions when it is not evident from the surface structure whether they are
reflexive or transitive. We have already met some of them in the discussion
of the transitive constructions (above, p. 180), and I will here confine
myself to one of them, viz. the construction of the ambiguous sentence:
182 C.H. KNEEPKENS

(χ) Petrus videt Petrum.

Unlike Robert of Paris (above, p. 174) Blund wants to use non-linguis­
tic information in order to establish the species of this construction. If it is
apparent that the subject NP and the object NP are co-referential, then
according to Blund we are dealing with reflexivity and consequently, we
have to classify the construction among the reflexive ones (constructions
reciprocae). Otherwise, the construction is transitive. We may note that
here Blund omits any appeal to the ostensio.
If we were forced to explain the popularity of the third large 12th-cen­
tury Summa on syntax, the Absoluta cuiuslibet of Petrus Hispanus {non-
papa) (cf. Hunt 1975), we could immediately point to the agility with which
this author adopts a middle course between the traditional views found by
the Medievals in the works of the great Commentator, Peter Helias (who
was far more conservative in grammaticis than his predecessor William of
Conches), and the achievements of grammarians of the post-Helias period,
such as Robert of Paris and Robert Blund. This image of Petrus Hispanus
as a grammarian at the crossroads of scientific conservatism and progres-
siveness is confirmed by his theories on the construction and on transitivity.
In his theory of construction he generally follows Peter Helias. A clear-
cut distinction is made between the constructio at the level of the sentence,
which, like Helias, Petrus Hispanus defines materially and which he iden­
tifies with the oratio constructa, and the constructio at the word level, which
is called by Hispanus a passion (passio) of the construenda, the constructi­
bles. Just like Peter Helias, Petrus Hispanus left the possibility open that at
the level of the word construction this term might be applied to the one-way
relationship, i.e., the construction of a word with another word, as well as
to the mutual constructional relationship between two words.
Hispanus' treatment of the concepts of transitivity and intransitivity
shows no important new results. He is acquainted with the transitio actus
and the transitio personarum, but defines the former entirely within the
framework of the latter, and one will look in vain in his discussion for the
transitio actus tantum as a criterion for categorizing constructions.
The constructio conceived of as the oratio constructa is divided into the
four traditional Priscianic categories of the transitive, intransitive, reflexive
and retransitive constructions.
However, at the level of the word construction Petrus Hispanus dis­
sociates himself from the traditional position. He accepts two basic types
only: the transitive and the intransitive construction, and he even refuses
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 183

expressis verbis to admit the reciprocatio at this level. The entire sentence
— it is significant that he uses the term oratio in this context — ego diligo
me must be classified among the reflexive constructions (constructiones
reciprocae), but the construction between the verb and the oblique case is
transitive, i.e., they are construed transitively.
Petrus Hispanus also deviates from Helias in his explanation of the
transitive classification of constructions composed of transitive and intrans­
itive partial constructions as is the case in a sentence like
(x) Socrates Platonem videt.
At this point Hispanus follows the same policy as Robert Blund and
adduces the principalis ostensio (principaliter ostendere) as the criterion for
the final judgement about the type of construction.
As to the categorization of the retransitive constructions Petrus His­
panus appears to have been acquainted with the various types mentioned
by Blund. However, he accepts not only the double transitive construc­
tions, but also the transitive/reflexive and the double reflexive ones which
were rejected by Blund.
We also find the category of the dubious constructions extensively dis­
cussed in the Absoluta cuiuslibet, but I will mention only two types. With
regard to constructions like
(x) ego diligo Petrum
the approach used by Robert of Paris is followed. They are considered to be
transitive even if the speaking person, whose name is Petrus, is saying that
he loves himself. In Hispanus' theory the judgement on reflexivity or non-
reflexivity did not depend on extra-linguistic information but was exclu­
sively guided by those words of the sentence whose task it is to indicate
reflexivity in an unmistakable manner.
An important innovation is the introduction of the constructio com-
posita which is contrasted with the constructio simplex. We must remember
that, unlike, e.g., William of Conches (cf. above, p. 168), Petrus does not
aim at a distinction at the level of the transitive or intransitive construc­
tions. He introduces this constructio composita in order to cope with the
classification problems that arise from sentences with a subject term com­
posed in such a manner that both transido and reciprocatio are expressed
principaliter, as is the case, e.g., in the sentence:
(x) ego et tu diligimus te.
184 C.H. KNEEPKENS

The intention of this construction is not only to show principally the transi­
tion of the verb act from the speaking person to the person spoken to, but
also and at the same level of intention to demonstrate the reflexivity of the
verb act from the person spoken to back to himself. Hispanus proposes to
assign a construction in which both transitio and reciprocatio are expressed
principaliter to the class of the constructiones compositae. The addition of
the adverb 'principally' {principaliter) is pivotal here, since it prevents the
classification among the constructiones compositae of constructions of the
type
(x) ego et tu videntes te currunt
in which two constructions occur but in which one of them is subordinate to
the other.

4. Concluding Remarks

The following observations may be put forward as a sort of summary of

results. In the 12th century the separation has been settled and made opera­
tive between, on the one hand, the binary construction, which will pay a
pivotal role in the syntactic theories of the Modistic grammarians
(Covington 1984:43), and on the other hand, the sentence construction.
This distinction, it has to be stressed once again, formed a key-stone of
12th-century syntactic thought. We find that the grammarians of the period
adapted their theories of transitivity and intransitivity to this distinction.
Transitivity, intransitivity and reciprocatio have always been defined
by the 12th-century grammarians within a semantic paradigm. A formal
approach in a modern linguistic sense (Lyons 1968:350) is not found. As
regards the semantic foundation of transitivity we perceive that there were
two kinds of transitivity, each with its own semantic basis, viz. a referential
transitivity based on expressing a transitio personarum, and a verbal trans­
itivity that was based on expressing a transitio actus. No uniform opinion
concerning the relationship between these two kinds of transitivity existed
in the 12th-century grammatical thought. Some grammarians considered
the verbal transitivity to be a subspecies of referential transitivity, whereas
others refused to accept referential transitivity as a proper kind of transitiv­
ity. A third view was to accept them side by side as separate branches of
transitivity.
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 185

At the level of the binary construction there is a clearly discernible ten­

dency to reduce the four Priscianic construction types to two basic types:
either to a transitive and an intransitive construction or to being construed
transitively or intransitively. The term construction thus conceived of is
always interpreted in a formal manner: it denotes a way of being construed,
or a syntactic relationship between two words.
Two diverging positions can be noted at the level of the sentence con­
struction. Here we are confronted with a material and a formal acceptation
of the term constructio. At this level the problem of the relationship
between referential and verbal transitivity is encountered again. Some
theories assigned a status of second-rate or improper transitivity to those
(active) constructions which, although provided with a post-verbal NP, do
not allow a passive transformation, since the transitivity of these construc­
tions was not based on a transitio actus, but on a transitio personarum.
Some theories even tended to classify the reflexive and reciprocal construc­
tions, which were traditionally regarded as intransitive, as transitive con­
structions, since their authors put more emphasis on the verbal transitivity
than on the co-referentiality.
The definition and, as a consequence, the classification of the retransi-
tive constructions remained a source of disagreement on minor points, but
we may safely conclude that the majority of the 12th-century syntacticians
were inclined to subdivide this category, which was handed down to them in
a confused state by Priscian, into two subcategories. Apart from this sub-
categorisation, the classification of the retransitive construction itself was
also troublesome. This construction type appeared to fit in badly with the
Priscianic construction types, since by definition it consists of two construc­
tions, each of which contains a finite verb, so that it was more likely that in
the case of a constructio retransitiva one is dealing with a constructio
orationum than with a constructio orationis or an oratio (simplex) con-
structa. Even more than that of the reflexive construction, its position was
always open to criticism. However, the authority argument, viz. that it was
in Priscian's work that this type was found as an independent type of con­
struction, supported by the morpho-syntactic phenomenon of the possible
appearance of the reflexive pronoun in the subordinate clause, saved the
retransitive construction from being eliminated from the medieval con­
structional system. It must, however, be granted that in some theories it
was reduced to a subclass of the transitive construction.
The position of the reflexive (and reciprocal) constructions is different.
186 C.H. KNEEPKENS

As far as this kind of construction is concerned, we are not confronted with

the question of the constructio orationum or orationis. But in the semanti-
cally based theories of the 12th century the reflexive construction presented
the problem of the clashing of the principles of referential and of verbal
transitivity, a problem which was felt by Robert Blund at the level of the
constructio dictionis too, and which led Robertus of Paris and Petrus His-
panus to speak only of transitio and intransitio at this level.
At the level of the sentence construction referential transitivity gener­
ally prevailed in the classification of this type, in the sense that it was con­
sidered to constitute either an independent class or a subclass of the intrans­
itive construction. On the other hand, we have seen that some 12th-century
grammarians felt inclined to put emphasis on verbal transitivity and prefer­
red to look at the reflexive constructions as constituting a subclass of the
transitive construction.
The problem concerning the classification of those constructions in
which one finds a non-pronominalized co-referentiality can be reduced to
the question whether or not one ought to admit extra-linguistic information
in order to judge a construction.
I am aware of the fact that the survey and the analyses given in this
paper of the theories of the most important 12th-century grammarians con­
cerning transitivity and related concepts are far from exhaustive. However,
they have to be considered as a first attempt to map out the main lines and
the problems of a doctrine which occupied a central place in 12th-century
grammatical thought. Moreover, they will offer some insight into the
development of linguistic thought in the period immediately preceding the
decades in which the discussions on speculative grammar emerged, i.e., the
decades called by Jan Pinborg the period of Petrus Helias und seine
Nachfolger bis nach 1200 (Pinborg 1967:55).10

NOTES
1. The phrase "a construction between A and B" must be taken to indicate the construction
as a whole as a relationship between these two words.
2. Though it is not quite clear from Peter's text, we have sufficient grounds to assume that
he considered construction in this interpretation to be a sort of property of the word(s),
but he left it undecided whether he considered it to be the constructional relationship of
one word with another, as one would be inclined to assume from his words: "'legit' ibi
construitur intransitive cum hoc nominativo 'Socrates'" (éd. Toison 93:46-47), or the
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY A N D RELATED CONCEPTS 187

relationship between the words construed, as one would conclude from a statement like:
"intransitiva constructio est inter nominativum et verbum" (ed. Toison 49:65-66).
3. In M. Covington's sketch of Peter Helias' position in the development of the doctrine of
transitivity and intransitivity we find a confusion of the acceptation levels of the term
'constructio' (Covington 1984:44). Covington fails to observe the distinction made by
Peter between the binary construction, i.e., constructio dictionis, and the sentence con­
struction, the oratio constructa.
4. For the instantiae see Iwakuma (1981, 1983) and Ebbesen & Iwakuma (1983).
5. Cf. the edition by Fierville, p. 179.
6. We must bear in mind that for the medieval grammarians words have reference.
7. Peter Helias also wants to defend the constructional nature of incomplete constructions
(cf. ed. Toison, p.2:68-3:81).
8. Not in Bursill-Hall 1971, cf. BH 192.10.
9. Or exigentia, Blund says. But we must bear in mind that exigentia always implies deter-
minatio.
10. Thanks are due to Drs. Jan Klerkx for help with the translation of this contribution.
After the completion of this article the texts of the grammars of Robert of Paris, Robert Blund
and Petrus Hispanus (non-papa) have been printed in: C.H. Kneepkens, Het Iudicium construc-
tionis. Het Leerstuk van de constructio in de 2de helft van de 12de eeuw, 4 vols., Nijmegen 1987.
For a thorough survey of 12th-century grammatical thought I refer to Karin Margareta Fred-
borg's chapter on speculative grammar in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed.
by Peter Dronke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 117-95.

REFERENCES

Alexander de Villa-Dei. Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei. Ed. by

Dietrich Reichling. Berlin: A. Hofmann & Co., 1893.
Apollonius Dyscolus. Apollonii Dyscoli De constructione libri quattuor,
rec. G. Uhlig. Lipsiae 1910 (= Grammatici Graeci, 2:2.).
. The Syntax of Apollonius Dyscolus. Translated with commentary
by F.W. Householder. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1981.
Ars Emmerana. Ed. by L.M. de Rijk, in: Logica Modernorum: A Con­
tribution to the history of early terminist logic, Vol.11, Part Two: Texts
and Indices, 143-174. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1967.
Ars Meliduna. Partially ed. by L.M. de Rijk, in: Logica Modernorum:
Vol.11, Part One: The Origin and Early Development of the Theory of
Supposition, 292-390. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1967.
Bursill-Hall, G.L. 1971. Speculative grammars of the Middle Ages: The
Doctrine of partes orationis of the Modistae. The Hague: Mouton. (BH)
188 C.H. KNEEPKENS

. 1980. "Introduction" R.W. Hunt, The History of grammar in the

Middle Ages, ed. by G.L. Bursill-Hall, ix-xxvi. Amsterdam: J. Benja­
mins.
Busse, Werner. 1974. Klasse, Transitivität, Valenz: Transitive Klassen des
Verbs im Französischen. München: W. Fink.
Covington, Michael A. 1984. Syntactic theory in the High Middle Ages:
Modistic models of sentence structure. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press.
Ebbesen, Sten & Yukio Iwakuma. 1983. "Instantiae and 12th-Century
'Schools,'" CIMAGL 44.81-85.
Fredborg, K.Margareta. 1981. "Some Notes on the Grammar of William of
Conches." CIMAGL 37.21-41.
Hunt, Richard W. 1950. "Studies on Priscian in The Twelfth Century, II.
The School of Ralph of Beauvais." Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies,
II (1950), 1-56. (Repr. in The History of grammar in the Middle Ages by
R.W. Hunt, 39-94. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1980.).
. 1975. "ABSOLUTA: The Summa of Petrus Hispanus on Pris-
cianus minor." HL 2.1-22. (Repr. in Hunt 1980. 95-116).
Iwakuma, Yukio. 1981. "INSTANTIAE: A study of twelfth-century
technique of argumentation with an edition of Ms. Paris BN lat. 6674 f.Ι­
δ." CIMAGL 38.
. 1983. "Instantiae Revisited." CIMAGL 44.61-80.
Jeauneau, Edouard. 1960. "Deux rédactions des gloses de Guillaume de
Conches sur Priscien." Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale
27.212-47.
Kneepkens, C.H. 1976. "'Mulier Que Damnavit, Salvavit': A note on the
early development of the Relatio simplex." Vivarium 14.1-25.
. 1978. "Master Guido and his View on Government: On twelfth
century linguistic thought." Vivarium 16.108-141.
. 1980. "'Legere est agere': The First Quaestio of the First Quaes-
tiones-Collection in the MS Oxford, CCC 250." Historiographia Linguis­
tica 7.109-130.
. 1981. "Robert Blund and the Theory of Evocation." English Logic
and Semantic from the End of the Twelfth Century to the Time of
Ockham and Burleigh: Acts of the 4th European Symposium on Medieval
Logic and Semantics, Leiden-Nijmegen, 23-27 April 1979, ed. by H.A.G.
Braakhuis, C.H. Kneepkens & L.M. de Rijk, 59-97. Nijmegen.
 TRANSITIVITY, INTRANSITIVITY AND RELATED CONCEPTS 189

. 1983. "The Quaestiones grammaticales of the MS Oxford, Corpus

Christi College, 250: An Edition of the First Collection." Vivarium 21.1-
34.
Lyons, John. 1968. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
Peter Helias. The Summa of Petrus Helias on Priscianus minor. Ed. by
James E. Toison with an introduction by Margaret Gibson, Part I.
CIMAGL 27. 1-158.
Pinborg, Jan. 1967. Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter.
Münster: Aschendorff; Kopenhagen: Frost-Hansen.
. 1975. Classical Antiquity: Greece, in: Current Trends in Linguistics,
ed. by Th. A. Sebeok, Vol.13: Historiography of Linguistics, 69-126. The
Hague: Mouton.
Thurot, Charles. 1869. Extraits de divers manuscrits latins pour servir à
Vhistoire des doctrines grammaticales au moyen-âge. Paris: Impr.
Nationale.
Sponcius Provincalis. Summa de constructione. Ed. by Charles Fierville.
Une grammaire latine inédite du XIIIe siècle, extraite des manuscrits no
465 de Laon et no 15462 (fonds latin) de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 177-
192. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1886.
Versteegh, C.H.M. 1977. Greek Elements in Arabic Thinking. Leiden: E.J.
Brill.
 Auctoritas, consuetudo and ratio
in St. Augustine's Ars grammatica

Vivien Law
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

The relationship between auctoritas and ratio is a pervasive theme in

Augustine's writings, from those composed at Cassiciacum before his bap­
tism to those of his old age. Many a study has been devoted to this subject:
as K.-H. Lütcke remarks in his fundamental work (Lütcke 1968:182), "Das
Problem des Verhältnisses von auctoritas und ratio gehört zu den meist
behandelten Fragen der Augustin-Forschung." As is natural, most scholars
have based their conclusions on passages from Augustine's theological and
philosophical works, leaving aside the early textbooks on the Liberal Arts
— the works on dialectic and music as well as that on grammar. The only
major study to take them into account is Lorenz (1955/56). Lorenz devoted
only a few pages to this problem, however, and consequently these works
have remained almost totally unexploited in this connection. Is there any
reason why they should receive special consideration? Have they anything
new to contribute to our understanding of Augustine's use of the terms
auctoritas, ratio and consuetudol Lütcke (1968:112) cautions: "[es] ist zu
betonen, daß es sich hier (sc. in the De música) um einen Spezialbereich
handelt, so daß man die Äußerungen zum Thema auctoritas — ratio in "De
música" nicht für das grundsätzliche Problem von auctoritas und ratio
heranziehen darf." Lütcke did not follow up this tantalizing comment, and
it must be said that, as is the case with Augustine's works on the Liberal
Arts generally, this aspect of the problem remains one of the least
researched of Augustinian scholarship. This is not to say that it lacks impor­
tance: the passages in the works on the Liberal Arts are of significance for
their role in the evolution and application of the concept of auctoritas at an
192 VIVIEN LAW

early stage in Augustine's philosophical development. Some, it is true,

relate to the specialised content of the subject under discussion; but others
are relevant to the basic problem. It is the purpose of this study to consider
the passages which throw light on the relationship between auctoritas, con­
suetudo and ratio from one of Augustine's works on the Liberal Arts, that
on grammar.
The grammar was part of a project Augustine undertook while prepar­
ing for baptism (386/87), to write a series of textbooks on the Liberal Arts
which could serve as a first step toward helping those who were capable of
being led by this route to an understanding of higher things: "disciplinarum
libros conatus sum scribere [...] per corporalia cupiens ad incorporalia
quibusdam quasi passibus certis uel peruenire uel ducere" (Retract. I v 6).
This goal is set forth in greater detail in the introduction to the sixth book
of the De musica (VI i 1), where Augustine apologises for the nature of the
study he has so far imposed upon the reader: "satis diu pene atque adeo
plane pueriliter per quinque libros in uestigiis numerorum ad moras tem-
porum pertinentium morati sumus." He justifies his work thus:
I thought that it should be undertaken for no other reason than that young
people and indeed people of any age whom God has endowed with a good
mind could be parted from the instincts of the flesh and writings pertaining
to the physical (which it is hard for them not to be attracted to), not all at
once but by degrees, with ratio as their guide.
Of these disciplinarum libri, only the first, on grammar, was completed in
Milan. The De música was not written until after Augustine's return to
Africa (O'Connell 1978:178-88), while the others were begun but never
finished: only the De dialectica, of these incomplete works, survives.1
Whether or not Augustine's work on grammar survives is a question which
has generally elicited a negative answer. Two grammars have been trans­
mitted under Augustine's name, and that very fact caused patristic scholars
to deny either work authenticity. A recent re-examination of the grammars
(Law 1984) has shown that, far from being parallel epitomes of a lost origi­
nal, as had previously been suggested (Marrou 1958:572, and n.5), the two
works are unrelated. One, the so-called Regulae Augustini, lacks the
attribution to Augustine in its most reliable manuscript and has no internal
features which link it with Augustine. The other, known (to Cassiodorus as
well as to us) as the Ars sancti Augustini pro fratrum mediocritate breuiata
(hereafter Ars breuiata), contains a number of traits which are without
parallel elsewhere in the Late Latin grammatical tradition, but which are
 AUCTORITAS, CONSUETUDO AND RATIO 193

characteristic of Augustine. One of these features is an interest in the role

of auctoritas, consuetudo and ratio in language.
Along with natura, auctoritas, consuetudo and ratio were the four tra­
ditional elements of latinitas, the Latin language. An early account of their
role, attributed by the third-century grammar Diomedes2 to Varro, is as fol­
lows:
The natura of verbs and nouns is immutable and has transmitted to us
neither more nor less than it has received. For if anyone says 'scrimbo'
instead of 'scribo,' he is shown to be wrong not by the force of analogy but
by the very natura of the word.
The analogía of speech brought forth by natura is its arrangement
according to the grammar-writers: it disentangles barbarous speech from
educated in much the same way as one might separate silver from lead.
Consuetudo is equal to analogía not through ratio, but through force.
It draws this strength from the agreement of a large number of people, but
in such a way that the ratio of grammar does not actually give in to it but
merely humours it, being wont to adopt forms sanctioned by common
usage.
Auctoritas is the final factor in the regulation of speech. Where all else
fails, one has recourse to auctoritas in the way that one turns at the last to
an anchor. For no element of ratio or natura or consuetudo is involved
when auctoritas is received merely as an opinion based on the reading of
ancient authors and not on that of those who can explain, if they are asked,
why they have followed that route.
Diomedes sets out a four-tier system to explain the origin of the rules by
which speech is governed. Natura gives speech its basic form. There is no
room for debate over whether scribo or scrimbo is the correct form; any
native speaker knows intuitively that scrimbo does not exist. However,
when we move from the domain of impossible Latin to incorrect Latin, we
can no longer appeal to natura for guidance; it is necessary to demonstrate
the shortcomings of wrongly inflected forms by comparison with 'correct'
language: by invoking analogy. Analogía, defined and enshrined by the
grammarians, is equalled in power, though not in intellectual justification,
by consuetudo.3 Artis ratio, although obliged to humour usage, is still seen
as inherently superior: non accédat sed indulgeat. Auctoritas is invoked only
as a last resort, its validity based on arbitrary judgements.
Jean Collait (1963:128) stresses the apparent contradiction inherent in
the dramatic confrontation between the partisans of analogy and those of
anomaly depicted in the De lingua latina IX, and the cooperation between
analogía and consuetudo seen here, in a passage also attributed to Varro. A
194 VIVIEN LAW

similar spirit of tolerance can, as he points out, be found in the places in the
De lingua latina where Varro speaks ex persona auctoris: transferred to the
Roman context, the opposition between analogía and anomalía is deprived
of meaning and fades away. Varro and, following him, Quintilian, viewed
ratio and consuetudo, corresponding broadly to analogy and anomaly, as
but two of the several forces at work in language.
Varro's four-part schema, with natura and analogía functioning as the
primary elements, gives way to a tripartite system from which natura has
disappeared (or rather, is taken for granted [Collart 1954:204η.]). Thus,
Quintilian (I vi 1) declares: 'Language consists of ratio, vetustas, auctoritas,
and consuetudo/ His interest in determining the relative importance of
these elements is pragmatic: which should we follow in arriving at correct
speech? Ratio, or rather, analogía, is shown to be no more than a manifes­
tation of consuetudo (I vi 16):
when men were created, analogy was not instantly dispatched from heaven
to give them a forma loquendi; it was invented after they began to speak,
and noticed how things functioned in speech. It relies therefore not upon
ratio but on example; it is not prescriptive of speech, but descriptive, since
nothing creates analogy except consuetudo.
Vetustas4 and auctoritas should not persuade us to adopt obscure or objec­
tionable forms; uetus sermo, after all, is no more than the uetus loquendi
consuetudo (Inst. or. I vi 43). But Quintilian is scathing about ephemeral
fashions and the preferences of the masses: 'we know that whole theatres
and the entire crowd in the circus have on occasion shouted barbare. ' He
concludes (I vi 45): 'for this reason I shall designate the consuetudo of
speech the consensus of the learned (consensus eruditorum), just as the
consuetudo uiuendi is the consensus of good men.'
Quintilian's views on language are not our primary object; let it suffice
to observe that in his scheme, both ratio (= analogía) and auctoritas are
derived from consuetudo. In his discussion he devotes himself to pointing
out cases in which these principles are not to be followed, until one is temp­
ted to apply the aphorism he quotes on analogía (I vi 27), "aliud esse latine,
aliud grammatice loqui," to the entire chapter. It may be that the inconclu­
sive nature of his discussion discouraged the grammatici of the Empire from
developing this theme; at any rate, few of them do more than pay lip ser­
vice to these concepts. Augustine is one of the rare exceptions. He intro­
duces the reader to the elements of latinitas at the very start of his work, a
position of prominence accorded them by no other Late Latin gramma­
rian:5
 AUCTORITAS, CONSUETUDO AND RATIO 195

Latinitas is the observance of correct speech in accordance with the lan­

guage of Rome. It consists in three aspects, that is, ratio, auctoritas, con­
suetudo: ratio in accordance with ars, auctoritas in accordance with the
writings of those who possess authority, and consuetudo in accordance
with those things which are sanctioned and adopted by usage.
This very compressed statement is modelled on a traditional formula­
tion found in almost identical form in the grammars of Audax and Vic-
torinus.6 These two works share a common source, a lost work perhaps also
used by Augustine.7 After this genuflexion in the direction of the shades of
Antiquity, the other two grammatici return to their classroom without giv­
ing the implications of their scheme a further thought. Compared to the
books devoted to the demonstration of the working of analogía by Varro,
or the several pages on ratio vetustas auctoritas consuetudo in Quintilian's
Institutio oratoria (I vi), or even the summary exposition found in Charisius
(62,14-63,16) and Diomedes {GL I 439,15-30), the short paragraph offered
by Audax and Victorinus represents no more than a facile set of definitions
to be learnt and forgotten. Nowhere in these grammars is there any attempt
to show these elements at work.8
Not so Augustine. It is one of the remarkable features of the Ars
breuiata that auctoritas and consuetudo, and to a lesser extent ratio, are
repeatedly invoked to justify or explain a word, form, or rule. Let us now
examine the relevant passages from the Ars breuiata.
In discussing the formation of agent nouns (uerbialia) from verbs,
Augustine shows how scriptor, "a writer, copyist," and its feminine form
scriptrix are derived from scriptus, the past participle of the verb scribo, and
then adds:9
[...] but many (nouns) do not form the feminine or the neuter plural from
the first gender (i.e., the masculine) because of the harshness. For exam­
ple, no one says prestrix or prestricia from pressor ("hunter"); on the other
hand, tonsor ("barber") does give rise to tonstrix. Such is the force of
auctoritas and consuetudo in speech.
Auctoritas and consuetudo are used jointly to explain the defective distribu­
tion of the feminine forms, a phenomenon tacitly agreed to be arbitrary.
Auctoritas and consuetudo are paired, as in this quotation, in several
other passages.10 In one of these, Augustine feels obliged in discussing the
participle to include a brief account of those participles which, like cultus
and sapiens, are identical in form to nouns. In the case of cultus, the distinc­
tion between noun and participle is easily made: the genitive of the partici-
196 VIVIEN LAW

pie cultus, "cultivated," is culti, whereas that of the noun cultus, "cultiva­
tion," is cultus. Sapiens is not so easily dealt with. The present participle of
the verb sapere, "to be wise," and the substantive sapiens, "a wise man,"
are identical in form, both having the genitive sapientis. Grammarians tra­
ditionally invoked another formal shibboleth to deal with such cases: if the
word could receive the degrees of comparison, it was a noun; if not, it must
be a participle (e.g., Char. 59,7-23). At this point Augustine objects:11
But this reasoning does not appeal to me much. For one can see par­
ticiples taking comparison, if loquendi consuetudo permits it or auctoritas
recommends it, but only those of the past tense. The two future participles
do not take it. Who does not dare to say armatissimus, which Tullius (Pro
A. Caecina 21) said? On the other hand, armaturior and armandior, from
(the future participles) armaturus and armandus, cannot be used.
Having shown that some participles can receive comparison, contrary to
conventional lore, Augustine proceeds to refine the rule with which he
started:
It must be said that participles cannot take comparison when they are
used with time reference. For example, cultus forms cultior and cultis-
simus, but not if you are referring to past time; for cultus ager, "a culti­
vated field," is thus from its state: it has been cultivated, if you think in
terms of time, and by the activity of the farmer (cultor).
In other words, cultus in the purely participial sense — where the element
of time reference is still functional, as Augustine points out — cannot
receive comparison, whereas in its transferred adjectival sense, in which the
temporal value has been lost, comparison is as appropriate as for any other
adjective.12 Vir cultissimus, "a most cultivated man," is acceptable, whereas
*cultissimus ager, "a most cultivated field," is not.13 Nor, of course, can
*cultissimus be formed from the noun cultus, "a cult." With this sensible con­
tribution to the discussion of a traditional bone of grammatical contention
Augustine leaves the issue.14 The role of auctoritas and consuetudo is a
minor one in this context: participles take comparison, we are told, 'if
loquendi consuetudo permits it or auctoritas recommends it.' In other
words, one can expect to hear such forms in conversation and to read them
in the words of eminent authors. Because they are attested both in speech
and in writing, by consuetudo and by auctoritas, Augustine believes that
they should be taken into consideration and emends the rule accordingly.
But auctoritas and consuetudo do not invariably collaborate in this
interchangeable manner. Twice they are shown in conflict, consuetudo out-
 AUCTORITAS, CONSUETUDO AND RATIO 197

weighing a word or form commended by auctoritas. Thus, in discussing

individual pronouns, Augustine comments on the disappearance of the
declined forms cuius cuia cuium. After giving a paradigm of the masculine
form — cuius cui cuio etc. — he remarks:15
[...] but this declension is more artificial than it is modest, for it is very old-
fashioned and disowned by our consuetudo. So too cuia is declined in the
feminine like tabula, and cuium like lignum. But even though these forms
too are found in authors who are in everyone's hands and on everyone's
lips, consuetudo still despises them. For all indefinite possessives are sig­
nified by one pronoun, cuius or quorum: we say cuius or quorum servus or
ancilla or templum ("whose (sg. or pl.) manservant or maid or temple").
But this inevitably entails problems of ambiguity when we use cuius in the
genitive singular and quorum in the genitive plural, for cuius and quorum
used as possessives are not inflected for case.
The near-obsoleteness of the possessive adjective cuius -a -urn by the end of
the fourth century,16 displaced by the genitive of qui {cuius (sg.) and
quorum (pl.))? could occasionally, as Augustine observed, lead to a
troublesome type of ambiguity.17 In spite of his recognition of the obvious
advantages of a fully declined possessive adjective, and the fact that the
form was liberally attested in widely read authors, Augustine is driven to
acknowledge that the trend is against it: consuetudo contempsit, 'usage has
rejected it.'
This resigned attitude toward the vagaries of consuetudo appears again
a few paragraphs later, in the discussion of the pronouns nostras and ues-
tras. After setting out their inflection, Augustine concludes:18
[...] but we do not regard the author in whose books these forms are found
as of sufficient weight to enable us to withstand the usage of the ignorant
(inperitorum consuetudini): Tullius himself is the author of the two (forms)
cited above.
Even the authority of Cicero cannot prevail in the face of the inperiti: once
again, auctoritas has to bow to consuetudo.
In contrast, when auctoritas enters into conflict with ratio, it is
auctoritas which, in Augustine's view, is unquestionably the victor. He has
occasion to depict such a conflict only once in the Ars breuiata, when dis­
cussing the declension of Greek loanwords. Although neuter nouns in -a,
like systerna, were normally incorporated into the third declension,
'nonetheless it is possible to say not only his and ab his systematibus in the
dative and ablative plural, as the rule requires, but also systematis.'19
Augustine continues:20
198 VIVIEN LAW

This is permitted by auctoritas rather than by ratio. Auctoritas holds

sway in most situations in the Latin language, and virtually alone. Con­
sequently, in what we have said above as well as in what follows, we should
bear auctoritas in mind much more than ratio (through which grammatica
got its name). For auctoritas is more reliable in grammar than ratio.
Hence, it will be understood that it is not ratio but auctoritas which is to be
observed when we speak.
We are left in no doubt as to which member of this pair is pre-eminent:
ratio gives way to auctoritas even as auctoritas surrenders to consuetudo.21
Ratio is surprisingly ill-defined in the Ars breuiata; it appears m a tech­
nical sense only in the passage just quoted, and as one of the three con­
stituents of latinitas mentioned at the outset. It is explained there as being
established secundum artem, a fairly unhelpful characterisation.22 But its
role in language, and also in language study, becomes clear in a passage
relating to grammar in another of Augustine's works on the disciplinae, the
De música (II i 1):
When, for instance, you say the word cano or use it in verse in such a
way that you pronounce it with a lengthened first syllable or put it in a
position in the line where it has to be scanned long, that custodian of tradi­
tion, the grammarian, will scold you. He will give no other reason why it
ought to be short than that our predecessors, particularly those whose
books are still in existence and are studied by the grammarians, used it as
a short syllable rather than a long one. Inasmuch as anything has any force
here, auctoritas has. By contrast, the ratio of music, to which the rational
measurement of words and their rhythm pertains, cares only about
whether the syllable which is in such and such a place should be long or
short depending on the ratio of its measures [...] The grammarian, on the
other hand, demands that it should be corrected, and tells you to use a
word whose first syllable is long according to the auctoritas of the ancients,
of whose writings he is (as has been said) the guardian.

The different attitudes characteristic of the two arts are contrasted: as long
as its measures are correctly observed, music is happy to adopt the role of
an observer rather than that of a teacher toward language, lengthening syl­
lables which need to be lengthened in accordance with the metre, governed
entirely by its own ratio. But the grammarian immediately takes offence on
finding what he perceives as a false quantity. Grammar is viewed as a pre­
scriptive art and one which is based on the auctores, on past writers. Augus­
tine rewrites Quintilian's neat formulation (I vi 43):23 "Et sane quid est
aliud uetus sermo quam uetus loquendi consuetudo?" into the wordier
"Quid est ergo integritas locutionis, nisi alienae consuetudinis conseruatio
 AUCTORITAS, CONSUETUDO AND RATIO 199

loquentium ueterum auctoritate firmatae?" {De doctr. chr. II xiii 19). Simi­
larly, Augustine's auctoritas, the consuetudo auctorum, had occasionally to
give way to nostra consuetudo, even if the preferences of the latter were
sometimes to be deplored. Ratio has no place in this scheme.
Augustine's attitude toward auctoritas, while deferential, is pedagogi-
cally balanced; rather than making pronouncements ex cathedra, Augustine
was happy to guide his students to the source of auctoritas, to train them in
the habit of observation. His advice on the study of the usage of conjunc­
tions, a complex subject on which grammarians customarily lavished many
pages, makes this explicit:24
The conjunctions are extremely numerous, and grammarians deliber­
ate assiduously which of five categories they should be assigned to, or
whether other categories should be added. Since this is a long-standing dis­
pute and not easy to resolve, let us say about conjunctions only this, that
when we read men whose authority in speech deserves respect, we should
observe where and in what sense they use their conjunctions, so that by
this regular practice of comprehension we will come to use our conjunc­
tions well.
In spite of the importance he clearly attaches to such first-hand study
of the auctores, Augustine is, as always, prepared to make allowances for
those who are unable to undertake this time-consuming study. In another
context he makes explicit provision for such people:25
To avoid other faults the reading of any good author will come to your
aid. But for quantities and accents another sort of study, and the poets in
particular, are essential. Alternatively, if time renders studies of this
nature impossible, the speech of learned men in conversation should be
observed diligently.
Augustine's sympathy for human weakness, displayed in a similar context
in De ord. (II ν 15), here permits us to substitute the consuetudo doctorum
for auctoritas.
To summarise: in the Ars breuiata Augustine makes repeated refer­
ence to the role of auctoritas, consuetudo and ratio in shaping the Latin lan­
guage. Ratio turns out to be of minor importance: although it may, through
analogy, demand the form systematibus, auctoritas is empowered to over­
rule it to permit the deviant systematis. Auctoritas, when viewed beside
ratio, is supreme; when it enters into battle with consuetudo, however, it
comes off second best. Auctoritas is powerless, even with the most illustri­
ous support, to withstand the consuetudo imperitorum.
200 VIVIEN LAW

Whence comes the pre-eminence of consuetudo and auctoritas in lan­

guage? Perhaps judging this subject to be inappropriate to an elementary
grammar, Augustine gives us no further information in the Ars breuiata; in
the De musica, however, he is more explicit. Asking whether metrum and
uersus are synonymous terms (III ii 3), he allows himself a brief metalin­
guistic digression:
Or is this (sc. the difference between metrum and uersus) a question of
terminology? When asked about names (terms) we cannot answer about
them in the same way that we do about matters pertaining to the subject
itself. This is because matters (res) were implanted into all minds in com­
mon, whereas names were imposed as each one saw fit. Their validity
depends chiefly on auctoritas and consuetudo. Hence, too the diversity of
languages can come about, whereas of things in their true being there is no
diversity.
Language, being arbitrary, and taking its origin from convention, θέσις,
must rely upon custom and authority for its definition;26 unlike, for exam­
ple, the proportions of music or the methods of ascertaining truth which are
the subject-matter of dialectic, the stuff of grammatica cannot be reached
by ratio because it is not from ratio that it takes its origin. Whereas music
and dialectic study res directly, grammatica studies language, thereby dis­
tancing itself a further step from reality (cf. Kelly 1975).
This applies too to instruction in grammatica. Nowhere, even in these
early works, is there any hint of ratio as a viable alternative route to the
mastery of this subject. The absence of ratio from the teaching of the gram-
maticus is taken for granted in the De musica: at the opening of the second
book ( i 1) Augustine gives his pupil the option of skimming over the sub­
ject of prosody, already studied under the grammaticus, or of revising it:
But tell me first whether you have learnt properly what the gramma-
tici teach about the difference between short and long syllables. Or
perhaps, whether or not you know anything about this, you might prefer
that we go into this subject pretending to be completely ignorant, so that
ratio can be the guide to our conclusions, rather than letting hardened con­
suetudo or prejudiced auctoritas force us into them.
Implicit in this proposal is the suggestion that the pupil's studies under
the grammatici were governed by consuetudo and auctoritas, and that ratio
had played no part in them. But in approaching the subject of prosody from
a different point of view, in the context of the subject of music, which, in
contrast to grammatica, is governed by ratio, he now has the opportunity to
arrive through ratio at conclusions for which the only justification previ-
 AUCTORITAS, CONSUETUDO AND RATIO 201

ously available was auctoritas or consuetudo. To some extent, as Augustine

is at pains to suggest, this is due to the nature of the subject: music is intrin­
sically dependent mainly upon ratio and only to a limited degree upon
auctoritas or consuetudo.27
On the other hand, one may also see in this passage a reference to
another aspect of the auctoritas — ratio problem, their contrasting pedagog­
ical roles. The key passage on this subject deserves to be quoted once more
(Deord. IIix26):
Auctoritas precedes in time, but ratio in fact [...] Hence, although the
auctoritas of good men may seem to be more beneficial to the ignorant
masses and ratio more appropriate to the learned, nonetheless, since one
can only become learned by starting off as an ignoramus, [...] it is the case
that only auctoritas can open the door to those who wish to learn good,
great and mysterious things.
As has long been recognised, Augustine, particularly in his earlier period,
acknowledged the possibility of two routes to enlightenment, through
faith / auctoritas and through rational understanding. However, as he points
out in the passage just quoted, the two routes are not simple alternatives:
whereas faith and auctoritas can arrive at the goal unaided, those who
would rely on ratio must willy-nilly start their studies under the guidance of
auctoritas:
[...] authority has a temporal priority since man needs a certain moral pur­
ity as a preparation for his intellectual training. Reason, however, has a
real priority since the goal of Augustine's program is an understanding of
the Christian mysteries. After he has attained moral purity then man can
begin to understand the reason present in the moral precepts which he fol­
lowed previously. (Van Fleteren 1973:51; cf. also Holte 1962:333-34)
Augustine's attitude toward grammar is thus shaped by the interplay of
two factors — the paramount role of consuetudo and auctoritas in governing
language itself, and the importance of auctoritas in the early stages of
instruction. Since grammatica was among the first subjects studied by
Roman schoolchildren, auctoritas could be expected to dominate Roman,
and indeed Augustine's own, approaches to teaching the subject. This
perhaps provides the answer to the perennial criticisms of the Ars breuiata
for its elementary character. Augustine's textbooks on the Liberal Arts
were intended, as he says repeatedly, to lead to a knowledge of higher
things through a grounding in earthly knowledge; he does not promise to
demonstrate in any one work how that particular subject could undergo this
202 VIVIEN LAW

process of sublimation. His views on the sequence of studies make it more

likely that each textbook was pitched at the level appropriate for its posi­
tion in the series. Grammar, coming at the beginning, was studied at the
most elementary stage, when instruction was inevitably dominated by
auctoritas.28 The Ars breuiata is accordingly a relatively conservative work
in which the predominance of auctoritas is felt even when it is not explicitly
invoked; the De dialectica, on the other hand, shows a slight relaxation. It
is more discursive: the student, while still being lectured to by a teacher
who relies upon auctoritas, is shown more of the possibilities of the subject.
Between the De dialectia and the De musica several lost works may have
intervened, through which the student would gradually have advanced to
the substantially higher level of the De musica. For in this work he is invited
to turn to ratio as a route to knowledge; even areas which, like prosody,
had already been mastered with the aid of auctoritas may now be
approached from this new and more rewarding direction. How ratio could
help one to arrive at a deeper understanding of a disciplina, and the role it
plays in that of music, is revealed in the first five books of the De musica.
(Interestingly, the sixth book, in which Augustine expounds the more ele­
vated aspects of the subject, displays no hint of the auctoritas — ratio
theme.)

Conclusion

The views on auctoritas, consuetudo and ratio articulated in Augus­

tine's Ars breuiata bear on two distinct subjects: the Latin language,
latinitas, and instruction in that language, ars grammatica. Augustine's
belief in the arbitrariness of language from its origin θέσει, by convention,
leads to the realisation that words, and language itself, derive their validity
not from ratio but from consuetudo and auctoritas. Hence, ratio is easily
overruled by auctoritas; but, more surprisingly, auctoritas (only the con­
suetudo auctorum, after all) has to give way in turn to consuetudo. This
hierarchy naturally affects the pedagogy appropriate to the subject: in a dis­
cipline in which the role of ratio is minor and auctoritas pene sola
dominatur, it will be auctoritas which guides the student's first steps. Only
when he has attained the moral qualities which fit him for studies guided by
ratio can he graduate to this higher form of enquiry.
 AUCTORITAS, C O N S U E T U D O A N D RATIO 203

NOTES
1. The question of the authenticity of the Principia rhetorices attributed to Augustine is by
no means settled. Although several recent writers have pronounced against it, that great
scholar Karl Barwick accepted it (1961:97n.l). Reuter (1888:323) regarded Crecelius's
(1857) arguments for the authenticity of the De dialectica, now generally accepted, as
applying equally to the Principia rhetorices. For further literature, see the Jackson-Pin-
borg edition of the De dialectica (1975:31η. 17). — The Latin paraphrase of Aristotle's
Categoriae decern that circulated under Augustine's name is agreed to be pseudonymous.
2. "Natura uerborum nominumque inmutabilis est, nec quicquam aut minus aut plus tradidit
nobis quam quod accepit. Nam si quis dicat 'scrimbo' pro eo quod est 'scribo,' non
analogiae uirtute sed naturae ipsius constitutione conuincitur. Analogía sermonis a natura
proditi ordinatio est secundum technicos, neque aliter barbaram linguam ab erudita quam
argentum a plumbo dissociat. Consuetudo non ratione analogiae sed uiribus par est. Ideo
solum recepta, quod multorum consensione conualuit, ita tarnen ut illi artis ratio non
accédat sed indulgeat. Nam ea e medio loquendi usu placita adsumere consueuit.
Auctoritas in regula loquendi nouissima est. Namque ubi omnia defecerint, sic ad illam
quemadmodum ad ancoram decurritur. Non enim quicquam aut rationis aut naturae aut
consuetudinis habet, cum tantum opinione secundum ueterum lectionem recepta sit, nec
ipsorum tarnen, si interrogentur, cur id secuti sunt, scientium." {GL I 439,17-30)
3. The term consuetudo here represents 'anomaly,' and in the De lingua latina "représente
la manifestation de l'anomalía et devient un principe fondamental qui contredit et neut­
ralise celui de l'analogía" (Collart 1963:124). This passage is discussed, with a somewhat
different emphasis, by Collart (1963:125-26).
4. Vetustas, the auctoritas veterum, may for our purposes be bracketed together with
auctoritas.
5. "Latinitas est obseruatio incorrupte loquendi secundum romanam linguam. Constat
autem modis tribus, id est ratione auctoritate consuetudine: ratione secundum artem,
auctoritate secundum eorum scripta quibus ipsa est auctoritas adtributa, consuetudine
secundum ea quae loquendi usu placita adsumptaque sunt."
6. "Latinitas quid est? Obseruatio incorrupte loquendi secundum romanam linguam. Quot
modis constat latinitas? Tribus. Quibus? Ratione, auctoritate, consuetudine. Ratione
quatenus? Secundum artium traditores. Quid auctoritate? Veterum scilicet lectionum.
Quid consuetudine? Eorum quae e medio loquendi usu placita adsumptaque sunt"
(Audax VII 322,21-323,3 = Victorinus VI 189,2-7, with trifling differences). Question-
and-answer form, used by both Audax and Victorinus but not, here, by Augustine, is an
insignificant variation.
7. The similarity of these definitions to the passage from Varro quoted by Diomedes (see
p. 193 above) suggests that the common source might have been Varro's lost work on
grammar (cf. Collart 1954:204η.).
8. Victorinus mentions none of them again; Audax (VII 361,16) refers once to consuetudo
(but in a non-technical manner).
9. "Sed multa propter asperitatem non faciunt ex illo primo genere femininum neque neut­
rum pluraliter. Ab eo enim quod est pressor nemo dicit prestrix aut prestricia; facit tarnen
tonsor tonstrix. Tanta est uis auctoritatis et consuetudinis in loquendo." (IV 16)
204 VIVIEN LAW

10. In addition to those discussed here, see also IV 34.

11. "Quae ratio mihi non admodum placet. Nam participia uidentur conparationem recipere,
si loquendi consuetudo permittat uel hortetur auctoritas, sed tantum praeteriti temporis.
Nam duo futura non admittunt. Quis enim non audet dicere armatissimus, quod Tullius
ait? Nec tarnen armaturior aut armandior, ab eo quod est armaturus et armandus, dici
potest. Quod fatendum est si cum tempore accipiantur participia, difficile uidentur posse
conparationem recipere. Nam et illud quod cultus dictum est facit cultior et eultissimus,
sed si ad tempus praeteritum referas non facit. Cultus enim ager ex ipso habitu suo est.
Cultus est autem si ad tempus adtendas, praeterea utique actione cultoris" (VI 2).
12. The feature of time reference is also invoked by Probus Inst. art. (GL IV 142,23-143,19)
and Servius, Comm. in Don. (GL IV 420,29-32).
13. Compare also Cicero's discussion of 'cultivation' and 'culture': Tusc. dis. II ν 13.
14. The concept of 'adjective,' might, one would have thought, have helped Augustine in his
formulation of the discussion. Although the adjective was not recognised as a separate
part of speech, the nomina epitheta, such as magnus, bonus, were among the many species
of the noun, and Augustine himself comments on the fact that whereas filia muía anima
have an irregular dative and ablative plural in -bus (e.g.,filiabus) instead of the expected
form filiis, to avoid confusion with the masculine form filiis, nomina adiunctiva (as he
calls them: II 18) like iustus and verus do not have such forms because one must always
specify who it is who is 'just' or 'true,' or understand it from the context; in either case the
referent will be known, and of known gender. Although Augustine was thus clearly famil­
iar with the concept, it was perhaps too poorly defined to be usable in other contexts.
15. "Sed haec dechnatio plus artis quam pudoris gerit, nam nimis uetus est et a nostra con-
suetudine repudiata. Ita et in genere feminino cuia declinatur ut tabula, cuium ut lignum.
Sed etiam ista, quamuis in eis auctoribus repperiantur qui sunt in manibus et in ore
omnium, tarnen consuetudo contempsit. Per unum enim pronomen, id est cuius uel
quorum, omnia infinita possessiua significantur: dicimus enim cuius uel quorum seruus
siue ancilla siue templum. Sed quod fatendum est cum molestia discernendae ambiguitatis
in genitiuo singulari quando cuius dicimus et in plurali quando quorum. Cuius enim et
quorum quando possessiua sunt per casus non flectuntur" (III 18).
16. The opening of the third Eclogue — "Dic mihi Damoeta: cuium pecus?/An Meliboei?" —
was parodied by Numitorius ("Dic mihi Damoeta: 'cuium pecus' anne latinum?/Non.
Verum Aegonis nostri, sic rure loquuntur") in his lost Antibucolica, of which this snatch
is quoted in Donatus's life of Vergil. Servius, in his commentary ad loc, explains that
cuium is used here to avoid the homoeoteleuton which would have resulted from the stan­
dard form cuius pecus, and adds: "antiqui dicebant sicut meus mea meum sic cuius cuia
cuium." Cledonius, in his commentary on Donatus, says of this phrase 'nam cuium pecus
auctoritas praesumpsit' (GL V 53,4). — I would like to thank Dr. J. McKeown for his
help with this problem.
17. The ambiguity to which Augustine refers would occur in a phrase like pagina cuius libri,
which may mean either "a page of whose book" or "a page of which book." If declined
forms of cuius had remained in use, the first of these meanings could be rendered pagina
cui libri, thereby eliminating the difficulty.
18. "Sed huius auctorem in cuius libris inueniatur non habemus tanti ponderis ut inperitorum
consuetudini per eum resistere ualeamus; nam duorum superiorum ipse Tullius auctor
est" (III 25).
 AUCTORITAS, CONSUETUDO A N D RATIO 205

19. Cf. Priscian, Inst. gramm. (GL II 201,3-6): "frequens usus eorum datiuos et ablatiuos
plurales in is terminat: his et ab his schematis, emblematis, peripetasmatis, toreumatis,
quibus frequenter casibus in Verrinis utitur Cicero." Note Priscian's reference to Cicero­
nian usage, no doubt the cause of Augustine's remark.
20. "Licet tarnen dicere datiuo et ablatiuo plurali non solum his et ab his systematibus, quod
postulat regula, sed etiam systematis, quod magis auctoritate quam ratione permittitur.
Auctoritas autem in latina lingua plurimum et pene sola dominatur, quamobrem in
omnibus, et quae supra diximus et quae deinceps dicenda sunt, multo plus auctoritatis
quam huius ueluti rationis (per quam grammatica nomen accepit) meminisse debemus.
Ipsa enim certior in grammatica ratione est. Per quod intellegitur non rationi cum
loquimur quam auctoritati esse seruiendum" (II 19).
21. The paramount position attributed to auctoritas here, at the end of the noun section,
seems to contradict its inferior position in relation to consuetudo later in the work, in the
passage on the pronoun cited above. But it may reflect a deliberately-controlled progres­
sion: first the student is shown that ratio has no place in this subject, and that auctoritas
is all-powerful; later, he is shown that even auctoritas does not hold sway unchallenged.
22. This is an abbreviated version of, e.g., Audax's secundum artium traditores (cf. note 6
above). That Augustine's source had a similar definition is highly likely: the modification
probably stems from Augustine himself. To say that ratio is laid down by the writers of
grammars is merely to add another kind of auctoritas. Ars, on the other hand, is almost
as polyvalent a concept as ratio itself.
23. The striking parallelism of these two rhetorical questions raises once more the issue of
Augustine's acquaintance with Quintilian. The cautious-tending-to-negative verdict
returned by the scholars who have worked on the problem most recently (Keseling
1954:204; Hagendahl 1967:676; O'Donnell 1980:163) might be altered by the evidence of
the Ars breuiata. (It is curious that this echo in the De doctrina Christiana has not been
noticed.)
24. "Sed multae omnino coniunctiones sunt, de quibus diligenter grammatici délibérant, quo
istorum quinque nominum eas uocent uel utrum aliae differentiae sint adiciendae. Quam
litem quia et longum et difficile est soluere, illud de coniunctionibus breue praeceptum sit
ut cum legimus uiros locutionis auctoritate dignissimos, aduertamus quoque quo loco et
in qua sententia poni soleant, ut consuetudine intellegendi bene coniunctionibus uti pos-
simus" (VII 2).
25. "Sed ad cetera uitanda potest quaecunque lectio boni auctoris subuenire. Propter tem­
pora autem et accentus alia eruditio et poetae maxime necessarii sunt. Aut si ab his tem­
pus excludit, animaduertendus diligenter in conloquio sermo doctorum est" (XI 3).
26. This is not the place to discuss the φύσις - θέσις controversy, about which much has been
written, nor Augustine's views on the nature and origin of language. The parallelism of
auctoritas — ratio with signum (here nomen) — res is brought out well in this passage,
which has been overlooked by writers on Augustine's concept of the sign: see Bouchard
(1980) and Ruef (1981) for further references.
27. Other passages from the De musica which deserve study in connection with the problem
of auctoritas and ratio are II viii 15; V i 1; V ν 9-10.
28. Marrou (1958:239) mentions an aspect of grammar into which ratio enters: "dans la
mesure où elle s'épanouit en étude théorique des lois du langage et de l'expression de la
206 VIVIEN LAW

pensée, elle devient une véritable disciplina, une science rationnelle." It is this aspect on
which Augustine concentrates in De ord. II xii 35-xiii 38, in which ratio is shown creating
and organising human knowledge into what becomes a brief catalogue of the Liberal
Arts. The origin oí grammatica from ratio (which explains Augustine's unusual etymology
of grammatica: p. 198 above) does not, however, imply that ratio should play a leading
role within the subject, a fact amply demonstrated in the Ars breuiata and the De música.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Augustinus, (Sanctus) Aurelius. 1861. Ars grammatica breuiata. Ed. by

Carolus Fridericus Weber. Marburg: N.G. Elwert.
. 1975. De dialectica. Translated with introduction and notes by B.
Darrell Jackson, from the text newly edited by Jan Pinborg. Dordrecht:
D. Reidel.
. 1962. De doctrina Christiana. Ed. by Joseph Martin. Aurelii Augus­
tini Opera, Pars IV: 1 (= Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 32), 1-167.
Turnhout: Brepols.
. 1947. De música libri sex. Oeuvres de Saint Augustin. 1st series:
Opuscules VII: Dialogues philosophiques TV. Texte de l'édition bénédic­
tine. Introduction, traduction et notes de Guy Finaert et F.-J. Thonnard.
Paris: Desclée, De Brouwer.
< . 1970. De ordine. Ed. by W.M. Green. Aurelii Augustini Opera,
Pars II.2 (= Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 29), 87-137. Turnhout:
Brepols.
. 1984. Retractationum libri II. Ed. by Almut Mutzenbecher. (=
Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 57.) Turnhout: Brepols.
Barwick, Karl. 1961. "Augustins Schrift De rhetorica und Hermagoras von
Temnos." Philologus 105.97-110.
Bouchard, Guy. 1980. "La conception augustinienne du signe selon Tzve-
tan Todorov." Recherches Augustiniennes 15.305-346.
Charisius, Flavius Sosipater. 1964. Artis grammaticae libri V. Ed. by Karl
Barwick. Leipzig: Teubner.
Collait, Jean. 1954. Varron grammairien latin. (= Publications de la faculté
des lettres de Vuniversité de Strasbourg, 121) Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
. 1963. "Analogie et anomalie." Varron (= Entretiens sur l'antiquité
classique, 9) 117-40. Paris.
Crecelius, W. 1857. S. Aurelii Augustini De dialectica liber. Jahresbericht
über das Gymnasium zu Elberfeld. Elberfeld: S. Lucas.
 AUCTORITAS, CONSUETUDO AND RATIO 207

GL = Grammatici Latini. Ed. by Heinrich Keil. 8 vols. Leipzig: Teubner,

1855-80. (Repr., Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961 and 1981.)
Hagendahl, Harald. 1967. Augustine and the Latin Classics. 2 vols. (=
Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 20.) Göteborg: Acta Univer-
sitatis Gothoburgensis.
Holte, Ragnar. 1962. Béatitude et sagesse: Saint Augustin et le problème de
la fin de l'homme dans la philosophie ancienne. Paris: Études Augus-
tiniennes.
Kelly, Louis G. 1975. "Saint Augustine and Saussurean Linguistics."
Augustinian Studies 6.45-64.
Keseling, Paul. 1954. "Augustin und Quintilian." Augustinus Magister
1.201-204. Paris: Études Augustiniennes.
Law, Vivien A. 1984. "St Augustine's De grammatica: lost or found?".
Recherches Augustiniennes 19.155-83.
Lorenz, Rudolf 1955/56. "Die Wissenschaftslehre Augustins." Zeitschrift
für Kirchengeschichte, 4th series, 5 (67).29-60 and 213-51.
Lütcke, Karl-Heinrich. 1968. "Auçtoritas" bei Augustin, mit einer Ein­
leitung zur römischen Vorgeschichte des Begriffs. (= Tübinger Beiträge
zur Altertumswissenschaft, 44.) Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
Marrou, Henri-Irénée. 1958. Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique.
Paris: Ε. de Boccard.
O'Connell, Robert J. 1978. Art and the Christian Intelligence in St. Augus­
tine. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
O'Donnell, James J. 1980. "Augustine's classical readings." Recherches
Augustiniennes 15.144-75.
Quintilian, M. Fabius. 1970. Institutionis oratoriae libri duodecim. Ed. by
M. Winterbottom. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Reuter, August. 1888. "Zu dem augustinischen Fragment de arte
rhetorical Kirchengeschichtliche Studien Hermann Reuter zum 70.
Geburtstag gewidmet, ed. by Theodor Brieger et al., mit einer Beigabe
von August Reuter, 321-51. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs.
Ruef, Hans. 1981. Augustin über Semiotik und Sprache: Sprachtheoretische
Analysen zu Augustins Schrift De dialectica, mit einer deutschen Über­
setzung. Bern: Wyss Erben.
Van Fleteren, Frederick E. 1973. "Authority and reason, faith and under­
standing in the thought of St. Augustine." Augustinian Studies 4.33-71.
 De la logique à la grammaire:
Remarques sur la théorie de la determinatio chez
Roger Bacon et Lambert d'Auxerre (Lambert de Lagny)

Alain de Libera
EPHE, Paris

C'est, sans doute, dans la théorisation de la fallada compositionis et di-

visionis d'Aristote que les discussions et les divergences, par ailleurs multi­
ples, entre 'grammairiens' et 'logiciens' médiévaux en général ou, pour
parler plus exactement, entre logiciens 'modistes' et logiciens 'terministes'
apparaissent avec le plus de clarté. On sait quel rôle jouent dans leurs
conceptions respectives les notions de 'construction' et de 'prolation,' un
Duns Scot opposant précisément sur ce point les 'modes de signifier gram­
maticaux,' principes de la construction des mots dans les phrases, aux 'mo­
des de signifier logiques,' entendons les 'modes de prolation' continus ou
discontinus, principes de la distinction des sens propositionnels composé ou
divisé (Maierù 1972:531-33). On connaît moins, en revanche, l'ensemble
commun, plus ou moins articulé, de lieux, de thèmes et de doctrines, qui,
selon les auteurs, sous-tend, déploie ou instrumente les grands choix 'disci­
plinaires.' C'est ainsi, notamment, que la signification et la portée mêmes
des théories grammaticales pour les logiciens terministes restent encore au­
jourd'hui largement à explorer. L'objet du présent article, écrit à la mémoi­
re de J. Pinborg, est d'étudier le fonctionnement du concept 'grammairien'
et/ou 'modiste' de détermination {determinatio) chez quelques-uns des au­
teurs terministes qui, à ma connaissance, l'ont systématiquement employé à
partir des années 1250.
Faisant fond sur la distinction d"Alexandre' entre trois types de 'poly­
sémie': l'actuelle, la potentielle, l'imaginaire (Ebbesen 1976:143-44;
1980:54-55; 1984:9-11), la plupart des logiciens du XIIIe siècle s'accordent
210 ALAIN DE LIBERA

(a) pour catégoriser la fallada compositionis et divisionis en termes de 'po­

lysémie potentielle au niveau phrastique' (multiplicitas potentialis in oratio-
ne) et (b) pour décomposer cette polysémie en distinguant dans la fallada
elle-même une 'cause de l'apparence' ou 'principe du motif,' l'identité 'ma­
terielle' ou 'substantielle' des 'voix' constituant les différentes réalisations
d'une phrase, et une 'cause de la non-existence' ou 'principe du défaut,' la
pluralité 'formelle' ou 'actuelle' des sens propositionnels véhiculés par ces
réalisations. C'est autour de la conception de la 'pluralité formelle' et de ses
rapports avec l''identité matérielle' que se cristallise la discussion entre mo­
distes et terministes. Si le Xlle siècle avait isolé, et parfois combiné, deux
analyses différentes de l'origine de la distinction entre sens composé et sens
divisé: la structure syntaxique de la phrase, in vodbus (ou in terminis) d'une
part, son interprétation sémantique, in intellectibus, d'autre part, le XlIIe
siècle concentre encore plus explicitement ses regards sur la nature et la
hiérarchie des rapports entre modes de signifier grammaticaux et modes de
signifier logiques, 'construction' et 'prolation.'
La perspective terministe moyenne peut être résumée dans les affirma­
tions suivantes:
(1) La 'polysémie potentielle' des propositions susceptibles de compo­
sition ou de division dépendant d'une 'identité des voix selon la matière' et
d'une possibilité de pluralisation du sens du point de vue formel, toute pro­
position de sens c/d doit être envisagée au triple niveau, premièrement de
sa substance ou matière, deuxièmement de son acte ou perfection, troisiè­
mement de sa signification. Cette triplicité est assumée chez Guillaume de
Sherwood grâce à la distinction de Yidentitas secundum substantiam, de la
diversitas secundum actum et de la diversitas secundum rem (Lohr 1983:278,
119-279, 127); elle l'est également chex Pierre d'Espagne grâce à celle, équi­
valente, de Yidentitas materialis, de la diversitas perfectionis et de la diversi­
tas significatorum (de Rijk 1972:115, 19-116, 10). L'identité matérielle,
d'emblée définie au simple niveau des 'lettres' et des 'syllabes,' est en elle-
même et principiellement indifférente aux diverses 'perfections,' c'est-à-
dire aux différents 'actes' ou 'actualisations' qu'y distingue la prononcia­
tion (modus prolationis, modus proferendi). Ce premier modèle de com­
préhension peut donc être considéré comme la généralisation au niveau des
phrases d'un scheme initialement forgé pour les mots eux-mêmes qui, com­
me p-e-n-d-e-r-e, sont potentiellement polysémiques, dans la mesure où leur
matière peut servir à deux formes linguistiques distinctes {pendére = 'pen­
dre' au sens d'être suspendu; péndere = 'pendre' au sens de laisser pendre),
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 211

le critère de continuité ou de discontinuité dans le 'phraser' remplaçant au

plan des phrases celui de l'accentuation élémentaire au plan des mots.
(2) Toutefois, le niveau 'littéral' ne constitue pas à lui seul le niveau
'matériel': à l'identité des lettres et des syllabes s'ajoute l'ordre d'occurren­
ce des mots dans la phrase, leur 'ordination' (ordinatio).
(3) Cette 'ordination matérielle' peut être envisagée à un niveau pure­
ment logique comme l'ordre' dans lequel une proposition mentale trouve
sa réalisation acoustique 'dans l'esprit de l'auditeur.' C'est là le thème bien
connu de l'ordo prolationis, auquel s'attachent les différentes théories de
l'inclusion' (inclusio) qui s'efforcent de régler les problèmes d'ambiguïté
de champ par le simple relevé de la distribution des termes selon les rap­
ports d'antériorité et de postériorité, théories qui le plus souvent, et tout
particulièrement dans le cas de la fallacia compositionis et divisionis, sont
contredites, ou, au moins, travaillées de l'intérieur par le thème complé­
mentaire et concurrent du modus prolationis.
(4)L'ordinatio peut cependant être également considérée dans ses rap­
ports avec la construction même des termes qu'elle déploie. C'est là que se
situent à la fois le point de rencontre et le terrain de l'affrontement entre
logique et grammaire, terminisme et modieme. C'est là aussi qu'intervien­
nent le terme, le concept ou le problème de la determinatio.
Plusieurs théories terministes de la composition et de la division font
appel à des notions de grammaire directement empruntées à Priscien.
C'est, pour prendre un seul exemple, le cas de Sherwood, quand il explique
que la proposition "Deus desinit nunc esse" est composée lorsque 'nunc' y
est composé à 'esse' et non à 'desinit,' en s'appuyant sur un passage des Ins-
titutiones grammaticae où il est dit que "les adverbes doivent précéder les
verbes," ce qui, pour lui, signifie que "l'adverbe nunc veut déterminer esse
plutôt que desinif (Lohr 280, 171-174: ex Prisc, Inst. gramm.XV 39; Keil
111:89). La corrélation entre 'précéder' et 'déterminer,' caractéristique de
l'interprétation sherwoodienne de l'information sémantique contenue dans
la forme de surface des phrase, ne doit pas faire oublier l'occurrence même
du mot 'déterminer.' On sait que 'déterminer' (determinare) est, avec 'dé­
pendre' (dependere), un des "termes techniques fondamentaux de la syn­
taxe modiste" (Pinborg 1973:496). Que signifie sa présence sous la plume
de Sherwood? De prime abord, rien ou peu de choses; car, dira-t-on, ce
n'est pas l'expression elle-même qui importe, mais le réseau conceptuel où
elle s'inscrit, notamment le système formé par les notions de 'dépendance'
(dependens et terminans), de 'détermination' (determinabile et determina-
212 ALAIN DE LIBERA

tió) et de 'construction' (primum constructibile et secundum constructibile),

toutes notions qui semblent absentes des textes sherwoodiens. Cela est sans
doute vrai pour la 'dépendance' et la 'construction' en tant que telles. C'est,
en revanche, faux pour la 'détermination.' Le lecteur des Introductiones in
logicam ne peut, en effet, négliger les quelques lignes qui ponctuent le cha­
pitre consacré à la fallada c/d. Les voici:
Patet [...], quod non semper apparet in compositione et divisione esse una
determinado et duo determinabilia, sed solum aliquod, quod possit com-
poni et dividí ab alio, sive cum alio componatur sive non (Lohr 280:182-85).
Ce passage, extrêmement condensé, livre selon nous trois informations
essentielles:
(a) Sherwood connaît une analyse de la fallacia c/d reposant sur une dis­
tinction entre 'détermination' et 'determinable';
(b) il inscrit cette analyse dans le cadre général d'une typologie bipartite des
modes de la composition et de la division, faisant apparaître qu'il y a deux
sortes d"erreur selon la composition,' i.e., quand un terme est (faussement)
composé à un autre terme (1) sans être composé ou (2) en étant composé à
un troisième terme appartenant à la même phrase, et qu'il y a deux sortes
d"erreur selon la division,' i.e., quand un terme est (faussement) divisé
d'un autre terme (1) sans être composé ou (2) en étant composé à un
troisième terme appartenant à la même phrase; (c) c'est cette typologie
qu'il utilise dans les Syncategoremata, quand, par exemple, il écrit à propos
de omnis propositio vel eius contradictoria est vera:
Dicendum ergo, quod ly 'vel eius contradictoria' potest componi cum ly
'proposition et significabitur, quod hoc totum distribuitur; et est secundus
sensus. Vel potest dividí ab eo, et tunc aut componitur cum praedicato aut
dividitur ab eo (O'Donnell 1941:87, 30-33).
Quelle est la portée de ces informations?
Disons, pour faire bref, qu'elles nous permettent: (1) de préciser cer­
taines relations de dépendance existant entre plusieurs terministes impor­
tants de Paris et d'Oxford: (2) de mieux évaluer, par là-même, l'introduc­
tion du thème grammatical de la determinatio dans la problématique termi-
niste en général.
1. La division sherwoodienne des modes de la fallada cid se retrouve dans
les Summulae dialectices de Roger Bacon, ce qui n'est pas étonnant, étant
donnée la parenté, souvent signalée, des deux logiciens (Braakhuis
1977:111-42; de Libera 1982:174-87). On doit, toutefois, noter que cette di­
vision y est complétée par un troisième mode pour chacune des deux for-
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 213

mes princeps de la composition et de la division. Ce troisième mode

consiste dans l'introduction d'un troisième terme n'appartenant pas au ni­
veau de la phrase elle-même, mais simplement 'sous-entendu (subintellecto)
en elle':
Unde dicunt, quod tertius modus est, quando determinatio componitur
cum uno, et cum dividitur, componitur cum alio subintellecto (Steele
1940:336, 3-5; Libera 1988:246, η. 489);
[...] dicitur esse tertius modus divisionis, qui, cum dividitur determinado
ab aliquo actu posito in oratione, componitur <cum aliquo> intellecto
(Steele 1940:337, 24-26; Libera 1988:248, n. 507).
Bacon n'accepte pas cette division tripartite et la rejette à peine l'-t-il ex­
posée (Steele 1940:336, 5-15; 337, 26-28). On peut donc raisonnablement
en conclure qu'il emprunte à Sherwood (ou à son 'modèle') la division bi­
partite des modes et qu'il 'récite' les éléments d'une division tripartite em­
pruntée à d'autres sources. Quelles peuvent être ces sources? Parmi les
grands auteurs ayant enseigné avant 1250 (date supposée des Summulae), le
seul maître à avoir proposé le type de division mentionné par Bacon est pa­
risien, c'est Albert le Grand:
Si autem quaeritur, penes quid accipianjur modi compositionis et divisio­
nis, satis patet per praedicta, quia divisum ab aliquo in oratione aut non
componitur cum aliquo in eadem pósito, et sic est primus modus, aut com­
ponitur cum aliquo, et si componitur, aut componitur cum aliquo in oratio­
ne posito, aut non posito, sed subintellecto, et primo modo est secundus
modus, altero autem modo tertius, tam in compositione, quam in divisio-
ne: (Borgnet 2:548a; ap. Maierù 1972:536, n.134).
La même division figure également dans un autre texte de la tradition 'pari­
sienne,' la Summa de Lambert d'Auxerre (Lambert de Lagny):
Sciendum autem, quod in fallada compositionis semper componitur ali-
quid cum aliquo. Hoc autem potest esse dupliciter. Potest enim ita esse,
quod istud compositum cum alio non dividetur ab aliquo, vel dividetur ab
aliquo et hoc dupliciter: vel dividetur ab aliquo posito in oratione vel divi­
detur ab aliquo subintellecto (Alessio 1971:158; ms. Cambridge (Mass.),
E.T.S. Lib. 210, fol. 29vb).
Sciendum autem, quod in paralogismis divisionis aliquid semper dividitur
ab aliquo. Hoc autem potest esse dupliciter. Potest enim ita esse, quod is­
tud divisum ab illo non componatur cum aliquo, vel componatur cum ali­
quo et hoc dupliciter: quia aut componitur cum aliquo posito actu in ora­
tione vel aliquo intellecto (Alessio 1971:162-63; ms. Cambridge, Mass.,
E.T.S. Lib. 210, fol. 30vb).
214 ALAIN DE LIBERA

La division tripartite des modes semble donc d'origine parisienne. Etant

donnée la date relativement tardive de la Summa Lamberti (vraisemblable­
ment composée en plusieurs étapes entre 1250 et 1265), on peut alors pen­
ser que, sur ce point, Bacon dépend d'Albert le Grand ou d'une source
d'Albert remontant probablement à l'enseignement parisien de Robert
Kilwardby (voir ici même notre annexe n°l). Les indications données par le
Franciscain d'Oxford permettent, en tout cas, de noter que la division
sherwoodienne constitue une première reformulation 'grammaticale' de la
division 'logique' ou plutôt 'dialectique' traditionnelle, attestée notamment
dans les Glossae in Arist. Soph. El. où elle est attribuée à Jacques de Venise.
Summulae dialectices: Secundum antiquos dicitur, quod compositio est ali-
quorum disiungendorum coniunctio, id est eorum, quae postea dividentur,
non eorum, quae nata sunt dividí [...]. Fallada autem divisionis est, quan-
do proceditur a vera divisione ad falsam compositionem. Unde divisio
haec est componendorum disiunctio, quae postea componentur, non quae
nata sunt componi (Steele 1940:341, 30-32; 341, 38-342, 4; Libera
1988:252, n. 545; 253, n. 548);
Glossae in Arist. Soph. El. :
Est autem compositio secundum ipsum (= Magister Iacobus), quando ali-
quid componitur cum aliquo et postea accipitur divisim et seorsum [...]
Vel: compositio est, quando una vox componitur cum aliqua et postea se­
parator ab ea et coniungitur cum alia (de Rijk 1962: 209, 24-26 et 32-33).

La Substitution de nata sunt à postea marque l'approfondissement de la ré­

flexion sémantique sur le phénomène de la (fausse) composition/division du
sens propositionnel, la transformation d'une analyse 'dialectique' du méca­
nisme de la fallada en une analyse 'logico-grammaticale' du 'sens naturel'
des phrases, brouillé ou détourné dans la dispute sophistique. Les deux
éléments coexistent chez Bacon lui-même, puisque toutes ses définitions
contiennent la clause 'cum' (= indication de temps notée par 'postea'),
e.g.: Primus, quando aliquid compositur cum uno, et cum dividitur, non
componitur cum alio (Steele 1940:335, 8-9), mais c'est le second, i.e., la
théorie du 'sens naturel,' qui, évidemment, retient davantage son attention.
2. La distinction sherwoodienne entre determinatio et determinabile n'est
pas d'origine 'modiste' ni même, peut-être, grammaticale. Dans l'état ac­
tuel des connaissances, la source du maître semble être et logique et oxo-
nienne, puisque c'est soit à Kilwardby soit aux Fallaciae ad modum Oxo-
niae qu'il l'emprunte, à ces Fallaciae où, en effet, on peut lire dans la rédac­
tion brève:
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 215

Secundus modus <compositionis> est, quando aliqua determinado ponitur

inter duo determinabilia, quae potest (p.: possunt ed.) indifferenter deter­
minare unum vel reliquum;
Tertius modus <divisionis> est, quando aliqua determinatio ponitur inter
duo determinabilia, quae indifferenter potest determinare unum vel reli­
quum (Kopp 1982:266 et 267).
Cependant, dans l'élaboration qu'elle reçoit au XIIIe siècle, la notion se
leste de tout le poids des spéculations des grammairiens et logiciens pari­
siens; et c'est à nouveau Roger Bacon et Lambert d'Auxerre qui consti­
tuent nos principaux témoins.
Considérant le cas où une phrase contient une détermination et deux
déterminables, Roger Bacon montre que la situation est différente selon
que la détermination est placée avant, après ou entre les déterminables.
L'ensemble de son analyse est mené dans un contexte ouvertement gram­
matical, présupposant la définition 'grammairienne' de la compostion et de
la division naturelles du sens propositionnel que nous avons plus haut oppo­
sée à la perspective dialectique du postea, définition également attestée
chez Lambert et assez communément rencontrée au XIIIe siècle sous l'une
des formes suivantes:
Oratio dicitur composita (a) quando dictiones ordinantur in ea secundum
situm magis in eis debitum (de Rijk 1967:569; 1972:118, 25-27; Alessio
1971:156), (b) quando componuntur componenda (Alessio,p. 156), (c)
quando simul ponuntur ea, quae magis apta nata sunt simul poni (ibid.; cf.
Lohr 1983:278, 115-16), (d) quando componuntur ea, quae nata sunt com-
poni (cf. Steele 1940:342, 30-32; Libera 1988:252, η. 545);
Oratio dicitur divisa (a) quando ab illo situ removentur et ponuntur in situ
minus debito eis (de Rijk 1967:569; 1972:118, 27-28; Alessio 1971:156); (b)
quando dividuntur componenda (Alessio,p. 156); () quando separantur
ea, quae simul deberent poni (ibid.); (d) quando dividuntur ea, quae nata
sunt componi (cf. Steele 1940:342, 2-4; Libera 1988:253, η. 548).
Sur cette base commune, l'idée d"aptitude naturelle' à la c/d du sens, Ba­
con développe une théorie du 'sens naturel' des phrases, dont la conceptua­
­­­­ est, clairement, celle de la grammaire 'modiste.' Cette théorie est arti­
culée en 13 règles (Stelle 1940:337, 28-341, 29). Les 7 premières règles
concernent les cas où une détermination est placée entre deux détermina­
bles:
RI: Si la détermination s'accorde en nature avec l'un des deux détermina­
bles, il est naturel de les composer. Exemple: les adverbes de négation et
216 ALAIN DE LIBERA

d'affirmation (comme falso et vere) s'accordent en nature avec le mode in­

dicatif, puisque, c'est celui de la négation et de l'affirmation. C'est donc de
leur composition avec un verbe à l'indicatif que résultera le sens composé et
'naturel' d'une phrase. Cette règle tirée de Priscien permet d'analyser une
proposition comme: Tu non potes ν ere negare te non esse asinum en distin­
guant: Tu non potes-vere negare te non esse asinum (sens composé) (= Tu
ne peux en bonne vérité nier le fait que tu n'es pas un âne) et: Tu non potes
vere-negare te non esse asinum (sens divisé) (= Tu ne peux arriver à nier
que tu n'es pas un âne).
Si la détermination ne s'accorde pas en nature avec l'un des détermina-
bles, l'analyse doit porter soit sur la nature de la détermination soit sur celle
des déterminables.
R2: Si la détermination est une 'pure adjonction' (pura adiectio) — autre­
ment dit: si c'est un substantif —, il est naturel de la composer au determi­
nable qui la précède, plutôt qu'à celui qui la suit, puisque, en tant que telle,
'une détermination est postérieure à ce qu'elle détermine et en dépend.'
Exemple: le sens naturel de: Vidisti baculo hunepercussum sera: Vidisti-ba-
culo hunc percussum (sens composé) (= Tu as vu avec un bâton que l'on
frappait cet homme), sens notoirement absurde, R2 impliquant du même
coup une réécriture en: Vidistihuncpercussum báculo ou, au moins, une in­
terprétation en sens divisé: Vidisti baculo-hunc-percussum (= Tu as vu
qu'avec un bâton on frappait cet homme) sens non 'naturel,' mais accepta­
ble.
Si le déterminant est de nature adjectivale — autrement dit: si c'est un
adjectif—, on a cinq possibilités:
R3: Si les deux déterminables sont des substantifs et que l'un des deux est
'plus fini' (magis finitum), 'indépendant' (independens) et 'autonome' {per se
stans), il est plus naturel de composer avec lui la détermination, puisqu'une
détermination
dépend d'autre chose et incline à autre chose, exige autre chose qui finisse
sa dépendance (quia determinatio est dependens et inclinons ad aliud, exi-
gens aliud finiens suam dependenciam, Steele 1940:338, 29-34).
Cette règle, fondée sur la notion modiste de 'dépendance' (dependentia; cf.
Pinborg 1972:122-23; 1980:202; Robins 1980:233; Pinborg 1982:259-60),
pose, par exemple, la prééminence du mode infinitif des verbes sur les au­
tres modes, imposant ainsi dans ce cas la lecture de: Deus desinit nunc esse
en sens composé, i.e.: Deus desinit nunc-esse (= Dieu cesse d'être-à-1'ins-
tant-présent) comme plus naturelle que celle de sens divisé: Deus desinit-
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 217

nunc esse (= En ce moment précis Dieu cesse d'être).

R4: Si aucun des deux déterminables n'est plus 'fini' ou 'stable' que l'autre,
il est naturel de composer la détermination au substantif qui suit, non à ce­
lui qui précède. Cette règle est à nouveau tirée de Priscien, pour qui les ad­
jectifs sont 'mieux placés' devant les substantifs que derrière. Elle s'appli­
que également aux adverbes, qui sont les 'adjectifs des verbes,' bien qu'on
puisse les placer aussi bien après qu'avant — à l'exception de 'non' qui doit
toujours être placé avant (sur Priscien et les adverbes, Inst. gramm. XV 39;
Keil III 89; cf. Lohr 1983:280,171-74). Bacon la justifie psychologiquement
en soulignant que les accidents ont pour fonction de faire connaître leurs
sujets ontologiques: connaissance et manifestation résidant plus dans le
principe que dans la fin, dans la surface que dans l'occulte, il est, dit-il, na­
turel de placer 'en premier' les adjectifs, puisque ce sont les 'accidents des
substantifs.' On montre ainsi que le sens naturel de: Quicquid vivit semper
est est le sens composé: Quicquid vivit semper-est (=Tout ce qui vit est tou­
jours doté d'existence) et non le sens divisé: Quicquid vivit-semper est (=
Tout ce qui est doté d'une vie perpétuelle existe).
R5: Si l'un des déterminables est un adjectif, l'autre un substantif, il est na­
turel de composer la détermination au substantif, puisque le substantif est
"plus naturellement fait pour terminer la dépendance d'un adjectif," qu'un
autre adjectif (magis natum est substantivum terminare dependentiam adiec-
tiviy quam adiectivum; Steele 1940:339, 21-22). Cette règle fondée une
nouvelle fois sur la notion modiste de dépendance permet de dégager le
sens naturel de: Video hominem bonum musicum comme étant le sens com­
posé: Video hominem-bonum musicum (= Je vois un homme bon, c'est un
musicien), ce qui, on l'aura noté, ne correspond guère au 'sentiment lin­
guistique' d'un Français, pour qui le sens divisé: Video hominem bonum-
musicum (= Je vois un homme, c'est un bon musicien) parait plus 'naturel,'
du moins dans sa propre langue.
Restent deux règles pour lesquelles Bacon ne donne pas d'exemples:
R6: Si les deux déterminables sont des adjectifs et que l'un des deux est
substantivé, il est naturel de composer avec lui la détermination.
R7: Si les deux déterminables sont de purs adjectifs, il est naturel de com­
poser la détermination avec le dernier, puisque, postérieur à l'autre adjec­
tif, il a nécessairement plus que lui la 'nature d'un substantif.'
Trois règles concernent les cas où la détermination est placée avant les
déterminables:
R8: Si la détermination s'accorde mieux en nature avec l'un des deux déter-
218 ALAIN DE LIBERA

minables, il est naturel de les composer — à moins qu'une raison plus forte
ne s'y oppose, e.g.: dans Non ad ullum hominem currere sequitur 
hominem currere, le sens naturel est la composition de non à sequitur, puis­
que c'est un verbe à l'indicatif (cf. RI), le sens non naturel est la composi­
tion de non à currere ; mais on peut bien objecter que currere étant à l'infini­
tif, donc 'plus stable' (fixum) et plus 'indépendant' (independens) que l'indi­
catif, et 'plus immédiatement ordonné que lui à la negation,' c'est la com­
position de non à currere qui livre le sens naturel. Cela, dit Bacon, "je le
laisse à la dispute" (cuius certificado disputationi relinquatur — Steele
1940:340, 4-5; Libera 1988:250, η. 531).
R9: Si la détermination est naturellement indifférente aux déterminables, il
faut définir lequel des deux déterminables a 'la plus grande raison de déter-
minabilité.' La raison de déterminabilité étant d'être 'autonome' (stans),
'stable' (fixum) et 'indépendant' (independens), de façon à 'terminer' (deter­
minare) la 'dépendance' (dependentiam) et 'l'inclination' (inclinationem) de
la détermination, il y a sens naturel si la détermination détermine le deter­
minable possédant cette raison au plus haut degré (cf. R3), c'est, par exem­
ple, le cas des déterminables substantifs (plutôt que des adjectifs) ou de
ceux qui sont à l'infinitif.
RIO: Si les déterminables ont le même degré de déterminabilité, i.e., "si
aucun des deux n'est naturellement plus apte que l'autre à terminer (determi­
naré) l'inclination d'une détermination," il faut s'en remettre aux rapports
de proximité et de distance (considerandum est ad distantiam et propinquita-
tem; Steele 1940:340, 17-18; Libera 1988:251, η. 535). Il y a sens naturel
si la détermination est composée au déterminable le plus proche, puisque
sa dépendance devant être terminée, elle est plus vite terminée par le d­­
terminable qui est le plus près, et que c'est là ce que désire son inclination
("quia, cum dependentia ipsius debeat determinari, quasi citius determina­
te per illud, quod est propinquius, quoniam ad hoc appétit eius inclina­
tion Steele 1940:340, 20-23; Libera 1988:251, n.536).
Ces trois règles sont complétées par trois autres (R11-R13: Steele
1940:340, 30-341, 21; Libera 1988:251-252, n.538-543), de contenu identi­
que, qui concernent les cas où la détermination est placée après les deux
déterminables.
L'utilisation de Priscien — et plus encore de la conceptualité modiste
— caractérise en Bacon un stade de la réflexion sur la fallacia c/d où le pro­
blème de la constructio commence à filtrer sous les procédures 'logiques'
classiques du modus prolationis. On retrouve la même tendance chez Lam­
bert d'Auxerre.
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 219

Dans une analyse précise et argumentée de la notion de détermination

dans les Summulae dialectices, G. Sinkler (1985:146-47) soutient que la
théorie de Bacon constitue une réévaluation critique des thèses de Lam­
bert:
Roger's discussion seems to result from his attempt to improve on Lam­
bert's account of the nature of the compounded/divided ambiguity by
working out that account in more detail. (Sinkler 1985:146-147).
Tenant l'oeuvre de Lambert pour postérieure à celle de Roger (cf. de Libe­
ra 1982b:227-35), nous sommes quant à nous enclin à penser que les deux
théories appartiennent à un même univers de doctrines, marqué par la réé­
valuation progressive de l'analyse logique à la lumière de la théorie modiste
de la construction, chacun des deux auteurs réagissant ainsi — à sa manière
— à une pratique qui, selon nous, aurait commencé de s'imposer à Paris
dans les années 1250. De fait, si l'on peut effectivement citer plusieurs pas­
sages où Bacon donne l'impression de vouloir se séparer de Lambert (i.e.,
en proposant une analyse plus détaillée de la nature de l'ambiguïté de com­
position et de division en termes de détermination, en rejetant la thèse d'un
troisième mode de la composition/division — tel que formulé par Lambert
—, en donnant d'emblée un rôle central à la notion de détermination dans
la conceptualisation même des modes de la fallada), on peut également
avancer deux points — à nos yeux décisifs — où, à l'inverse, Lambert sem­
ble vouloir se séparer de Bacon:
A. en élargissant la discussion aux cas où la proposition contient non plus
une détermination et deux déterminables, mais deux déterminations et un
determinable ("Aliquando ponitur una determinatio et duo determinabilia,
aliquando unum determinabile et duae determinationes," cf. Alessio
1971:165);
B. en rejetant toute possibilité de fallada et dans le cas où la détermina­
tion est placée avant ou après les deux déterminables, et dans celui où le
determinable est placé avant ou après les deux déterminations (voir le texte
de Lambert en annexe).
Pareille situation implique donc selon nous que les deux auteurs ont
travaillé indépendamment l'un de l'autre, autrement dit: que Bacon n'a pas
plus critiqué Lambert, que Lambert n'a critiqué Bacon. La dimension criti­
que — incontestable — des deux œuvres s'explique alors par une commune
réaction, diversement motivée, à certaines tendances du milieu culturel et
scientifique auquel elles ont toutes deux, à un moment, appartenu: celui de
l'université de Paris où, rappelons-le, s'entrecroisaient terminisme, d'une
220 ALAIN DE LIBERA

part, prémodisme puis modisme de l'autre, tradition d'Oxford et tradition

parisienne, sans parler, évidemment, de l'enseignement de maîtres comme
Albert le Grand et (à travers lui?) de sa source probable Robert Kilwardby
qui, dans les années 1250-1260, devaient encore accompagner de façon plus
ou moins contraignante la lecture des Réfutations sophistiques (ne fût-ce
que pour cette division tripartite, acceptée par Lambert, rejetée par Ba­
con).
Quel que soit le parti retenu, la présence même des thèmes de 'dépen­
dance,' de 'terminaison de la dépendance' et de 'nature de la détermina­
tion' chez les deux auteurs, significative de la prégnance du modisme dans
l'univers de doctrines où ils travaillent, nous permet, au moins, de voir
qu'ils adoptent deux perspectives bien distinctes (et en un sens 'paradigma-
tiques') sur les rapports de la logique (i.e., des modes de signifier logiques
liés à la 'prolation') et de la grammaire (i.e., des modes de signifier gram­
maticaux fondant la 'construction').
La théorie de Bacon est relativement 'ouverte' à une analyse essentiel­
lement fondée sur la notion de 'dependentia.' Celle de Lambert semble té­
moigner d'un effort de reprise en main, de 'réponse' aux thèses 'nouvelles'
des modistes. C'est ainsi que, contrairement à Bacon, discutant Sedentem
ambulare possibile est, Lambert traite une objection 'grammaticale' qui,
fondant le sens naturel d'une phrase sur sa seule construction, rejette du
même coup la possibilité même de la fallada:
Sed posset aliquis dicere, cum iste accusativus supponat infinitivo et ita
construatur cum eo, non videtur, quod possit dividí ab eo (ms. Paris, Bib.
Nat. Lat. 16617, fol.l07v; Cambridge (Mass.), E.T.S. Lib.240, fol.30ra;
cf. Alessio 1971:159).
La réponse du maître terministe, qui consiste à distinguer deux sortes de di­
vision: secundum prolationem et secundum constructionem, pose, de ce fait,
une distinction plus explicite que chez Bacon entre le niveau propre à la
grammaire (celui de la construction "où l'on ne peut séparer l'infinitif et
l'accusatif") et celui propre à la logique (où la 'diversité de prolation ou de
pause' peut s'exercer sur n'importe quelle suite de mots), sa leçon finale
étant que, contrairement au grammairien qui s'occupe de la seule congrui-
tas orationis, le logicien, qui s'occupe de sa veritas et de sa falistas, peut
"considérer de plusieurs façons différentes une phrase ayant une seule et
même construction." Cette possibilité de 'considérations multiples' vient
ainsi corriger la thèse initiale de la Summa, thèse d'allure 'grammaticale,'
expliquant qu'il ne faut pas confondre la compositio secundum vocem
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 221

(c'est-à-dire l'ordination des termes 'selon les sites voulus': secundum situm
magis eis debitum) et la compositio secundum rem (c'est-à-dire l'ordination
des termes selon le critère de la vérifiabilité logique: ut reddant locutionem
veram) et affirmant que le sens naturel d'une phrase est obtenu quand 'sont
composés ceux qui doivent être composés' au niveau des voix, et non au ni­
veau des choses. Qu'il y ait un sens naturel lié à la construction, c'est-à-dire
à une composition naturelle selon les voix, n'empêche pas le logicien d'ap­
pliquer à une phrase la technique du modus prolationis et ainsi de rejoindre
la perspective de la vérifiabilité. Autrement dit: le grammairien peut bien
dire par la construction quelle est l'interprétation naturelle d'une phrase,
mais seul le logicien peut, par le modus proferendi, distinguer en elle les re­
lations qui, par exemple, en feront non pas une simple oratio composita
mais une oratio secundum compositionem. Il faut, en effet distinguer la
'phrase composée,' i.e., la phrase naturellement interprétée selon le sens
composé, en composant 'ce qu'il est naturel d'y composer,' et la 'phrase se­
lon la composition', i.e., la phrase en tant qu'elle est ou non vraie au sens
composé: "lila oratio dicitur esse secundum compositionem, quae falsa est
in sensu composito" (Alessio 1971:155).
Réduit à la perspective de la 'construction' le couple determinatio/de-
terminabile ne peut donc, selon Lambert, rendre compte de la fallacia c/d.
Son domaine de législation est celui de la compositio et de la divisio, i.e.,
celui de l'interprétation 'naturelle' d'une phrase en oratio composita ou en
oratio divisa, non celui de la fallacia compositionis et divisionis, i.e., celui
de l'interprétation d'une phrase secundum compositionem, ou secundum di-
visionem, interprétation non naturelle, mais technique, liée aux modalités
de la réalisation acoustique de la phrase en un énoncé logique, susceptible
de vérité et de fausseté.
On voit donc que l'opposition scotiste entre constructio et prolatio, loin
de constituer la formulation isolée d'une confrontation tardive entre mo-
disme et terminisme est, en fait, au coeur des discussions des logiciens ter-
ministes parisiens de la seconde moitié du XÏIIe siècle, et cela dès les an­
nées 1250. La doctrine de Lambert constitue, de ce point de vue, l'une des
premières tentatives terministes de délimitation des pouvoirs respectifs de
la logique et de la grammaire en matière de sémantique des propositions.
Cette délimitation, acceptée par Duns Scot, a dû s'imposer aux logiciens
modistes eux-mêmes.
De fait, c'est une thèse commune à tous les modistes qu'une détermi­
nation ne peut déterminer que ce avec quoi elle est construite (autrement
222 ALAIN DE LIBERA

dit: ne peut déterminer un déterminable en étant construit avec un autre),

mais c'est également pour eux une thèse assez commune, attestée entre au­
tres chez Simon de Faversham, que de soutenir qu'une phrase peut avoir un
sens naturel lié à l'ordre des constructibles (Ebbesen 1984:92, 115-19) et
une pluralité de sens liés aux différents modi proferendi (distinction entre
oratio composita et oratio secundum compositionem — Ebbesen 1984:90,
22-27) ou différents sens pour une seule prolation, si elle a plusieurs con­
structions possibles (cas de l'amphibolie — Ebbesen 1984:88, 66-89, 110).
Nous conclurons donc ainsi:
1. La distinction entre 'construction' et 'sens logique,' explicitement affir­
mée par des auteurs comme Simon de Faversham (cf. Ebbesen 1984:139,
83-101), loin d'être d'origine modiste, constitue la contrepartie 'grammai­
rienne' d'une thèse initialement formulée par les logiciens terministes qui,
comme Bacon puis Lambert d'Auxerre, se sont efforcés de faire place à la
conceptualisation modiste de la determinatio dans leur réflexion sur le sens
naturel des phrases;
2. Après une phase 'logique' représentée par les Fallaciae ad modum
Oxoniae et une première amorce de grammaticalisation avec les Introduc­
tions in logicam de Guillaume de Sherwood, la théorie de la 'determinatio'
semble avoir connu deux phases 'logico-grammaticales' d'approfondisse­
ment distinctes: une première, celle de Roger Bacon, centrée sur les rap­
ports d'une détermination à deux déterminables, une seconde, celle de
Lambert d'Auxerre, étendue aux rapports d'un déterminable avec deux
déterminations.
3. La théorie de Lambert semble avoir servi de base aux élaborations ul­
térieures, qu'il s'agisse de délimiter la nature et la portée des rapports entre
'construction' et 'prolation' au sein de la sémantique des propositions (et ce
tant chez les terministes que chez les modistes) ou de fournir le cadre géné­
ral de l'analyse des diverses possibilités de combinaison entre détermina­
tion^) et déterminables(s). De ce point de vue, la présence des thèmes de­
terminatio! determinabilial determinabilel determinationes dans les Summulae
(VII 3) de Buridan nous parait indiquer (cf. Maierù 1972:539η.141):
3.1. que la théorie lambertienne de la 'determinatio' (ou sa source) consti­
tue, à son niveau, un indice de l'enracinement de Buridan dans une tradi­
tion 'parisienne' et 'antique' de la logique que le 'nominalisme' d'Occam
n'a pas entièrement éclipsée dans le Paris du XIVe siècle;
3.2. que la Summa Lamberti a pu connaître une diffusion supérieure à
celle que sa tradition manuscrite laisse généralement supposer.
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 223

ANNEXES

I. Robert Kilwardby (?)

Commentaire aux Sophistici elenchi d'Aristote

Ms. Cambridge, Peterhouse 205, fol. 285vb

(Transcription de Sten Ebbesen)

Adhuc dubitatur de modis compositionis et divisionis, quare sc. sunt

tres et non plures.
Et dicendum quod tantum tres sunt, hac ratione: aliquid potest compo-
ni cum alio dupliciter: aut enim ita quod illud compositum dividatur ab ali-
quo, aut non. Si compositum cum aliquo a nullo dividatur, sic est primus
modus compositionis. Si compositum cum alio dividatur ab altero, hoc erit
aut ab altero posito in oratione, et sic est secundus modus, aut ab alio in
oratione subintellecto, et sic est tertius modus.
Consimiliter est de divisione, quia divisum ab aliquo aut componitur
cum aliquo aut cum nullo. Si cum nullo, sic est primus modus divisionis; si
cum aliquo, aut cum aliquo posito in oratione, et sic est secundus modus;
aut cum aliquo subintellecto et sic est tertius modus.

II. Lambert d'Auxerre (de Lagny), De fallaciis

Ms.Cambridge, E.T.S.Lib.240, fol.31rb; Paris, Bib.Nat.Lat. 16617, fol.l09r-v

(cf. Alessio 1971:165)

Ad evidentiam praedictorum nota quod posset colligi ex praedictis in

paralogismis compositionis et divisionis.
1. Aliquando ponitur una determinatio et duo determinabilia,
2. aliquando unum determinabile et duae determinationes.
1. Quando vero duo determinabilia:

* Je remercie ici mon ami S. Ebbesen qui m'a obligeamment communiqué le texte du commen­
taire de Kilwardby sur les Réfutations sophistiques et ainsi permis de préciser l'hypothèse de l'in­
fluence du maître anglais sur Albert le Grand, Roger Bacon et Lambert d'Auxerre.
224 ALAIN DE LIBERA

1.1.1. Aut unum est principalius altero, et tunc ex compositione deter-

minationis cum principali determinabili dicitur oratio composita et a divi-
sione eius ab illo dicitur divisa; nam cum determinado sit dependens, potest
eius dependentia magis terminari per principalius, quam per minus princi­
pale, sicut patuit in illo exemplo: 'Quidquid vivit semper est.'
1.1.2. Aut ambo illa determinabilia sunt aeque principalia, et tunc ex
compositione determinationis cum illo determinabili, quod sequitur deter­
minado, dicitur oratio composita et a divisione eius ab illo dicitur divisa;
cum enim determinado naturaliter sit posterior suo determinabili et specifi-
cet suum determinabile — specificans autem dicitur sequi illud, quod speci-
ficat, per naturam specificationis, debet determinado sequi determinabile,
sicut patuit in illo exemplo: 'Ego posui te servum entern liberum.'
2. Quando vero ponitur unum determinabile et duae determinationes, tunc
ex compositione illius determinationis, quae magis habet naturam determi­
nationis, cum illo determinabili dicitur oratio composita et a divisione eius
ab illo dicitur divisa; illa autem determinado magis habet naturam determi­
nationis (P), quae sequitur suum determinabile, quam ilia, quae praecedit,
sicut visum est in illo exemplo: 'Quinquaginta virorum centum, etc.'
2.1. Item. Nota cum his, quod ad hoc, quod sit fallada compositionis et
divisionis ex compositione unius determinationis cum duobus determinabi-
libus, requiritur, quod illa determinado, [quae: scrips, sed exp. E] ponatur
media inter ilia duo determinabilia; si enim postponeretur vel praeponere-
tur illis determinabilibus duobus, nulla esset fallada.
2.2. Similiter non est fallada compositionis et divisionis ex compositio­
ne unius determinabilis cum duabus determinationibus, nisi illud determi­
nabile ponatur medium inter illas duas determinationes; si enim praepone-
retur vel postponeretur illis duabus determinationibus, nulla esset fallada,
ut si dicatur: 'Quidquid semper est vivit' vel 'Quidquit vivit est semper,'
 est fallada, sed solum est fallada dicendo: 'Quidquid vivit semper est';
et similiter intelligendum est de aliis.

RÉFÉRENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES

Alessio, Franco, ed. 1971. Lamberto d'Auxerre: Logica (Summa Lam­

berá). Florence: La Nuova Italia.
Braakhuis, Henrik A.G. 1977. "The Views of William of Sherwood on
Some Semantical Problems and Their Relation to Those of Roger
Bacon." Vivarium 15:2.111-42.
 DE LA LOGIQUE À LA GRAMMAIRE 225

Ebbesen, Sten. 1976. "The Summulae, Tractatus VII De fallaciis." The Lo­
gic of John Buridan: Acts of the 3rd European Symposium on Mediaeval
Logic and Semantics, Copenhagen 16-21. November 1975, ed. by Jan
Pinborg, 139-60. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum.
—. 1980. "Is 'Canis Currit' Ungrammatical? Grammar in Elenchi com­
mentaries." HL 7:1-2.53-68.
> 1984. Simon of Faversham. Quaestiones super Libro Elenchorum.
Ed. by Sten Ebbesen, Thomas Izbicki, John Longeway, Francesco del
Punta, Eileen Serene & Eleonore Stump. (= Studies and Texts, 60) To­
ronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies.
Kopp, Clemens. 1982. "Ein kurzer Fehlschlusstraktat: Die Fallaciae breves
(ad modum Oxoniae)." Studien zur mittelalterlichen Geistesgeschichte
und ihren Quellen (= Miscellanea mediaevalia, 15), 262-77. Berlin &
New York: De Gruyter.
de Libera, Alain. 1982a. "The Oxford and Paris Tradition in Logic." The
Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. by Norman
Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny & Jan Pinborg, 174-87. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge Univ. Press.
. 1982b. "Le traité De appellatione de Lambert de Lagny (Lambert
d'Auxerre)." Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age
(tome XLVIII, année 1981), 227-85.
. 1988, "Les Summulae dialectices de Roger Bacon. III." Archives
d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age (tome LIV, année
1987), 171-278.
Lohr, Charles H. 1983. "William of Sherwood, Introductiones in Logicam.
Critical text." By Charles H. Lohr with Peter Kunze & Bernhard Mus­
sier. Traditio 39.219-99.
Maierù, Alfonso. 1972. Terminología logica della tarda scolastica. (= Lessi-
co intelletuale europeo, 8) Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo.
O'Donnell, J. Reginald. 1941. "The Syncategoremata of William of
Sherwood." Medieval Studies 3.46-93.
Pinborg, Jan. 1972. Logik und Semantik im Mittelalter: Ein Ueberblick.
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fromann-Holzboog.
. 1973. "Some Syntactical Concepts in Medieval Grammar." Classica
et Mediaevalia Francisco Blatt septuagenario dedicata, 496-509. Copen­
hague: Gyldendal.
. 1980. "Can Constructions be Construed? A problem in medieval
syntactical theory." HL 7:1-2.201-10.
226 ALAIN DE LIBERA

. 1982. "Speculative grammar." The Cambridge History of Later

Medieval Philosophy ed. by Norman Kretzman, Anthony Kenny & Jan
Pinborg, 254-69. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Priscien. 1855-59. "Institutionum grammaticarum libri XVIII." Ed. by
Martin Hertz (1818-1875). Grammatici latini ed. by Heinrich Keil, vol. 2
and vol. 3. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
de Rijk, Lambertus M. 1962. Logica Modernorwn: A Contribution to the
history of early terminist logic. Vol.1: On twelfth century theories offalla­
cy. Assen: Van Gorcum.
. 1967. Logica Modernorum: A Contribution [...]. Vol.2, Part.2:
Texts and indices. Ibid.
. 1972. Peter of Spain (Petrus Hispanus Portugalensis), Tractatus
called afterwards Summulae logicales. First critical edition from the
manuscripts with an introduction. Ibid.
Robins, Robert H. 1980. "Functional Syntax in Medieval Europe." HL 7:1-
2.231-40.
Sinkler, Georgette. 1985. "Roger Bacon on the Compounded and Divided
Sense." The Rise of British Logic: Acts of the 6th European Symposium
on Mediaeval Logic and Semantics, Balliol College, Oxford, 19-24. June
1983, ed. by P.O. Lewry O.P. (= Papers in Mediaeval Studies, 7), 145-
171. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
Steele, Robert, ed. 1940. Summulae Dialectices. (= Opera hactenus inedita
Rogeri Baconi, 15.) Oxford: Clarendon Press.
 Materials for an Archaeological Analysis of
Richard of Campsall's Logic1

A. Charlene McDermott
City College of New York

In a sententious remark, Jan Pinborg (1972:168-69) notes the gradual

shift in emphasis among logicans of the late 13th to the mid 14th century
from the syllogism as the inferential schematism par excellence to a more
general theory of consequences in which the syllogism figures as only one
form of inference alongside the others.2 Pinborg's observation is, to be
sure, neither the first nor the last of its kind,3 but set forth as it is with his
characteristic lucidity and vigor, it serves very nicely as a point of departure
for what follows. And the heretofore virtually neglected logic of the Oxford
cleric and philosopher Richard of Campsall is especially interesting to
examine in this regard. Only very recently, thanks to the scholarly
endeavors of Edward A. Synan, have editions of the extant writings of this
seminal transitional figure become available.4 We are also in Synan's debt
for his having laid to rest the confusion surrounding the issue of Campsall's
alleged Scotistic metaphysical proclivities. Texts formerly ascribed to
Campsall and markedly Scotistic in their ontological commitments have
been determined by Synan to be spurious, and those writings which remain
as authentically Campsall's can be seen to range from an earlier somewhat
formal and ontologically neutral commentary on the Prior Analytics5 to a
tellingly anti-Scotistic tract6 in which Campsall espouses a position not
unlike that of William of Ockham, a position arrived at by Campsall appar­
ently quite independently of his more famous contemporary.
Even upon a superficial reading, Campsall emerges from these trea­
tises as a thinker of some importance in his own right. Indeed a forthcoming
study of mine has as its focal point a detailed assessment of the proveni-
228 A. CHARLENE McDERMOTT

ence, substance and influence of Campsall's logico-linguistic doctrines. The

present piece, however, is a mere but necessary prolegomenon to the larger
enterprise, a promissory note, if you will, and is intended primarily to 'ease
some mental cramps' of mine, whose first appearance dates to the publica­
tion of the above-mentioned research on the Pseudo-Scotus, which research
culminated in my reinterpretation of Pseudo-Scotus' definition of conse­
quence and of his criterion for determining the validity of consequences (cf.
McDermott 1972:288-94). The analysis I set forth then still seems to me to
be more or less adequate — as far as it goes. However, my sense that the
deeper significance of Pseudo-Scotus' shift in emphasis from syllogistic to a
more general theory of consequences eluded these early hermeneutic
efforts, has, if anything, grown stronger in the years since 1972.
When I subsequently turned to a study of the logic and grammar of
Boethius of Dacia (cf. McDermott 1980), it seemed to me that I (and this in
the company of a fair number of fellow researchers in the field) had in the
end succeeded in reconstellating a cluster of key thirteenth century con­
cepts and infrastructures — for the (doubtless laudable) purpose of render­
ing them less opaque to contemporary logicians and grammarians.
Nonetheless, the process (exemplified in Boethius the Dane) of gradual
assimilation of Aristotelian syllogistic into a more general theory of conse­
quences was, at least to my efforts to understand it, no less refractory. The
several attempts on the part of scholars in the field to explain this phenom­
enon seemed at best truncated, lacking in seminality. Moreover, these
explanations neither yielded nor purported to yield any insights into the
relationship of the logico-grammatical theorizing of the time to the institu­
tions and practices with which it appeared to be symbiotically connected.
Finally, in my recent involvement with the writings of still another
transitional figure, Richard of Campsall, the developmental circumstance
so critical in both the works of Pseudo-Scotus and Boethius of Dacia resur­
faced — albeit in implicit form — viz. I was confronted with Richard's
peculiar articulations, ramifications, and refinements of the basis for infe­
rential theory7 which were shortly to culminate in full-blown treatises on
consequences. My growing conviction that this pervasive tendency might be
more satisfactorily understood if the then emergent theory of consequences
was not regarded primarily as a limping prolepsis of twentieth century
quantificational logic led me to an adaptation and application to the situa­
tion of what is essentially Foucault's 'archaeological' method. I can do little
more in this short piece than sketch what Foucault's archaeology entails
and, while gainsaying any claims for its ecumenicality, add that it appears to
 RICHARD OF CAMPSALL'S LOGIC 229

provide a fresh approach, one which complements the more traditional

investigations and which has already proved extremely fruitful in this par­
ticular application.
To put matters as succinctly as possible, since this is not the place for a
full-blown disquisition on the semiotic writings of Foucault, his key insight is
that the discourse we use to describe and assess institutions and theories8 is
not merely informative but formative of the objects and structures of which
it speaks. The problem Foucault then sets for himself is to describe, in a
given discursive domain, the discursive formation in all its dimensions and
according to its own characteristics. He goes on to sketch directions in
which appropriate research will proceed. Here I cannot improve on
Foucault's own summary of procedural steps (1972:65-66):
1. Determine the possible points of diffraction of discourse. These
points are characterized in the first instance as points of incompatibility:
two objects, or two types of enunciation, or two concepts may appear, in
the same discursive formation, without being able to enter — under pain of
manifest contradiction or inconsequence — the same series of statements.
They are then characterized as points of equivalence: the two incompatible
elements are formed in the same way and on the basis of the same rules;
the conditions of their appearance are identical; they are situated at the
same level; and instead of constituting a mere defect of coherence, they
form an alternative... Lastly, they are characterized as link points of sys-
tematization: on the basis of each of these equivalent, yet incompatible ele­
ments, a coherent series of objects, forms of statement, and concepts has
been derived.

The obvious 'points of diffraction' in the subject under investigation

are the various forms of argumentation — viz., syllogism, example,
enthymeme and induction (cf. translated paragraph 1.58, pp. 233-34.) One
then proceeds to a description of what Foucault (1972:66) terms a 'unity of
distribution,' which description "opens a field of possible options, and
enable various mutually exclusive architectures to appear side by side or in
turn."
2. But all the possible alternatives are not in fact realized: there are a
good many partial groups, regional compatibilities, and coherent architec­
tures that might have emerged, yet did not do so. In order to account for
the choices that were made out of all those that could have been made
(and those alone), one must describe the specific authorities that guided
one's choice. Well to the fore is the role played by discourse being studied
in relation to those that are contemporary with it or related to it. One must
study therefore the economy of the discursive constellation to which it
belongs.
230 A. CHARLENE McDERMOTT

The translated material at the conclusion of these remarks is just such

a sifting through, on Campsall's part, of various possibilities, and a detailed
analysis will reveal him as taking up these and other formations and inter­
preting them in a new domain. Finally, and perhaps most importantly,
Foucault (p.68) observes:
3. The determination of the theoretical choices actually made is also
dependent upon another authority. This authority is characterized first by
the function that the discourse under study must carry out in a field of non-
discursive practices.
An implementation of this aspect of the analysis requires, among many
other things, a preliminary and profound understanding of the resonance
and dissonance between the eclipse of a long dominant Aristotelianism and
the progressive 'logicization' of the science of discourse.
Propter brevitatem, I'll close this introduction with the hope that it
points to an interpretative grid which is at once a basis for understanding
and evaluating Richard of Campsall's 'discursive strategies' and a general
palliative for that 'philosophical disease' whose main cause — as Ludwig
Wittgenstein so aptly put it in his Philosophical Investigations 593, p. 155e is,
a 'one-sided diet.'

RELEVANT TRANSLATED EXCERPTS FROM RICHARD CAMPSALL'S

TWENTY QUESTIONS ON ARISTOTLE'S PRIOR ANALYTICS

FIRST QUESTION

Whether syllogism is the subject of this [viz., the whole science of logic].

I.
1.14 The subject [of logic] is a schematism (institutum) applicable to the other sciences
for proving any conclusion whatever; and no such schematism [or rule] exists as a sig­
nificative and complex vocal expression (vox), ... Because an incomplete vocal expres­
sion is not a rule via which something is proved from another.

IX.
1.33 Syllogism is one species of argumentation. Therefore by whatever reasoning [the
conclusion is reached that] there might be a science of the syllogism, by parity of reason­
ing there might also be a science about another of that species, such as induction and
enthymeme.

1.35 According to Aristotle9 ... science is a capacity (habitus) acquired through

demonstration; and it is the capacity accruing to the conclusion in a demonstration.
 RICHARD OF CAMPSALL'S LOGIC 231

Therefore, that by which something can be concluded can be the subject of a science,
and syllogism is of this kind.

1.36 These [three] are sufficient for constructing a demonstration about something:
(1) the subject, about which something is to be concluded;
(2) the attribute (passio), which is concluded about the subject;
(3) the definition which is the means [or medium] for concluding the one in regard
to the other.
But in what is proposed, there are these three ... Therefore syllogism can be the subject
of this science, and nowhere else is the syllogism in general treated.

1.38-41 Certain are objects of first intention and certain of second. Objects of first
intention are outside the mind, without a relation (of comparison) to the intellect; such
as 'man,' 'animal,' etc. Objects of second intention are said to be objects which in them­
selves encompass [in each case] an object of first intention, with something added,
according to which they are compared to the mind, such as 'species,' 'genus' and the like
... And Boethius posits this distinction in the beginning [PL 64, 159B-160A] of his com­
mentary on [Aristotles'] Categories.10

1.42 And names of second intention are twofold; for certain are names of objects and
certain are names of names. Names of objects are those such as 'genus,' 'species,'
because they signify objects which are of second intention, which objects are not signs of
others. And names of names [are those] such as 'term,' 'proposition,' 'syllogism,'
'noun,' 'verb,' and similar names — because all terms are imposed for the sake of sig­
nifying other significative vocal expressions (voces). E.g., this name 'term' is imposed
for signifying what is common to all incomplex vocal expressions in general.

1.44 It is principally up to the logician to make determinations concerning objects of sec­

ond intention, because he does not consider the proper nature of an object, nor its prin­
ciples. For instance, he does not consider man in respect of his being an animal or
rational, but considers any object whatever in respect of its being a universal or singular,
superior or inferior, etc., all of which are beyond the proper nature of objects. And
because vocal expressions are the proper signs of those objects, derivatively he more fre­
quently makes determinations in regard to vocal expressions.

1.46 It must be noted that supposition is threefold: simple, material and personal. Sim­
ple supposition occurs when a common term supposits for the object signified by itself,
material when it supposits for [the very term] itself and personal when it supposits for
some suppositum of that common nature. An example of the first is this: 'Man is a
species'; an example of the second: 'Man is a common term'; an example of the third:
'Some man runs.' Whence this is true: syllogism is the subject of this [viz., logic], con­
struing subject in its simple acceptance so that the following be understood: the object
signified by 'syllogism' is the subject of this science. And this is not true if the term is
otherwise construed, because neither is the vocal expression itself the subject of logic,
nor [is] some [particular] syllogism, because there is no science of singulars.
232 A. CHARLENE McDERMOTT

Response to I

1.49 [CF., 1.14] To the other I say: one must respond by denying the consequence
because the logician, and [indeed] any other master who makes determinations [or pre­
scriptions] about a common [term], by this very [act also] prescribes with regard to that
term's supposita. And thus the logician, in making determinations about the common
[term] 'syllogism,' also does so for the supposita of this [term], which are complex vocal
expressions. Thus it is not necessary to concede that he might under any circumstances
make determinations in regard to an incomplex vocal expression. Moreover if it be
argued that that common [term] is neither complex nor incomplex, whereupon the logi­
cian, making determinations about this common [term], would be prescribing about nei­
ther of these, I concede that the conclusion is literally true, taking [the phrase] 'to pre­
scribe about something,' in the sense of 'about a proper subject'; nevertheless deriva­
tively he makes determinations regarding the complex, as has been said.

1.50 [CF., 1.14] As it is asserted that the syllogism is a schematism of logic in so far as
its contents are regulative structures via which the logician draws conclusions. Neverthe­
less this can be literally denied, taking the subject [as suppositing] simply. Or it can be
responded otherwise to the argument, conceding that the subject of this is complex, and
with this in mind construing the predicate [as suppositing] personally, because the pred­
icate is not only common to the complex consisting of these propositions or those, but to
the complex of [all] propositions in general. Therefore it is true for any one supposition
of the predicate.

1.51 And it is further to be conceded that the syllogism which is the subject of this [viz.,
logic] is composed of propositions, and here accepting the second part of the predicate
[as suppositing] simply. When it is argued further: anything composed of propositions is
composed of negatives or affirmatives, etc., it must be said that, with the second part of
the subject construed as [suppositing] simply, this is false, and in this mode the other is
true. If [the subject is taken in the mode of] personal [supposition], it is true and the
other false. And in the same manner a response can be made to the other: 'that it is a
schematism,' and 'that it draws a conclusion,' and 'neither to be affirmed nor denied,'
because the first is true, accepting the conclusion simply and not personally.

Response to IV

1.54 In response to the contention that the syllogism qua subject of logic has its exis­
tence in the intellect [cf., 1.25], it must be said that syllogism in this sense does not have
being in the intellect (intellectus) except as in the same manner in which a stone can be
spoken of as being in the mind (anima); and this is 'being in' as the object of knowledge
is in the knower. And when it is spoken of as 'composed of concepts' this is not the case
— unless the term 'syllogism' is being misused; since it is composed of significative vocal
expressions, it is not composed of entities which are in the mind. And the response to
the query 'Of what it is composed?" is that it is [made up] of significative vocal expres­
sions which are called representative vocal expressions (voces ymaginate), as will be evi­
dent below.
 RICHARD OF CAMPSALL'S LOGIC 233

Response to V

1.55 It must be said that it is a science about syllogism in general (in communi) through
a single demonstrative syllogism. And when it is said that if this were so the demonstra­
tive syllogism would be better known, this is conceded because the truth of the premises
in that syllogism is better known than is the truth of the conclusion in which the passio
is concluded about that syllogism. And it is conceded that the passio of the syllogism
inheres as better known, etc. And from this it merely follows that a proposition is better
known in which the passio is predicated about the syllogism in general than that in which
the passio of the syllogism is predicated about that demonstrative syllogism. From this,
nevertheless, it does not follow that that demonstrative syllogism is indeed better
known.

Response to VI

1.56 It must be said that the same general identity is that through which a science is
acquired as a schematism, and that about which a science is sought; therefore that the
same general syllogism is the subject of logic and its schematism. And when it is said
that what is sought is unknown, one must respond that in one manner it is known, in
another unknown. For it is known because it is presupposed by demonstration, and its
quid est is precognized. And it is unknown to a certain extent because the passio is
unknown about it. And in the same manner that schematism is both known and
unknown. Nevertheless the same thing, qua singular item, is not both subject and
schematism.

Response to VII

1.57 It is not inconsistent that the same be subject of the whole and the part. On the
contrary, this is necessary in any science whose subject has parts concerning which a dis­
tinct science is transmitted; [it is necessary] that in some part of that science general
knowledge about that subject is taught [or transmitted], since the parts of a science pre­
suppose knowledge about a common subject. For otherwise they will proceed from what
is unknown. For example, 'movable body' is the general subject of the whole of natural
science; and nevertheless one part of that science makes determinations about this, as it
were as its subject, as the science treated in the book entitled Physics.

1.58 Or it can be said, according to what Albert says at the beginning of his Logicu that
the subject of the whole of the logic is argumentation, which is arguing in the mind, not
syllogism. And this since, according to him, logic is common science teaching principles
by which one attains to the unknown via the the known in any science, it is necessary
that it be about a subject of this kind which is applicable to any science in which knowl­
edge of the unknown is sought. But certain sciences proceed through example and
enthymeme, as for example rhetoric; and certain through experiment and induction.
Therefore not all sciences proceed from universals. Since, therefore, a syllogism pro­
ceeds from a universal or universals, not every science uses the syllogism. Hence, it is
necessary to posit as the subject of logic something more general that the syllogism, and
234 A. CHARLENE McDERMOTT

this is argumentation, according to Albert, which is applicable to every science,

howsoever it proceeds. And this is the opinion of the three philosophers [viz. Avicenna,
Alfarabi and Algazali] whom Albert therein cites. From this it is evident that argumen­
tation is the subject of the whole [of logic] and syllogism of the part.

1.59 Or it can be said that because logic teaches principles by which not only a knowl­
edge of the complex but also of the incomplex is reached, therefore the general subject
is not argumentation but something common to argumentation and discourse. And a
significative vocal expression is an entity of this sort or an entity of reason.

Response to IX

1.61 [Cf, 1.35, 1.36, 1.38, 1.42, 1.44, 1.46]. Because any arbitrary species of argument
other than syllogism derives [its] evidence and necessity from the syllogism and [all
these] have to be reduced to the syllogism, as it were to a perfecting principle [or foun­
dation]; they are quasi-privations with regard to the syllogism and because the same sci­
ence treats of privation and possession whenever cognition of the syllogism is acquired,
sufficient acquaintance is acquired about other species of argument.

2.02 To this it is responded in one way by distinguishing a syllogism and its parts.
Firstly, concerning enunciation, which is threefold: (1) the expressive act; (2) what is
expressed thereby; (3) the expressive act and what expressed thereby. The first consists
of uttered vocal expressions, the second of the objects and the third of concepts. In
accordance with this, the syllogism is threefold: composed of (1) vocal expressions; (2)
objects and (3) concepts. And according as syllogism is diversely construed, it has to be
resolved into diverse parts.

2.15 Therefore it is said otherwise, that the sentence (oratio), the syllogism and entities
of this kind have threefold being: (1) in the mind; (2) in writing; (3) in utterance. And
that this language which is in the mind is properly called 'oratio' and its written and
uttered [forms] are called 'oratio' transumptively.

II

2.21 Furthermore, if a syllogism were composed of concepts, this syllogism would be

valid: 'Every man runs; Marcus is a man; therefore Tullius runs.' For 'Marcus' and 'Tul-
lius' are names of the same [person]. Therefore this syllogism is composed of three con­
cepts, nor is this obviated by the diversity of vocal expressions, because it is not com­
posed of vocal expressions.

Response to I

2.81 To the first principal argument, it must be said that a proposition or syllogism can­
not be resolved into objects nor concepts nor vocal expressions comprised of uttered
 RICHARD OF CAMPSALL'S LOGIC 235

terms. As has been shown, this is because if it were composed of objects or concepts, this
syllogism would be valid: 'Every man runs; Socrates is a rational animal; therefore Soc­
rates runs,' since the same object is signified by 'man' and 'rational animal.'

2.82 And similarly, when two names can signify the same concept or one object, there
would be a valid syllogism wherever one name is put in place of the other, which is con­
trary to Aristotle in book I of the Elenchi, because whoever has syllogized about tunics
has not syllogised about clothing.12

2.83 And therefore, it must be said that they have to be resolved into representative
vocal expressions; this must be understood in the following way. At first an object is
conceived and if something ought to be expressed in regard to another, the person who
is to express [or enunciate] it first imagines a vocal expression similar to that, through
which the object ought to be expressed, in regard to the other. And that vocal expres­
sion does not have being outside the mind as an object subsumable under one of the
categories, because it is not necessary that an object in the imagination have true being.
Rather, it suffices that it have some sort of being which is a mere object, such being as
the infinite and the void have (cuius<modi> esse habent infinitum et vacuum).13 And
from such vocal expressions a proposition and a syllogism are composed, and not from
uttered vocal expressions. This can be made clear in what follows: If someone pro­
nounces a letter, that letter is not a true vocal expression brought forth, but only its sign
is brought forth; so that if someone pronounces a consonant and says 'b' he utters one
vocal expression composed of this vocal expression 'e' and another, and that composite
[entity] is not a letter. Therefore it is the sign of a letter which is in the mind, a represen­
tative vocal expression. And in the same manner an uttered vocal expression is not a
proposition or a syllogism, but only a sign of these.

2.84 Contra the foregoing, it is argued thus: from this position it follows that a syllogism
is composed of pronounced vocal expressions, because that vocal expression which is at
first imagined is afterwards brought forth, therefore this position coincides with the
other.

Following these passages and throughout the remainder of Campsall's

treatise, there are a number of instances of arguments apprised by
Campsall as valid consequences which he expressly declares to be non-syl­
logistic forms of reasoning. Synan lists a few of these in his introduction to
The Works of Richard Campsall, Vol. I (pp. 24-65). All the foregoing mate­
rials are in the process of being described, assessed and elaborated upon,
along Foucaultian lines, in my forthcoming study. Not incidentally the
dynamic web of connections between the discursive domain under investi­
gation (viz. the foundations of logical theory) and one non-discursive
domain of special interest to me — the educational institutions of the 13th
and 14th century — has already come into increasingly sharp focus in the
course of my work in progress.
236 A. CHARLENE McDERMOTT

NOTES
1. I am using the term 'archaeology' in the sense in which it emerges form Michel
Foucault's path-breaking The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock Publica­
tions, 1972, originally published in French as L'archéologie du savoir, Paris: Gallimard,
1969). The remarks below are inter alia an 'explication-in-use' of this concept.
2. In Pinborg's own words: "Zwar hat man immer noch den Syllogismus als die demonstra­
tive Schlußform par excellence betrachtet, während die übrigen Schlußformen entweder
als unvollständige Syllogismen (Enthymemata) oder als gar keine Argumentation (con-
versio, etc.) angesehen wurden. Es bestand jedoch die Neigung [...] andere nicht-syllogis-
tische Schlußformen (consequentiae) anzuerkennen. Diese Neigungen werden im XIV.
Jahrhundert noch stärker, und damit verliert der Syllogismus in gewissem Umfang seine
Sonderstellung, um nur eine Form der consequentia neben anderen zu werden."
3. Examples abound. See, for instance, words to the same effect on p. 286 of the Cambridge
History of Late Medieval Philosophy (ed. by N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny & J. Pinborg,
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982) or page 274, footnote 8 of my own 1972 paper.
4. The Works of Richard Campsall: volume I (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval
Studies, 1968 and volume II (ibid., 1982).
5. Extracts from this commentary (vol.1 of the Campsall Corpus) comprise the basis for the
translation on pp.230-235.
6. Contra ponentes naturam (Synan vol.11, pp.9-17).
7. As instanced in the excerpts on syllogism on argumentation in general which comprise the
translation on pp.230-333. N.B. 'implicit.' Nowhere in Campsall's surviving writings do
we find the rigorous and systematic delineation of valid consequences that form the core
of e.g., Pseudo-Scotus' exposition.
8. Foucault's own focus was on the penal and psychiatric institutions of his day. The
resounding success of some of the reforms he and his colleagues set in motion speaks for
itself.
9. (Post. An. I, 2; 71b17-19) Note: more complete references to Aristotle and to Albert the
Great can be found in Synan's annotations to the appropriate questions.
10. CF. Post. An. I, 7; 75*39-752; Pr. An. I, 1; 24b18-22.
11. Albert magni opera omnia, ed. by A. Borgnet (Paris, 1890), I, p.6.
12. Cf. Sophistic Refutations 6; 168a 28-33.
13. The text here is corrupt.

REFERENCES

Albertus Magnus. Alberti Magni Opera Omnia. Ed. by A. Borgnet. 38 vols.

Paris: Vivès, 1890-99.
 RICHARD OF C A M P S A L L ' S LOGIC 237

CampsalJ, Richard. The Works of Richard Campsall. Ed. by Edward A.

Synan. 2 vols. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1968,
1982.
Kretzmann, Norman; Kenny, Anthony & Jan Pinborg, eds. 1982. The
Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge Univ. Press.
McDermott, A. Charlene. 1972. "Notes on the Assertoric and Modal Prop-
ositional Logic of the Pseudo-Scotus." Journal of the History of
Philosophy 10. 273-306.
. 1980. A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of Boethius of
Dacia's Treatise on the Modes of Signifying. (= SiHoL, 22). Amsterdam:
J. Benjamins.
Pinborg, Jan. 1972. Logik and Semantik im Mittelalter: Ein Ueberblick.
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
 Topos and Figura:
Historical cause and effect?

James J. Murphy
University of California, Davis

This is an essay of proposal rather than one of conclusion. It proposes

to identify a major issue which needs solution. The solution may require
long and arduous historical study, but the issue is so central to language
study that even the most difficult research will surely repay modern scholar­
ship not only with new data but with a better understanding of how our own
methods sometimes tend to defeat our efforts.
For instance stubborn reliance on definition is one of the anomalies to
be seen in the history of language use, regardless of culture or of chronolog­
ical period. Probably the best known linguistic example is the doctrine of
octo partes orationis, popularized by the brief Ars grammatica of Aelius
Donatus (c.350 A.D.), amplified by Priscian two centuries later in his own
Ars grammatica, and then transmitted throughout Europe to be clamped
down eventually on several emerging vernaculars — including English — to
the confusion of struggling students and writers ever since. The efforts of
'Academies' to create linguistic orthodoxy through definition furnish
another, continuing example.
Another type of definition that has proved to be specially pernicious
throughout the history of language study has been that which decides which
type of person should be allowed to study this or that aspect of language.
Plato complained in several dialogues that the sophists were substituting
language for thought, while Cicero in turn complained (De oratore
III.xvi.61) that Socrates created a situation in which one set of teachers
taught men how to think while another group taught them how to speak. By
the end of the first Christian century Quintilian is found complaining in his
240 JAMES J. MURPHY

Institutio oratoria (IIvi.6) that grammar teachers are threatening to take

over the rhetorician's proper role. By the twelfth century John of Salisbury
feels obligated to argue in his Metalogicon for a re-uniting of grammar,
dialect, and rhetoric into a single subject for study; his argument was in
vain, of course, and medieval university masters simply made grammar
propaedeutic to the Aristotelian dialectic that shaped approaches to lan­
guage for centuries to come. The concept of 'Faculty' in the European uni­
versity has long reinforced this definitional tendency, just as the North
American concept of 'Department' has verticalized studies in our own cen­
tury.
There is nothing new about these observations, of course, but there is
one historical phenomenon in our Western culture which seems to have
escaped attention simply because of the way in which we study the history
of language use. That is, what is the relation between Topos (Topic) and
Figura (Figure)?

1. The Historical Background

The early historical data are clear enough. By the death of Aristotle in
322 B.C. he had introduced into his partially completed Rhetoric the con­
cept of Topos as a 'class of enthymemes,' and includes in Rhetoric III.22-23
a sample listing of 28 such sources of arguments. Earlier, as part of his
Organon or set of logical works, he had composed a separate work titled
Topics which he says is devoted to analysing dialectical reasoning —
reasoning which employs not premises known to be true but "probabilities
that are generally accepted" (Toipics LI). His Rhetoric alludes to this ear­
lier work no less than nine times. Since later in the Rhetoric Aristotle intro­
duces his discussion of Lexis or Style with the statement that "It is not
enough to know what we ought to say; we must also say it as we ought"
(RhetoricIIILI),the presumption is usually made that Aristotle makes a
clear separation between the process of finding arguments and the process
of putting them into words. When he does discuss style in the third book of
the Rhetoric, though, Aristotle deals mainly in general terms with the desir­
able characteristics of effective language without constructing any specific
system analogous to that of the topoi. His main recommendation for devis­
ing language that is 'clear but not mean' is the use of Metaphor, and even
here he refers the reader to his Poetics for more detail. Aristotle writes at
the level of broad principle, not of detail.
 TOPOS AND FIGURA 241

But a little more than two centuries later the first comprehensive Latin
rhetorical treatise — the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium (c.86 B.C.)
— does lay out a complete system of figurae based on assumptions which
not only permeated ancient Roman thought about language but which
dominated medieval and Renaissance thought as well and have had influ­
ence even into our own time. The tangled history of the figurae has yet to
be written, but the ancient history of the devices (often termed exor-
nationes) shows that grammarians as well as rhetoricians adopted them into
their studies. Cicero takes them for granted, and Quintilian devotes two of
the twelve books of his Institutio oratoria (A.D. 95) to a careful treatment
of them; by Quintilian's time some of them are called 'tropes' (tropi).
Donatus devotes the third book of his Ars grammatica (Ars maior) to
schemata and tropi; this third book proved so popular in the Middle Ages
that it often circulated as an independent work under the title Barbarismus.
Encyclopedists like Martianus Capella, Isidore of Seville, and Cassiodorus
Senator routinely include discussions of figures under both grammar and
rhetoric. Medieval and Renaissance theorists take them for granted. Mod­
ern writers still wrestle with them (D'Angelo 1984).
In other words, the classificatory system of the figurae which first
appears in the pseudonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium in the first century
before Christ can be described accurately as a major tradition within West­
ern theory and practice of language use. The problem for the language his­
torian is that very little is known about the developments in rhetorical
theory between the death of Aristotle and the appearance of a full-blown
Roman rhetorical system a bit more than two centuries later. It is abun­
dantly clear that both Cicero and the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium
have inherited — not invented — the ideas they describe in such detail. The
author of the ad Herennium, in fact, refers constantly to 'my teacher' while
Cicero (who wrote De inventione at age nineteen) simply states as already
well-known a large number of precepts for which his text is the first extant
evidence. George A. Kennedy has conjectured that both authors may have
had a common teacher, though at different times; the somewhat different
phrasings of the doctrines common to both these two early texts, then, may
be due to each author's reliance on memory of oral teachings by their
instructor (Kennedy 1972:116). This is an important point, because it con­
firms once more the well-established nature of Roman rhetorical theory by
about 100 B.C.
The plain fact is that we do not know how the Roman rhetorical system
242 JAMES J. MURPHY

arrived at the state of completion which is visible by 100 B.C. Some ele­
ments can be traced to particular sources — for instance many scholars cre­
dit Hermagoras of Temnos (second century B.C.) with the Doctrine of
Stasis which plays a major part in both Dé inventione and ad Herennium —
but we do not know what person or what school established the so-called
"Five Canons" dividing rhetorical study into Invention, Arrangement,
Style, Memory, and Delivery.1 Some of the general ideas (e.g. Delivery
having three elements) are seen as early as Aristotle, but others like the
psychological progression of six steps in Arrangement of an oration appear
only in the surviving Roman documents.2
Likewise we do not know how the comparatively generalized observa­
tions on Style found in Aristotle and his disciple Theophrastus later turned
into the minutely detailed set of 64 exornationes found in the ad Heren­
nium. What adds to the mystery is that this set of 64 appears virtually with­
out explanation. All that the author says is that they add Distinction (dig-
nitas):
To confer distinction upon style is to render it ornate, embellishing it by
variety. The divisions under Distinction are Figures of Diction and the Fig­
ures of Thought. It is a figure of diction if the adornment is comprised in
the fine polish of the language itself. A figure of thought derives a certain
distinction from the idea, not from the words, (ad Herennium IV.xii.18)
Then, abruptly, all the extant manuscripts begin the set with definitions and
examples, starting with Epanaphora (repetitio) and ending with Ocular
Demonstration (demonstratio). There is no further discussion of the nature
of the figures, nor is there any discernible order in their presentation aside
from the two major divisions noted above. Nevertheless this set, and its
order of presentation, is petrified in the lengthy tradition which follows.
It is interesting to note that an analogous abruptness occurs in Aristo­
tle, Rhetoric 11.23, where he begins a set of 28 topoi (definitions and exam­
ples) without transition after noting that the topoi can be considered
sources for enthymemes (see Appendix A). Aristotle's set, too, has no dis­
cernible order of presentation; but since elsewhere (his book The Topics)
Aristotle identifies several hundred topoi altogether, it is clear that he
intends the set of 28 in the Rhetoric merely as a sample to indicate potential
uses of the method. It is not all clear from the text of the ad Herennium,
however, whether the author regards his own set of 64 as a taxonomy or as
a sample group; the tradition has tended to regard them as taxonomic, and
their order as canonical,3 but that in itself tells us little about the author's
real intentions.
 TOPOS AND FIGURA 243

Meanwhile, it should be noted, the Romans also adopt the Greek prin­
ciple that the topos (Latin: locus, or place) is a tool for finding ('inventing')
arguments. Both the De inventione and the ad Herennium take it for
granted that there exists a number of reliable 'places' or loci which can be
developed into lines of proof for the assertions of a speaker. They are reli­
able in the sense that they occur naturally in controversy; and since they
occur naturally, they can be analysed, brought into preceptive form, and
then practiced. Thus both authors go to great lengths to spell out the most
useful sub-loci/ for this or that type of argument. For example the Conjec­
tural Issue (Question of Fact) in the ad Herennium (II. 11.3) has six divi­
sions: Probability, Comparison, Sign, Presumptive Proof, Subsequent
Behavior, and Confirmatory Proof; each of these has sub-divisions. Each of
these is what Aristotle would have called a topos, or source for a line of
argument.
In fact Cicero wrote a separate book on the subject. He says in the pre­
face to his Topica (44 B.C.) that he wrote it at the request of a friend who
had asked him to explain the topical theory of Aristotle. He adds that he
wrote the work from memory while on a sea voyage when he had no books
available to him. Whether or not this is true, the Topica of Cicero provides
a revealing insight into the Roman doctrine of topics as understood by a
well-educated, practicing lawyer and politician of the first century before
Christ. For Cicero, the topics are a part of Invention or finding of argu­
ments:
If we wish to track down some argument....we must know the places
or topics (loci) where arguments may be found; accordingly we may define
a topic (locus) as the region of an argument, and an argument as a course
of reasoning which firmly establishes a matter about which there is some
doubt.
Topics are either Intrinsic or Extrinsic. Extrinsic topics depend on tes­
timony, and are brought in form outside the subject matter. Intrinsic
topics, however, are inherent in the nature of the subject which is being
investigated, such as arguments derived from the whole, from its parts,
from its meaning, and from things which are in some way closely related
with the subject which is being investigated. (Topica 1.8)
Rhetoricians throughout Roman antiquity continue to discuss the doc­
trine of loci as a basic part of inventio, making it such an integral part of
rhetoric that by the sixth Christian century Manilius Severinus Boethius
(c.480-524) feels impelled to write a treatise explaining how the use of loci
in rhetoric differs from its uses in logic and other fields. His De differentiis
244 JAMES J. MURPHY

topiciis states that the topics can be used for both probable and necessary
arguments, and can be employed in the four fields of dialectic, oratory,
philosophy, and sophistry. But in all cases the topics are inventional in
nature. What is important about this occurrence is not Boethius's fine dis­
tinctions, but the fact that he feels obliged to make them. The loci by this
time have become such an important part of language use that their precise
placement in the universe of discourse has to be delineated with great care.
This is a further example of the way in which a widely-accepted tradition
sooner or later forces its adherents to define terms which the tradition itself
has accepted earlier without question. What the author of the ad Heren-
nium accepted from his teacher without question in the first century before
Christ is a major intellectual issue for Boethius seven centuries later. Yet
Bede uses the figurae (not the loci) to illuminate scripture.
Historically, then, what we have seen so far is that in some fashion yet
unclear to modern historians, the Romans inherited and taught a compli­
cated and detailed set of figurae as a part of Style, while art the same time
the concept of topos or locus as root of argument in Invention developed
along a parallel but separate path.
Yet these distinct evolutions pose a major historical problem.

2. The Nature of the Problem

The basic problem is that on an intellectual level there is a close corre­

spondence between many of the topoi/loci on the one hand, and many of
the figurae on the other (see Appendix A, B, C). In the absence of clear
historical data about the evolution of the two apparently separate systems,
the modern observer is surely entitled to inquire whether the Greek topoi
may in fact be the sources of the Roman figurae. In other words, did the
classical Greek interest in the extrapolative powers of the topoi lead the
more mechanistic Hellenistic redactors of the period 300-100 B.C. into
applying to specific language usages the expansive capabilities which Aris­
totle and others had once reserved to the 'finding of arguments'? Or, to put
it into Roman terms, did they apply to Style the methods once reserved for
Invention?
It is one thing to say, as Eduard Norden does, that there are elements
in artistic Greek style which can be identified by an observer — "die gor-
gianischen Redefiguren, die mit poetischen Worten ausgestattete Prosa, die
rhythmische Prosa" (Norden 1958:16) — but it is quite another to discover
 TOPOS AND FIGURA 245

how that which is describable but unsaid in Gorgias becomes for the
Romans that which is explicit but unexplained. How does general Greek
practice become specific Roman theory?
The nature of this problem becomes clear once an observer examines
the various sets of ideas abstracted from their textual sources. There are
some obvious, immediate parallels between the sets. 'Antithesis' occurs in
both the Figures of Speech and the Figures of Thought of the ad Heren­
nium, but also appears in Cicero's Topica as 'Contraries' and in Aristotle's
sample topoi of Rhetorica II. 23 as 'Opposites.' Which is prior?
'Synecdoche' is defined in the ad Herennium as relating to a whole/part
concept, but it also appears in Aristotle's Topoi set as "argument from parts
to the whole" and in Cicero's Topica as "genus and species." Again, which
is prior?
Comparison' is a Figure of Thought in the ad Herennium, while it is an
Intrinsic Topic for Cicero's Topica and covers four of the 28 topoi which
Aristotle includes in his Rhetoric. The topos of 'Inflection of Words' which
is second on Aristotle's list also describes half a dozen of the ad Heren-
nium's Figures of Speech. Again, which is prior?
The topoi are prior in time. Did imaginative study of inventional pro­
cesses over the centuries between Aristotle and Cicero spell out some new
linguistic procedures which could be applied not only macroscopically to
large conceptual units like the enthymeme but also microscopically to lin­
guistic units as small as a word or a phrase? Abstractly speaking there is no
reason to doubt this possibility. Currently we seem to lack the historical
data to either prove or disprove this hypothesis. On the other hand it is pos­
sible that the evidence already exists, but that we as modern observers have
been handicapped by our human tendency toward what I have earlier
termed 'a stubborn reliance on definition.' Historians of logic look only to
the topoi, while historians of grammar and rhetoric fasten only on the
figurae. The cosmic intellectual forest may be hidden by the finite discipli­
nary trees.
For example a major historian of logic, Carl Prantl, devotes the bulk of
his section in Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande on "Rhetorisch-logische
Lehre bis zu den Römern" (Prantl 1927:505-27) to the delineation of Latin
translations of Greek philosophical terms. He notes without comment,
though, that the Greek term for 'conclusion' becomes in Cicero the Latin
term ratiocinatio — without noting also that the term ratiocinatio is used for
a Figure of Speech in ad Herennium IV.xv.23. Nor, when he lists the Latin
246 JAMES J. MURPHY

terms disiunctum and coniunctum as translations of dilemmic terms from

Greek dialectic,4 does he note that these two terms occur consecutively as
names of Figures of Speech in ad Herennium IV. xxvii. 37 and 38. Scarcely
any other historians of logic deal with the matter at all.
On the other hand the marvelously detailed study of the figurai tradi­
tion by Heinrich Lausberg in his Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik is
equally subject-narrowed. He devotes 314 pages of his second volume to a
useful (alphabetically arranged) "Terminologisches Register" (Lausberg
1960 II, 639-957), which includes a four-page listing under the term locus;
even here, though, the entries prove to be examples of particular citations
throughout the first volume rather than any discussion of conceptual rela­
tions between loci and figurae. An equally well known study of the figurai
tradition is that of Leonid Arbusow, Colores rhetorici: Eine Auswahl
rhetorischer Figuren und Gemeinplätze als Hilfsmittel für akademische
Übungen an mittelalterlichen Texten (1963). The title itself indicates the
specialized direction of his investigation. While he does include a brief sec­
tion (Arbusow 1963. 91-94) on "Topi (Gemeinplätze)," his effort is to indi­
cate some large parallels between some Topics and some Figures — but
only in the late classical and medieval periods rather than in the period of
the origins of the figures. Even the influential work of Ernst Robert Cur-
tius, Latin Literature and the European Middle Ages — which inspired a
rash of topos-hunting literary studies after its first edition in 1961 — oper­
ates on a high level of abstraction in seeking broad parallels among ideas of
writers from Homer to modern times; it is more suggestive than historical.
What seems to be needed now is a rigorous re-investigation of what we
already think we know — but with this question in mind: did Greek topos
lead to Romanfigurae?It is far too early to advance even a cautious conjec­
ture about the answer to that question, but the evident concordances
between the two "systems," together with the chronological priority of the
topoi (and the absence of contrary evidence), makes this topic for at least
this writer a fascinating area of study which surely needs aggressive explora­
tion. A solution to this historical problem would no doubt help us under­
stand other modern problems of linguistic analogy.
Moreover, this historical problem may be more important than it might
seem at first glance. Implicit in this question of the relation of topos to the
figura is an even more fundamental question which strikes to the epis-
temological roots of our Western linguistic history. The question is so fun­
damental that its phrasing is critical: to put the question in the jargon of
 TOPOS AND FIGURA 247

post-Roman rhetorical terminology, is Invention the same as Style? To put

it in Aristotelian terms, does thought precede language? to put it into post-
Saussurean terms, is languages the same as thought, or perhaps the creator of
thought? To put it in post-Chomsky terms, is language capacity prior to
thought and independent of it?
For whatever reasons, those second-century B.C. personages who
taught the Romans had made a very clear judgement about the issue. By
100 B.C. it was standard doctrine that Invention (of ideas) was one human
operation, and that Style (the application of words to ideas) was a separate
operation; moreover, in this scheme Invention preceded Style in time dur­
ing the process of composition either oral or written. No doubt the utter
practicality of teaching young students to work this way was a reason for the
universal acceptance of the 'theory' — it might better be described as the
practice of a certain way of doing things. The Romans were notoriously
quick to fasten on whatever worked even if they could not explain its work­
ings — witness the arch — but the pervasive influence of Roman educa­
tional practices has lasted in some cases right down into our own century.
The understanding of our own recent history might therefore be one more
reason to pursue the matter.
Since this essay, as was pointed out at the outset, is one of inquiry
rather than solution, the attention of the reader is now directed to the fol­
lowing appendices which list the three major 'sets' which may have a more
direct relationship in the history of language study than we have heretofore
been accustomed to recognize. Insofar as Definition is intended to be an aid
rather than a barrier to scholarship, the reader is enjoined to seek parallel
and concordance rather than disparity among the sets. The need for further
study may then be made clear.
248 JAMES J. MURPHY

APPENDIX A
Aristotle's Set of 28 Sample
Topoi {Rhetoric, II.23)

There are twenty-eight specific lines of argument on which enthymemes, demonstrative

and refutative, can be based.
1. opposites (from war to peace)
2. inflection (from justly to just)
3. correlation (e.g., if it is honorable to sell the tax contract it is honorable to buy it)
4. a fortiori (e.g., if the gods are not omniscient neither are men)
5. time
6. hoisting opponent with his own petard
7. definition
8. ambiguity
9. logical division (e.g., all crime comes from one of three motives and none of them
applies to my case)
10. induction
11. appeal to precedent
12. argument from the parts to the whole
13. argument from consequences
14. argument from consequences of alternative cources of action (e.g., do not be a
public speaker — if you speak honestly men will loathe you, if dishonestly, the
gods will loathe you)
15. the contrast between appearance and reality
16. mathematical parallels
17. argument from identical consequences to identical antecedents
18. circumstances alter cases
19. isolating one possible motive as real
20. incentives and deterrents
21. incredible occurrences
22. inconsistencies in the opponent's case
23. meeting slander with fact (e.g., the woman kissing a lad was not his mistress but his
mother)
24. argument from cause to effect
25. alternative proposal
26. inconsistency with past commitment
27. previous mistakes
28. play on names
 TOPOS AND FIGURA 249

APPENDIX 

Devices for Achieving Dignitas in Style Rhetorica ad Herennium, Book IV

Figures of Speech

1. repetitio (epanaphora) 23. occultatio (paralipsis)

2. conversio (antistrophe) 24. disjunctum (disjunction)
3. conplexio (interlacement) 25. coniunctio (conjunction)
4. traductio (transplacement) 26. adiunctio (adjunction)
5. contentio (antithesis) 27. conduplicatio (reduplication)
6. exclamatio (apostrophe) 28. interpretado (synonomy)
7. interrogado (interrogation) 29. commutatio (reciprocal change)
8. ratiocinatio (reasoning by 30. permissio (surrender)
question and answer) 31. dubitatio (indecision)
9. sententia (maxim) 32. expedido (elimination)
10. contrarium (reasoning by con­ 33. dissolutum (asyndeton)
traries) 34. praecisio (aposiopesis)
11. membrum (colon) 35. conclusio (conclusion)
12. articulus (phrase) (Special Figures of Speech: 'tropes')
13. continuatio (period) 36. nominado (onomatopoeia)
14. conpar (isocolon) 37. pronominado (antonomasia)
15. similiter cadens (homoeptoton) 38. denominado (metonymy)
16. similiter desinens (homoeteleu- 39. circumitio (periphrasis)
ton) 40. transgressio (hyperbaton)
17. adnominatio (paronomasia) 41. superlatio (hyperbole)
18. subiectio (hypophora) 42. intellectio (synecdoche)
19. gradatio (climax) 43. abusio (catechresis)
20. definitio (definition) 44. translatio (metaphor)
21. trasnsitio (transition) 45. permutado (allegory)
22. correctio (correction)

Figures of Thought

1. distributio (distribution) 11. exemplum (exemplification)

2. licentia (frankness of speech) 12. imago (simile)
3. diminutio (understatement) 13. effictio (portrayal)
4. descriptio (vivid description) 14. notatio (character delineation)
5. divisio (division) 15. sermocinatio (dialogue)
6. frequentatio (accumulation) 16. conformado (personification)
7. expolitio (refining) 17. significado (emphasis)
8. commoratio (dwelling on the 18. brevitas (conciseness)
point) 19. demonstrado (ocular demon­
9. contentio (antithesis) stration)
10. similitudo (comparison)
250 JAMES J. MURPHY

APPENDIX 

Rhetorical Invention through Topics

(The Topica of Cicero)

In the century before Christ, Marcus Tullius Cicero composed a book for orators
who wished to gather ideas for their speeches. This book, called Topica, deals with the
loci or "places" in which a speaker can find ideas.
Following are some excerpts which may be of interest to a modern orator:
If we wish to track down some argument, we must know the places (loci) where
arguments may be found; accordingly we may define a topic (locus) as the region of an
argument, and an argument as a course of reasoning which firmly establishes a matter
about which there is some doubt.
Topics are either Intrinsic or Extrinsic. Extrinsic topics depend on testimony, and
are brought in from outside the subject matter.
Intrinsic topics, however, are inherent in the nature of the subject which is being
investigated, such as arguments derived from the whole, from its parts, from its mean­
ing, and from things which are in some way closely connected with the subject which is
being investigated. Thus the Intrinsic topics are as follows:
1. Definition of the whole
2. Enumeration of the parts
3. Etymology or word meaning
4. Circumstances closely connected to the subject:
a. Genus
b. Species
 Similarity
d. Difference
e. Resemblances
f. Contraries
g· Corrolaries or adjuncts
h. Antecedents
i. Consequents
j· Contradictions
k. Cause
1. Effect
m. Degree or comparison.

"The topics are useful in all the parts of speech; some topics are proper to each
part, of course, while aome are of use to all the parts alike."
 TOPOS A N D FIGURA 251

NOTES
1. Note the routine manner in which the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium defines these
five terms (Cicero's own definitions in the roughly contemporary De inventione being
almost identical): "The speaker, then, should possess the faculties of Invention, Arrange­
ment, Style, Memory, and Delivery. Invention is the devising of matter, true or plausible,
that would make the case convincing. Arrangement is the ordering and distribution of the
matter, making clear the place to which each thing is to be assigned. Style is the adapta­
tion of suitable words and sentences to the matter devised. Memory is the firm retention
in the mind of the matter, words, and arrangement. Delivery is the graceful regulation of
voice, countenance, and gesture." (I.ii.3).
2. Again, the assumptive tone seems to indicate that these terms are already well estab­
lished: "Invention is used for the six parts of a discourse: the Introduction, Statement of
Facts, Division, Proof, Refutation, and Conclusion." ad Herennium I.iii.4. No Greek pat­
tern of speech-parts gained universal acceptance, but beginning with Cicero and this
author the six-part pattern becomes a standard for a millenium and a half.
3. Edmond Faral {Les arts poétiques, pp.52-54) has compiled an interesting chart of nine
medieval treatises illustrating how these 64 tropes and figures and their order remain vir­
tually intact in medieval poetic theory. For a general discussion of their medieval history
see James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, especially pp. 184-91.
4. Prantl does make one intriguing statement about the dialectical nature of figures, but
abandons the subject immediately thereafter (1927 II, 423): "Alle Figuren stehen
innerhalb der Parteiendialektik im Dienste der eigenen Partei-Utilitas" Yet he discusses
only four figures briefly: conciliatio, praeparatio, concessio, and permissio.

REFERENCES

Arbusow, Leonid. 1963. Colores rhetorici: Eine Auswahl rhetorischer

akademischer Figuren und Gemeinplätze als Hilfsmittel für Übungen an
mittelalterlichen Texten. Zweite Auflage herausgegeben von Helmut
Peter. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Aristotle. 1954. The Rhetoric. Transl, by W. Rhys Roberts. Poetics. Transl,
by Ingram Bywater. New York: The Modern Library.
. 1928. Topics. Transl, by W.A. Pickard-Cambridge. In The Works of
Aristotle translated into English under the Editorship of W.D. Ross.
Vol.1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Boethius, Manlius Severinus. 1882. De differentiis topiciis libri quator.
Patrología Latina, ed. by J.-P. Migne, vol. 64, cols. 1173-1216.
Bede, The Venerable. 1863. "De schematibus et tropis." Rhetores latini mi­
nores, ed. by Charles Halm, 227-60. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. (Repr.,
Dubuque, Iowa: William  Brown.)
252 JAMES J. MURPHY

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1949. De inventione. De optimo genere oratorum.

Topica. Transl, by Harry M. Hubbell. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Univ. Press.
(Pseudo-Cicero). 1954. Rhetorica ad Herrennium. Ed. and transl, by Harry
Caplan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. 1953. European Literature and the Latin Middle
Ages. Transl, by Willard R. Trask. New York: Pantheon Press.
D'Angelo, Frank J. 1984. "The Evolution of the Analytic topoi: A Specula­
tive Inquiry." Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse ed.
Robert J. Connors, Lisa S. Ede & Andrea A. Lunsford, 50-68. Carbon-
dale, 111.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press.
Ebbesen, Sten. 1981. "Commentators and Commentaries on Aristotle's
Sophistici Elenchi." (= Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aris-
totelem Graecorum VII), I, 106ff. Leiden: Brill.
Faral, Edmond. 1924. Les arts poétiques du Xlle et du XlIIe siècles. (= Bib­
liothèque de l'École des hautes Etudes, fase.238.) Paris: Champion.
(Repr., 1958.)
Green-Pedersen, N.S. 1984. The Tradition of the Topics in the Middle Ages.
Munich: Philosophia Verlag.
Grimaldi, William. 1958. "The Aristotelian Topics." Traditio 14. 1-14.
Holtz, Louis. 1979. "Grammariens et rhéteurs romains en concurrence
pour l'enseignement des figures de rhétorique." La rhétorique à Rome:
Colloque des 10-11 décembre, 1977, 207-20. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Kennedy, George A. 1963. The Art of Persuasion in Greece. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press.
·. 1972. The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World: 300 B.C. - A.D.
300. Ibid.
. 1980. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Traditions
from Ancient to Modern Times. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North
Carolina Press.
. 1983. Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton Univ. Press.
Lanham, Richard A. 1968. A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. Berkeley, Cal.:
Univ. of California Press.
Lausberg, Heinrich. 1960. Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine
Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft. 2 vols. München: Max Huber.
Leff, Michael C. 1978. "The Logician's Rhetoric: Boethius' De differentiis
topicis, Book IV." Medieval Eloquence ed. by James J. Murphy, 3-24.
Berkeley, Cal.: Univ. of California Press.
 TOPOS AND FIGURA 253

Murphy, James J., ed. 1972. A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric. New
York: Random House. (Repr., Davis, Cal.: Hermagoras Press, 1983.)
. 1974. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A history of rhetorical theory
from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance. Berkeley, Cal.: Univ. of
California Press.
Norden, Eduard. 1958. Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert v. Chr.
bis in die Zeit der Renaissance. 2 vols. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner.
Ochs, Donovan J. 1969. "Aristotle's Concept of Formal Topics." Speech
Monographs 36.419-26.
Prantl, Carl. 1927. Geschichte der Logik im Abendland. Vols. I-II. Leipzig:
Gustav Fock.
Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius. 1959-63. Institutio oratoria. Ed. and transl, by
Η.Ε. Butler. 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
Thurot, Charles. 1868. "Notices et extraits de divers manuscrits latins pour
servir à l'histoire des doctrines grammaticales au moyen-âge." Notices et
extraits 22.1-592. Paris: Impr. Nationale. (Repr., Frankfurt a.M.:
Minerva, 1964.)
 Supposition naturelle et signification occamiste*

Claude Panaccio
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

La notion de supposition naturelle, qui, sous une forme ou sous une au­
tre, figure chez presque tous les logiciens du XlIIe siècle, a donné bien du fil à
retordre aux commentateurs modernes. Alors que Mullally (1945:xlvii) y re­
connaissait l'idée d'une fonction référentielle qui reviendrait au terme linguis­
tique pris en dehors de toute proposition, Boehner (1952:33-34) pense plutôt
que la supposition naturelle, comme toutes les autres formes de supposition,
n'advient au terme qu'en contexte propositionnel, mais abstraction faite des
particularités de celui-ci. De Rijk (1967a:571ss; 1971) examine la question en
profondeur et donne raison à Mullally, mais il accuse les auteurs du XlIIe siè­
cle d'avoir eux-mêmes faussé la portée véritable de leur propre théorie de
la supposition par l'introduction d'une telle propriété non-contextuelle.
Plus récemment, de Libera (1981:65) parle à ce propos d'ambiguïtés et de
confusions "par de nombreux interprètes modernes, mais [...] aussi chez
certains médiévaux," et Spade (1982:195-96) paraît revenir à la lecture de
Boehner pour la majorité des cas tout en reconnaissant qu'un petit nombre
d'auteurs aient effectivement adhéré à 'l'obscure doctrine' d'une supposi­
tion du terme hors de la phrase.
Il ne s'agit pas là d'une technicalité de détail. C'est l'interprétation glo­
bale de la sémantique médiévale qui est en cause dans ce point précis. Je
voudrais ici le montrer par une discussion critique de la position claire et
provocante originalement défendue par de Rijk, que je résumerai succinc­
tement dans les quatre thèses suivantes:

* Le présent texte reprend, pour l'essentiel, des idées que j'ai exposées dans ma thèse de doctorat
(1977) et dans une communication au sixième Congrès International de Logique, Méthodologie et
Philosophie des Sciences (Panaccio 1979).
256 CLAUDE PANACCIO

(Tl) la supposition naturelle des logiciens du XIIIe siècle est une pro­
priété non-contextuelle (de Rijk 1971);1
(T2) cette notion a été introduite pour des raisons externes à la théorie
logique proprement dite, elle n'y joue aucun rôle direct et elle en
contredit même l'inspiration fondamentale, T'approche contextuel­
le' (de Rijk 1967a:577-78, 597);
(T3) en tant que propriété non-contextuelle, elle disparaît entièrement
(et à juste titre) de la logique terministe du XIVe siècle à partir
d'Occam et de Burleigh (de Rijk 1973);
(T4) si l'expression 'supposition naturelle' réapparaît chez Buridan et
quelques autres logiciens du XIVe siècle, c'est pour y désigner une
nouvelle propriété qui, elle, est bel et bien contextuelle: la fonction
référentielle d'un terme général dans une proposition scientifique
omnitemporelle, ou atemporelle comme chez Vincent Ferrer (de
Rijk 1973:51ss).
Pour ma part, je souscris sans réserve à Tl, que de Rijk me semble
avoir démontrée de façon convaincante, et je n'y reviendrai que brièvement
pour mieux situer le débat qui va suivre et pour conjurer du même coup
certains soupçons encore exprimés par des interprètes récents (section 1 ci-
dessous). T2, au contraire, me paraît entièrement erronée et T3 passable­
ment trompeuse. J'essaierai de montrer que la supposition naturelle est in­
dispensable à la théorie sémantique du XlIIe siècle (section 2) et qu'elle ne
disparaît pas vraiment chez Occam, mais qu'elle y change simplement de
nom pour s'appeler dorénavant 'signification' (section 3). Je retrouverai de
la sorte l'image générale proposée — à partir surtout d'un examen de la
théorie sémantique des modistes — par Jan Pinborg (1976). Quant à T4,
elle est aujourd'hui communément admise et je n'en traiterai pas ici.

1. La supposition naturelle comme propriété non-contextuelle

Pour les logiciens du XlIIe siècle un son devient signe linguistique lors­
qu'il se trouve associé, par une convention originaire appelée impositio, à
un signifié qu'il évoquera désormais dans un certain langage. Ayant ainsi
acquis une signification, le terme se prête dès lors à des fonctions référen­
tielles diverses qui seront systématisées par les théories de la supposition.
Le nom commun "homme" par exemple, qui signifie un universel, une na­
tura communis, tient souvent lieu des humains singuliers; il est alors pris en
supposition personnelle. Mais il sert parfois à autre chose, notamment à ré-
 SUPPOSITION NATURELLE ET SIGNIFICATION OCCAMISTE 257

férer à son signifié lui-même, comme dans "l'homme est une espèce"; on
dit dans ce dernier cas qu'il est pris en supposition simple. Pour Pierre d'Es­
pagne, la supposition personnelle et la supposition simple sont justement,
pour les noms communs, les deux subdivisions de ce qu'il appelle la suppo­
sition accidentelle, qu'il oppose globalement, dans un passage célèbre et
tout à fait représentatif, à la supposition naturelle:
Suppositionum communium alia naturalis, alia accidentalis. Suppositio na­
turalis est acceptio termini communis pro omnibus a quibus aptus natus est
participan, ut 'homo' per se sumptus de natura sua supponit pro omnibus
hominibus qui fuerunt et qui sunt et qui erunt. Accidentalis autem supposi­
tio est acceptio termini communis pro eis pro quibus exigit adiunctum
(Pierre d'Espagne 1972:81).
Pris en supposition naturelle, le terme tient donc simultanément lieu
de toutes les entités passées, présentes et futures auxquelles il s'applique;
en supposition accidentelle, au contraire, il ne renvoie qu'à celles qui sont
requises par tel ou tel élément du contexte linguistique, le temps du verbe
notamment. La première est illustrée par le terme homo pris en lui-même
("per se sumptus"), et la seconde par le même mot figurant dans une phrase
comme homo est, où il ne tient plus lieu que des humains actuels. Le désac­
cord des commentateurs à propos de ce texte doit obligatoirement porter
sur l'expression per se sumptus: demande-t-elle que le terme en question
soit pris seul, en dehors de toute proposition, ou seulement qu'il soit consi­
déré en lui-même indépendamment des contextes propositionnels dans les­
quels il figure?
Plusieurs textes de l'époque indiquent de façon concluante que seule
l'interprétation non-contextuelle est recevable. Ainsi pour Lambert
d'Auxerre, il y a supposition naturelle lorsque le terme est posé par lui-
même ("per se ponitur"), c'est-à-dire, explique-t-il sans ambiguïté, lorsqu'il
n'est joint à rien d'autre.2 De même, la Dialectica monacensis oppose très
explicitement à propos de la supposition naturelle et de la supposition acci­
dentelle le terminus per se sumptus au terme pris en contexte linguistique
("positus in locutione").3 Le Tractatus de proprietatibus sermonum, intro­
duisant la même distinction sous une terminologie différente (supposition
absolue/supposition respective), illustre la notion de terminus per se sump­
tus par l'exemple du terme homo pris seul.4 Et dans son commentaire du
Tractatus de Pierre d'Espagne, Robertus Anglicus identifie nettement le
terme pris en lui-même ("per se sumptus") à celui qui apparaît en dehors de
tout complexe discursif ("extra orationem positus").5 En l'absence de textes
258 CLAUDE PANACCIO

de la même époque qui appuieraient de façon aussi claire l'interprétation ri­

vale, il n'est d'autre choix en toute bonne méthodologie historique que de
généraliser la lecture non-contextuelle des expressions 'terminus per se
sumptus' ou 'terminus per se positus,' y compris pour les textes comme ce­
lui de Pierre d'Espagne qui, à première vue, se prêteraient aux deux exé­
gèses. Il y a certainement lieu de présumer qu'un auteur qui aurait voulu
exprimer par les mêmes mots la notion très différente et somme toute fort
subtile d'une prise en considération du terme indépendamment du contexte
dans lequel il apparaît, se serait expliqué à ce sujet, et il faut conclure que,
pour les logiciens du XlIIe siècle qui l'invoquent, la supposition naturelle
appartient bel et bien aux noms communs pris seuls en dehors de tout
contexte propositionnel6
Cela ne signifie pas cependant que la supposition naturelle appartienne
exclusivement aux termes pris en eux-mêmes. Certains auteurs signalent au
contraire que les noms communs conservent leur supposition naturelle dans
certains contextes propositionnels spéciaux, des propositions modales par
exemple.7 De Libera, qui met clairement en évidence ce phénomène, voit
là matière à distinguer "entre la définition de la supposition naturelle et son
emploi effectif dans la théorie logique" (de Libera 1981:64). Explicitement
définie comme une propriété non-contextuelle, la notion deviendrait néan­
moins contextuelle lorsqu'elle est effectivement employée par les logiciens.
Il s'agirait là d'une inconsistance des médiévaux eux-mêmes qui serait la
principale responsable des difficultés rencontrées par les commentateurs
modernes. Ce diagnostic me paraît trop sévère pour les médiévaux. Dans la
plupart des définitions de la supposition naturelle, rien n'exclut qu'elle
puisse aussi, dans certaines circonstances, caractériser un terme en situation
propositionnelle. Relisons le passage de Pierre d'Espagne cité ci-dessus; on
verra que le terme pris en lui-même n'y apparaît qu'à titre d'exemple privi­
légié de supposition naturelle; c'est aussi ce que l'on trouve chez Lambert
d'Auxerre (1971:208). Même lorsque, comme dans le Tractatus deproprie-
tatibus sermonum, la supposition naturelle (ou absolue) est directement as­
sociée par définition au terme pris en lui-même, cela n'est pas en général
explicitement présenté comme exclusif. Et puisque justement ces traités
l'attribuent par la suite à certains termes pris en contexte, le bon vieux prin­
cipe méthodologique de charité exige ici qu'on évite d'imputer aux auteurs
un sous-entendu restrictif qui les rendrait inconsistants. Au demeurant, on
verra dès le paragraphe suivant que la supposition naturelle des termes pris
en eux-mêmes joue aussi dans le reste de la théorie logique un rôle effectif
qui, pour être indirect, n'en est pas moins crucial.
 SUPPOSITION NATURELLE ET SIGNIFICATION OCCAMISTE 259

2. La place de la supposition naturelle dans la sémantique du XIIIe siècle

Pour de Rijk (1967a), l'inspiration fondamentale de la logique termi-

niste se manifeste dans ce qu'il appelle 'l'approche contextuelle,' selon la­
quelle les propriétés sémantiques des expressions linguistiques sont déter­
minées par les contextes propositionnels dans lesquels elles apparaissent.
C'est en cela surtout que cette logique médiévale se démarquerait de la
grammaire traditionnelle qui l'avait précédée et se rapprocherait du même
coup de la linguistique d'aujourd'hui (cf. ibid., pp.123-25). Certes, il admet
qu'on y décèle encore quelque relent de l'ancienne mentaUté dans la
conservation de la vieille notion non-contextuelle de signification, mais
l'originalité et l'intérêt théorique de la nouvelle approche s'expriment à ses
yeux dans les théories de la supposition, dont la loi fondamentale serait jus­
tement que "l'interprétation d'un terme est déterminée par son usage dans
une proposition" (de Rijk 1964:48). Cela, on le voit, s'accommode assez
mal de l'idée de supposition naturelle; aussi de Rijk (1967a:573-75;
1971:106-107) en réprouve-t-il sévèrement l'introduction. Il y voit une ma­
lencontreuse erreur de parcours due à des spéculations 'philosophiques' ou
'psychologiques' purement externes par rapport aux tendances de fond de
la sémantique médiévale. D'ailleurs, soutient-il, la notion ne jouait en pra­
tique aucun rôle réel dans le reste de la théorie logique. Sa conclusion est
nette:
The most obvious conclusion from the theoretical point of view would be
that natural supposition, being of the non-contextual type, had to disap­
pear in fourteenth century logic. To my mind it certainly had — as certain­
ly as it never should have appeared (de Rijk 1973:44).
Pour évaluer cette position, il faut s'arrêter d'abord à la notion de si-
gnification. C'était là pour les logiciens du XlIIe siècle la notion sémantique
de base et, tout le monde l'admet, elle est bel et bien non-contextuelle.
Pierre d'Espagne la définit comme "la représentation conventionnelle
d'une chose par un mot"; laquelle chose, ajoute-t-il, ne peut être qu'un sin­
gulier ou un universel.8 Cette dernière clause ne saurait vouloir dire, comme
le croit de Rijk (1967a:573; 1971:73), que la signification d'un nom com­
mun comme "homme" couvre à la fois sa relation à une nature universelle
(l'homme en général) et aux entités singulières qui participent de cette na­
ture (Socrate, Platon, etc.). S'il en allait ainsi, on ne saisirait plus du tout en
effet — et c'est justement ce qui arrive à de Rijk — la distinction entre la
signification du nom commun et sa supposition naturelle.9 Il faut plutôt
260 CLAUDE PANACCIO

comprendre, me semble-t-il, que c'est exclusivement le nom propre qui si­

gnifie la chose singulière, et que le nom commun, lui, ne signifie rien d'au­
tre que la chose universelle correspondante, l'homme en général par exem­
ple. Lambert d'Auxerre est très explicite à ce sujet: "la signification de
'homme' ne s'étend qu'à l'homme en général et non pas aux entités qui sont
subsumées sous l'homme en général: 'homme' en effet signifie l'homme en
général, et non pas Socrate ni Platon."10
La signification du nom commun pris en lui-même est donc, pour ces
auteurs, la relation conventionnelle qui l'unit à une entité universelle qu'il
aura désormais pour mission d'évoquer.11 Cette relation étant posée, il est
évident qu'elle en détermine aussitôt une seconde, à savoir la relation du
même terme — toujours pris en lui-même — à toutes les entités singulières
qui sont subsumées sous son signifié universel. Cette nouvelle relation est
justement la supposition naturelle des auteurs du XIIIe siècle. On voit
qu'elle trouve immédiatement place dans la théorie sémantique, puisqu'elle
n'est rien d'autre, à vrai dire, que le produit relatif (au sens de la logique
moderne des relations) de la relation de signification par la relation de sub-
somption (elle-même comprise comme la relation d'un universel aux entités
singulières qui en participent). Dès qu'on admet la signification comme
propriété prépropositionnelle, on introduit ipso facto l'idée d'une extension
du terme significatif pris en lui-même, bref la supposition naturelle.
Cette extension prépropositionnelle jouera un rôle important dans le
reste de la sémantique terministe. La théorie de la supposition en effet de­
vait, entre autres choses, rendre compte des variations qui affectent l'exten­
sion d'un terme d'un contexte propositionnel à un autre. Pour le cas du
terme pris en supposition personnelle, c'est aux théories de la restrictio et
de Vampliatio qu'il reviendra d'assumer cette fonction. On dira par exemple
qu'un verbe au présent restreint le sujet à tenir lieu d'entités actuelles, tan­
dis qu'un verbe au passé lui permet de tenir lieu d'entités passées et ainsi de
suite. Il est inutile d'entrer ici dans les détails de ces doctrines complexes
qui ont déjà fait l'objet d'excellentes études (cf. Maierù 1972, de Libera
1980). L'essentiel est que les notions mêmes de restrictio ou d'ampliatio
présupposent pour chaque terme la délimitation préalable d'une extension
de départ à partir de laquelle le contexte propositionnel puisse jouer son
rôle. Dans le cadre de la théorie terministe, les propriétés sémantiques du
terme pris en situation propositionnelle ne sauraient être entièrement déter­
minées par le contexte; son action au contraire est toujours comprise
comme s'exerçant sur un ensemble déjà circonscrit par le terme en lui-
même avant toute insertion propositionnelle.
 SUPPOSITION NATURELLE ET SIGNIFICATION OCCAMISTE 261

Le véritable problème que semblent avoir rencontré les logiciens mé­

diévaux à ce sujet ne fut pas de savoir s'il était justifié de faire intervenir
une telle extension prépropositionnelle; ce fut plutôt de décider à quel en­
semble au juste il convenait de confier ce poste. Les traités les plus anciens,
comme les Fallacie parvipontane, optaient pour l'ensemble des référents
existant réellement au moment de l'énonciation et ils disaient, par exemple,
qu'un verbe au passé ou au futur provoquait un élargissement (ampliatio)
de la fonction référentielle du terme en lui permettant de tenir lieu d'entités
passées ou futures (cf. de Rijk 1967a:528-36; Maierù 1972:145-52). De plus
en plus par la suite, comme le note Maierù (1972:172) et malgré l'opposi­
tion d'un Guillaume de Sherwood ou d'un Roger Bacon (Braakhuis 1977),
la tendance fut de prendre comme point de départ de l'action restrictive du
contexte l'ensemble total des référents passés, présents et futurs, ce que les
auteurs ont fini par appeler la 'supposition naturelle.' La progression ici ne
va pas dans le sens d'une approche de plus en plus 'contextuelle,' mais plu­
tôt vers une théorie de plus en plus abstraite, qui tend à dissocier les pro­
priétés sémantiques de base des conditions concrètes et contingentes qui
prévalent au moment de l'énonciation. Le rôle du contexte propositionnel
n'est pas négligé certes, mais il reste toujours subordonné à ce qu'on appelle
aujourd'hui le principe de composition, selon lequel les propriétés séman­
tiques d'une expression complexe, une phrase par exemple, sont en général
dérivées de celles de ses constituants élémentaires via la prise en considéra­
tion de leur agencement syntaxique. Peu importe à cet égard que, dans la
communication concrète, le terme apparaisse toujours dans le contexte
d'une séquence linguistique plus longue; l'idée du terme pris en lui-même
n'en demeure pas moins théoriquement indispensable.

3. La signification dans la sémantique d'Occam

Les logiciens du XlVe siècle, Guillaume d'Occam en tête, stipuleront

très explicitement, quant à eux, que la supposition n'advient jamais au
terme qu'en contexte propositionnel.12 De Rijk ne voit évidemment là rien
que de très normal. C'est, à ses yeux, 'l'inspiration originale' de la théorie
de la supposition qui se trouve ainsi restaurée (1967a:597; 1973:44). A la
suite de Moody (1953:5-6), il interprète l'intervention d'Occam comme une
tentative pour contrer la périlleuse confusion entre logique formelle et mé­
taphysique qui menaçait la théorie terministe du XIIIe siècle (de Rijk
1967a:574-75). Et il est certainement exact qu'aucune des subdivisions de la
262 CLAUDE PANACCIO

supposition chez Occam ne corresponde à la supposition naturelle d'un

Pierre d'Espagne ou d'un Lambert d'Auxerre. Même les notions de suppo­
sition potentielle et de supposition actuelle qu'il utilise parfois — mais très
rarement — doivent plutôt, semble-t-il, être respectivement identifiées à
celles de supposition seulement confuse {confusa tantum) et de supposition
confuse et distributive {confusa et distributiva), qui correspondent à des
propriétés purement contextuelles.13
Mais la supposition naturelle ne disparaît pas pour autant. Elle se re­
trouve chez Occam sous le nom de signification. Souvenons-nous en effet
du texte bien connu dans lequel il examine les différents sens du verbe si­
gnificare (1974:95). Il en distingue quatre, dont seuls les deux premiers
nous intéresseront ici. Selon l'acception la plus stricte, on dit qu'un terme
'F' signifie à un certain moment tous les objets dont on peut affirmer à ce
moment précis "ceci est (actuellement) F." En un sens plus large, on dira
que le même terme signifie tous les objets passés, présents, futurs ou même
seulement possibles auxquels il s'applique.14 Ainsi 'homme' signifie au sens
strict les hommes actuels, et au sens plus large tous les hommes passés,
présents, futurs ou possibles.15 Il n'y a, par ailleurs, pas de doute que la si­
gnification (en l'un ou l'autre sens) appartienne bel et bien au terme en lui-
même hors de tout contexte propositionnel: c'est justement par là que,
dans le vocabulaire d'Occam, elle se distingue de la supposition en géné­
ral.16 On voit donc qu'au deuxième sens, la signification occamiste des
noms communs correspond presque exactement à la supposition naturelle
des logiciens du XIIIe siècle: c'est l'extension prépropositionnelle totale du
terme en lui même.
Or, comme le remarquait Boehner (1958:231), cette deuxième accep­
tion est, en pratique, la plus importante dans la sémantique d'Occam. Elle
permet notamment de définir de façon générale la supposition personnelle
comme celle que possède le terme lorsqu'il tient lieu de son signifié (Guil­
laume d'Occam 1974:195). Si l'on ne parlait ici que du signifié au sens le
plus restreint, on ne pourrait pas dire en effet, comme le signale une objec­
tion mentionnée par Occam, que, dans l'hypothèse où Socrate n'existe
plus, homo dans Sortes fuit homo est pris en supposition personnelle et l'on
ne saurait plus analyser les propositions au passé ou au futur, ni les proposi­
tions modales (ibid., p.214). Occam répond à cela qu'il suffit, dans la défi­
nition de la supposition personnelle, de faire intervenir la signification au
deuxième sens plutôt qu'au sens restreint.17 C'est elle par conséquent qui, à
l'instar de la supposition naturelle du siècle précédent, servira de point
 SUPPOSITION NATURELLE ET SIGNIFICATION OCCAMISTE 263

d'appui au rôle restrictif joué par le temps du verbe relativement à la fonc­

tion référentielle du sujet et du prédicat. La seule différence entre les deux
notions est que la supposition naturelle se limitait à l'extension passée,
présente et future du terme tandis que la signification occamiste inclut éga­
lement l'extension seulement possible. Occam poursuit en cela le mouve­
ment d'abstraction signalé plus haut qui, du Xlle au XIIIe siècle, avait déjà
conduit les sémanticiens à privilégier l'extension omnitemporelle du terme
par rapport à son extension au moment de l'énonciation. Il accomplit un
pas de plus dans cette direction en traitant d'un point de vue logique le do­
maine du pur possible sur le même pied que le passé ou le futur et en pre­
nant en considération ce qu'on appellerait aujourd'hui l'extension dans tous
les mondes possibles.
Occam, donc, ne supprime pas la supposition naturelle. Il l'étend aux
purs possibilia, et surtout il lui donne un autre nom. Ce qu'il élimine, c'est
en réalité ce que les logiciens antérieurs appelaient, eux, la signification,
c'est-à-dire la relation du nom commun à une entité universelle, une natura
communis. La chose s'explique aisément. L'idée même d'une chose univer­
selle est, aux yeux d'Occam, une absurdité. Seules les entités individuelles
existent réellement et sa sémantique se voudra purement extensionnelle. Il
n'aura donc plus besoin, contrairement à ses prédécesseurs réalistes, de
deux propriétés prépropositionnelles, une intension prioritaire et une ex­
tension dérivée, mais d'une seule, l'extension, pour laquelle il réservera do­
rénavant le bon vieux nom de 'signification' qui avait toujours été associé à
la relation sémantique la plus fondamentale. Son originalité ne tient nulle­
ment à un contextualisme plus résolu, mais tout simplement à son nomina­
lisme radical. Loin d'opérer une séparation plus tranchée entre la logique et
la métaphysique, il s'appuie au contraire sur4des considérations nettement
ontologiques (seuls les individus existent) pour réorganiser sur une base no-
minaliste toute la théorie sémantique et sa terminologie.18

4. Conclusion

Il est tout à fait exact que les logiciens médiévaux aient accordé de plus
en plus d'importance au contexte propositionnel dans l'analyse sémantique
en scrutant avec une précision croissante l'effet des syncatégorèmes, des
verbes et, en général, des relations syntaxiques sur les fonctions référentiel­
les des sujets et des prédicats. Mais cet effet a toujours été conçu comme
second par rapport aux propriétés que le terme devait préalablement pos-
264 CLAUDE PANACCIO

séder par lui-même pour pouvoir, justement, donner prise à l'action du

contexte telle qu'on se la représentait. L'institution conventionnelle du lan­
gage pour les médiévaux, c'était d'abord et avant tout Yimpositio, l'attri­
bution d'une signification à un certain son, qui s'en trouvait dès lors trans­
formé en unité linguistique élémentaire, susceptible ensuite defigurerdans
des complexes propositionnels. Dans la sémantique réaliste du XlIIe siècle,
cette signification associait le nom propre à une entité singulière et le nom
commun à une "nature commune." Dans ce dernier cas, elle déterminait du
même coup une deuxième relation sémantique prépropositionnelle, celle
du terme général à toutes les entités singulières passées, présentes ou futu­
res subsumées sous son signifié. C'était la supposition naturelle, à laquelle
il revint de plus en plus de servir de point de départ pour comprendre le
rôle du contexte propositionnel. Le nominaliste Guillaume d'Occam, au
XIVe siècle, en se débarrassant de tout ce qui pouvait ressembler à un uni­
versel ontologique extérieur au langage ou à l'esprit, provoquera un dépla­
cement dans la théorie sémantique. L'ancienne supposition naturelle, éten­
due aux entités seulement possibles, se trouvera promue au rang de relation
sémantique prioritaire, ce qui lui vaudra de s'appeler dorénavant 'significa­
tion,' et le terme de supposition pourra alors être entièrement réservé aux
propriétés contextuelles dérivées.
De Rijk (1982:172-73) réaffirme son interprétation 'contextualiste' en
soutenant que c'était au fond l'idée même de signification qui, dès le dé­
part, faisait obstacle à l'orientation fondamentalement contextuelle du ter-
minisme médiéval. Au lieu de rejeter seulement la supposition naturelle,
conclut-il, Occam et les autres logiciens du XIVe siècle auraient mieux fait
en définitive d'éliminer jusqu'à la notion de signification. En fait, on l'a vu,
Occam ne rejette pas vraiment Vidée de supposition naturelle. De Rijk a
néanmoins raison sur un point: la notion médiévale de signification, quelles
qu'en aient été les variations, a toujours été conçue comme non-contextuel­
le. L'erreur de de Rijk, me semble-t-il, est de voir là une inconsistance.19

NOTES
1. Il faut noter cependant que de Rijk (1982:169-70) semble revenir à l'interprétation de
Boehner pour ce qui est du texte de Pierre d'Espagne (cf. infra note 6).
2. "Naturalis suppositio est quam habet terminus a se et a natura sua: hanc dicitur habere
terminus quando per se ponitur, id est quando nulli alii adiungitur" (Lambert d'Auxerre
1971:208).
 SUPPOSITION NATURELLE ET SIGNIFICATION OCCAMISTE 265

3. "... distinguebant duplicem suppositionem, scilicet naturalem et accidentalem. Naturalis

est que in termino communi per se sumpto est. Accidentalis est illa que est in termino
communi secundum quod positus est in locutione" (Dialectica monacensis, in de Rijk
1967b:635). Il est à noter que l'auteur ne reprend pas la distinction à son propre compte,
mais l'attribue à d'autres logiciens qu'il n'identifie pas.
4. "Absoluta (suppositio) dicitur quam habet terminus per se sumptus, ut 'homo'" (Tracta­
tes de proprietatibus sermonum, in de Rijk 1967b:716).
5. "Notandum primo quod terminus extra orationem positus habet naturale suppositum et
tunc supponit pro omnibus qui sunt et qui fuerunt et qui erunt, ut 'homo' per se sumptus.
Terminus vero in oratione positus habet accidentalem suppositionem ..." (in de Rijk
1969:54).
6. Il est étonnant par conséquent que de Rijk ait récemment fait marche arrière pour revenir
sans argumentation nouvelle à une interprétation contextuelle de la supposition naturelle
chez Pierre d'Espagne: "... in natural supposition the capacity of standing for all particu­
lars involved [...] is completely exploited [...] by leaving aside the actual context in which
the term occurs. But natural supposition is unlike signification in that there is a context,
an actual linguistic framework, which is left out of account for a moment" (de Rijk
1982:169-70; les italiques sont de l'auteur).
7. Voir par exemple le Tractatus de proprietatibus sermonum (de Rijk 1967b:728): "Notan­
dum ergo quod ampliare est terminum relinquere in sua principali vel naturali suppositio-
ne. Notandum ergo quod hoc verbum 'potest' habet vim ampliandi terminum communem
ante se positum et post se positum."
8. "Significatio termini, prout hie sumitur, est rei per vocem secundum placitum representa-
tio. Quare cum omnis res sit universalis aut particularis, oportet dictiones non significan­
tes universale vel particulare non significare aliquid" (Pierre d'Espagne 1972:79).
9. "... though giving a clear-cut distinction between signification and supposition, William of
Shyreswood and Peter of Spain yet faded the distinction by introducing what they called
natural, respectively habitual, supposition" (de Rijk 1967a:574). Notons au passage que
selon Braakhuis (1977), la position de Guillaume de Sherwood sur ces questions serait en
fait bien différente de celle de Pierre d'Espagne ou de Lambert d'Auxerre et sa logique
n'offrirait aucun équivalent de la supposition naturelle: "we have to credit William with
the same view as Cum sit nostra and Roger Bacon that there can be only supposition as
the property of a term actually ordered in the context of an oratio." (Braakhuis
1977:140). Il reste admis cependant qu'une telle approche contextuelle de la supposition
demeure marginale au XIIIe siècle.
10. "Verbi gratia, significatio hominis solum extenditur ad hominem, non ad contempta sub
homine: 'homo' enim significat hominem, non Sortem nec Platonem." (Lambert
d'Auxerre 1971:206).
11. En fait, les choses sont un peu plus complexes chez Lambert, puisqu'à ses yeux la signifi­
cation d'un mot est d'abord la relation qui l'unit à un concept. C'est par extension seule­
ment que le mot signifie — de façon dérivée — l'entité déjà signifiée par le concept en
question (1971:205-206). Cela ne change cependant rien d'essentiel à la présente discus­
sion. D'autres auteurs prennent le mot "signification" comme terme générique englobant
aussi les diverses formes de supposition. Il y a néanmoins place chez eux, en général,
pour une subdivision prépropositionnelle de cette signification au sens large qui corres-
 C L A U D E PANACCIO

ponde justement à la notion de Pierre d'Espagne ou de Lambert d'Auxerre, par exemple

la notion de 'signification principale' dans la Dialectica monacensis (in de Rijk
1967b:606).
"Dicto de significatione terminorum, restât dicere de suppositione, quae est proprietas
conveniens termino sed numquam nisi in propositione." (Guillaume d'Occam 1974:193)
De Rijk (1973:46) cite également à ce sujet Walter Burleigh, Albert de Saxe, Marsile
d'Inghen, John Wyclif et Vincent Ferrer. "As a matter of fact," écrit-il, "I know of no
fourteenth century logician who admits of a non-propositional supposition."
La présence chez Occam de cette terminologie exceptionnelle ne semble pas avoir été
beaucoup remarquée par les commentateurs, mais elle devrait fournir une indication
précieuse sur la tradition logique avec laquelle il était en contact. C'est pourquoi je me
permets d'attirer l'attention sur les passages suivants: "... in ista 'Sortes est homo,' ly
homo supponat pro Sorte, non tarnen praecise pro Sorte, quia potentialiter —secundum
modum loquendi Logicorum — supponit pro quolibet homine, quia infertur ex quolibet
..." (Guillaume d'Occam 1970:257; les italiques sont de moi); "... hoc syncategorema
'omnis' [...] additum 'homini' facit ipsum stare seu supponere actualiter sive confuse et dis­
tributive pro omnibus hominibus." (Guillaume d'Occam 1974:15; les italiques sont de
moi); "... sicut subiectum universalis supponit actualiter pro omni suo significato, ita
etiam subiectum singularis supponit actualiter pro omni suo significato, cum non habet
nisi unum" (ibid., 384; les italiques sont de moi: CP). Il serait certainement intéressant
d'identifier ces "logiciens" dont parle Occam. On peut en tout cas remarquer que Rober-
tus Anglicus utilise dans son commentaire du Tractatus de Pierre d'Espagne, vraisembla­
blement vers 1270, les expressions supponere actu et supponere potentia exactement dans
le même sens que ce qu'on trouve ici chez Occam (cf. de Rijk 1969:55-56).
"Nam uno modo dicitur signum aliquid significare quando supponit vel natum est suppo­
nere pro illo, ita scilicet quod pronomine demonstrante illud per hoc verbum 'est' illud
nomen praedicatur [...] Aliter accipitur 'significare' quando illud signum in aliqua propo­
sitione de praeterito vel de futuro vel de praesenti vel in aliqua propositione vera de
modo potest pro illo supponere." (Guillaume d'Occam 1974:95; voir aussi 1980:543).
Occam ne prend pas dans le passage considéré l'exemple de homo, mais celui d'album, ce
qui pourrait laisser croire qu'il n'est pas prêt à parler d'hommes seulement possibles, mais
uniquement d'entités actuelles susceptibles d'acquérir un accident (comme la blancheur)
qu'elles ne possèdent pas présentement. D'autres passages cependant sont tout à fait ex­
plicites: Occam admet bel et bien au nombre des signifiés (au sens large) les hommes seu­
lement possibles (voir par ex. Occam 1974:420, 593). Cette question des purs possibilia
est très importante pour apprécier la portée exacte du nominalisme d'Occam (cf. Adams
1977).
Voir Guillaume d'Occam (1974:193; texte cité supra note 12); également: "vox significati­
va est illa quae alicuius rei determinatae intellectum facit, sive per se posita sive cum
alia." (1978:378; les italiques sont de moi: CP).
"Ad primum istorum dicendum est quod in omnibus talibus termini supponunt personali-
ter. Pro quo est intelligendum quod tunc terminus supponit personaliter quando supponit
pro suis significatis, vel pro his quae fuerunt sua significata vel erunt vel possunt esse. Et
sic intelligendum est prius dictum; quia dictum est prius quod uno modo 'significare' sic
accipitur." (Guillaume d'Occam 1974:215). Le premier prius dictum renvoie à la défini­
tion de la supposition personnelle que l'objection mettait en cause: "... illa quando termi-
 SUPPOSITION NATURELLE ET SIGNIFICATION OCCAMISTE 267

nus supponit pro suo significato." (Ibid.; 195). L'expression 'dictum est prius' qui appa­
raît ensuite renvoie de toute évidence à la deuxième définition de 'significare.' (Ibid.; 95;
texte cité supra note 14).
18. Pour un examen plus poussé des relations entre les notions de signification et de supposi­
tion chez Occam, voir Panaccio (1983). J'y mets l'accent sur la priorité de la signification.
19. Le présent article était sous presse lorsque j'ai pu prendre connaissance de l'ouvrage ré­
cent du professeur de Rijk, La philosophie au moyen âge, dont le chapitre 8 est justement
consacré à la question de la supposition naturelle (de Rijk 1985:183-203). L'auteur y ap­
porte de nombreuses précisions nouvelles extrêmement intéressantes sur l'histoire de
cette notion du XlIIe au XVIIe siècle, mais à quelques nuances près (à propos, notam­
ment, de la distinction entre contexte propositionnel et contexte non-propositionnel), il
continue de soutenir les thèses que je discute ici.

RÉFÉRENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES

Adams, Marilyn McCord. 1977. "Ockham's Nominalism and Unreal Enti­

ties." Philosophical Review 86.144-76.
Boehner, Philotheus. 1952. Medieval Logic: An outline of its development
from 1250-C.1400. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press.
. 1958. Collected Articles on Ockham. Ed. par Eligius M. Buytaert.
St.Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute.
Braakhuis, H. A.G. 1977. "The Views of William of Sherwood on Some Se­
mantical Topics and Their Relation to Those of Roger Bacon." Viva­
rium 15.111-142.
Guillaume d'Occam. 1970. Ed. par Stephanus Brown et Gedeon Gal.
Scriptum in Librum Primum Sententiarum Ordinatio: Distinctiones II-
III. (= Guillelmi de Ockham Opera Theologica, 2.) St.Bonaventure,
N.Y.: Editiones Instituti Franciscani Universitatis S.Bonaventurae.
. 1974. Summa Logicae. Ed. par Philotheus Boehner, Gedeon Gál et
Stephanus Brown. (= Guillelmi de Ockham Opera Philosophica, 1.)
Ibid.
. 1978. Expositio in Librum Perihermeneias Aristotelis. Ed. par An­
gelus Gambatese et Stephanus Brown in Guillelmi de Ockham Opera
Philosophica 2, 341-504. Ibid.
. 1980. Quodlibeta Septem. Ed. par Joseph C. Wey. (= Guillelmi de
Ockham Opera Theologica, 9.) Ibid.
Lambert d'Auxerre. 1971. Logica (Summa Lamberti). Ed. par Franco
Alessio. Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice.
Libera, Alain de. 1980. "On Some 12th and 13th Century Doctrines of Res­
triction." HL 7.131-43. (Repr. in Studies in Medieval Linguistic Thought
268 CLAUDE PANACCIO

éd. par Konrad Koerner, Hans-J. Niederehe & Robert Henry Robins,
131-43. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1980.)
. 1981. "Supposition naturelle et appellation: Aspects de la sémanti­
que parisienne au XlIIe siècle." Histoire Epistémologie Langage 3,
fasc.l. (= Sémantiques médiévales: Cinq études sur la logique et la gram­
maire au Moyen Age), 63-77. Lille.
Maierù, Alfonso. 1972. Terminología logica delia tarda scolastica. Roma:
Edizioni dell'Ateneo.
Moody, Ernest Addison. 1953. Truth and Consequence in Mediaeval Logic.
Amsterdam: North-Holland Publ. Co.
Mullally, Joseph P. 1945. The Summulae Logicales of Peter of Spain. Notre
Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press. (Réimpr,, 1960.)
Panaccio, Claude. 1977. Signification et nomination: La logique de Guillau­
me d'Ockham. Thèse de doctorat. Montréal: Institut d'Etudes Médiéva­
les, Univ. de Montréal.
. 1979. "'Suppositio naturalis' au XlIIe siècle et signification chez
Guillaume d'Occam." Abstracts of the 6th International Congress of Lo­
gic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Sections 13-14, 137-40.
Hannover.
. 1983. "Guillaume d'Occam: Signification et supposition." Archéo­
logie du signe éd. par Lucie Brind'amour & Eugene Vance, 265-86. To­
ronto: Institut Pontifical d'Etudes Médiévales.
Pierre d'Espagne. 1972. Tractatus called afterwards Summule Logicales.
Ed. par Lambertus Marie de Rijk. Assen: Van Gorcum.
Pinborg, Jan. 1976. "Some Problems of Semantic Representations in Me­
dieval Logic." History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguis­
tics éd. par Hermann Parret, 254-78. Berlin: de Gruyter. (Repr. in Me­
dieval Semantics: Selected studies on medieval logic and grammar par Jan
Pinborg, éd. par Sten Ebbesen, V:254-78. London: Variorum Reprints.
1984.)
Rijk, Lambertus Marie de. 1964. Logica Modernorum: A contribution to
the history of early terminist logic. Vol.1: On the twelfth century theories
of fallacy. Assen: Van Gorcum.
. 1967a. Logica Modernorum: A contribution to the history of early
terminist logic. Vol.2 — Part one: The origin and early development of
the theory of supposition. Ibid.
. 1967b. Logica Modernorum: A contribution to the history of early
terminist logic. Vol.2 — Part two: The origin and early development of
the theory of supposition. Texts and indices. Ibid.
 SUPPOSITION ET SIGNIFICATION 269

.1969. "On the Genuine Text of Peter of Spain's Summule logicales.

Part III: Two redactions of a commentary upon the Summule by Rober­
tas Anglicus." Vivarium 7.8-61.
. 1971. "The Development oisuppositio naturalis in Mediaeval Lo­
gic. Part one: Natural supposition as non-contextual supposition." Viva­
rium 9.71-107.
. 1973. "The Development of suppositio naturalis in Mediaeval Lo­
gic. Part two: Fourteenth century natural supposition as atemporal (om-
nitemporal) supposition." Vivarium 11.43-79.
. 1982. "The Origins of the Theory of the Properties of Terms." The
Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the rediscovery
of Aristotle to the disintegration of scholasticism 1100-1600 éd. par Nor­
man Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny & Jan Pinborg, 161-73. Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
. 1985. La philosophie au moyen âge. Leiden: Brill.
Spade, Paul Vincent. 1982. "The Semantics of Terms." Ibid., 188-96. Cam­
bridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
A Hitherto Unpublished Medieval Grammatical
Fragment on Latin Syntax and Syntactic Figures

W. Keith Percival
University of Kansas

I offer here a transcription of a fragmentary grammatical text from

which the Italian classicist Remigio Sabbadini once quoted in an article
published in 1906.1 The copy consulted by Sabbadini and, to my know­
ledge, the only one extant, is to be found in MS 1527 [V. 4.7] at the Bib­
lioteca Angelica, Rome. In his catalogue, Narducci (1893) describes the
manuscript as follows:
Membranaceus, in 8° (m. 0,223 χ 0,132), ff. 48, saec, ut videtur, XIII
ineuntis.
1. Cassiodorus, Epistolarum variarum libri IV priores, praevio cuique
Epistolarum indice, fol. l-43b.2
2. Fragmentum de constructione, in fine mutilum, fol. 43b-48. Inc.
'Quoniam de constructione trataturi sumus.'
I have inspected the manuscript in situ three times between 1973 and
1977, and have also worked from a microfilm of ff. 43v-48r.
Concerning the date of our fragment the following may be said. First of
all, the script is a blend of gothic and humanistic. The letters are for the
most part clearly separated from one another, and many of the shapes are
tall and thin, unlike the rotund littera Bononiensis widely used in northern
Italy in the 14th century (see Ehrle & Liebaert 1932:43-44; Battelli
1949:224; Thomson 1969:75). Neither the majuscule s nor the round gothic
r occurs. Both Caroline and uncial d are found. We may infer, therefore,
that the transcription dates from some time in the early 15th century. This
question is, obviously, independent of the issue as to when the Cassiodorus
text which precedes it was transcribed.
272 W. KEITH PERCIVAL

The dating of the grammatical text itself is more problematic. One

notes the presence of verses from the Graecismus of Évrard de Béthune,
which is usually thought to have been written in the early 13th century.3 But
it may be argued that the mnemonic verses in question may well have been
in existence and have circulated before the Graecismus was compiled in the
form in which it has come down to us. In general, one cannot regard an
argument as to dating which is based on nothing more than the occurrence
of particular verses in a grammatical text as especially compelling.
We can be reasonably certain, however, that the scribe was copying
from at least two different texts, since one topic, the syntactic figures, is
covered twice. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the spellings pro-
lexis and prolesis occur in the first treatment of the figures, as against pro-
lensis in the second.
However, I cannot identify any of the works from which the scribe was
transcribing. This much is clear: what we have here is a compilation, not a
single work. Its only interest lies in the content of the texts, which must
have circulated in northern Italy in the early 15th century. They show no
evidence of any of the innovations characteristic of Renaissance humanism.
Moreover, in the first text, we note the presence of the scholastic device of
the quaestio, soon to be discarded by humanist grammarians.
The topics covered and the order in which they are treated are as fol­
lows:
1. The classification of constructio.
2. The question of the correct syntactic analysis of in domo.
3. Types of syntactic government in terms of nominal case.
4. Verbal government.
5. The question of the correct syntactic analysis of ego volo esse
bonus.
6. Syntactic figures (two treatments).
Except for technical terms such as silensis, prolexis, and sinodoce, 1 use
the Latin orthography current among classicists today. The spellings and
orthographical errors of the scribe, where they are worthy of note, are pro­
vided in the footnotes. However, I do not indicate the simplification of
diphthongs or the confusion (frequent in Latin manuscripts of Italian prove­
nance) of simple and geminate consonants (e.g., alliud for aliud, aponit for
apponii). Nor have I noted certain pedantic spellings typical of grammati­
cal texts (e.g., inpediat, inpersonale, adpellor, subcingo). My footnotes
refer to content and sources as well as the readings of the manuscript. The
 A FRAGMENT ON LATIN SYNTAX 273

manuscript contains no headings, and I have not provided any. For the con­
venience of the reader, however, I have divided the text into paragraphs.
Suppositio materialis is indicated by means of italics; quotations from
canonical authors are enclosed in inverted commas. In the customary way,
square brackets surround words which as editor I claim were not part of the
original text, angle brackets words which I have supplied.

Quoniam de constructione tractaturi sumus, idcirco videndum4 est, quid sit con­
structio), et unde dicatur, et quas partes habeat, et quas dictiones in ea positae exigant et
exigantur, et quae exigant et non exigantur, et quae exigantur et non exigant, et quae
nee exigant nee exigantur.
Constructio est competens5 dictionum ordinatio secundum congrua ipsarum
accidentia, vel constructio est ordinatio dictionis cum dictione in oratione cum exigentia
vel determinatione. Constructio sic dividitur: constructionum alia est transitiva tantum,
alia est intransitiva, alia transitiva et6 intransitiva, alia reciproca, et alia quae non est de
aliqua istarum.
Transitiva constructio est ilia in qua ponuntur dictiones significantes diversas per­
sonas vel7 diversas res, et hoc evenit quando una persona ostenditur agere in aliam vel
quasi in aliam: agere in aliam, ut Petrus videt Martinum, vel quasi in aliam, ut Marcus
diligit Tullium. Et hoc evenit quando una persona ostenditur pati ab alia vel quasi ab
alia; pati ab alia, ut Petrus videtur a Martirio, vel quasi ab alia, ut Marcus diligitur a Tul-
lio.9, Et hoc evenit quando una persona ostenditur convenire alicui respectu alterius vel
removen ab aliquo; convenire alicui, ut Socrates est amicus Piatonis■; removen ab aliquo,
ut Socrates non est amicus Piatonis. Et hoc evenit quando significatum verbi ostenditur
convenire alicui gratia loci vel gratia temporis; gratia loci, ut Socrates est hic; gratia tem­
poris, ut Socrates legit hen et hodie.
Intransitiva constructio est ilia in qua sine reciprocatione facta ponuntur dictiones
gratia unius et eiusdem personae, ut Socrates est homo.
Transitiva et intransitiva constructio est quae plures habet significationes, secun­
dum unam quarum transitiva est, et secundum aliam intransitiva, ut lupus est animal. Si
hoc verbum est accipiatur pro comedere, sic est transitiva, ut lupus est animal, id est
comedit animal. Si accipiatur pro exsistit,9 sic est intransitiva, ut lupus est animal, id est,
exsistit10 animal.
Reciproca constructio est ilia in qua eadem persona ostenditur agere in se vel pati
a se; agere in se, ut ego diligo me, tu diligis te, Ule diligit se; pati a se, ut ego diligor a me,
tu diligeris a te, Ule diligitur a se. Et nota quod reciproca constructio non potest fieri nisi
sit ibi aliquis obliquorum11 trium principalium pronominum qui significet eandem per­
sonam cum suo praecedenti nominativo, ut ego diligo me. Principalia pronomina sunt
ista: ego, tu, sui.
Transitiva constructio sic dividitur: transitivarum constructionum alia est transitiva
personarum tantum, alia actus et personarum, alia passionis, alia numerorum, alia
casuum.
274 W. ΚΕΠΉ PERCIVAL

Transitiva personarum tantum est illa in qua ponuntur dictiones significantes diver­
sas personas vel diversas res, et non ostenditur ibi significatum verbi transire de una per­
sona in aliam, ut Socrates et Plato legunt.
Transitiva actus et personarum est illa in qua actus verbi ostenditur transiré de una
persona in aliam, ut Socrates legit Virgilium. Transitiva actus et personarum sie
dividitur: transitivarum actus12 et personarum alia <simplex, alia duplex. Simplex est
illa>13 in qua actus verbi simpliciter ostenditur transire de una persona in aliam, ut in
ista Socrates legit Virgilium. Duplex est ilia in qua una persona dupliciter ostenditur
transire in aliam ita quod patiens14 agat in priorem15 agentem, ut ego diligo te diligentem
me.
Transitiva passionis est illa in qua res patiens significatur per nominativum, et agens
per obliquum,16 ut ego videor a te.
Transitiva numerorum est illa in qua dictio casualis <alicuius> numeri exigit dic-
tionem casualem alteráis numeri, ut iste est servus istorum dominorum, et isti sunt
domini istius servi.
Transitiva casuum est illa in qua dictio alicuius casus exigit17 dictionem casualem
alterius casus figurative,18 ut hoc regni pro hoc regnum, et creatura salis.19
Et nota quod omnis transitiva actus, passionis, et numerorum est transitiva per­
sonarum, sed non convertitur.
De huiusmodi constructione et de consimilibus in domo, in palatio,20 in foro
quaeritur utrum sint transitivae vel intransitivae. Quidam dicunt quod sunt transitivae,
alii intransitivae.
Nos dicimus quod non sunt transitivae neque intransitivae. Sed quod haec construc­
t s sit intransitiva sic probatur.
Sed primo videndum est quid sit constructio. Constructio est competens21 dictionum
ordinatio. Ergo est constructio.
Quod sit intransitiva sic probatur. In hac construetione non ponuntur dictiones
quae significent diversas personas; ibi non est reciprocatio, ergo est intransitiva.22
Quod sit transitiva sic probatur. Dicit Priscianus quod praepositiones iunguntur
obliquis casibus in transitione23 personarum,24 ergo <est> transitiva.
Auctoritatem Prisciani sic solvimus, quod praepositiones iunguntur obliquis
casibus, qui obliqui faciunt transitionem cum verbis et non cum25 praepositionibus.
Concedentibus quod haec constructio sit transitiva sic opponitur. Haec constructio
est transitiva; ergo ibi ponuntur dictiones significantes diversas personas. Ibi non ponun­
tur26 nisi illae duae dictiones in et domo. Haec dictio domo significat aliquam personam,
ergo haec dictio in significat aliam.
Nunc videndum <est> quae27 dictiones exigant et exigantur. Unam dictionem
aliam exigere est conferre ei in construetione <ut> in tali casu ponatur, vel ostendere
quid de quo dicatur, vel gratia cuius dictio exigens veniat in constructionem.28 Nomina
et participia exigunt et exiguntur. Verba et praepositiones et quaedam adverbia exigunt
et non exiguntur. Pronomina et propria nomina et in vi propriorum nominum posita
exiguntur et non exigunt. Quaedam adverbia et pleraeque interiectiones et con-
iunctiones29 nec exigunt nec exiguntur.
Quamvis diximus quod propria nomina non exigunt aliquem casum, quia significant
propriam qualitatem quae non dicitur in respectu aliquo, tarnen quandoque per
 A FRAGMENT ON LATIN SYNTAX 275

antonomasiam, id est per excellentiam, proferuntur, ut Paulus Romanorum, id est

Paulus, apostolus Romanorum, et Virgilius Mantuanorum, id est Virgilius, poeta Man-
tuanorum.30 Si opponatur de Marcia Catonis, dicimus quod ibi intelligitur uxor. Similiter
et pronomina in vi nominum posita exigunt aliquando casum, ut iste est idem Uli, id est
similis Uli.
Nunc sciendum31 est quod quemcumque casum exigit nominativus et omnes eius
obliqui exigunt eundem vel consimilem. Dicit Priscianus quod flexis quoque nominativis
in obliquos casus eadem remanet constructio. Sed cum dico filius tui legit, iste
nominativus exigit istum genitivum, scilicet tui. Ergo et eius vocativus potest exigere
eundem, et dicatur o flli tui lege,32 quod falsum <est>. Auctoritatem Prisciani sic sol-
vimus: "quemcumque casum exigit nominativus, et omnes eius obliqui exigunt eundem"
in manerie verum est, in essentia falsum propter dicta.
Sciendum est quod nomen exigit genitivum, dativum, accusativum, et ablativum.
Nominativum non exigit, quia eius propria constructio est cum personan' verbo. Voc-
ativum exigere non potest, quia eius propria constructio est cum vocativo adverbio.
Sciendum est quod nomen exigit genitivum sex modis: ex natura possessoris et pos­
sessionis, ex vi causae et effectus, ex vi dividuitatis, ex communi usu auctorum, ex nat­
ura significationis, ex vi superlativi. Nomen exigit genitivum ex natura possessoris et
possessionis, quando per nominativum significatur possessio, et possessor per
genitivum, ut filius Petri legit. Et quando per nominativum significatur possessor, et per
genitivum significatur possessio, ut haec mulier est extremae pulchritudinis. Nomen
exigit genitivum ex vi causae et effectus, quando per genitivum significatur effectus, et
causa per nominativum, ut iste scyphus est plenus vini. Et in eodem sensu potest exigere
ablativum, ut iste scyphus est plenus vino. Ex vi dividuitatis, sicuti dividua nomina, quae
notant distributionem circa genitivum, ut alter istorum legit.33 Dividua nomina sunt ista:
alter et uterque, quilibet et quicumque, unus et alius, et his similia, ex communi usu
auctorum,34 id est bene placito auctorum, ut multum vini est in foro. Ex natura sig­
nificationis, sicuti verbalia nomina desinentia in tor vel in trix venientia a verbis trans­
itais, ut amator illius et amatrix illius. Ex vi superlativi, quia propria constructio super­
lativi est cum genitivo plurali vel genitivo singulari collectivi nominis, ut iste est fortis-
simus omnium istorum, et iste est fortissimus Romanae gentis.
Nomen exigit dativum duobus modis: ex natura acquisitionis, et est acquisitio
quando aliquid attribuitur alicui ad laudem, ut iste est amicus illi, ad detrimentum, ut iste
est inimicus illi; quandoque ex natura possessoris et possessionis, verbo substantivo
mediante,35 ut sermo est mihi ad ilium, et iste filius est Uli.
Nomen exigit accusativum ex natura significationis, et sunt ista pauca: gnarus, osus,
et scius, ut ego sum scius hanc rem. Et quandoque nomen exigit accusativum per
figuram quae dicitur sinodoce, quando quod est partis attribuitur toti, ut ego sum albus
pedem, et Aethiops est albus dentem.
Nomen exigit ablativum ex vi causae et effectus, ut iste est albus albedine, et ego
sum doctus grammatica, et quandoque ex vi comparativi 36 quia propria constructio
comparativi est cum ablativo, ut iste est sapientior illo.
Participia exigunt illos casus quos eorum verba exigunt post se, ut ego amo ilium, et
ego sum amans ilium. Praepositiones exigunt obliquos ex solo officio.
Postquam diximus de constructione nominum et participiorum, nunc de construc-
tione verborum dicamus.
276 W. KEITH PERCIVAL

Verborum alia sunt personalia, alia Impersonalia. Personalia sunt illa quae con-
struuntur cum nominativis, ut Petrus legit. Impersonale est illud quod non construitur
cum nominativo, ut legitur a me.
Personale verbum exigit [nominativum] septem modis: ex natura personae et num­
en, ex natura transitionis sive generis, ex natura significationis, ex vi modi, ex vi
acquisitionis, ex vi causae et effectus, ex vi instrumenti.
Verbum personale exigit nominativum ante se ex natura personae et numeri, nisi
figura impediat, ut ego lego. Et exigit accusativum post se ex natura transitionis sive
generis, ut activa verba et quaedam neutra et deponentia [et quaedam] et omnia com­
munia, quae exigunt accusativum ex natura transitionis sive generis, ut ego <lego> lib-
rum. Similiter et quaedam verba exigunt accusativum post se ex natura significationis, ut
doceo te grammaticam. Unde sciendum est quod si duo accusativi sequantur37 post ver­
bum, unus quorum non adhaereat alteri, unus exigitur ex natura transitionis et alius ex
natura significationis. Et sunt ista verba quae exigunt duos diversos accusativos:
Flagito, posco, peto, doceo, rogo, calceo, celo,
Vestío, succingo, moneo, simul induo, iungo,38
et verba pertinentia ad rogationem, ut deprecor et obtestor.
Verbum exigit accusativum ante se ex vi modi, quia omnis infinitus praeter
infinitum impersonalis exigit accusativum ante se ex vi modi nomînativus cuius exigitur
a suo personali, ut ego lego: me legere est verum.
Verbum exigit dativum ex vi acquisitionis, ad laudem vel ad detrimentum, sicuti
omnia verba activa et quaedam neutra et deponentia et passiva et omnia communia, ut
ego lego tibi.
Verbum exigit genitivum et ablativum ex vi causae < e t > effectus, quando per
genitivum vel per ablativum significatur causa, et effectus per verbum, ut ego impleo
scyphum vini vel vino.
Verbum exigit genitivum et ablativum ex vi instrumenti, quando instrumentum
verbi significatur per genitivum vel per ablativum, ut percutió te manus vel manu, et per­
cutió te baculi vel baculo; sed potius utimur per ablativum quam per genitivum.
Post praedicta sciendum est quod verba substantiva et vocativa et eorum vim
habentia exigunt nominativum ante se et post se: ante se ex natura personae et numeri,
sicuti verba activa, post se ex natura significationis. Verba substantiva sunt ista: sum, es,
est, fio, fis, fit, exsisto, -stis, exsistit. Eorum vim habentia sunt ista: sedeo, sedes, sedet; et
maneo, manes, manet; et quaedam alia neutra, et quaedam passiva, ut videor. Vocativa
verba sunt ista: vocor, nominor, dicor, nuncupor, et appellor.
De huiusmodi constructione ego volo esse bonus quaeritur a quo exigatur iste
nomînativus bonus. Quidam dicunt quod exigitur ab hoc verbo volo. Nos dicimus quod
exigitur ad hoc verbo esse; alii dicunt quod non exigitur sed absolute ponitur.
Nobis39 qui dicimus quod exigitur ab hoc verbo esse sic opponitur. Hoc verbum esse
est infinitum et infinite positum, ergo non exigit illum nominativum. Falsificatio.40 Ego
sum scius hanc rem: haec dictio scius est nomen et in vi nominum posita, ergo non exigit
illum accusativum. Iste nomînativus bonus exigitur ab hoc verbo esse, ergo est personale
vel personaliter positum. Iste accusativus rem exigitur ab hac dictione scius, ergo est ver­
bum vel in vi verbi positum. In hac constructione ponuntur duo verba, unum quorum est
personale et aliud Impersonale. Iste nomînativus bonus exigitur ab aliquo illorum, ergo
 A FRAGMENT ON LATIN SYNTAX 277

a personali. Ego sum scius hanc rem: in hac constructione ponuntur duae dictiones, una
quarum est verbum et alia nomen. Iste accusativus rem exigitur ab aliqua illarum, ergo
a verbo.
Illis qui dicunt quod iste nominativus bonus exigitur ab hoc verbo volo sic
opponitur. Hoc verbum volo exigit nominativum ante se et post se, ergo est substan-
tivum vel vocativum vel habens vim alicuius illorum. Item iste nominativus bonus est
tertiae personae, exigitur ab hoc verbo volo, quod est primae personae, ergo per
evocationem41 vel per aliam figuram; per aliam figuram non, ergo per evocationem,
ergo evocatur a pronomine vel a verbo; a verbo non, ergo a pronomine, ergo evocatur
ab hoc pronomine ego. Nec est relativa dictio, ergo potest secum poni et cum eadem
parte orationis et eodem sensu locutionis retento, ut dicatur ego bonus volo esse.
Diximus quod verbum exigit nominativum ante se ex natura personae et numeri nisi
figura impediat. Modo sciendum est quod ista sunt ilia quae impediunt naturam huius
exigentiae; non quod alia non sint, sed ista praecipue: conceptio, prolexis, et42 appositio
seu evocatio, et zeuma.43
Conceptio est vocum diversarum sub verbo pluralis numeri cum copula facta, ut ego
et tu legimus. Conceptionum alia rerum et vocum, ut ego et tu legimus; alia rerum tan­
tum, ut nos legimus; alia vocum, ut ,  q idem elementum repraesentant.
Conceptionum alia personarum, alia generum. Unde sciendum est quod prima per­
sona concipit secundam et tertiam, ut ego et tu et Socrates legimus. Secunda concipit ter-
tiam et non concipit primam neque aliam secundam, ut tu et Socrates legitis. Tertia con­
cipit aliam tertiam et non concipit primam neque secundam, ut Socrates et Plato legunt.
Et haec figura duobus modis impedit rationem huius exigentiae: secundum numerum et
personam. Facit enim ut dictio primae vel secundae vel tertiae <personae>, ut ego et tu
et Socrates legimus, in diverso numero et in diversa persona <sit>.
Conceptio generum est vocum diversorum generum copulatio sub terminatione
adiectivi nominis, pluralis numeri, masculini vel feminini. Et haec terminatio quandoque
fit ante verbum, quandoque post verbum; ante verbum, ut Socrates et Maria sunt albi.
Nunc sciendum est quod masculinum concipit femininum et neutrum sub suo adiectivo
pluralis numeri, ut Petrus et Maria et hoc animal sunt albi; femininum concipit neutrum
et non concipit masculinum sub suo adiectivo, ut leges et plebiscita sunt coactae; neutrum
non concipit masculinum neque femininum dignitate generis sed dignitate sig-
nificationis, ut Petrus et Maria et hoc animal sunt albi.
Prolesis est praesumptio aliquarum rerum ordine secutarum, id est, prolesis est ilia
figura quae indicit quando aliquis generaliter praesumitur et postea per partes
explicatur, ut aquilae devolaverunt, haec ab oriente et illa ab occidente. Et haec figura
duobus modis impedit rationem huius exigentiae; facit enim ut dictio primae vel secun­
dae vel tertiae <personae> perveniat ad construetionem verbi primae vel secundae vel
tertiae personae in diverso numero et in diversa persona, ut nos legimus, ego Salustium,
tu Lucanum, Ule Virgilium. Et notate quod dignitas personarum ita servatur in prolesi
quem ad modum et in conceptione. Unde sciendum est quod prima persona praesumit
secundam et tertiam sub suo verbo pluralis numeri, ut nos legimus, ego Salustium, tu
Lucanum, illle Virgilium; secunda praesumit tertiam et non praesumit primam neque
aliam secundam, ut vos legitis, tu Lucanum, illle Virgilium; tertia praesumit aliam tertiam
et non praesumit primam neque aliam secundam neque tertiam sub verbo pluralis num-
278 W. KEITH PERCIVAL

eri, ut illi legunt, Socrates Virgilium, et Plato Salustium. Dictum est de prolesi, sequitur
de evocatione.
Evocatio est dictionis primae vel secundae personae cum dictione tertiae personae
immediata coniunctio ex eadem parte orationis, ex diverso per relationem; ex eadem
parte orationis, ut ego lohannes lego; ex diverso per relationem, ut ego Iohannes lego
qui disputo, et haec figura uno solo modo impedit rationem huius exigentiae. Secundum
personam facit enim ut dictio tertiae personae construatur cum verbo primae vel secun­
dae personae in diverstitate personarum.
Nunc videndum est quae dictiones evocent et non evocentur, et quae evocentur et
non evocent, et quae non evocent nec evocentur. Pronomina in prima et in secunda per­
sona, et vocativi casus nominum et participiorum et pronominum, et verba substantiva
et vocativa et eorum vim habentia in prima et in secunda persona evocant et non
evocantur. Nomina et participia et pronomina in tertia persona, excepto sui et eius
derivatis, evocantur et non evocant. Omnes aliae ab istis non44 evocantur, quia signifi­
cant substantiam mere, quae desiderat determinari dictione significante qualitatem.
Quia mentionem feeimus de figura, idcirco videndum est, unde dicatur, et quot
modis fiat, et quae sint species figurarum.
Figura est vitium contra artis grammaticae regulam factum a ratione toleratum.
Figurarum alia dictionis, alia locutionis, alia constructionis, alia constructionis et
locutionis. Figura dictionis est quae consideratur in una sola dictione et non in iunetura
dictionum, scilicet quando littera vel syllaba additur vel subtrahitur de dictione, et sunt
istae:
"Prothesis apponit caput auferesisqae reeidit.
Syncopa de medio tollit quod epenthesis addit.
Aufert apocope finem, quem dat paragoge ,"45
Figura locutionis est quae consideratur secundum significationem orationis vel secun­
dum quod dictiones extra propriam significationem ponuntur, ut nos legimus et prata
rident.46
Figura constructionis est quae attenditur in iunctura dictionum et non secundum
significationem sed secundum quod dictiones in diversitate accidentium, ut ego et tu
legimus, iunguntur. Figurarum itaque quae in constructione rationem exigentiae
impediunt aloteca materiae et generis esse dicitur. Aloteca est diversorum accidentium
per intransitionem congrua variatio. Species alothecae sunt quinqué: prolensis, silensis,
et zeuma, antitosis, et sintosis.
Silensis est dissimilium clausularum per47 unum verbum apta coniunctio, ut hic illius
arma, hic currus fuit. Ratio figurae est quod verbum singularis numeri redditur ad
numerum singularem sibi proximum, quod mediate redditur ad nominativum pluralem.
Zeuma est unius verbi conclusio diversis clausulis apte coniuncta, ut in hoc exem-
plo:
"Troiugena, interpres divum, qui numina Phoebi,
qui trípodas, Clari laurus, qui sidéra sentis."48
Zeuma quandoque fit a superiori, quandoque a medio, quandoque ab inferiori.
Tunc dicitur esse zeuma a superiori, quando verbum ponitur in principio distinctionum
< e t > aliae distinctiones sequuntur,49 ut in hoc exemplo Lucani: "Suae causae rapiunt
quemque, polluta domus rapit hos, leges timendae rapiunt hos."50 Zeuma tunc dicitur
 A F R A G M E N T ON LATIN SYNTAX 279

esse in medio, quando verbum ponitur <in m e d i c » distinctionum, ut in hoc exemplo

Lucani:
"Bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos,
Iusque datum sceleri canimus populumque potentem,
In sua victrici conversum viscera dextra." 5 1
Tunc dicitur ab inferiori, quando verbum ponitur in fine distinctionum, ut in hoc exem­
plo Virgilii:
"Troiugena, interpres divum, qui numina Phoebi,
qui trípodas, Clari laurus, qui sidera sentis."
Antitosis est litterae pro littera positio, ut olli pro illi, vel casus pro casu, ut urbem
quam statuo vestra est, pro urbs quam statuo.52 Invenitur etiam haec eadem figura
quando ...

NOTES
1. See especially Sabbadini (1906:116-17). A related topic is treated in Sabbadini (1902).
For Latin syntax in the Middle Ages, see Thurot (1868:212-391); Pinborg (1967:127-31);
1972:103-126); Bursill-Hall (1971:286-329), and Covington (1984, 1986). An important
primary source is the section on syntax in the Doctrinale of Alexandre de Villedieu (early
13th century), see Reichling (1893:70-99). This should be compared with the correspond­
ing section in the Graecismus (see Wrobel 1887:246-49). Another widely disseminated
verse grammar, the Flores grammaticae by Ludolphus de Lucho, is almost exclusively
devoted to syntax. Like the Doctrinale and the Graecismus, it was composed in the 13th
century; it is, for instance, mentioned by Radulphus Brito in his Priscian Minor commen­
tary (late 13th century), see Enders & Pinborg (1980:361). Again, like the two more fam­
ous verse grammars, it was still popular in the 15th century (see Thurot 1868:487) and
appeared in a printed edition with an anonymous commentary (see list of references).
2. For a modern critical edition of the passage (Variae iv. 20), see Fridh & Halporn
(1973:155-156).
3. On the question of the relative chronology of the two verse grammars, see Reichling
(1893:LXXIX-LXXXIII).
4. vidudu Cod.
5. cöpentes Cod.
6. alia Cod.
7. uel ut Cod.
8. Compare the following definitions in the Catholicon of John of Genoa (Giovanni Balbi),
an encyclopedic dictionary which dates from the late 13th century (I cite from a 15th-cen­
tury printed edition): "Et scias quod construí intransitive est pertinere ad eandem per­
sonam, vel tamquam ad eandem personam. Construí vero transitive est pertinere ad
diversas personas, vel tamquam ad diversas" (John of Genoa 1483; f. f6vb).
9. existí Cod.
10. asistit Cod.
280 W. Κ Ε Π Ή PERCIVAL

11. oblicorum Cod.

12. auctus Cod.
13. Here a line has been all but lost due to trimming. The last two words on the line, in qua,
can just be made out.
14. passa Cod.
15. prius Cod.
16. oblicum Cod.
17. exigigit Cod.
18. figurate Cod.
19. The same examples are cited by Petrus Helias (12th century), see Thurot (1868:235), cf.
Priscian xvii.160 (Hertz 1859:187).
20. plato Cod. I am not entirely satisfied with the emendation I suggest here. Perhaps one
should read Prato, hence in Prato, Pratum being the Latin name of the well-known town
in Tuscany {Prato in vernacular).
21. conpentès Cod.
22. "Ergo est" occurs over the line. We cannot read "ibi non est reciprocado, ergo est trans­
itiva" since the author is at pains here to demonstrate that the construction in domo is
intransitive, not transitive. As we have seen above, reciprocation and intransitivity are
mutually exclusive.
23. intransitive corr. in in transitione.
24. See Priscian xiv.2 (Hertz 1859:25) for the passage in question here.
25. con Cod.
26. ibi nö po nöponutur Cod.
27. que Cod.
28. Compare the corresponding formulation in the Catholicon: "Scias ergo quod regere est
conferre dictioni ut ponatur in tali casu vel in certo casu" (John of Genoa 1483; f.f7rb).
29. adiunctiones Cod.
30. Antonomasia was one of the tropes; see Donatus, Ars maior iii. 6 (Keil 1864:400; Holtz
1981:669).
31. videndum Cod.
32. o filii tui legit Cod.
33. On the nomen dividuum, see Priscian ii. 31 (Hertz 1855:61), John of Genoa 1483; f.r7ra,
Wrobel (1887:219, lines 50-53). The abstract noun dividuitas occurs in the Digesta (35. 2.
80) and is cited by John of Genoa (under dividuus); it does not appear in the Graecismus.
The entire topic of dividua nomina is not covered in the Doctrinale. It is, however, men­
tioned by Renaissance grammarians of Latin; see Perottus (1473; f. a4r, Nebrissensis
(1481; f.b2r), Despauterius (1537:13).
34. altorum Cod.
 A FRAGMENT ON LATIN SYNTAX 281

35. medio Cod.

36. superlativi Cod.
37. sequentur Cod.
38. These verses (or very similar ones) are cited in many medieval grammars. Compare
Wrobel (1887:236, lines 55-56), Reichling (1893:82), John of Genoa (1483: f. r7rb, under
doceo), Ludolphus de Lucho, f. p6r.
39. Nos Cod.
40. Falxifico Cod.
41. Throughout, the scribe writes devocatio and devocare for normal evocatio and evocare.
On this important concept, see Thurot 1869:257-58.
42. seu Cod.
43. On the syntactic figures, see Priscian xvii. 155 (Hertz 1859:183-84), Thurot (1868:254-68,
295-98).
44. nec Cod.
45. These verses are from the Graecismus; see Wrobel (1887:3, lines 7-9). Our scribe spells as
follows: protesis, afferesis, (similarly affert instead of aufert), sincopa, and appetesis).
Compare the corresponding verses in the Doctrinale, see Reichling (1893:160, lines 2406-
11). As Reichling points out, the term auferesis ultimately came from Greek aphaeresis
"removal," but in the Middle Ages it was thought to be derived from Latin aufero. The
term occurs in Donatus; see Keil (1864:396; Holtz 1981:661).
46. The first example is puzzling in that nos legimus would not appear to be a case of a figura
locutionis at all. One suspects that the copyist either failed to transcribe the whole exam­
ple or transcribed the wrong example. The figura locutionis in medieval grammar was
essentially the schema dianoeas mentioned by Donatus; see Keil (1864:397), Holtz
(1981:663), and Thurot (1868:267, 465-66, 469-70).
47. qui Cod.
48. Compare Thurot 1868:235, Virg. Aen. iii. 359-60, Donatus iii. 5 (Keil 1864:397, lines 16-
17; Holtz 1981:664). The scribe spells Trogigena, Phedum (corrected to read Phebi), and
lauros.
49. sequentur Cod.
50. The relevant passage reads as follows (Lucan, De Bello Civili ii.251-52, Housman
1927:39):

Quemque suae rapiunt scelerata in proelia causae:

Hos polluta domus legesque in pace timendae ...

51. These are the first three lines of De Bello Civili (see Housman 1927:1).
52. Virg. Aen. i. 573, quoted in Priscian xvii. 160 (Hertz 1859:187) and in Donatus (Keil
1864:394; Holtz 1981:656). This example appears in many medieval grammars. It is, for
instance, cited in the Flores grammaticae, where the rule for antiptosis reads (Ludolphus
de Lucho, f.e6r):

Antitesis casum demit ponens alienum: urbem quam statuo.

282 W. KEITH PERCIVAL

In the Doctrinale, on the other hand, the rule is stated, but no example is provided
(Reichling 1893:175):
Pro numero numerum, pro casu ponere casum
te facit antitosis inter se dissona iungens.
Evrard de Béthune proceeds in the opposite direction, citing the term and the Virgilian
example, but providing no definition (see Wrobel 1887:5). Among Latin grammars com­
posed in southern Europe in the late Middle Ages, the compendium of Pietro da Isolella
(mid-13th century) treats the matter as follows (Fierville 1886:33): "Per antitosim fit var-
iatio casuum, ut in Virgilio: Urbem quam statuo vestra est, et in Evangelio: Sermonem
quern audistis non est meus." The example "olli pro illi" is cited in Priscian i.33 (Hertz
1855:25, line 22), and in Donatus .4 (Keil 1864:397, line 1); compare the Catholicon,
where the rule reads: "Antithesis est litterae pro littera positio, ut olli pro Uli, et impete
pro ímpetu, et fit causa ornatus tantum" (John of Genoa 1483:f.g3ra).

REFERENCES

Battelli, Giulio. 1949. Lezioni di paleografía. 3rd ed. Vatican City: Pont.
Scuola Vaticana di Paleografía e Diplomatica.
Bursill-Hall, G.L. 1971. Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages: The
Doctrine of partes orationis of the Modistae. (= Approaches to Semiotics,
11.) The Hague: Mouton.
Covington, Michael A. 1984. Syntactic Theory in the Middle Ages: Modistic
models of sentence structure. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
. 1986. "Grammatical Theory in the Middle Ages." Studies in the
History of Western Linguistics: In Honour of R.H. Robins ed. by Theo­
dora Bynon & F. R. Palmer, 23-42. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Despauterius, Iohannes. 1537. Commentarii grammatici. Paris: Robert
Estienne.
Ehrle, Franciscus & Paulus Liebaert. 1932. Specimina codicum Latinorum
Vaticanorum. (= Tabulae in usum scholarum, 3.) Berlin & Leipzig: Wal­
ter de Gruyter.
Enders, Heinz W. & Jan Pinborg, eds. 1980. Radulphus Brito: Quaestiones
super Priscianum Minorem. (= Grammatica Speculativa, 3.) Stuttgart-
Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog.
Fierville, Charles, ed. 1886. Une grammaire latine inédite du XlIIe siècle.
Paris: Imprimerie nationale.
Fridh, A.J. & J.W. Halporn, eds. 1973. Magni Aurelii Cassiodori Senatoris
opera. Pars I. (= Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 96.) Turnholt:
Brepols.
 A FRAGMENT ON LATIN SYNTAX 283

Hain, Ludwig. 1925. Repertorium bibliographicum, in quo libri omnes ab

arte typographica inventa usque ad an. MD typis expressi ordine
alphabetico vel simpliciter enumerantur vel accuratius recensentur. 2 vols.
Berlin: Josef Altmann.
Hertz, Martin, ed. 1855. Prisciani grammatici Caesariensis Institutionum
grammaticarum libri XVIII ex recensione Martini Hertzii. Vol I libros I-
XII continens. (= Grammatici Latini ex recensione Henrici Keilii, 2.)
Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. (Repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1961.)
. 1859. Prisciani grammatici Caesariensis Institutionum gram­
maticarum libri XVIII ex recensione Martini Hertzii. Vol. II libros XIII-
XVIII continens. (= Grammatici Latini ex recensione Henrici Keilii, 3.)
Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. (Repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1961.)
Holtz, Louis. 1981. Donat et la tradition de renseignement grammatical:
Etude surl'Ars Donati et sa diffusion (IVe-IXe siècle) et édition critique.
(= Documents, études et répertoires publiés par VInstitut de recherche et
d'histoire des textes.) Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique.
Housman, A.E., ed. 1927. M. Annaei Lucani Belli Civilis libri decern.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
John of Genoa. 1483. Summa que vocatur Catholicon edita afratre lohanne
de lanua, ordinis fratrum predicatorum. Venice: Hermannus Liechten­
stein. [See Hain, No.2257.]
Keil, Heinrich, ed. 1864. Probi, Donati, Servii qui feruntur de arte gram­
matica libri ex recensione Henrici Keilii. (= Grammatici Latini ex recen­
sione Henrici Keilii, 4.) Leipzig: B.G. Teubner (Repr., Hildesheim:
Olms, 1961.)
Ludolphus de Lucho, n.d. Flores grammatice sive Florista cum commento.
[Basel: Jacob Wolf?]. [Copies may be found in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris, and the Royal Library, Copenhagen. See Madsen
1934:294 (no. 1604).]
Madsen, Victor. 1934. Katalog over det kongelige Biblioteks Inkunabler. 2
Hefte. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard.
Narducci, Enrico. 1893. Catalogus codicum manuscriptorumpraeter graecos
et orientales in bibliotheca Angelica, olim coenobii Sancti Augustini de
Urbe. Vol.1: Complectens codices ab instituía bibliotheca ad a. 1870.
Rome: L. Cecchini.
Nebrissensis, Aelius Antonius.. 1481. Introductiones Latinae explicitae.
Salamanca.
284 W. ΚΕΠΉ PERCIVAL

Perottus, Nicolaus. 1473. Rudimenta grammatices. Rome: Sweynheym &

Pannartz.
Pinborg, Jan. 1967. Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter. (=
Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters,
42:2.) Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung; Copenhagen:
Arne Frost-Hansen.
. 1972. Logik und Semantik im Mittelalter: Ein Überblick. (= Prob-
lemata, 10.) Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.
Reichling, Dietrich, ed. 1893. Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei:
Kritisch-exegetische Ausgabe mit Einleitung, Verzeichniss der Hand­
schriften und Drucke, nebst Registern. (= Monumenta Germaniae
Paedagogica, 12.) Berlin: A. Hofmann. (Repr., New York: Burt
Franklin, 1974.)
Sabbadini, Remigio. 1902. "Dell'insegnamento della sintassi latina."
Rivista defilología30.304-314.
. 1906. "Elementi nazionali nella teoría grammaticale dei Romani."
Studi italiani difilologíaclassica 14.113-125.
Thomson, S. Harrison. 1969. Latin Book Hands of the Later Middle Ages,
1100-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Thurot, Charles. 1868. Extraits de divers manuscrits latins pour servir à
l' histoire des doctrines grammaticales au Moyen Âge. Paris: Imprimerie
impériale. (Repr., Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1964.)
Wrobel, Iohannes, ed. 1887. Eberhardi Bethuniensis Graecismus. (= Cor­
pus grammaticorum medii aeui, 1.) Breslau: In aedibus G. Koebneri.
 Théories médiévales du pronom
et du nom général*

Irène Rosier & f Jean Stefanini

CNRS, Paris — Université de Provence, Aix-Marseille

On ne saurait étudier la grammaire médiévale, sans connaître celle de

l'Antiquité latine (dont le moyen âge commente les textes ou tire des ques­
tions à débattre) et ses sources grecques: aussi, dans les Current Trends in
Linguistics (vol.13, La Haye-Paris, 1975, 69-126) a-t-on pu confier au plus
grand historien des modistes — à la mémoire de qui ces pages sont dediées
— le chapitre "Classical Antiquity: Greece."
Il s'agit toujours d'une grammaire des parties du discours: la liste en a
été établie très tôt (même si, avec Pinborg [1975:103-105], on ne date plus
aujourd'hui la Technè de Denys de Trace de la fin du Ile siècle avant J.C.).
Mais les Latins ont dû la réaménager: leur langue n'a pas d'article (même si
hic, haec, hoc en jouent souvent le rôle dans les paradigmes): ils ne pou­
vaient, comme les Grecs, faire une seule catégorie de ho, "le" et de hos,
"qui" en tant qu'articles pré- et post-positif. Les artes, L. Holtz (1981) l'a
montré lumineusement, ont rangé la plupart qui (et les autres relatifs-inter-
rogatifs-indéfinis) parmi les pronoms, comme les y invitait la morphologie.
Mais Priscien, plus soucieux de théorie que de pédagogie et prétendant fon­
der ses classements sur les significations — dans une démarche bien retra­
cée par M. Baratin (1977) — a d'abord substitué à la division traditionelle
des noms en propres et communs, une tripartition — parallèle à la hiérar-

* C'est avec une profonde émotion que je verrai paraître cet article. Il aura en effet été l'un des
derniers signés par Jean Stefanini, décédé le 29 août 1985. Je tiens à rendre ici hommage au rôle
essentiel qu'il a joué pour le développement en France de l'histoire de la linguistique. Mes pro­
pres travaux doivent beaucoup à sa compétence et à son amitié. I.R.
286 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

chie aristotélicienne: individu, espèce, genre — en noms propres, communs

et généraux: Platon, homme, être. Pronoms personnels et démonstratifs
sont de vrais pronoms, signifiant non, comme les noms, une substance avec
les attributs qui la définissent, mais une substance en attente d'attributs, va­
riables suivant chaque situation de discours: ego ou tu peut désigner n'im­
parte quel locuteur ou interlocuteur, ille ou iste un dieu ou une cuvette. En
revanche quid est un nom général, le plus général de tous si, avec les Stoï­
ciens on considère comme genre suprême non l'être, Vêtant (on), mais le ft',
le quid qui englobe l'être et le non-être, les choses, la Chimère et les Cen­
taures. Comme tout nom, il signifie substantiam cum qualitate: la série quis,
qualis, quantus, quot s'applique à une substance "qualifiée," soit par son
caractère substantif, qualitatif, sa grandeur ou son nombre (v.infra p.291).
La confrontation de Donat et Priscien donnait un relief particulier au
problème du pronom et la portée de leurs divergences apparaissait tout par­
ticulièrement dans la discussion de la catégorisation du nom général. On or­
ganisera les discussions médiévales à partir du texte de Priscien et des qua­
tre arguments possibles en faveur de la catégorisation comme pronom du
nom général. Comme on le verra, dans les commentaires médiévaux, cha­
cun de ceux-ci représente un enjeu théorique important.

1. Quatre arguments en faveur de la classification comme pronom des

noms généraux.

(1) DÉCLINAISON: Quis-qui se déclinent comme des pronoms (Priscien II, 19

= Keil 2, p.55-58): quis cuius cui comme ille illius Uli (XII, 29 = Keil 3,
p.l9: 19-21).
(2) SUBSTITUTION ET DÉTERMINATION: Cet argument se présente sous deux an­
gles différents: (i) Ces noms généraux peuvent se mettre pour tout nom
ignoré de nous, propre ou appellatif, puisqu'en disant "quis fecit?" on peut
aussi bien répondre "Vergilius" que poeta" (XIII, 29 = Keil 3, ρ.19: 21-24;
XVII, 37 = Keil 3, p. 131:7-8); (ii) Comme des pronoms, ils se mettent
pour des noms propres et signifient donc des "personnes déterminées" {cer­
tas personas Π, 18 = Keil 2, p.55: 16-17).
(3) SIGNIFICATION: Quis et qui signifient, comme le pronom, une substance
sans qualité déterminée, et non, comme le nom, une substance et une qua­
lité (XII, 29 = Keil 2, p.19: 24-25; XVII, 37 = Keil 3, p.131: 9-10).
(4) DEIXIS (DEMONSTRATIO): L'argument de la demonstratio est ajouté aux trois
autres qui sont majeurs et ne concernent, parmi les noms généraux, que ta-
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 287

lis, tantus, etc. Ces mots seraient des pronoms puisqu'ils sont démonstratifs
et que la demonstratio est propre au pronom (XIII, 32 = Keil 3, p.21: 11-
12). Cet argument, de manière étonnante, n'est pas développé, de manière
parallèle, pour la relatio.
Cette discussion se trouve, chez Priscien et ses commentateurs, dans
des passages spécifiques qui lui sont consacrés (II, 18; II, 30 et XIII, 29)
mais dépend aussi globalement des analyses développées dans le livre
XVII. Nous étudierons cette discussion dans des commentaires de la fin
Xle et du Xlle siècle, inédits ou partiellement édités 1 et analyserons ensuite
plus brièvement son devenir dans les traités modistes du XlIIe siècle.

2. Démonstration du caractère nominal des noms généraux aux Xie-XIIe

siècles.

(1) DÉCLINAISON: Le premier argument est critiqué sur deux plans,

a) Ce n'est pas la déclinaison qui permet de définir une partie du discours,
mais ses "vis et signification (II, 19 = Keil 2, p.55: 21-22) ou sa "vis sig-
nificationis" (XII, 29 = Keil 3, p.21: 1). Argument repris dans les commen­
taires médiévaux et glosé par Guillaume de Conches en ces termes: "vis
idest officium et signification (M 28ra) et "vis significationis idest ratio et
potestas significationis" (M 74ra). Ces glosses annoncent bien, plus d'un
siècle à l'avance, la théorie des modes de signifier. Guillaume développe à
la suite du premier passage une argumentation qui sera reprise dans les
textes modistes:
(M 28ra) Sepe enim voces habent eandem significationem ut lege et lectio
nec tunc sunt eadem pars orationis quare non habent idem officium. Sepe
vero idem officium ut proprium nomen et pronomenntarnen sunt ea­
dem pars orationis quia non habent eamdem significationem et ideo unum
sine alio ad discernendas partes orationis non sufficit.
ß) La forme des mots, ici la déclinaison, est trompeuse: de nombreux pro­
noms suivent la déclinaison des noms, ainsi tous les dérivatifs (meus, tuus,
etc.) et de nombreux noms, la déclinaison des pronoms (unus, solus, totus,
etc.) (ad Prisc. XIII, 29-30).
Ce n'est donc pas la forme matérielle qui explique le classement des
parties du discours, ni la signification des mots (au sens où lectio et lege sig­
nifient la même chose), mais certaines propriétés de signification, énumé-
rées par les définitions des parties du discours, qui rendent compte de leur
fonctionnement ou officium (sur ce terme, cf. Fredborg 1973, pp.22-27).
Cette démarche sera développée strictement par les Modistes: ce sont les
288 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

propriétés de signification ou modes de signifier qui sont les principes de la

grammaire, en tant que "causes" du classement des mots, de leur construc­
tion, de la correction des énoncés.
(2) SUBSTITUTION ET DETERMINATION:
La plupart des grammairiens latins antiques choisissent de dire que le pro­
nom est mis pour un nom en général, auxquels s'oppose Priscien, pour qui
c'est pour un nom propre que le pronom est mis. Dans certain passages ce­
pendant, il garde la première formulation, ce qui suscite des discussions
chez commentateurs.
Cette première formulation peut d'abord sembler plus adéquate puis­
que le relatif, par exemple, peut avoir comme antécédent un nom propre
mais aussi un nom commun. Une réponse possible à ce problème consiste à
dire que le pronom est mis plus fréquemment pour un nom propre que pour
un nom appellatif {Glosule ad XII, 1: "frequentius ponitur pro proprio
quam pro appellativo"). Cette explication que l'on retrouvera dans le com­
mentaire Tocius Eloquentiae (cf. De Rijk 1967, p.249) est considérée par
Guillaume comme ayant peu de valeur {"parvum valet ista expositio,"
p.76va in Fredborg 1973, p.46). Une autre réponse est proposée par les
Glosule: le pronom est mis pour un nom propre, c'est-à-dire pour remplir la
fonction {officium) d'un nom propre, qui est d'avoir une signification déter­
minée:
{Glosule ad II, 18) Pronomen ponitur pro aliquo proprio nomine idest pro
obtinendo officio proprii nominis, sc. quia sicut proprium nomen significat
aliquid absolute et determinate, ita pronomen significat aliquid determina­
te ut quando dico Socrates legit et ipse scribit, ipse eamdem significat perso­
nam determinate. Si quis obiiciat: quia tunc non significat determinate
quando ponitur pro appellativo, ut si dicam ad Virgilium, homo venit ad
me ipse quaerebat te, sicut enim nee homo significat aliquid determinate ita
nec pronomen relativum ad illud determinate significat. Responsio. Quia
ipse hic determinate significat illud idem quod homo licet noticia illius non
praecessisset. Hoc enim est pronomen determinate significare quod illud
idem et non aliud significat nisi ad quod refert.
Ceci vaut donc aussi bien lorsque l'antécédent est un appellatif, car le pro­
nom signifie, de manière déterminée, la même chose que son antécédent.
C'est pourquoi même dans un exemple comme: "Nescio quem hominem in-
veni et is abstulit mihi cappam," is réfère à une personne déterminée {certa):
"(...) certam quia is ad nullam aliam rem significandam potest dirigi" {Glo­
sule ad XII, 1). Cet argument sera repris et développé en une distinction
précise entre significatio et officium. Le pronom n'a pas la significatio du
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 289

nom propre puisqu'il ne signifie aucune qualité propre. Il a par contre la

même fonction que lui qui est de désigner une chose de manière déterminée
et distincte des autres choses. Il n'a par contre, ni la signification, ni la fonc­
tion du nom appellatif: "Quamvis igitur ad appellativum nomen referatur
non tarnen pro ipso appellativo ponitur" (Guillaume de Conches M 27vb =
Fredborg [1973:23] et Pierre Hélie A 19vb et A 95rb). Cette caractéristique
du pronom a une incidence sur le problème qui nous occupe: s'applique-t-
elle également à qui-quis, etc., c'est à dire: ces noms généraux ne sont-ils
pas, comme les pronoms, mis pour des noms propres?
On trouve sur ce point un certain flottement dans nos textes.
— Le fait que la caractéristique d'être mis pour un nom propre convienne
aux indéfinis semble admis lorsqu'on justifie la définition du pronom. C'est
d'ailleurs pour cela, dit-on, que Priscien a ajouté dans sa définition une ca­
ractéristique supplémentaire, qui est de signifier des personnes définies, ca­
ractéristique qui ne convient qu'aux seuls pronoms:
(Glosule ad XII, 1) Pronomen est pars orationis quae ponitur pro proprio
nomine uniuscuiusque rei [...] et quia convenit infinitis nominibus, secun­
dum quod et huiusmodi quae quidem volebant esse pronomina et male, ut
excludat ea subditpersonasque finitas recipit [...]. (Cf. aussi Pierre Hélie A
95ra).
— Ailleurs cependant, il n'est pas admis que ces noms généraux soient mis
pour des noms. L'argument serait, pour les interrogatifs, qu'ils peuvent être
mis pour un nom puisque "quis legitl" équivaut à "legitne Socrates vel Plato
vel quis aliorum" '(Pierre Hélie ad II, 18: A 20ra et ad XVII, 37 = Toison
1978, p.67). Or, répond-on les interrogatifs ne peuvent être mis pour ces
noms propres puisqu'ils sont au contraire employés par "ignorance" de
ceux-ci (Glosule ad. XIII, 31). Ils signifient le doute (dubitatio), ce doute
étant levé par la réponse faite au moyen d'un nom propre (Guillaume de
Conches ad XIII, 29: M 74ra). C'est pourquoi les interrogatifs signifient
tous ces noms de manière confuse et indéterminée:
(Guillaume de Conches, Glose Ρ lOOva) Continet enim interrogativum
multa nomina sed confuse idest infinite.
Le pronom est mis à la place d'un nom de manière déterminée, alors que
quis remplace un nom de manière indéterminée (Pierre Hélie, Toison, p.
68).
Pour les interrogatifs et les indéfinis, il est donc démontré qu'ils ne
sont pas mis pour des noms puisqu'ils sont précisément utilisés par ignoran-
290 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

ce de la substance, qualité, quantité propres que ces noms signifient (Pris-

cien XIII, 31 =Keil 3, p.20:17-20). Ils ne signifient donc, à la différence des
pronoms, aucune personne déterminée. La démonstration sur ce point est
beaucoup plus difficile pour les relatifs et démonstratifs: on sait en effet que
le caractère déterminé du pronom lui vient précisément de ses propriétés
anaphoriques et déictiques qui lui permettent de définir la qualité et les
propriétés de la substance qu'il désigne. Ce caractère déterminé ne peut-il
pas, de la même manière, revenir au nom relatif ou démonstratif?
Le relatif nominal qui semble bien fonctionner exactement comme le
relatif pronominal, c'est-à-dire avoir une signification déterminée, non en
lui-même, mais de par la relation d'anaphore:
(Glosule ad II, 18) QUI AUTEM. Quia potest referri ad bovem et tune si­
gnificare bovis proprietates et iterum ad hominem et reputare hominis pro-
prietates et sic ad multa alia, ideo per se aeeeptum nullam qualitatem de­
terminate habet significare.
Que la relation d'anaphore permette au relatif nominal qui de spécifier sa
signification, et par là, de signifier "des personnes déterminées" apparaît
donc clairement:
(ibid.) Ut cum dico Virgilius qui scripsit Bucólica scripsit Geórgica, qui
enim, quantum ad officium huius orationis, certam personam significat.
(Cf. idem chez Pierre Hélie A 95ra).
La distinction entre le relatif nominal qui et le relatif pronominal vient de
ce que seul le premier fonctionne parfois comme indéfini ("potest in oratio-
ne infinite accipi": Glosule et Pierre Hélie, ibid.), comme dans l'exemple
Qui interficiet tyrannum, premium accipiet, alors que le pronom signifie par­
tout de manière déterminée ("ubique significat certam personam," Tocius
Eloquentie dans de Rijk [1967:250]).
Le second argument pour classer qui-quis parmi les noms s'applique
donc davantage à l'interrogatif et à l'indéfini qu'au relatif. Ce point est in­
téressant historiquement parce que, si Apollonios Dyscole classait les inter-
rogatifs et indéfinis parmi les noms, les relatifs étaient classés parmi les arti­
cles et c'est donc ceux-ci qui ont posé problème aux latins, qui devaient sup­
primer la classe des articles. Cette difficulté particulière posée par le relatif
est d'ailleurs illustrée par la réflexion commune que les noms n'ont pas le
caractère déterminé du pronom du fait qu'ils ne possèdent ni demonstratio
ni relatio, ce qui semble exclure les noms relatifs (pour les démonstratifs, cf.
infra) — (cf. par exemple Guillaume de Conches ad XIII, 29: M 74ra ou ad
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 291

XVII, 63: p.l06vb). Une possibilité pour se sortir de cette difficulté aurait
été de montrer la différence de fonctionnement du relatif nominal et prono­
minal, ce que l'on trouvera traité dans les logiques (cf. le problème de
l'antécédent distribué, ou du temps verbal différent dans les propositions
d'occurrence de l'antécédent et du relatif, dans Rosier (1985-86), et que
reprendra à celles-ci Jean de Dacie (cf. infra). Le relatif qui est maintenu
dans la catégorie des noms généraux parce qu'il peut fonctionner comme
indéfini et que quis-qui constitue en fait un seul et même mot, pouvant
remplir trois fonctions différentes, ce qui est analysé par ailleurs (Prisc.
XVII, 29 et XVII, 33).
(3) SIGNIFICATION:
1- Les discussions sur la signification du nom sont importantes, dans la pé­
riode qui nous occupe, et dépendent en particulier du sens donné aux no­
tions de substance et de qualité, d'après Priscien d'un côte, Aristote de l'au­
tre. La définition des noms généraux permet d'illustrer l'ambivalence de ces
notions. Priscien, en effet, d'un côté définit tous les noms généraux en di­
sant qu'ils signifient une substance et une qualité générale (par exemple II,
18 =Keil 2, p.55:18-19), d'autre part distingue différentes espèces parmi les
noms généraux, selon qu'ils signifient une substance (quis), une qualité
(qualis), une quantité (quantus), un nombre (quoi). Ce paradoxe apparent
s'explique par le fait que les notions de substance et de qualité ont chacune
chez Priscien deux sens distincts, comme l'a très bien montré M. Baratin
(1977:217-40). On peut représenter ceci en un tableau:

SUBSTANCE 1
SUBSTANCE 2 QUALITE 2 QUANTITE NOMBRE
QUALITÉ 1 Générale Quis Qualis Quantus Quot
Qui Talis Tantus Tot
Commune animal
Homo Prudens Maximus Multus
Propre Plato

Les notions de Substance 1 et Qualité 1 définissent l'ensemble de la classe

nominale, par opposition à la classe pronominale définie par la seule Subs­
tance 1. Les noms sont en effet caractérisés par le fait qu'ils désignent leur
réfèrent comme muni d'une certaine qualité, de certaines propriétés ou at-
292 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

tributs alors que le pronom qui ne possède pas la qualité 1, peut de ce fait
désigner n'importe quel réfèrent. Quant aux notions de Substance 2, Quali­
té 2, etc. elles représentent des catégories sémantiques générales qui per­
mettent de classifier les différentes espèces de noms. Tout nom signifie
donc la substance 1 et la qualité 1 et certains signifient des substances 2,
d'autres des qualités 2, etc. Le classement des noms généraux parmi les
noms est justifié, puisque comme eux ils possèdent une qualité 1 qui permet
de les classer en diverses espèces. Cette analyse est remarquablement corro­
borée par les commentaires médiévaux de Priscien: les Note Dunelmenses
remarquent deux usages du mot qualité, joint au mot substance, l'un où il
lui est joint seul, l'autre où il est joint en même temps à quantité, etc.:
(ff. 145rb) Et notandum quod quando loquitur iste actor de substantia, ali-
quando adiungit qualitatem tantum, aliquando qualitatem et quantitatem.
Quando itaque qualitatem solam adiungit, per qualitatem intelligit large
quemlibet proprietatem, quando vero qualitatem cum quantitate, tunc per
quantitatem accipit usuales quantitates, per qualitatem vero ceteras omnes
proprietates, etc.
On recontre fréquemment, comme dans ce texte, pour distinguer la qualité
1, ce qualificatif "pris au sens large" {large), cf. aussi:
(Glosule ad XIII, 30) Qualitas etiam large accepta etiam quantitatem com-
plectitur.
Cf. aussi Guillaume de Conches M 74ra.
ou
(Glosule ad II, 18) Qualitas [...] ponitur hic pro qualibet proprietate vel sit
vera qualitas, vel sit quantitas vel quodlibet accidens.
L'on peut ainsi expliquer l'aspect apparemment paradoxal des descrip­
tions de quis-qui, indiquant qu'il a comme qualité (= 1) une substance (=
2) indéfinie et générale; cf. Priscien XIII, 31 et les Note Dunelmenses com­
mentant ce passage:
(ff. 121rb) Quomodo intelligendum sit quod dicit infinita vel interrogativa
significare ignorationem proprie substantie uniuscuiusque vel qualitatis vel
quantitatis. Quomodo etiam illud quod postea dicit quis vel qui habere
loco qualitatis infinitam et generalem substantiam.
ou encore que qui, tout en étant un relatif de substance (= 2), a bien une
qualité (= 1): cf. les Glosule sur ce même passage.2
Les noms généraux signifient une substance indéfinie et une qualité
générale, puisque cette qualité (1) n'est ni commune, ni propre. Les auteurs
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 293

notent que de parler de substance (1) générale revient à décrire non le type
de substance que ces mots signifient, mais la manière dont ils signifient:
(Glosule ad XIII, 31) Infinite substantiam significare qualitas est vocis non
est substantiae. Omnis enim substantia finita est et certas qualitates habet:
sed vox infinite eas significat.
Ce qui est repris par Guillaume de Conches:
(M 31ra et Ρ 31rb, ad II, 30) Quia substantia sic intellecta et significata in­
finita est non numero sed significatione (cognitione M). Non quod aliqua
substantia infinita sit ut quidam volunt, sed dicitur significare substantiam
infinitam pro modo significandi, quare infinite illam significat (om. M).
On trouve ce même type d'argument à propos de la définition du pronom:
il ne signifie pas une substance qui est pure, sans qualité, mais signifie cette
substance, qui est pourvue de qualités, sans en signifier les propriétés. On
a, ici encore, en germe la théorie ultérieure des Modistes, qui diront claire­
ment que les notions de substance (1) et de qualité (1) utilisées par Priscien
pour définir le nom relèvent du mode de la signification, et de la significa­
tion proprement dite.
Les différentes espèces de la qualité 1 sont souvent analysées comme
des catégories de signification, au sens des catégories aristotéliciennes: ce­
pendant, après avoir énuméré la substance, la qualité, la quantité, le nom­
bre, nos auteurs se voient contraints de mettre "etc." du fait qu'il n'y a pas
d'espèces de noms généraux correspondant aux autres catégories aristotéli­
ciennes! (Cf. Guillaume de Conches ou Pierre Hélie dans Fredborg
[1973:25]: il y a dix genres de questions puisqu'il a dix genres de choses sim­
ples [...]). Dans le cours des analyses des interrogatifs on est cependant
amené à préciser que ces catégories recouvrent en fait davantage des types
de mots. Par quis en effet, on peut aussi bien s'enquérir d'une substance
que d'une qualité (Quis color est in Socrates? — Albedo). Ce qui distingue
alors quis de l'interrogatif de qualité (qualis) c'est que par qualis on s'en-
quiert d'une qualité désignée par un nom adjectif, alors que par quis la ré­
ponse doit consister en un nom substantif (cf. Priscien XVII, 34-35; Note
Dunelmenses 145rb ou 152ra; Guillaume de Conches 99vb; ou Pierre Hélie,
Toison p.34, qui distingue la qualité au sens du dialecticien et la qualité au
sens du grammairien).
2- La détermination de la signification des noms généraux, en particulier
celle des interrogatifs, est l'objet de nombreuses controverses, qui permet­
tent d'éclairer les rapports entre les différents textes que nous étudions. Les
294 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

noms généraux sont souvent rangés avec des mots comme nullus, omnis, ni-
chil dans cette catégorie que Guillaume appellera celle des modi loquendi.
Le texte de Pierre Hélie nous permettra de présenter les diverses opinions
qui dépendent des définitions retenues pour la classe nominale dans son en­
semble.3 On verra que la distinction des deux sens de substance et de quali­
té permet de voir sous un jour nouveau les divergences entre les auteurs.
*I: Selon les tenants de la première opinion, tout nom signifie la substance
et la qualité. Mais:
la: pour les uns quis, omnis, nullus signifient diverses substances et
qualités selon les mots auxquels ils sont adjoints;
Ib: pour d'autres omnis et nullus signifient toute chose comme substan­
ce et la collection et la distribution comme qualité. Quis signifie Γ "indéfini­
tion" ("significat infinitatem eo quod infinite significat).
lc: pour d'autres enfin, omnis signifie une forme qui s'appellerait "om-
nitas" et, pour nichil, "nichilitas."
Cette opinion I se trouve dans les Glosule et les Note Dunelmenses. Il
semble d'abord que les Note aient la position la:
(64rb) Ut cum dico omnis homo est animal (65va) omnis habet eandem
substanciam quam homo. Qualitaten! vero humanitatem adiacentem ho-
mini per omnia sua inferiora, etc.
et les Glosule Ib:
(ad XIII, 31) Cum quis substantiam omnium rerum significet nullum acci-
dens in ea determinate ponit: immo indefinite et indeterminate omnia eius
accidentia designât. Sicut enim in hac particulari propositione: quidam
homo est rhetor. Quidam neque ad Tullium neque ad alium rhetorem de­
terminate dirigitur, sed omnes rhetores indeterminate significat. Ita cum
dico quis nullum determinate sed indeterminate omne accidens cum subs­
tancia ita significo.
D'autres passages des Glosule font cependant penser que la et Ib ne sont
que deux aspects d'une même position, Ib décrivant la signification des ter­
mes pris en eux-mêmes alors que la montre comment, dans un énoncé par­
ticulier, ces termes voient leur signification déterminée, selon le terme au­
quel ils sont adjoints:
(ad XIII, 31) Sciendum autem quod quis ex inventione vim aequivoci ha­
bet: sed quando in oratione alicui dictione adiungitur determinate idem
cum illa significat. Si enim dicat quis homo: quis in hac oratione substan­
tiam rationalem mortalem quantum ad vim orationis determinate significat
non quantum ex vi nature: sed quia idem significat homo cui adiungitur.
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 295

De même pour les relatifs:

(ad II, 29) Qui habeat significare omnem illam rem ad quam proferatur.
Habet significare et easdem proprietates quas déterminât vox ad quam re-
fertur: ut quando in oratione refertur ad hominem, significat easdem quali-
tates quas et homo.
L'on trouve d'ailleurs dans les Note Dunelmenses également une définition
générale de type Ib:
(154va) Generalia dicuntur quia generaliter idest universaliter omnia signi-
ficata illorum specialium significant.
Les positions voisines des Glosule et des Note Dunelmenses amènent leurs
auteurs à juger que ces mots sont équivoques, puisqu'ils ont autant de si­
gnifiés qu'il y a de mots auxquels ils peuvent être joints (Glosule ad II, 22
et dans la citation supra ad XIII, 31 et Note Dunelmenses 65rb). Notons
pour terminer que les Note énumèrent des opinions divergentes sur le pro­
blème des noms généraux, qui apparaissent comme des subdivisions de Ib.
*II: La seconde opinion mentionnée par Pierre Hélie est celle de Guillaume
de Conches, qui divise la classe nominale selon que les noms signifient (a)
la substance comme homo; (b) ce qui est inhérent à la substance comme al­
bedo; () des fictions comme hircocervus ou chimera; (d) des modi loquendi
de rebus comportant des quantifieurs et nos noms généraux. Il en conclut
que tout nom ne signifie pas la substance et la qualité. Or à la lumière de
notre distinction des deux sens de substance et qualité, cette dernière con­
clusion peut être interprétée: tout nom ne signifie pas la substance 2 et la
qualité 2. Il dit en effet que les noms qui signifient la substance (=2) signi­
fient bien une qualité (= 1) soit propre, soit commune (cf. Guillaume dans
Fredborg [1981:30], ce qui est repris dans la glose Promisimus, cf. de Rijk
[1967:258]). Il est important de noter, par ailleurs, que Guillaume justifie
sa position propre sur la partition de la classe nominale précisément à partir
des passages où Priscien admet celle-ci pour rendre compte de l'existence
de différentes espèces de noms généraux (ad Prisc. XVII, 36: Ρ lOOrb et ad
XVII, 63: Ρ 106va).
La catégorie des modi loquendi a clairement une origine logique:
(ad Prisc. II, 22 dans Fredborg 1981, p.30) Nomina (...) vel significant (...)
modos loquendi de rebus — unde Aristoteles: 'omnis' enim non significat
universale sed quoniam universaliter — similiter 'quidam,' 'aliquis,' 'nul­
lus' et huiusmodi, quae dialectic! vocant signa propositionum.

Ces noms ont des propriétés particulières:

296 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

(ibid p.31) Illa vero, quae significant modos loquendi, nec substantiam nec
qualitatem significant, nec aliquid nominant.
Ils ne nomment rien car seuls les noms qui peuvent être prédiqués des subs­
tances ont cette propriété (ibid., p.32). Ce sont des noms qui signifient soit
des substances (= 2) soit des qualités (= 2). La qualité, que Guillaume
semble dénier à ces mots dans ce passage, leur est reconnue ailleurs (ibid.,
p.36), car elle est alors qualité 1, manière commune ou propre de référer:
(ibid., p.37) Omnis nullus nihil et huiusmodi significant connunem qualita­
tem, id est communem modum loquendi tarn de corpore quam de re.
*III: Selon la troisième opinion sur la signification des noms, à laquelle se
rangera Pierre Hélie, les noms signifient soient des substances, soit sur le
mode des substances (modo substantie). Ici, omnis, ou quis ne signifient pas
mais consignifient, signifient sur le mode des substances, c'est-à-dire "Sine
tempore, in casuali inflexione et quasi communiter" La position de Pierre
Hélie ne se distingue de celle de Guillaume qu'en le fait qu'il accorde, par
souci de grammairien, davantage d'importance à justifier l'unité de la classe
nominale, qu'à montrer, comme Guillaume, sa division en fonctions de cri­
tères partiellement logiques (rôle dans la prédication), division que Pierre
Hélie accepte en d'autres passages.
Pierre Hélie critique trois opinions sur la signification des noms géné­
raux dans deux passages parallèles (ad XIII, 29 et sv: A HOrb et ad XVII,
33: Toison, p.68).
a - Omnis interrogativa dictio significat illud generalissimum cuius species ad
questionem factam per eandem dictionem possunt responden, ut 'quis'
substantiam, 'qualis' qualitatem et sic de ceteris.
Cette opinion est celle de Guillaume de Conches: or dans un premier passage,
en des termes voisins de ceux de Guillaume, Pierre Hélie l'accepte (ad II,
30: Fredborg [1973:25-26]) alors qu'il la rejette dans nos deux passges.
b - La seconde opinion est notre position la ci-dessus, selon laquelle la
signification de ces noms dépend de celle des termes auxquels ils sont
adjoints. Pour abréger, nous ne la répétons pas ici. Elle apparaît sous une
forme beaucoup plus détaillée que dans les Glosule ou les Note (source in­
termédiaire, ultérieure à ces deux textes?). Elle est également signalée dans
le commentaire de Pierre Hélie sur II, 30.
 - La troisième opinion est proche de la position Ib ci-dessus: "signifi­
cat substantiam infinite et iste modus significandi ei est pro qualitate." On ne
la trouve qu'une fois (ad XIII, 29).
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 297

Pierre Hélie adopte finalement une position très différente, reposant

sur sa distinction des trois sens du mot substance dont il se sert abondam­
ment: substantia a substandol a subsistendol a substando et subsistendo, que
l'on ne peut discuter ici:
(ad XIII, 29) Michi autem videtur quod 'quis' significat substantiam et
qualitatem, id est, rem qua forma subsistentem vel qua forma subsistens.
Qui enim querit, 'Quis currit?' querit subsistens qua forma currat ut per
formam res de qua dubitat ei certificetur, nisi quod cum queritur, 'Quis est
Socrates?' magis videtur ex adiuncto significare quod subsistens forma,
unde et respondetur pronomen quod suppositum significat.
On trouvera dans la Summa de Petrus Hispanus les mêmes trois critiques et
une conclusion proche de celle de Pierre Hélie (Hunt 1975:104-05).
(4) DEMONSTRATIO:
L'argument de la demonstratio concerne talis et tantus: la demonstratio se­
rait propre aux pronoms (XIII, 32 = Keil, p.21:11-12). Les arguments dé­
veloppés dans les commentaires médiévaux suivent de très près Priscien, et
nous les reprendrons donc très rapidement.
1- La demonstratio ne convient pas aux seuls pronoms (non soli: Glosule ad
XIII, 32) puisqu'il existe des adverbes démonstratifs comme ecce.
2- Elle ne convient pas à tous les pronoms (non omni) puisque les pronoms
is ou sui sont seulement relatifs.
3- La demonstratio nominalis ne fonctionne pas comme la demonstratio
pronominalis. Le pronom démonstratif a seulement une relation à la chose
qu'il désigne:
(Glosule ad XIII, 33) Illud quod per pronomen solum demonstratur sine
aliqua relatione quam habeat ad alium ostenditur: ut si loquens de Achille
dicam: hic est bonus miles, per hic nulla relatio de Achille ad alium extrin-
secus significatur.
alors que le nom démonstratif (ex. talis) a en plus une relation à ce à quoi
il réfère (qualis):
(ibid.) Ut si aspiciens Achillem demonstrative de ipso dicam: Talis apparet
Pyrrhus qualis pater eius, talis istud demonstrativum nomen in hac oratio-
ne Achillem demonstrative significat; Pyrrhum vero ad quem Achilles rela-
tionem similitudinis habet ex impositione; qualis appositum est propter re­
lationis ostensionem, et significat Achillem per impositionem, Pyrrhum
vero per relationem.
Par ailleurs le genre et le nombre du pronom démonstratif dépendent de la
chose désignée, et non ceux du nom démonstratif, puisqu'en montrant la
298 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

mer (mare, neutre) on peut utiliser un démonstratif d'un autre genre (talem
esse Nilum). Il est étonnant, comme nous l'avons noté plus haut, que cet ar­
gument de la demonstratio n'ait pas induit un argument du même type pour
la relatio, chez Priscien et les commentateurs de cette époque.
La démonstration de l'appartenance à la classe nominale des indéfinis,
relatifs et interrogatifs est un indice important de l'autorité relative de Pris­
cien et Don at. Que Donat soit supplanté par Priscien au Xlle siècle appa­
raît de façon caractéristique dans le commentaire sur Donat de Ralph de
Beauvais. Ralph en effet, tout en gardant la définition du pronom et la divi­
sion de qualité en finie et indéfinie de Donat, range cependant finalement
ces termes parmi les noms. Il s'autorise d'arguments de Priscien que nous
avons discutés: les noms généraux signifient une substance indéfinie alors
que celle des pronoms est définie et certaine, et de même pour la qualité,
puisque cette substance et cette qualité varient selon ce à quoi ils sont ad­
joints (cf. notre position la ci-dessus; cf. Kneepkens 1982:20-27).

3. Devenir de la question des noms généraux dans les traités modistes.

Les Modistes s'intéressent au mode de signifier, qui définit la partie du

discours et non à la signification proprement dite, qui relève du mot. Cette
distinction est essentielle, comme l'a souvent expliqué le Pr. Pinborg. 4 Les
notions de substance 1 et qualité 1, qui permettaient de définir le nom et le
pronom, sont réinterprétées en termes de modes de signifier. Les notions
de substance 2 et qualité 2, en tant que res praedicamentales, sont écartées
de la grammaire comme relevant du niveau des significata. Cette discussion
est un lieu commun des traités Modistes (cf. par exemple Boèce de Dacie,
Q.29etQ.103).
Le nom et le pronom ont en commun d'avoir un mode de signifier ren­
voyant à une propriété de stabilité et de permanence (modus habitus etper-
manentiae). Ils se distinguent en ce que le nom seul signifie sur le mode de
l' "appréhension déterminée": on retrouve en termes plus nets ce qui était
dit antérieurement, à savoir que le nom désigne un référent déterminé
puisqu'il désigne par exemple soit un homme soit une pierre, alors qu'un
pronom peut désigner indifférement n'importe quel référent (mode de
Γ "apprehension indéterminée"). 5 Radulphus Brito insiste, de manière ori­
ginale, sur le caractère référentiel du pronom, puisqu'il le définit comme si­
gnifiant "ce sur quoi peut porter le discours" (id de quo potest fieri sermo).
Cette expression, généralement ambivalente car elle peut désigner aussi
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 299

bien le 'subject-term' que le 'subject-matter,' est ici clairement entendue

dans le second sens:
(p.228) Pronomen [...] significat omne id de quo potest fiere sermo. [...].
Sed omne id de quo potest fieri sermo potest demonstrari vel referri per
pronomen demonstrativum et relativum.
La distinction entre signifié et mode de signifier et la clarification de l'utili­
sation des notions de substance et de qualité a une conséquence importan­
te: celle de permettre la distinction entre pronom adjectif et substantif de
manière parallèle à la distinction nom adjectif et nom substantif, à partir de
propriétés d'ordre syntaxique (le "modus adiacentis sivc ut esse in altero" vs
"modus per se stands" cf. Martin de Dade, par exemple, p.51, §105 et 106).
Cette clarification permet également de simplifier grandement la ques­
tion des noms généraux. Nous prendrons simplement quelques points ca­
ractéristiques du traitement de ces questions par Jean de Dacie et Radul-
phus Brito.
Jean de Dacie illustre à la fois la continuité et la nouveauté de la dé­
marche modiste. Continuité, puisqu'il reprend à Guillaume de Conches la
définition de la signification des noms interrogatifs, qui, on l'a vu, fut ac­
ceptée puis critiquée par Pierre Hélie (cf. supra; Jean de Dacie, p.457:29-
458:5). Cette définition montre bien que les notions de substance 2, qualité
2, quantité, etc. servant à distinguer les différents interrogatifs relevaient de
la signification, au sens propre. Continuité, avec la reprise presque littérale
des "causes de l'invention" de ces mots à nos deux auteurs (comparer Guil­
laume et Pierre Hélie dans Fredborg [1973:25] et Jean de Dacie, p.459:7 et
sv.). Nouveauté, par contre, dans la description du mode de signifier que les
relatifs, interrogatifs et indéfinis ont en commun et qui les constituent com­
me des noms adjectifs, du fait qu'ils sont tous dépendants d'un autre terme:
(p.460:10-13) [...] Relativum dependet ad antecedens seu ad precedens,
interrogatiuum ad subsequens, quod est suum responsiuum, et infinitum
ad neutrum horum dependet determinate, propter quod dicitur infinitum.
Nouveauté, également, dans le détail de l'analyse du fonctionnement syn­
taxique de ces termes qui ont une double relation, d'une part au terme dont
ils dépendent, d'autre part aux éléments de la proposition dans laquelle ils
se trouvent.
Dans un passage intéressant, Jean de Dacie cherche à distinguer le re­
latif nominal du relatif pronominal, question dont nous avions souligné
l'absence dans les traités antérieurs. Il reprend les distinctions canoniques
300 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

dans les logiques terministes entre relatif d'identité /de diversité et de subs­
tance/ d'accident pour montrer que si les relatifs nominaux sont représentés
dans les quatre catégories (respectivement qui/alius et qui/talis) les relatifs
pronominaux le sont seulement dans les premières catégories de chacune
des paires(illepar exemple ne peut être que relatif d'identité de substance).
La raison en est que les pronoms ne possèdent pas la norme, qualité ou ap­
préhension déterminée qui seule peut être concernée par une diversité et
que, de ce fait, ils peuvent renvoyer à tout réfèrent, qu'il soit substance ou
accident.6 La troisième différence est que le pronom peut être relatif réci­
proque et non le nom (Jean de Dacie, 1975:471.26-472.21).
Dans sa Quaestio 41, Radulphus Brito discute du classement comme
nom de quis et qui. Il prend un certain nombre d'arguments qui relèvent
des arguments 2 et 3 de Priscien. Un des arguments contre le caractère pro­
nominal, qu'il propose, est que "tout pronom est démonstratif ou relatif"
(p.239), formulation que nous avons déjà rencontrée (cf. p.290) et dont
nous avons souligné le caractère étonnant du fait qu'elle exclut les relatifs
des noms généraux. Le classement comme nom des relatifs fait d'ailleurs
problème si on regarde sa description du pronom relatif: pour justifier que
le pronom puisse désigner indifféremment n'importe quelle essence, il
prend une série d'exemples: reprise d'une substance, Homo currit et ipse
disputât, d'une qualité, ille color est in pañete et ipse est albus, quantité, etc.
Ceci fait écho à l'argument ci-dessus de Jean de Dacie selon lequel le pro­
nom n'a pas de spécificité générique qui restreigne le type de ses antécé­
dents possibles. On remarquera cependant que ces exemples accepteraient
très bien un qui, nom relatif à la place du pronom. Radulphus invoque
d'ailleurs ceci comme argument possible en faveur du classement pronomi­
nal de qui (arg. 2, p.238: Sor currit qui disputât, color est in pariete qui est
albus, etc.). Il réfute cet argument en disant que c'est grâce à son mode de
signifier que le pronom peut renvoyer indifféremment à des substances, à
des qualités, etc., alors que pour qui, c'est grâce à son signifié (le signifié ne
permet pas de déterminer l'appartenance à une catégorie grammaticale).
Cette réponse elliptique peut s'expliquer par référence à des considérations
que l'on trouve dans des commentaires antérieurs: qui relatif, parce qu'il si­
gnifie la substance (=2) peut aussi bien renvoyer à des substances qu'à des
accidents de ces substances, tout comme, pour la même raison, quis inter-
rogatif, peut interroger sur des substances mais aussi sur leurs accidents (cf.
supra p.293, quis color est in Socrate? — Albedo).
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES D U PRONOM ET D U NOM G É N É R A L 301

*****

Le problème de la classification des noms généraux, tout en permettant de

clarifier la nature distincte du nom et du pronom, nous a également servi,
dans un premier temps, à préciser les rapports entre différents textes gram­
maticaux du Xlle — période encore mal connue —, et dans un second
temps à illustrer la spécificité des Modistes: comme continuateurs, ils ont
clarifié certains points du débat antérieur, mais en le réduisant et en le sim­
plifiant singulièrement, comme novateurs, ils ont développé tout particu­
lièrement ce qui est pour eux au centre de la grammaire, les principes de la
construction de ces noms.

NOTES
1. Nous citons nos textes dans l'ordre chronologique probable de leur rédaction et, dans
l'étude, nous donnerons de préférence, dans la mesure du possible, la version la plus an­
cienne des arguments développés. Les Glosule in Priscianum sont peut-être l'oeuvre de
Guillaume de Champeaux (Fredborg 1977,1981). Il en existe plusieurs manuscrits et édi­
tions des XVe et XVIe siècles, ce commentaire ayant été édité comme gloses marginales
dans une des premières éditions de Priscien (cf. Gibson 1979). Nous avons utilisé l'édition
de Benedictus Brognolus (imprimeur Georgio Arrivabene) de 1488. Les Notae super Pris­
cianum et super Rethoricam, dites Note Dunelmenses se trouvent dans le mss Durham,
Cathedral Library  IV 29, ff.1-216 (cf. la description par Hunt 1941, repr. 1980). Les
Glose super Priscianum se trouvent dans les mss Florence, Bibl. Laur. San Marco 310,
ff.1-82 = M et Paris, BN lat 15130, ff.1-137 = Ρ, le second commentant non seulement
Priscien majeur mais également Priscien Mineur. Des extraits en ont été publié, auxquels
nous renverrons, quand c'est le cas. La Summa super Priscianum de Pierre Hélie: pour le
Priscien majeur, nous avons utilisé le mss de l'Arsenal 711 = A; le Priscien Mineur a été
édité par Toison (1978).
2. La confusion entre les deux sens de substance et de qualité explique que le classement de
qualis parmi les noms pose moins de problèmes que celui de quis: on se sert de l'ambigui-
té pour dire que qualis signifie la qualité ( = 2 ) alors que le pronom signifie la substance
sans qualité (= 1). Pour quis, la confusion entraîne à tenter de justifier que la substance
qu'il signifie n'est pas la même que celle signifiée par le pronom. Guillaume de Conches,
par exemple, dit de ce fait que ce n'est pas la signification de quis qui le distingue du pro­
nom mais son mode de signifier, alors que qualis se distingue bien du pronom par sa signi­
fication. Ici, il confond donc la substance 2 signifiée spécifiquement par qualis, de la subs­
tance 1 signifiée par le pronom. Ailleurs cependant il met bien sur le même plan, comme
espèces de la qualité 1, la substance 2 signifiée par quis, la qualité 2 signifiée par qualis,
etc. (cf. M 74ra).
3. Cf. le texte dans de Rijk (1967), pp.230-34 et Fredborg (1981), pp.29 et sv. et l'attribution
des différentes opinions discutées par Pierre Hélie dans de Rijk (ibid.).
302 IRÈNE ROSIER & JEAN STEFANINI

4. Cf. par exemple Pinborg (1975:45-49) ou Pinborg (1977), pp.XX et XXII et sv.
5. Cf. Bursill-Hall (1971:180-95) et en particulier pp. 182 et sv. sur le devenir de la qualitas
de Donat dans les traités modistes.
6. On trouve une explication similaire par exemple chez Lambert d'Auxerre (cf. Rosier
1985-86).

RÉFÉRENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES

Baratin, Marc. 1977. Priscien et la constitution d'une syntaxe latine. Recher­

ches sur le livre XVII des uInstitutiones grammaticales." Thèse, Paris:
Sorbonne.
Boethii Daci Opera. 1969. Modi significandi sive quaestiones super Pris-
cianum Maiorum. Ed. par Jan Pinborg & Heinrich Roos. (= Corpus
Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi, 4.). Hauniae: Gad.
Bursill-Hall, G.L. 1971. Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages. The
Hague: Mouton.
, ed. 1980. R.W. Hunt, Collected Papers on the History of Grammar
in the Middle Ages. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
Fredborg, Karin Margareta. 1973. "The Dependence of Petrus Helias'
Summa super Priscianum on William of Conches' Glose super Priscia-
num." Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen Age Grec et Latin 11.1-57.
. 1977. "Tractatus Glosarum Prisciani in Ms Vat. lat. 1486." Ibid.,
21.21-44.
. 1981. "Some Notes on the Grammar of William of Conches." Ibid.,
37.21-41.
Gibson, Margaret. 1977. "The Collected Editions of Priscien: The printed
editions 1470-1859." Studi Medievali ser 3.XVIII. 1.248-60.
. 1979. "The Early Scholastic GLOSULE to Priscian, Institutiones
Grammaticae; the text and its influences." Studi Medievali ser. 3
20:1.35-54.
Holtz, Louis. 1981. Donat et la tradition de l'enseignement grammatical.
Etude et édition critique. Paris: Editions du CNRS.
Hunt, R.W. 1940. "Studies on Priscian in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
I: Petrus Helias and his predecessors." Bursill-Hall 1980. 1-38.
. 1950. "Studies on Priscian in the twelfth Century II: The School of
Ralph of Beauvais." Ibid., 39-94.
 THÉORIES MÉDIÉVALES DU PRONOM ET DU NOM GÉNÉRAL 303

. 1975. "The Summa of Petrus Hispamus on Priscianus Minor." Ibid.,

95-116.
Johannis Daci Opera. 1975. Ed. by Alfredus Otto. (= Corpus
Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi, 1:1-2.) Hauniae: Gad.
Kneepkens, C.H. 1982. Radulfi Belvacensis: Glose in Priscianum. Nijme­
gen: Artist arium.
Martini de Dacia Opera. 1961. Ed. by Henricus Roos. (= Corpus
Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi, 2.) Hauniae: Gad.
Pinborg, Jan. 1975. "Die Logik der Modistae." Pinborg 1984.39-97.
. 1977. Sigerus de Cortraco, Summa modorum significandi. Amster­
dam: J. Benjamins.
. 1984. Medieval Semantics: Selected studies on medieval logic &
grammar. Ed. by Sten Ebbesen. London: Variorum Reprints.
Radulphus Brito. 1980. Quaestiones super Priscianum minorem. Ed. by
Heinz Enders & Jan Pinborg. (= Grammatica Speculativa, 3.) Stuttgart-
Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.
Rijk, L.M. de. 1962-67. Logica modernorum: A contribution to the History
of Early Terminist Logic. Vol.1 (1962) et II (1-2) (1967). Assen: Van
Gorcum.
Rosier, Irène. 1985. "Relatifs et relatives dans les traités terministes des
Xlle et XIIIe siècles. Première partie: Termes anaphoriques et règles
d'anaphore." Vivarium 23:1.1-22.
. 1986. "Relatifs et relatives [...]. Deuxième partie: Distinction entre
restrictives et non-restrictives." Vivarium 24:1.1-21.
Toison, J.E. 1978. "The Summa of Petrus Helias on Priscian Minor." Ed.
by J.E. Toison with an introduction by Margaret Gibson. Cahiers de
l'Institut du Moyen Age Grec et Latin 27/28.
 Dante and the Ars Grammatica
Aldo Scaglione
New York University

In Convivio (II xiii) Dante establishes for us a system of the Arts that
has cosmic implications; the seven planetary heavens, he tells us, are the
progressive sites of the Trivium and Quadrivium, then the Heaven of the
Fixed Stars corresponds to the stadia superiora, i.e., Physica and
Metaphysica, next the Ethica is lodged in the Primum Mobile, and the
Empyrean, last and highest, is the place of Theologia. Thus the ten heavens
are divided into a group of seven (for the Seven Liberal Arts) followed by
a group of three.
But we do not find this distortion in Dante's Paradiso, for at the
moment of starting the Commedia, or rather, in the process of conceiving
it, Dante reached a point at which the instruments of grammar, rhetoric,
and logic available to him could neither provide nor explain the poetics, the
truly nova poetria, that he now needed as a theoretical support for the new
kind of poem he was to forge.1 Indeed, he had abandoned the Convivio
because his new journey was to cover more ground and to a greater depth
than a banquet of science ever could, and the salvation of mankind, he
realized, could no* simply come from an exposition of the truth but from a
penitential, cathartic experience of the good and evil of history and of the
concrete .world of the reality. The traditional trivium arts could not prepare
for nor explain what he had discovered, namely that the true rhetoric of
communicating amoral, pragmatically decisive truth, and of making this
revelation salutary in a conversion of the audience would have to be not a
scientific, philosophical, or even theological exposition, but an act of life, a
journey real and personal, hence not a statement but an act, a deed, rep-

* A slightly different version of this article has appeared in The Divine Comedy and the Encyclo­
pedia of Arts and Sciences ed. by Giuseppe Di Scipio & Aldo Scaglione (Amsterdam & Philadel­
phia: John Benjamins, 1988), pp.27-41.
306 ALDO SCAGLIONE

resented dynamically in fieri. It would also have to contain the totality of

being, perceiving, and thinking. It would be, he realized, an act of poetry, but
a kind of poetic work never seen before, for which he would have to invent
the language, the metrical form, the genre, and much of the cultural
background. For that there was need of a grammar, a grammar of a lan­
guage never seen, not a given style, a dialect, or Latin, not even that of the
volgare illustre. The Aeneid could, and did, give him an inspiration through
the dynamic moral allegory of Aeneas's journey through life and, in Book
6, the underworld. But he would have to go beyond that matter, that lan­
guage, and that style, because his matter was real and definitive, not tenta­
tive and merely symbolic as that of the pagan poet, and it would reach to
heaven and all of history.
Maria Corti (1981a:36) reminds us of Giuseppe Billanovich's saying
that behind a poet there has always been, ten or hundred years earlier, a
grammarian, but despite the prolonged efforts of modern scholars the
background to Dante's grammatical work appears to be relatively limited,
so that, in essence, Dante had to be his own grammarian.
We must start once again with Convivio (II xiii) and note, first, that in
assigning the seven liberal arts to the various planets, after placing Gram­
mar in the Moon and Dialectica in Mercury, Dante places next, and higher,
Rhetorica in Venus as superior to the former — clearer, more luminous,
more beautiful, and relatively infinite versus the finiteness of Dialectic —,
thus associating himself with that current within medieval thinking that was
to triumph in Humanism's revaluation of rhetoric over logic. Without
thereby granting Dante an undue measure of 'pre-Humanism,' this is a
sign of his unwavering determination to see in aesthetic activity a higher,
brighter, and more powerful role than could be found, in his mind, in
philosophy and science pure and simple, in a strictly logical vein.
With regard to gramática (we shall use his own spelling for it), it is also
in order to underline Dante's practical separation from it of metrical con­
siderations, in so far as, in the same context of Convivio (II xiii), he places
Music in Mars, after Arithmetic (in the Sun), as the second of the Quad-
rivium Arts, and thus implicitly restricts Grammar to the supervision of
prosaic language forms (together with Rhetoric), whereas the poetic, verse-
bound manifestations of language, a higher set, demand the additional
assistance of Música. Dante always speaks of poetry as language ruled by
arithmetic and music, musica poita {De vulgari eloquentia II iv 2), and
specifies the values inherent in overcoming the difficulties and challenges
 DANTE AND THE 'ARS GRAMMATICA' 307

posited by this set of obstacles, the laws that bind and constrain the verse,
together with the rhyme.
Now gramaticameans in Dante essentially two things, starting with De
vulgari eloquentia (I i 2-3). First, the art of tying and binding speech into
rules that will stabilize it, ennoble it so as to raise it to the level of a cultural
medium deserving the task of expressing the highest values of the empire or
of a nation, hence to fix it so that culture, once achieved, will endure
through the ages. Second, and consequently, it means the typical
implementation of this process, that is, Latin, the grammatical language par
excellence, but also the vernacular, starting with Italian, once this new lan­
guage will have been illustrated to the level of a grammatical medium along
with Latin. Language for Dante is the coupling of sensible sign and mean­
ing, which he characteristically refers to as razionalità, and grammar is the
foundation of a conventional standard, arbitrary and cultural, hence stable,
as against the "natural" mutability of positive languages {De vulgari
eloquentia I iii 2).
Furthermore, I submit that the impact of the traditional ars grammatica
must be seen in the argumentative and critical method of Dante's prosastic
exposition, essentially explication de texte, specifically in the prose sections
of the Vita nuova and the Convivio, where he imitates the grammatici (and
the logici) in their canonical role of commentators on poets. A warning is,
however, in order here. Explication and declaration of texts (hermeneutical
activity) did become once again in the Renaissance, as it had been in
antiquity, a 'grammatical' activity, in the sense that humanists conceived of
themselves as 'grammatici' (cf., e.g., Scaglione 1961). In the Middle Ages,
on the other hand, grammar was generally downgraded to its more elemen­
tary levels, and Dante is a clear witness of this in his narrow view of gram­
mar proper as limited to 'linguistic' scopes. Indeed, his own explication of
his texts moves more properly within the realm of logic and semantics.
The most detailed and complex application of Dante's idea of grammar
appears perhaps in De vulgari eloquentia (II vi), where he defines,
analyzes, and exemplifies the doctrine of "constructio" or stylistic composi­
tion, and there it is clear how Dante always and typically blends together
language and style, grammar and rhetoric (and logic), and for rhetoric,
both ancient theory and medieval applications (mainly, the ars dictaminis).
Furthermore, he aims at a conclusive context that covers all of literature
with poetry at its peak, so that he also produces a work of poetics, not with­
out close contacts with the medieval poetriae which, in themselves, were
308 ALDO SCAGLIONE

chiefly an adaptation of ancient rhetoric for new ends. He does so with con­
stant implicit and explicit reference to both Latin writing (verse and prose)
and vernacular composition (and here his examples are mostly poetic, since
vernacular prose was still, at the time of the Convivio and the De vulgari
eloquentia, in its infancy).
Elsewhere (Scaglione 1978) I have given a detailed analysis of that
important chapter II vi of the De vulgari, and I am not going to repeat what
I said there.2 But I should add that the made-up Latin examples Dante
offers for the constructio excelsa, the highest style that befits the 'canzone'
and 'tragic' writing, together with the second of the four gradus construc­
tionist the pure sapidus, betray a particular twist that may be of great sig­
nificance toward understanding Dante's conception of the highest litera­
ture. It so happens that those two examples contain, in addition to the tech­
nical (stylistic, syntactic, logical) qualities to be specifically illustrated, a
special feature that corresponds to what is most characteristic of Dante's
mature achievement, the very Commedia. Mengaldo (1978:287) has recal­
led Contini's judgment that the final wealth of examples that Dante gives
for the gradus excelsus in the vernaculars (he cites eleven cantiones by
Provençal, French, and Italian poets) constitute "un'abbondanza che non fa
centro" — un embarras de richesse, we could say —, in so far as, fascinating
and intriguing as they are for their critical acumen, they remain somewhat
inadequate to express the height of which he is speaking, because it was not
yet documented — though it was soon to be. Dante, in other words, was
preparing the ground for something as yet unseen but soon to be seen in full
daylight, the very Commedia. Now one feature the Commedia and those
two examples of style in De vulgari eloquentia (II vi) have in common is the
intense personal, psychological and pathetic commitment of the author, to
a degree that was also unprecedented in literature.
Let us listen to the two examples: "piget me, cunctis pietate majorem,
quicumque in exilio tabescentes patriam tantum sompniando revisunt" ('it
makes me, who am second to none in the capacity to feel pity for human
misfortunes, sorry to think of whoever, rotting in exile, can afford to see his
country only in his dreams'); and the other one: "ejecta maxima parte
florum de sinu tuo, Florentia, nequicquam Trinacriam Totila secundus
adivit" ('Charles of Valois, the new Totila, succeeded in casting out of thy
bosom the greatest part of thy flowers, oh Florence, but then he failed in
his assault on Sicily'). And the example that comes in between, the one for
the gradus venustus, partakes in some degree of the personal involvement
 DANTE AND THE 'ARS GRAMMATICA' 309

entailed in the other two expressing through the figure of irony Dante's
contempt for the marquis Azzo VIII of Este.
Can we avoid thinking of the Commedia, with its intense merging of
objectivity and subjectivity, universal observation and personal pathos?
Just as when he composes his sublime poetic fiction, even in apparently
scholastic, didactic examples imbedded in a technical, formally impersonal
treatise, Dante cannot do any less than pour forth his own deeply suffer­
ed, exquisitely personal politico-psychological experience, emerging
from and through the themes of his exile, the ruin of Florence, and the
need to take a political stand through violent satire (cf. Mengaldo
1978:284).
One might reflect on the centrality of the autobiographical element in
the most detached and "objective" context of literary fiction when a Dante
can rise to a high artistic level even in the midst of the most abstract intel­
lectual discourse by being lyrical and thoroughly subjective. In doing so, he
implicitly expresses his truest poetics, the poetics that made him the incom­
parable poet of the Commedia, and it seems interesting that this anticipa­
tion of the achievements soon to come would be contained in a treatise of
gramatica.
Indeed, the critics who have studied Dante's technical and, specifi­
cally, grammatical speculations have commented on the inseparability of
such aspects of his thought and his total personality. In other words, when
Dante discusses grammar or logic or anything else he does not cease to have
in mind the global picture of what he wants to achieve as a man and as a
poet. This is something that one must keep in mind in order to assess and,
possibly, resolve the numerous, troublesome changes of mind and even
contradictions in his long and intense career as a writer. The Enciclopedia
dantesca (Bosco 1970-76) reflects constantly this current attitude of the
scholars, who speak of 'discontinuity' in Dante's career and production.
Indeed, Dante's utterances are not only often 'problematic,' they even
appear, at times, unstable and contradictory. But I think we might hit
closer to the mark by registering an uncanny, unique combination of a deep
continuity together with a more superficial discontinuity, a substantive
coherence together with changes of mind and attitudes and specifics. There
is continuity in the constancy of the underlying theses, and discontinuity in
the aesthetic and ideological solutions. On the formal level, Dante is 'gram­
matical' and 'rhetorical' in his understanding that his methods and solutions
must be linguistic and stylistic, even while he tends to fall in varying
310 ALDO SCAGLIONE

degrees, up to the very Comedy, into the trap, ubiquitous at his time, of
abstract logical argument. An extreme aberration in this respect can be
seen in the second and third tractates of the Convivio, where he eventually
departs from the meaning that is inherent to the letter of the poems and ties
them to alien, metaphysical allegories. The donna gentile or pietosa then
becomes Philosophy, and the poetry is lost. E converso, in the Divine Com­
edy the very logic of his scientific demonstrations becomes concrete, and
the poetry achieves its incomparable triumph. Compare only the significant
passages of the Paradiso where the summaries of classical genetics, physiol­
ogy, and psychology are lifted out of the rather cut-and-dry chapters of
Convivio IV, and turned into something else.
Another twist that characterizes some of the most recent specialized
study of Dante's thinking on language and the Trivium arts is the emphasis
on his being chiefly oriented toward literature. Some contemporary lin­
guists have attempted to assess Dante's position on language from a strictly
linguistic vantage point, but communication between linguists and Dante
scholars has been rather scant, with the result that, while Dante specialists
have hesitated to isolate the poet's linguistic thinking as such, linguists have
been largely unaware of some of the crucial features of Dante's ideas on
these subjects as disclosed by Dante scholarship at large, and as indicated in
what follows.
Thirty years of scholarship are bracketed between the two epoch mak­
ing critical editions of Aristide Marigo (1938) and Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo
(1968). The major interventions are, besides Marigo's and Mengaldo's,
those of A. Viscardi, A. Pagliaro, G. Vinay, R. Dragonetti, M. Pazzaglia,
B. Nardi, C. Grayson, M. Simonelli, M. Corti, I. Baldelli, and a few
others. As Gustavo Vinay has aptly suggested, Dante's thoughts on lan­
guage have important, shifting, and complex socio-political, theological,
and metaphysical dimensions.
One of the major questions involves the conception of gramatica and
the impact of this idea on the definition of the vulgare illustre. Dante's
attitudes on the matter immediately invest what for Nardi was the radical
discovery of the historicity of language and its natural motivation, hence,
and next, its bearing on the problem of universality of grammar or linguistic
structure and, possibly, one language (Latin). The next step is how to
understand the role, stability, and nature of the vulgare illustre, which
might replace Latin but perhaps with different formal characteristics. This
has to do with the fact that the vernacular would be closer to the natural
illiterate, unregulated idiom than Latin was, therefore it might to some
 DANTE AND THE ' ARS GRAMMATICA' 311

degree still partake of that natural mutability which Latin transcended.

One can take issue with Mengaldo concerning the alleged contradic­
tion between the "regulation" of the vulgare and the treatise's premise of
natural, inevitable mutability. Ileana Pagani maintains, against Mengaldo,
that we have no sufficient reason to assume that Dante postulated for the
illustre the same degree offixednessthat he claimed for Latin as a 'dead lan­
guage.'3 I must return to this basic question of language change, but I wish
to add that a number of scholars have found that Dante and many of his
contemporaries were in a state of intellectual and even emotional tension
between, on the one hand, their realization of the ephemeral quality of
things natural and human, starting with the loftiest of them, language, and,
on the other hand, a desperate effort to arrest this inexorable flux somehow
and stabilize cultural values.4
The question of the relationship between Latin and vernacular could
receive some light by referring, for example, to a pithy yet pointed inter­
vention by Josip Jernej (Zagreb), "Latino e lingue romanze nella con-
cezione di Dante" (Lichem & Simon 1971:55-58), where Jernej claimed
that students of Dante's linguistic ideas had not yet realized that the poet
perceived Latin, a purely artificial and literary language, as derived from
the vernaculars, not vice versa. For the major question for a linguistic
assessment of the De vulgari eloquentia lies precisely in the relationship
between the two.
Allow me now to lay out what I think is a sensible methodological
framework for a fruitful and historically correct understanding of the main
questions. First it is important to realize that, after the early classical
treatises, say, of an Apollonius Dyscolus and a Varro, textually unavailable
to the Middle Ages and even now partly lost, it was with Dante that discus­
sion of positive language was for the first time (again) conducted within a
theoretical framework. The only significant predecessors as far as the ver­
nacular was concerned, the Provençal manuals, were chiefly concerned
with the description and normative settlement of the drecha parladura,
perhaps in order to protect the authenticity of the langue d'oc when, after
the Albigensian war, poetic vitality was declining and threatened at home,
and the language had, so to say, 'fallen' into the hands of foreign imitators,
primarily in Northern Italy and Catalonia.5 Dante could introduce his new
approach by leaning, rather than on such precedents, on the examples of
scholastic speculation on the modi significandi while, at the same time,
applying to it his new concern with regional realities and turning around the
universalistic scope of the Modistae. Thus he had to start with a defense of
312 ALDO SCAGLIONE

local uses on the basis of the 'natural' necessity of 'mutability' and instabil­
ity.
A bold and original proposal to read this speculative 'modistic'
background of Dante's thought in a literal key of actual direct sources has
been advanced recently by Maria Corti in her provocative Dante ad un
nuovo crocevia (Corti 1981). Her thesis has been vigorously and cogently
rebutted by a young medievalist, Ileana Pagani (1982). My feeling is that
one must agree with Pagani's demurrers and, as she does, contest the valid­
ity of Corti's claim of having identified the great Danish (and Parisian) 'Av-
erroist' philosopher Boethius of Dacia's treatise on the Modi significandi as
a major direct source for Dante's position on the nature of gramatica and
his distinction between the inventores gramatice facultatif and the gramatice
positores (De vulgari eloquentia I, ix-x). In Boethius the distinction referred
to speculative universal grammar on the one hand and the 'accidental' dif­
ferences between positive languages on the other, whereas Dante's context
entails the difference between the artificial use of a language (say, learned
Latin) and the infinitely varied and mutually unintelligible natural lan­
guages. It is precisely in departing from the modes of the Modistae that lies
Dante's originality as a linguistic thinker. Even when he uses bits of the
traditional scholastic terminology his context is new and hinged to novel,
concrete problems never systematically posited before. It is Professor Corti
herself who warns against the pitfall of postulating sources that cannot be
documented — a not unfashionable vice among contemporary Dante schol­
ars, and a temptation that few of them are willing to resist. She does so by
wittily paraphrasing Duns Scotus's vulgate dictum concerning the entia:
"fontes non sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem," she reminds us
(Corti 1981a:38), and she may be guilty of this very same illegitimate multi­
plication.
As rephrased by Gentile da Cingoli (Corti 1981a:39), for Boethius
there are implicitly three grammatical levels: the naturalis, the innate set of
rules of those who speak their native language without benefit of cultural
overlays; the universalis, namely the philosophical understanding of the
essential principia of the sermo in abstract; and the positive grammars of
the grammarians or grammaticae (im)positores, which regulate specific lan­
guages (Latin, Greek, or others). But Dante speaks of one grammar only,
the regularization of any language that thereby becomes illustris, be it
Latin, Greek, or Italian. He shows no interest whatsoever in a universal
grammar, the only entity that interests, instead, the 'philosopher' Boethius
 DANTE AND THE 'ARS GRAMMATICA' 313

and his colleagues the Modistae, and, furthermore, he regards the native
language not as the mere accidens, the lowest rung of communication, as
Boethius does, but as the nobilior stage by comparison not with a universal
'modistic' language, but with Latin, which is after all its only example. In
his mind Latin is less 'noble' because it is, shall we say audacter, 'dead'; so
that the grammar he envisages is, once again, not a universal one but an
Italian one. If Boethius' treatise was in the back of his mind, one must con­
clude that it was there as a mere terminological and paradigmatic point of
departure, a point he had left very far behind.
In other words, and more specifically, the gramática Dante speaks of is
not, as Boethius would have it, a 'pure,' 'scientific,' and 'philosophical,'
hence abstract intellectual framework, but, precisely, a 'real' structure for a
given language. Corti's learned and provocative exposition is acceptable, in
the end, only if one lingers not on the suggestion of direct source, but on
the qualification, which Corti herself (see, especially, Corti 1981a:46ff.)
does not hesitate to enter, whereby Dante moves in a fundamentally differ­
ent direction.
An important, almost forgotten suggestion of Alfredo Casella (1934)
concerning the definition of the dolce stil nuovo in Purgatorio XXIV is
picked up by Corti (1981a:53-55) and extended further in the light of Ger­
vais Dumeige's critical edition of some texts by Ives and Richard of St. Vic­
tor (1955). Ives' Epître à Severin sur la charité (1112-13) states that the lan­
guage of charity is one of equivalence between external words and the inner
inspiration of the heart: "solus proinde de ea (caritate) digne loquitur qui
secundum quod cor dictat interius, exterius verba composit" — a strikingly
close parallel with Dante's definition of his sweet new style of love: "Γ mi
son un che, quando / Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo / ch'e' ditta dentro
vo significando" where the precise meaning oí significare draws light from
the "significar per verba" of Paradiso 170 and the "significava nel chiarir de
fuori" of Paradiso IX 15. Furthermore, Ives' Epístola is studded with terms
for "sweetness" {dulcís amor, dulcedo amoris, dulcoris gustus, dulce vulnus
amoriSy etc.). And this type of speech appears to be implied in the discus­
sion of the first dialogue between God and Adam in De vulgari eloquentia
(I v), also on the ground of other clear textual echoes.
One can tentatively accept Corti's suggestive hypothesis that what
Dante really had in mind was an equivalence on principle between the
Adamitic language, both universal and natural (as inspired by God to
Adam), and the language of high poetry, which also partakes of both uni-
314 ALDO SCAGLIONE

versality and naturality insofar as it is inspired by the God of Love directly

to the poet (quando Amor mi spira) and is couched in a volgare illustre that
transcends individuality of experience as well as regionality of expression.6
Dante's attitudes evolved through several stages. In chapter 25 of the
Vita nuova he had discussed the use of the vernacular in somewhat ambigu­
ous terms owing to the polemical intent of criticizing chiefly the Guittoniani
for using the vernacular in didactic, scientific compositions, outside the
poetry of love which, Dante averred at the time, was the only one for which
the use of the vernacular was appropriate. And he added that this limited
use had been made necessary by the poets' desire to address women, who
could not read Latin.
An open defense of the vernacular appeared first in the Convivio,
where Dante had decided to do precisely what he had criticized the Guitto­
niani for attempting to do (but only inadequately), that is, to write philo­
sophical compositions in the vernacular, both in poetry and in prose. This
step was, however, a novelty only on the level of theoretical apologia, since
by 1303/4 Dante had already written several philosophical canzoni. What
was unprecedent was the prolonged composition of a prose treatise in the
vernacular, and Dante states that he was moved to do this by three reasons:
to avoid the disordinazione of appending a Latin commentary to vernacular
poems; to cater, we could frankly say, democratically, to the unlearned
populace who could not partake of the 'banquet' of his philosophical com­
mentary if it were in Latin; and thirdly, to obey the natural love that every
man owes his mother tongue.
Yet, even at this stage Latin still appears to him as a higher medium
because of its grammaticalness, hence he still looks upon grammar as the
artificial, or 'artful,' hence man-chosen rather than directly God-given
foundation of linguistic and cultural stability through regulation. In any
event gramaticameans for him not Latin tout court, as most commentators
assume, but any lingua regulata, as Latin is but not Latin exclusively (cf.
Convivio I xi 14). Italian can become a grammatical language too, if his
advice and example will be followed. Corti (1981a:60) finds that Dante
aimed at a vulgare illustre that would combine universalitas and naturalitas,
as the Adamitic language had once done, but Latin was no longer doing. I
feel rather inclined to believe that the 'universality' of Italian could only be,
if anything, a vague and relative notion, quite remote from the rigor
implied in modistic speculation.
Precisely in the use of technical terms that seems to derive from the
 DANTE AND THE 'ARS GRAMMATICA' 315

'radical' or 'Averroistic Aristotelianism' of Boethius of Dacia and Siger of

Brabant one can see the distance which effectively separates Dante from
them. Take, first and foremost, nobilis. For Boethius and Siger nobilitas is
a function of the closeness to the prima principia (and the primum prin-
cipium, God). But Dante finds the vernacular nobler than Latin, and this
cannot have the abstract connotation it had in his alleged sources.
Dante places poetic language on a high level where the signa transcend
the arbitrariness and pure conventionality of common speech and become
(relatively) necessaria, so that (on that level only) nomina sunt consequentia
rerum. And here it seems legitimate to postulate an inner coherence in
Dante, where he finds the language of poetry untranslatable — not so
much, mind you, because of the effective post-Babel separation of lan­
guages, but perhaps insofar as poetic language is tied together by music {De
vulgari eloquentia II iv 2 "... si poesim recte consideremus; que nichil aliud
est quam fictio rethorica musicaque poita"), and this music is essential to
the poetry: cf. Convivio (I vii 14): "nulla cosa per legame musaico
armonizzata si puö de la sua loquela in altra transmutare senza romper tutta
sua dolcezza e armonía."
Dante gives a definition of gramatica as he sees it in De vulgari
eloquentia (I ix 11), speaking of the work of the "inventores gramatice
facultatis": "que quidem gramatica nichil aliud est quam quedam inal-
terabilis locutionis idemptitas diversis temporibus atque locis." Here
idemptitas locutionis must refer not to universal speculative grammar but
precisely to the stable features of a positive and real lingua regulata that will
be relatively stabilized by rules and eloquence, to the point of serving as an
effective medium of communication through time and space. Look at the
context. He is not speaking of scientia grammatica but of a language being
used in a regulated way (not a primary concern of the Modistae), so that we
can understand past authors, be understood by posterity, and speak to dis­
tant fellow-citizens.
It has been, I think, correctly pointed out that there must have been
one additional, not quite explicitly articulated reason for Dante's fateful
decision in favor of the vernacular in the Convivio in spite of the demurrers
he still accepted at the time, namely to defend and 'illustrate' his vernacular
against the other vernaculars that had already emerged, mainly Provençal
and French. In other words, there was here a, let us say without hesitation,
'national' Stellungnahme on Dante's part (cf. Bahner 1977:18, and p.24 for
the following).
316 ALDO SCAGLIONE

In Convivio (I χ 12-13) Dante maintains that the beauty and power of

a language can be seen better in prose than in verse, as the beauty of a
woman can be assessed more surely when she is unadorned. It seems safe to
conjecture that this interesting line of reasoning prompted him to turn his
efforts toward two prose works, the Convivio and the De vulgari eloquen-
tia. This was his way of bringing the Italian vernacular up to a high cultural
level, since he was not yet sure he could show, for the time being, that it
was higher or even equal to Provençal and French in poetic expression,
whereas he felt he could do it by producing the most pregnant, mature, and
grammatico-syntactically articulate and sophisticated prose in any living
language. Yet this was not to be his real answer to the question of how to
'illustrate' the language, since it was only with the Commedia that he could
not only surpass all vernaculars, but also express his Weltanschauung with
an effectiveness and power that his prose essays could not even approach.
Of the competing rival languages he explicitly mentions only Provençal in
the Convivio, and then also French in the De vulgari eloquentia, giving this
latter first place in narrative writing — an assessment which still rings in the
Commedia's 'prose di romanzo.'
The contrastive assessment of the three versions of the ydioma
tripharium is important for the context of Dante's notion of grammar. In
De vulgari eloquentia (I vi 3) Dante does not hesitate to admit that as com­
mon media of communication the other major Romance languages (oc and
oïl) are superior to Italian: "plerasque nationes et gentes delectabiliori
atque utiliori sermone uti quam Latinos" somehow echoes Brunetto's
judgement of French as "la langue la plus commune et la plus délitable."
Then in De vulgari eloquentia (I x 2-3) Dante cites the French claim to pri­
macy in vernacular (narrative) prose: "Allegat ergo pro se lingua oïl, quod
propter sui faciliorem ac delectabiliorem vulgaritatem quicquid redactum
sive inventum est ad vulgare prosaycum, suum est" and gives, as second
example, the "Arturi regis ambages pulcerrime." The language of oc, in
turn, boasts of having had the first vulgar poets thanks to its greater perfec­
tion and sweetness, "tamquam in perfection dulciorique loquela." But Ita­
lian can justly claim superiority over the others, not so much for the relative
merit of being close to Latin at least in having si for sic, or for the still very
grave (but, we could interject, undemonstrable) consideration of its close­
ness to the patterns of a rational philosophical grammar (gramatica comunis
— De vulgari eloquentia 1 x 4 ) , but, more concretely, because its poets (i.e.,
mainly Cino and Dante) have added to the sweetness of Provence the
 DANTE AND THE 'ARS GRAMMATICA' 317

rational, intellectually and philosophically grounded depth of the Stilnuovo:

"qui dulcius subtiliusque poetati vulgariter sunt, hii familiares et domestici
sui (i.e., of the Italian vernacular) sunt, puta Cynus pistoriensis et amicus
eius" (ibid.). This epithet of subtilis must be added to dulcís as a conclusive
designation of the novelty and value of the Stilnuovo, in Dante's mind.
But the Commedia is not only Dante's conclusive statement as a poet.
It also gives us his last word on linguistic matters, with the short, intense
episode of Adam in Paradiso XXVI 114-138. Here the poet-thinker,
through his surprising, truly revolutionary revelation that Adam's language
was not Hebrew and had already disappeared before the Tower of Babel,
definitively casts aside all notion of a stable natural language, possibly the
only one that an orthodox, theologically inclined Modista could have envis­
aged as the medium that had combined universalitas and naturalitas. Nardi's
position on Dante's originality on the matter can find its best support in this
episode. And with it Dante left behind him not only all the by then tradi­
tional modistic speculation on a theoretical perfect language, but took his
place as the first unequivocal proponent of a thoroughly historicist view of
language change.7
Some critics have tried to play down this originality in the light of scat­
tered traditional remarks in various sources. Yet, the context and the
emphasis are entirely Dante's own, and his originality can be fully realized
only when one follows the history of linguistic thought through the later
centuries and notes how the myth of the Tower of Babel, with the 'corrup­
tion' of languages as consequent to it and to the original sin, continued to
be faithfully echoed down to the very end of the 18th century.
The relevant texts for this specific feature of Dante's linguistic mental
framework go, once again, from the youthful Vita nuova (xxv 3-4), where
the notion first appears that some people, including the ancient Greeks,
had two languages (they were 'diglossic,' we would say), namely a vernacu­
lar and a 'literary' language, to the Convivio, especially (II xiii 10), De vul-
gari eloquentia (I ii-xix, specifically, for theoretical principles, vii-viii), and
on to Paradiso (XXVI 114-138). In any historical perspective on the ques­
tion of language change, Dante deserves a place of honor. He is undoubt­
edly the first author who affirmed change as a 'natural,' general, and abso­
lute law of language. Although in this assertion he echoed preceding
authorities (especially Horace, Ars poetica 60-62, 70-72; Quintilian,
Institutio oratoria VIII iii 26; St.Jerome, Commentarium in Epístolas ad
Galates ii 3; Isidore, Etymologiae IX ii 38f. — among the texts that were
318 ALDO SCAGLIONE

contemporary to Dante an impressive direct source seems to be Restoro

d'Arezzo, recently brought forth by M. Corti8), he was aware of the new
tone and function of his sweeping formulation, which he could justly
characterize as 'bold' (audacter testamur, De vulgari eloquentia I ix 7).
Furthermore, this principle was in his thought not a merely abstract, scien­
tific assertion of a truth, but a means to solve crucial sociolinguistic, cultur­
al, and literary problems that were particulary close to his heart, namely
and first, the legitimization of the vernacular for purposes of the highest
cultural and literary use.

NOTES
1. Cf. I. Baldelli, "Lingua e stile," Enciclopedia dantesca (ed. by V. Bosco), Appendice,
p.94.
2. The subject has also been treated, more briefly, by P.V. Mengaldo in his article "con-
structio" in the Enciclopedia dantesca, then reprinted in Mengaldo (1978:281-88), as
"Idee dantesche sulla construction
3. Pagani (1982:229). Boethius's text in a serviceable version is also available, with an Eng­
lish translation, in McDermott (1980). For cautious comments in the margin of Corti's
book see, now, Alessio (1984), bringing in equally relevant texts preceding the specula­
tive Modistae, even as far back as Peter Helias, and thus showing that the connection with
Boethius de Dada, though far from improbable through the Bologna circles, is not neces­
sary to explain Dante's technical and philosophical context.
4. Cf., for a sensitive presentation of the question from Dante through the Renaissance,
Greene (1981), especially the beginning of Chap. 2 on Dante and end of Chap. 8 on
Poliziano.
5. Cf., for a sensible presentation of the historical scenario, Bahner (1977:10-11).
6. M. Corti has expanded on this aspect of the role and nature of the volgare illustre in an
article (1981b).
7. I shall not attempt here a listing of the very large secondary literature on Dante's ideas on
language and grammar as well as on the impact of the ars grammatica on him. Most of it
is available in recent comprehensive studies of the question, of which I only wish to men­
tion, in addition to works cited above, the rich pertinent sections of the Enciclopedia dan­
tesca — which, however, as was to be expected in an encyclopedia, are somewhat uneven
and far from exhaustive. After the articles "gramática," "lingua," and "De vulgari
eloquentia" by P.V. Mengaldo, "Convivio" by M. Simonelli, and "Arti liberali" by V.
Russo, see the important and freshly researched sections of the Appendix, especially
"Lingua e stile delle opere in volgare di Dante" by I. Baldelli, pp.55-114. The sections on
"Strutture del volgare" have no rubric on syntax in general: only "paraipotassi," "con-
giunzioni," and "periodo ipotetico," besides "proposizioni subordinate" by F. Agostini.
8. La composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni, ed. by A. Morino (1976), II 7 4 24-26; cf.
Corti (1981a:57).
 DANTE AND THE 'ARS GRAMMATICA' 319

REFERENCES

Alessio, Gian Carlo. 1984. "La grammatica speculativa e Dante." Letture

Classensi 13.69-88.
Bahner, Werner. 1977. Formen, Ideen, Prozesse in den Literaturen der
romanischen Völker. Vol.I: Von Dante bis Cervantes. Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag.
Bosco, Umberto, ed. 1970-76. Enciclopedia dantesca. Rome: Istituto delia
Enciclopedia italiana.
Corti, Maria. 1981a. Dante ad un nuovo crocevia. Florence: Sansoni.
. 1981b. "Les notions de 'langue universelle' et de 'langue poétique'
chez Dante Alighieri." Logos semanticos: Studia linguisticain honorem
Eugenio Coseriu 1921-1981, ed. by Horst Geckeier et al., vol. I, 31-39.
Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter; Madrid: Editorial Gredos.
Dante Alighieri. 1938. De vulgari eloquentia. Ed. with commentary by
Aristide Marigo. Florence: Le Monnier.
. 1966. Il Convivio. Ed. by Maria Simonelli. Bologna: R. Patron.
. 1968. De vulgari eloquentia. Ed. with commentary by Pier Vin-
cenzo Mengaldo. Padova: Antenore.
Greene, Thomas A. 1981. The Light in Troy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
Univ. Press.
Lichem, Klaus & H.J. Simon, eds. 1971. Studien zu Dante und zu anderen
Themen der romanischen Literaturen: Festschrift für Rudolf Palgen.
Graz: Hugo Schuchardtsche Malwinenstiftung.
McDermott, A. Charlene, ed. 1980. Godfrey of Fontaine's Abridgement of
Boethius the Dane's 'Modi Significandi sive Quaestiones super Pris-
cianum Maiorem.' Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
Mengaldo, Pier Vincenzo. 1978. Lingüistica e retorica di Dante. Pisa: Nistri-
Lischi.
Pagani, Ileana. 1982. La teoría linguisticadi Dante: De vulgari eloquentia.
Discussioni, scelte, proposte. Naples: Liguori.
Restoro d'Arezzo. 1976. La composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni. Ed.
by A. Morino. Florence: Accademia della Crusca.
Scaglione, Aldo. 1961. "The Humanist as Scholar and Politian's Concep­
tion of the grammaticus." Studies in the Renaissance 8.49-70.
. 1978. "Dante and the Rhetorical Theory of Sentence Structure."
Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Medieval
Rhetoric, ed. by James J. Murphy, 252-69. Berkeley-Los Angeles-Lon­
don: Univ. of California Press.
Robert Kilwardby: Figurative constructions and
the limits of grammar*

Mary Sirridge
Louisiana State University

Are such sentences as: (1) "Ego et tu disputames," and (2) "Urbem
quam statuo vestra est," grammatically acceptable (congrua)? By the early
14th century most medieval grammarians were not discussing the issue. (1)
and (2) are instances of figurative discourse; in general they were held to be
unacceptable vis à vis the rules of syntax — though excusable, and thus
acceptable in some weaker sense, in their special contexts.1 The study of
this weaker sort of acceptability is held to lie outside the study of the syntax
proper.
But even a cursory inspection of (1) and (2) raises the question of why
medieval writers took this approach, since there is an important difference
between (1) and (2). (2) is syntactically deviant, though Vergil wrote it; it
has an accusative subject for an independent clause, and the modifier 'ves­
tra' fails to agree with that subject in case. (1), on the other hand, appears
not to be deviant in this way. There is most certainly a rule of Latin which
governs this instance: 'tu' here can combine with a first person verb because
it is part of a conjunctive subject whose other member is in the first person,
and the verb is plural because it has a conjunctive subject. Thus in the case
of (1) there would seem to be syntactic warrants within the sentence for the
person and number of 'disputamus.' There is no such syntactic warrant for
the accusative 'urbem' in (2), however much metre and poetic sense may

* I would like to thank the Catholic University of America for the Mellon Grant which sup­
ported the writing of this paper and the editors of this volume, particularly Dr. Bursill-Hall, for
help in preparing the article for publication.
322 MARY SIRRIDGE

justify it. The fact that late medieval grammarians as a matter of course
tend to treat (1) and (2) uniformly, i.e. as figurative discourse, and to
ignore the difference between them wants explanation.
The classification of certain examples as instances of one kind of
figurative discourse or other is, of course, a practice ancient in origin2 and
repeated by Peter Helias and other early medieval grammarians.3 But it is
to the grammatical theory of the early and mid-thirteenth century that we
must look to find the most pertinent antecedents to the later medieval
approach to this issue, for figurative constructions raise the issue of the
boundaries of the study of syntax proper. And it is in the 13th century that
the growing self-consciousness of grammar as a science gives urgency to the
question of the boundaries of the field.
In the grammatical theory of Robert Kilwardby as presented in his
comentary on Priscian Minor and the Sophismata Grammaticalia, we find a
clear awareness of the significance of the question of the grammaticality of
figurative discourse. We find, moreover, an ability to discern a difference
between cases like (2) and cases like (1). Most importantly, there is in Kil­
wardby a readiness to derive the necessary syntactic rules for (1) from the
basic definitions of the parts of speech and fundamental principles of the
science of syntax, in sharp contrast to his understanding that for examples
like (2) he is obliged merely to produce a convincing "story" about special
authorial intent. Kilwardby nonetheless rules all cases of figurative speech
ungrammatical simpliciter. It is precisely at such a historical juncture that
we can hope to find with a satisfying degree of explicitness the reasons for
a decision which is later taken for granted.
A figure is defined generally by Kilwardby as "an impropriety excused
for some reason."4 The grammarian is concerned specifically with the figure
of construction, or figurative construction, defined as "an impropriety with
respect to the ordering of the elements of constructions which is produced
for a reason."5 In the case of the figure of construction, this impropriety will
take one of two forms. In one sort of case, there is a lack of correspondence
of "grammatical accidents." Both (1) and (2) contain improprieties of this
sort. In (1), for example, neither 'ego' nor 'tu' is a plural form, and 'tu' is a
second person pronoun; but 'disputamus' is a first person plural verb. In
(2), 'urbem' is accusative, though its modifier 'vestra' is nominative. In the
other sort of case, an expression is used in a way that would be appropriate
only for a part or sub-part of speech of which it is not an instance. 'Animal'
is a substantive, but in a construction like 'homo animal' it has an adjectival
function.
 KILWARDBY AND mGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 323

The "reason for the impropriety" is for Kilwardby twofold: (i) the
reason why the impropriety has or ought to be committed (ratio qua debet
fieri); and (ii) the reason why the impropriety may be committed (ratio qua
potest fieri).6 Reasons falling under (i) will always have to do generally with
what is to be expressed; it will be claimed that the improper way of speak­
ing is the only way of expressing something or other — or at least the shor­
test or only metric way. Reasons falling under (ii), on the other hand, are
always for Kilwardby a matter of the implications of the definitions and
lower-order theory surrounding the parts of speech and their sub-classes.
Consider:
(3) Ego Robertus sedeo.
Here the apposition of 'ego' and 'Robertus' is produced, despite the differ­
ence in person between the two expressions, in order to make more discrete
or definite the personal reference of 'Robertus'7 and secondarily to add
qualitative information to 'ego.' This is why an expression with such a dis­
crepancy in person has to be or ought to be produced. Such an impropriety
can be produced without fault because pronouns are by definition designed
to introduce discretion among the person — nouns being unable to do so
determinately — and because pronouns do not pick out putative referents
by means of any real quality.8 Thus we have a complete reason for the
impropriety in 'Ego Robertus.' Of the two components of the complete
reasons for an impropriety, the more important for Kilwardby is clearly the
reason why the impropriety has or ought to be committed. This component
of the reason he sees as active or formal in character vis à vis the various
potentials which constitute the reason why the impropriety may be commit­
ted.9
Kilwardby follows this pattern of explanation for (1) and (2). 'Ego et tu
disputamus' is produced because of the need to attribute this one action
simultaneously to the two of us as a unit; you and I, say, are having a disag­
reement with each other.10 The impropriety with respect to person is possi­
ble because the first person of 'ego' is "more noble" than the second person
of 'tu' and can therefore attract or "pull the less noble to its nature." (The
first person is more noble, incidentally, because it is in a sense the cause of
the other person — there cannot very well be anyone spoken to or about
unless there is someone speaking.)11 As this example shows, the application
of lower order theory which explains the syntactic possibility of figurative
constructions need not be simple or automatic; still, some explanation or
324 MARY SIRRIDGE

other must be produced from that source for why it is possible to admit the
impropriety — else the justification for the putative figure is incomplete,
and there is no figurative construction, but only a defective construction.
Kilwardby cites various possible reasons for the production of (2).
Perhaps, he says, 'urbem' is used to stress its connection with the sub­
sequent 'quam'; or perhaps 'urbem' is used to stress the city's passivity with
respect to the action of building;12 or perhaps 'urbem' is meant to show that
the city is still in the process of being built, whereas the nominative would
suggest a complete and subsistent entity.13 The reason why an instance of
antiptosis, in which an improper inflected form of an expression appears
instead of the proper one, can be produced is the relation betwen the
improper and the proper forms of the expression, the proper form only
implicitly understood or called to mind by the form explicit in the construc­
tion.14 Thus 'urbem' can be admitted because it is "identical in substance"
to 'urbs.' It is a fundamental principle of the theory of syntax that inflected
forms of a noun are only accidentally different from each other and are the
same in substance. Kilwardby understands this principle to mean that
oblique and nominative forms signify the same putative thing or things, but
connect those putative significates to various other things to which they
stand in various relations. Oblique forms thus designate one thing intrinsi­
cally or substantially, as does the nominative; accidentally or extrinsically
they connect the signifícate to something else.15
With respect to the question of why the impropriety can be produced,
Kilwardby approaches (1) and (2) in essentially the same way. He shows in
each case why the definitions of the parts of speech involved and the funda­
mental principles of the study of syntax make the "impropriety" an actuali­
zation of pre-existing potential. The respective reasons why the improp­
rieties have or ought to be produced, however, are quite different in kind.
In the case of (2), Kilwardby moves into "literary criticism" — the issue is
what Vergil, or the dramatic speaker,16 might or probably did mean to
express by deviation from the rules of syntax. But (1) is discussed only in
terms of certain general capacities and incapacities of language. An improp­
riety may be needed on account of metrical considerations, the demands of
fine speaking, or the need to express some sentiment or idea,17 e.g. the
idea that you and I are simultaneously and without difference engaged in
action. An even more significant difference is that the syntactic warrants for
'disputamus' are in the sentence; the subject is conjunctive, and one
member is in the first person. (2), by contrast, is an instance of antiptosis;
 KILWARDBY AND HGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 325

and antiptosis, as Kilwardby has noted in his general discussion of this fig­
ure, depents on a warrant which is not actually in the sentence. It depends,
namely, upon the identity between the proper, but unexpressed, form and
the improper form explicit in the sentence.18 Kilwardby's normal position is
that factors which are explicit in a sentence do, while factors which are out­
side it or only implicit in it do not count in determining grammaticality.
In the light of these differences, we might expect Kilwardby to take the
position that (2) is a case of poetic license — ungrammatical, strictly speak­
ing, though doubtless elegant and effective in the light of the higher canons
of literary criticism. (1), we might expect him to continue, is grammatical
despite an apparent grammatical anomaly, because it follows a rule which
determines the person of the verb for a conjunctive subject in which there
is a diversity of persons. More generally, one might expect Kilwardby to
take the position that antiptosis is always a matter of poetic license, while
all the other putative cases of figurative constructions are really instances of
the operation of higher-order grammatical rules — hence grammatical and
not truly figurative.19
Kilwardby does not approach the problem in this way. He interprets
figurative construction as deviant with respect to grammatical rules and
therefore as ungrammatical. In answer to the question: Should figurative
constructions be said to be grammatical simpliciter? he says:
And it should be said that a figurative expression constitutes an impropri­
ety either with respect to the meaning signified or with respect to the
meaning intended. If with respect to the meaning signified, then absolutely
speaking, such a piece of language is ungrammatical, although there is a
reason for it, rendering it grammatical relatively speaking, i.e, relative to
the intention of the one who produces it. 'Urbem quam statuo vestra est,'
which is ungrammatical with respect to the meaning signified and gram­
matical with respect to the meaning intended, is of this kind. But if it con­
stitutes an impropriety only with respect to the meaning intended, it is
grammatical simpliciter, but relatively speaking ungrammatical, for exam­
ple, 'Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt' — which is entirely grammatical with
respect to the meaning signified, but does not entirely represent the mean­
ing intended, and is thus ungrammatical with respect to the speaker, but
grammatical simpliciter.20

This position, Kilwardby claims, is supported by a number of arguments.

Grammaticality or ungrammaticality, he says, is a matter of "internal fac­
tors"; since the impropriety in figurative constructions is a matter of such
internal factors, while the reason why such constructions are produced is
326 MARY SIRRIDGE

external, having to do with the speaker, such constructions are ungrammat-

ical 'simpliciter,'21 Any arguments which purport to show that figurative
constructions are grammatical can be adequately met by conceding that such
constructions are grammatical relatively speaking, i.e., relative to the
meaning intended by the speaker.
Let us set aside for a moment the curious category of expressions
which are grammatical 'simpliciter,' but ungrammatical with respect to their
intended meaning. Kilwardby offers no formal definition of the "meaning
signified" (intellectum significatum); but he seems to have in mind a mean­
ing which can be projected on the basis of the words used and their gram­
matical relations. A figurative construction of the kind we have been dis­
cussing would then be ungrammatical with respect to the meaning signified
because in such a case no coherent meaning issues from the words in their
actual grammatical relations. (2), for example, lacks a subject; and 'vestra'
has nothing to agree with. Still, there are objectives achieved by the impro­
per 'urbem' for which the nominative 'urbs' would not have sufficed. Vergil
has thus got the "right" grammar for his objectives, since he needed the
sound or the force of an illicit accusative here; and hence (2) is grammatical
relative to the meaning intended. If this is what Kilwardby has in mind,
however, then surely (1) should present a problem for him, for its mean­
ing is perfectly clear from the grammar by a rule or rules that the normal
reader of Latin would know, albeit not by virtue of the rules governing the
agreement of a simple subject and verb. (1) would thus seem to be a clear
case of grammaticality with respect to the meaning signified — and to be
grammatical simpliciter. Small wonder, then, that no special story about
authorial intent is required to explain (1)!
Surely one key to Kilwardby's approach lies in the interpretation which
he places on the ratio qua debetfieri;it is always construed as having to do
with particular authorial intention. But this fact itself wants explanation. To
put the matter another way, it is natural enough for Kilwardby to hold that
figurative constructions are grammatical relative to the author's intention;
but why does he consider so broad a range of examples to be grammatical
only in this sense?
One natural way of tracing all figurative constructions to individual
authorial intent is the following 'slippery slope' argument. Surely, it can be
argued, if (2) is a case of poetic license, of an author's wanting to express
something beyond the powers of rule-governed language and breaking the
rules to do so, then wanting to express the fact that you and I are arguing
 KILWARDBY AND HGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 327

with each other and writing (1) forthwith is poetic license as well; (1) and
(2) differ at most with regard to the degree of creativity they involve — and
doubtless as a result with respect to the frequency with which they and their
like are produced. Thus the conclusion goes, in every case of a figurative
construction there is at base the intent to express something which cannot
be expressed if one abides by normal syntactic constraints. Of necessity
those constraints are violated, and what is produced is literally unintelligi­
ble, given its actual syntax.
It seems to me that it is this way of seeing the issue which furnishes a
congenial background for Kilwardby's position. Still, Kilwardby never gives
such an argument. Moreover, this "slippery slope" strategy would normally
be adopted only if there were no alternative way of making a distinction
between (1) and (2). Kilwardby has in his explanations of antiptosis a per­
fectly good way of distinguishing between (1) and (2): All and only
instances of antiptosis are excused on the basis of something which is not
an explicit element in the construction.22 Something more than a comforta­
ble background picture is required to explain Kilwardby's failure to draw
out the implications of this potentially useful distinction.
There is such a decisive pressure on Kilwardby to offer a model of the
operation of figurative constructions which forces a reference in every case
to authorial intent. Kilwardby has got to account for the following passage
in his 'authority,' Priscian:
For every construction, which the Greeks call syntaxin, is validated by the
meaning of what literally is said. Thus authors are accustomed to alter acci­
dents in construction by the various figures, about which we have already
given some information above. These [figures], although they appear to be
ungrammatically put together on the basis of the words actually used, are
nonetheless on the basis of meaning adjudged to be completely correctly
put together.23
Priscian has here just finished observing that many spoken and written
words of Latin are grammatically ambiguous, e.g., 'bonis' which could be
any gender and dative or ablative case, and require disambiguation by their
meaning. This puts him in mind of a more general principle which is conge­
nial: There is a "surface grammar" involving accidents which must always
be judged or interpreted on the basis of a "real grammar" or meaning,
which is a matter of intellect. He finds this observation particularly
illuminating for figurative constructions, for they are acceptable with
respect to their real meaning, i.e. their essential or real grammar. Their sur-
328 MARY SIRRIDGE

face grammatical irregularities must then be unimportant, a matter of acci­

dent and appearance. Obviously a distinction between surface and real
grammar is a powerful theoretical tool that allows all the figurative con­
structions involving syntactic irregularities to be treated alike — by the sim­
ple expedient of invariably disregarding what the author says in favour of
what he means. On such an account, grammaticality does have a close con­
nection with what the author means, for what the author means is the 'real
grammar' of the linguistic item, the grammar which counts.
This kind of distinction between surface and real grammar is charac­
teristic of an approach which is unacceptable to Kilwardby. For Kilwardby,
the surface grammar is what meets the senses; a fortiori, the apprehended
surface grammar is the data out of which the intellectual or conceptual
apprehension is generated. Kilwardby has, then, to find some other
interpretation for this important passage from Priscian, and one which gives
at least as good an account of how figurative constructions are produced
and understood.
By the time of his commentary on Priscian Minor, Kilwardby has
already attempted once to deal with the problem of an alleged distinction
between the senses and the intellect which is used to explain figurative con­
structions. In the Sophismata Grammaticalia he gives two arguments
against such a distinction used in this way:
< 1 > Furthermore, the perfection of an organ or instrument is twofold,
primary and secondary, as is obvious from the case of the eye ... Similarly
for the sentence there is a twofold perfection, primary and secondary, the
primary one when supposite and appositive elements are correctly
ordered, the secondary when [the sentence] is able correctly to move the
intellect. But when that perfection which is primary with respect to an
instrument or organ is destroyed, so also is the secondary perfection,
though the reverse is not true, as is clear in the case of the axe. Therefore
similarly, since the sentence is the instrument of the grammarian, when its
primary perfection is destroyed, so is the secondary one ... thus should
perfection with respect to the senses be destroyed, that which has to do
with the intellect will be destroyed. The distinction is therefore incorrect.
< 2 > Again, just as an expression is put together or composed of what is
actually said and its meaning or understanding, similarly the sentence is
put together in its way. But when an integral part is destroyed, the whole
is destroyed ... therefore if a sentence is imperfect with respect to an integ­
ral part, so it ought as a whole to be imperfect. Therefore since what is
actually said is an integral part of the sentence itself, as has been said, since
it is imperfect with respect to an integral part, it is imperfect with respect
 KILWARDBY AND FIGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 329

to what is actually said and with respect to meaning; therefore it is imper­

fect with respect to what is actually said, it ought to be imperfect through­
out.24
Argument <1> depends upon an analogy between, on the one hand,
the matter of the axe and the axe's effectiveness for chopping things up, and
on the other hand, the proper ordering of the literal elements of a sentence
and the sentence's effectiveness in conveying its meaning. The analogy is
not unpromising, but Kilwardby seems to have no sense of how to defend
it, since he is unable subsequently to answer the objection which says sim­
ply that sense and intellect are diverse powers and therefore have diverse
objects with correspondingly diverse perfections.25 Argument <2> cannot
serve Kilwardby's purposes, since it leaves actual words and meanings unre­
lated to each other except as integral parts of the whole sentence.
Despite the unsatisfactoriness of his arguments, Kilwardby does reject
the distinction and its application:
One ought to respond by saying that the aforementioned distinction is not
valid as stated there, that is that a sentence can be perfect either with
respect to the senses or with respect to the intellect. Rather this distinction
has to be understood so that by 'the senses' is meant "persons who sense"
— who use the senses, those new to the field or less experienced. By 'intel­
lect' is meant knowers, or those who are wise and more experienced, those
who use the intellect. Therefore the distinction should be understood as
meaning that a sentence can be imperfect with respect to the untutored,
but perfect with respect to those with knowledge.26
Besides being transparently contrived, this gloss of the distinction adds a
further datum to be explained, i.e., that in grammar the uneducated must
hold to the rules, while the educated may break them and still produce sen­
tences in some sense grammatically acceptable.
The discussion of the commentary on Priscian Minor represents a great
advance over this one. Argument <2> based on integral parts is not
repeated. Argument <1> is now defended by three further arguments.
Perfection with respect to the intellect is dependent upon perfection with
respect to the senses first, because the signs actually used in arrangement
are isomorphic to the elements of the composite meaning because they are
isomorphic to the passions in the soul of speaker and hearer. Secondly,
because first the sound, and thereupon its meaning comes into the
apprehension. Finally, because the grammaticality of actual expressions is
directed to the grammaticality of meaning as to a final cause.27 (Here the
odd phrase 'grammaticality of meaning' means at least a coherent meaning,
330 MARY SIRRIDGE

and perhaps the meaning the speaker wished to convey as well.) These
three new arguments collectively present and support the view of grammar
which Kilwardby in fact holds: The linguistic surface of the signs has as its
end or purpose by means of its syntactic relations to represent for the
speaker and to present to the senses of the hearer its proportionate mean­
ing; thus perfection of meaning and perfection of syntax are in principle
inseparable.
Against this view, Kilwardby says, it is quite correctly urged that syn­
tactic perfection and grammaticality are found without perfection and
grammaticality with respect to meaning — and on the other hand, perfec­
tion with respect to meaning without syntactic perfection.28 The first of
these is a mere technicality; sentence fragments may be grammatically per­
fect as far as they go, but incomplete, thus imperfect, in meaning. As to the
second problem:
Perfection or grammaticality of what is actually or literally said
obtains if the accidents in what is literally said are appropriately related
and arranged in the proper way in what is said. There are two kinds of per­
fection and grammaticality with respect to meaning: one which consists of
the modes of signifying and understanding in the appropriate relations,
another which consists in the things signified by those very modes of sig­
nifying or understanding. The first kind of perfection or grammaticality
with respect to meaning is found in the completely grammatical utterance,
and it is proportionate to that perfection or grammaticality which is in what
is actually said in the manner of signifícate to its sign, and it is in every
respect convertible with perfection or grammaticality on the part of what is
actually said. What is actually said is designed to represent it and precedes
it in apprehension ... But that perfection or grammaticality of meaning
which pertains only to what is signified pertains to the figurative utterance.
This kind of perfection can obtain without perfection or grammaticality
with respect to what is actually said, as in 'Pars in frusta secant'; it is not
proportional to that [kind of perfection] which obtains in what is actually
said; nor is the grammaticality or perfection of what is said designed to
represent it except accidentally or as a result of something else, since this
[perfection] has to do with the secondary understanding of what is said.
Between this secondary understanding and what is actually said plainly
falls an intermediary understanding {intellectus medius) whose perfection is
in every respect equivalent to perfection or understanding with respect to
what is said.29

Kilwardby's use here of "a secondary understanding of what is said"

refers back to a distinction in a slightly earlier passage. "The primary
understanding," he says, "is the one which comes first into the apprehen-
 KILWARDBY AND FIGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 331

sion and consists of the modes of signifying of the expression."30 The second­
ary understanding is comprehended next, and "consists of the significates of
the expressions."31 At the end of the passage there is talk of an inter­
mediate meaning or state of understanding as well.
Kilwardby seems to be offering us the following picture. In principle,
the expressions of a syntactic string and their relations are isomorphic to a
complex meaning which they represent for the speaker and present to the
hearer through his senses. In the normal case, the hearer first perceives a
structure or matrix (primary meaning or stage of understanding) into which
he then fills the meanings of the individual expressions used as values (sec­
ondary meaning or stage of understanding.) In the case of a figurative utter­
ance or a solecism, however, the matrix is deviant; it does not make for a
proper construction or complete sentence, and thus cannot as it stands
relate the meaning values coherently or intelligibly. But, on the basis of
how those meanings are likely to go together, the hearer reconstructs the
proper matrix for the meaning values and puts them in (intermediary mean­
ing or stage of understanding).32 Thus for Kilwardby a coherent meaning is
not directly represented for the author of a figurative construction by a
grammatically deviant string — nor generated for the hearer directly by the
actual ungrammatical string. The relation between what is actually said and
what is intended and understood is mediate in the case of figurative con­
structions. It is precisely this grammatically correct intermediary which is
missing in the case of a solecism.
Kilwardby thus offers an interpretation of Priscian's works. In sum,
there is a normal isomorphism between what is literally said and its mean­
ing, so that in a normal case the meaning issues automatically form a
framework of grammatical relations filled in by word meanings. In the case
of figurative constructions, it is precisely because speaker and hearer recon­
struct the proper grammatical form and its exactly correlated meaning that
deviant surface grammar can be used to express unusual sentiments.
Historically, Kilwardby's interpretation is suspect. Priscian says
nothing this explicit. He had, moreover, no obvious motive for advancing
this sort of model. But it now becomes clear why the ratio qua debet fieri is
invariably connected by Kilwardby to individual authorial intent. It has
assumed a crucial role in his psychological-epistemological model for the
production and understanding of figurative constructions. The ratio qua
debet fieri is the meaning the speaker intends, what moves him to his calcu­
lated deviation from normal grammar. What is supposed to happen on the
332 M A R Y SIRRIDGE

side of the hearer is not so clear. Perhaps it is by searching about for an

appropriate ratio that the hearer reconstructs the correct grammar from
which the figurative construction deviates. Perhaps — and this seems more
likely to be what Kilwardby has in mind — the hearer first constructs a
plausible 'correct' grammar from the way the word meanings are most
plausibly related, then calculates a putative ratio qua debet fieri which
would explain the grammatical deviation. An appropriately impressive ratio
will naturally confirm the initial construction of the relevant "correct"
grammar. In any event, the ratio qua debet fieri is very plausibly treated as
somebody's particular reason for writing syntactically deviant Latin, since it
is the reason somebody in fact entertains in doing so.
There is even a theoretical place for the peculiar notion of a construc­
tion which is grammatical simpliciter, but ungrammatical with respect to the
speaker's intended meaning. Here, as in the usual case of figurative dis­
course, both speaker and hearer construct an intermediate grammar which
is "right" for what the speaker must mean and then consider why he has
deviated from it.
Kilwardby quite naturally places all figurative construction outside the
rules of grammar proper, largely because he sees them as results of idiosyn­
cratic intent. He includes in this placement even those figurative construc­
tions for which he can give a general rule like justification. For Kilwardby
himself as a grammarian, this decision is not of great moment. The Sophis-
mata Grammaticalia offers to the reader a liberal mixture of instances of
poetic license, cases like 'Ego et tu currimus,' and merely difficult construc­
tions of Latin like the ablative absolute. The commentary on Priscian
Minor preserves the same willingness to engage indifferently in grammar
proper or 'literary criticism.' But for succeeding generations of gramma­
rians, this kind of reasoned classification of all figurative constructions as
lying outside of the scope of grammar is a factor which serves to limit the
complexity and completeness of the grammars which are constructed.

NOTES
1. Radulphus Brito, Quaestiones super Priscianum Minorem, ed. by Enders & Pinborg
(1980), writing in the early 14th century, considers such sentences as (1) — he uses the
example 'Ex semine tuo qui est Christus' — to be "incongrua sive figurativa," p.247.
Although on occasion, he treats examples like (2) as rule-governed, his considered opin­
ion is that instances of conceptio which involve a grammatical anomaly are figurative, and
 KILWARDBY A N D FIGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 333

therefore not grammatical simpliciter. Most conspicuous in the end is the very fleeting
treatment of such cases: The mainstream of grammatical theory has left such Oddities'
behind.
2. The principal classical Latin sources are Priscianus, Institutiones Grammaticae, ed. by
Herz, in Grammatici Latini, 2-3, XVII.155, pp.l87ff.; XVII. 187, p.201ff. (Hereafter
cited as IG); and Donatus Ars Grammatica, ed. by Keil, in Grammatici Latini, 4, III.5,
pp.395-99. A number of commonly accepted examples of figurative constructions are
found in Ars Grammatica in the preceding discussion of the solecism, pp.393ff.
3. Cf. The Summa of Petrus Helias on Priscianus Minor, ed. by Toison (1978), pp. 120-25.
Cf. also the gloss on Priscian attributed to Petrus Hispanus "Absoluta cuiuslibet," Ms.
Wien, Österreichische Staatsbibliothek VPL 2498, ff.49r-76v. Cf. also Notulae super Pris-
cianum Minorem Magistri Jordani, ed. by Sirridge, Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Age
Grec et Latin, 36 (1980), p.66: passages not presented in this partial edition may be found
in Ms. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek 1291, ff.lr-96r. Jordanus discusses figurative con­
struction at ff.60v-61v.
4. Robert Kilwardby, the commentary on Priscian Minor (IG XVII-XVIII). Hereafter cited
as CPM. I have used Mss. Oxford, Corpus Christi 119, ff.11-124 (= O) and Cambridge,
Peterhouse 191, ff.112-229 (= cod. 191, vol. 2, ff.1-118) (= P). The texts follow  when
not otherwise stated. Ρ readings not accepted in the text are not noted when they are tri­
vial errors or of no consequence for the sense. The orthography has been normalized.
"Habito quod sit figura, iam patet ex dictis quaestio secunda, scilicet quid sit; est enim
improprietas ratione excusata quia3 quae non excusatur vitium est." (O 81r; Ρ 181 ν)
a quia: et O
5. CPM, "Est autem figura constructionis improprietas proveniens in ordinatione construc-
tibilium rationabiliter dicta." (O 81r; Ρ 181ν). This precise formulation seems to be
idiosyncratic to Kilwardby. The concept of figura is not. Petrus Helias, op. cit., p. 120,
defines: "Figura est diversarium dictionum in diversis accidentibus rationabili de causa
facta coniunctio." According to the gloss "Absoluta cuiuslibet," op. cit. "... figura con-
structionum e converso est quotiens non in dictione, sed in accidentibus dictionis improp­
rietas accipitur ... sciendum est quod nulla figura absque ratione est." (ff.65r-65v). One
close parallel, though it is not exact, is Jordan of Saxony, op. cit. "Ad hoc ut sit
figurativus sermo necesse est quod sit aliquid excusans, aliquod excusatum et tertium
respectu cuius fit excusatio." (f.61r)
6. CPM, "Videtur autem duplex occurrere ratio ad excusationem; quam vis enim aliqua sit
ratio3 in ipsis constructibilibus qua possint adinvicem ordinari improprie, non debent
improprie ordinari nisi coegeritb aliqua nécessitas ex parte construentis, quia est fortior
ratio qua possunt proprie ordinari in eisdem. Adhuc quamvis construensc necesse habet
improprie loqui propter aliquam necessitatem, nondum debet improprie loqui nisi in con­
structibilibus inveniat rationem qua possunt habere excusabiliter ordinationem improp-
riam; ergo haec duplex ratio occurrit, scilicet qua potest fieri improprietas et qua oportet
earn fieri." (O 81r; Ρ 181ν)
a post ratio  add. ad excusationem.
b coegerit: congruit Ρ
 construens: congruens Ρ
7. More narrowly construed, (3) is an instance of the figure evocatio. CPM, "Quia igitur per­
sona tertia confusa est respectu aliarum et ideo non omnio negat earum naturam, ideo in
334 MARY SIRRIDGE

naturam aliamm trahi potest per evocationem ut sua infinitas personae finitetur." (O 75r;
Ρ 176ν)
8. Generally, (3) is also an instance of the figure appositio. In that context, Kilwardby says,
CPM, "Et ita quodammodo est ibi mutua appositio — discernitur enim persona nominis
per personam pronominis, sed significatio pronominis finitur per nomen — et gratia
utriusque apponitur nomen pronomini." (O 79r; Ρ 180r)
9. Kilwardby's model is that of an art, which is active or formative with reference to the
potentials of the materials over which it is exercised. In the case of figurative construc­
tions, the impropriety is due to the needs of the practitioner. CPM, "... non propter
ipsam artem, sed propter utentes arte et hoc non propter quoscumque legentes in arte,
sed propter saptientes authentice loquentes sive metrice, sive prosaice." (O 81r; Ρ 181ν)
10. CPM, "Sciendum etiam quod bene dicitur 'conglutinata conceptio' in definitione quia non
debet illud unum sub quo fit diversorum coniunctio in syllepsi reddi divisim illis, sed con-
glutinatis et unitis. Si enim dicatur, 'Ego et tu disputamus,' non est sensus: ego dis-
putamus et tu disputamus; sed coniunctim tribuitur3 eis verbum." ( 74v; Ρ 176r)
a tribuitur: tribuatur Ο,Ρ
11. CPM, "Ad quod dicendum quod sicut in naturalibus, si misceantur nobilius et vilius sive
magis habens de materia, nobilius et magis3 habens de forma facit ibi denominationem et
trahit reliquum in sui naturam, sic in personis cum coniungantur nobilior et minus nobilis,
nobilior denominat totum et trahit reliquum ad sui proprietatem — dico respectu verbi —
et concipit ipsam ad se et non e converso, sicut nec in aliis rebus. Quod autem prima
nobilior sit secunda et tertia patet quia proprietas primae est aliquo modo causa prop-
rietatis secundae et tertiae. A prima enim dirigitur sermo ad secundam, quae directio
facit proprietatem secundae; et inter primam et secundam fit sermo de tertia, quod est
proprium tertiae." (O 75r; Ρ 176ν)
a et: est 
12. CPM, "Similiter, si dicatur, 'Urbem quam statuo vestra est' pro 'Urbs quam statuo';
ponitur enim ibi antecedens sub eodem casu cum suo relativo ad designandum omnino
identitatem rei suppositae per antecedens et per relativum ... Alii dicunt quod proferens
voluit significare se statuisse urbem causa illius cui loquebatur intendentem quod urbs
recepit causam esse sui ab eo ..." (O 82v; P183r)
13. Robert Kilwardby, Sophismata Grammaticalia, hereafter cited as SG. I have used Mss.
Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek 8o 10, ff.47-82 (= E8); Zwettl 338, ff. 135-
61 (= Z). Unless otherwise noted, the text is that of E8. Deviations from E8 are noted,
but variants of Ζ which are not incorporated in the text are not noted if they are trivial or
unnecessary to the sense. "... quia nominativus dicit rem prout est iam facta et perma­
nens; sed posuit ibi accusativum quia accusativus habet modum recipientis, ut dictum est,
et dénotât3 rem suam in fieri esse." (E8 76v; Ζ 157r)
a dénotât: demonstrans E8
14. CPM, "Improprietas autem in hac figura palam est, scilicet ordinatio dictionum intrans­
itiva sub oppositis accidentibus. Causa autem qua potest fieri est identitas secundum sub-
stantiam eius quod ponitur improprie et eius pro quo ponitur, quod si poneretur faceret
proprietatem; eadem enim est res sub omni casu et sub utroque numero, gratia cuius
casus pro casu et numerus pro numero poní potest." ( 82v; Ρ 183r)
15. For a further discussion of Kilwardby's theory of inflection, cf. Sirridge (1983).
 KILWARDBY A N D FIGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 335

16. Kilwardby normally makes this distinction; he does so, for example, in his discussion of
(2) in SG. Cf. E8, f.76v.
17. CPM, "Et dicendum secundum Donatum quod tres sunt, scilicet metrum, ornatus et
nécessitas ... accipitur enim hic nccessitas pro causa necessaria exprimendi intentam sen-
tentiam." (O 81r; Ρ 181 ν)
18. See note 14 above.
19. At least in Kilwardby's preferred usage, a figurative construction always involves a gram­
matical impropriety. Thus some instances of conceptio are not figurative, e.g., 'Homines
et asini sunt animalia.' CPM (O 76r; Ρ 177ν)
20. CPM, "Et dicendum quod oratio //Ρ// figurativa aut facit improprietatem quantum ad
intellectum significatum aut quantum ad intellectum intentum. Si quantum ad intellectum
significatum, absolute loquendo, talis est oratio incongrua, quamvis rationem habeat et
ita secundum quid sit congrua, scilicet secundum intellectum proferentis, cuiusmodi est
haec: 'Urbem quam statuo vestra est,' quae quantum ad intellectum significatum est
incongrua et quantum ad intellectum intentum congrua. Sed sia facit improprietatem tan­
tum quoad intellectum intentum, est simpliciter congrua, sed secundum quid incongrua,
ut haec: 'Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt,' quae omnino congrua est secundum intellectum
significatum, tarnen non repraesentat omnino intellectum intentum et ideo quoad pro­
ferentem incongrua est, sed simpliciter congrua." ( 84v; Ρ 185v-186r)
a si: . 
21. CPM, "Adhuc congruitas vel incongruitas simpliciter omnino résultat ex principiis
intraneis dictionum constructarum; sed ratio excusandi improprietatem extra est ex parte
construentis, quare propter ipsam nihilominusa dicetur simpliciter incongrua cum sitb dis-
sonantia inter principia intránea." (O 84v; Ρ 185ν)
a nihilominus: nihil minus 
b sit: si, O
22. CPM, "Et patet ex hac definitione differentia ad omnes alias figuras; illud enim quod
excusatur hic in sermone ponitur, sed quo excusatur subintelligitur //Ο//. In aliis autem
omnibus ponitur utrumque, ut planum est ex praehabitis." (O 82r-82v; Ρ 183r)
23. IG, "Omnis enim constructio, quam Graeci σύνταξιυ vocant, ad intellectum vocis est
reddenda. Itaque per diversas figuras variare soient auctores in constructione accidentia,
de quibus iam supra docuimus, quae quamvis quantum ad ipsas dictiones incongrue dis-
posita esse videantur, tarnen ratione sensus rectissime ordinata esse iudicantur ..."
XVII. 187, p.201.
24. SG, "Ad idem, duplex est perfectio organi vel instrumenti, scilicet prima et secunda3,
sicut patet in oculo ... Similiter in oratione b duplex est perfectio, scilicet prima et sec­
unda. Et est prima quando suppositum et appositum ibi sunt /IESII recte ordinata; sec­
unda perfectio est quando recte movere potest intellectum. Sed sic estc quod destructa
prima perfectione instrumento vel órgano, destruitur secunda, et non convertitur, sicut
patet in securi. Ergo similiter cum oratio sit instrumentum grammatici, destructa prima
perfectione orationis, destruitur secunda ... ergo destructa perfectione quoad sensus,
destruitur ilia quae est quoad intellectum — quare distinctio nulla. Iterum sicut dictio
integratur vel componitur ex voce et significatione vel intellectu, similiter ipsa oratio
integratur suo modo; sed sic est quod destructa parte integrali, destruitur totum ... ergo
si oratio est imperfecta a parte talis partis integralis, debet esse imperfecta a parte totius
336 M A R Y SIRRIDGE

//Ζ//. Ergo cum vox sit pars integralis ipsius orationis, sicut dictum est, cum sit imperfecta
a parte talis partis integralis, est imperfecta oratio simpliciter — et hoc 0 est imperfecta
quoad vocem et quoad sensum; ergo si haec est imperfecta quoad vocem, debet penitus
esse imperfecta." (E8 48r; Ζ 135v-136r)
a post secunda E8 add. prima huius perfectio est
b oratione: dictione E8
 post est E8 add. constructio artis grammaticae
d et hoc: sed haec E8
25. S G E8 48r; Ζ 136r.
26. SG, "Et dicendum quod distinctio praedicta non valet sub verbis praedictis, scilicet quod
potest esse perfecta quoad sensum vel quoad intellectum. Sed sic habet intelligi definido
ista quod per 'sensum' intelligantur sensibiles, qui utuntur sensu, sive novi vel minus
provecti; per 'intellectum' autem intelligantur intelligentes vel sapientes et magis provecti
qui utuntur intellectu. Sic ergo intelligenda est praedicta distinctio quod aliqua oratio
potest esse imperfecta quoad rudes, perfecta tarnen quoad sapientes." (E8 48v; Ζ 136r)
27. CPM,  85r; Ρ 186.
28. CPM,  85r; Ρ 186.
29. CPM, "Perfectio sive congruitas vocis est cum accidentia vocis fuerint concinna et debito
modo disposita apud vocem; perfectio autem et congruitas intellectus duplex est: una
quae consistit penes modos significandi et intelligendi quando concinne se habet 3 , alia
quae consistit penes ipsa significata quae sunt sub modis significandi aut intelligendi sig-
nificata. Prima perfectio sive congruitas intellectus est in sermone omnino congruo, et
ipsa proportionalis est perfectioni sive congruitati quae est intusb in voce sicut sig-
nificatum signo, et illa omnino convertentiam habet cum perfectione sive congruitate
quae est ex parte vocis; et ad illam repraesentandam immediate ordinatur voxc et
praecedit illam in apprehensione ... Sed haec perfectio sive congruitas intellectus, scilicet
quae pertinet ad significata tantum pertinet ad sermonem figurativumd; et haec perfectio
bene potest esse sine perfectione vel congruitate vocis, sicut hic: 'Pars in frusta secant';...
nec ordinatur congruitas vocis aut perfectio ad hanc repraesentandam nisi per accidens et
ex consequenti, quia haec pertinet ad secundum intellectum vocis; sed inter secundum
intellectum et vocem ipsam cadit simplicitere intellectus médius, cuius perfectio omnino
aequalis est perfectioni sive congruitati vocis." (O 85r; Ρ 186r)
a post habent add. scilicet Ο,Ρ
b intus: . 
 vox  Ο,Ρ
d figurativum: figurativam Ο,Ρ
e simpliciter: primus P. fort, recte.
30. CPM, "Primus intellectus est qui prius cadit in apprehensionem, scilicet qui consistit ex
modis significandi dictionum." (O 84v; Ρ 185ν)
31. CPM, "Secundus est qui secundo comprehenditur, scilicet qui consistit ex significatis dic­
tionum." (Ο 84ν; Ρ 185ν)
32. Note that this picture, involving a rightly constructed intermediary is appropriate, even if
we accept the reading of MS. Ρ of CPM, which has "primus intellectus medius" for Ms.
O's "simpliciter intellectus medius." P's reading would have primary meaning functioning
as a mediator between what is actually said and its secondary meaning. This reading
leaves an awkward question: The primary meaning of what?
 KILWARDBY AND FIGURATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 337

REFERENCES

Donatus. 1877. "Ars grammatica." Grammatici latini ed. by Heinrich Keil,

vol.IV, 355-402. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
Jordanus de Saxonia. 1980. Notulae super Priscianum Minorem Magistri
Jordani. Ed. by Mary Sirridge. (= CIMAGL, 36.) Copenhagen.
. MS. Notulae super Priscianum. Leipzig: Univ. Bibliothek, 1291,
ff.l4-96r.
Petrus Helias. 1978. The Summa of Petrus Helias on Priscian Minor. Ed.,
with an introduction by Margaret Gibson, by James Eric Toison. (=
CIMAGL, 27-28.) Copenhagen.
Petrus Hispanus. MS. "Absoluta cuiuslibet disciplinae perfectio duplici
comparatur exercitio [...]." MSS Wien, Österr. Nationalbibliothek VPL
2498, ff.49-76v.
Priscianus. 1855-59. "Institutionum grammaticarum libri XVIII." Ed. by
Martin Hertz. Grammatici latini ed. by Heinrich Keil, vol.2 (579 pp.),
and vol.3 (384 pp.)· Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. (Repr., Hildesheim: G.
Olms, 1961.)
Radulphus Brito. 1980. Quaestiones super Priscianum Minorem. Ed. by
Heinz Enders & Jan Pinborg. (= Grammatica Speculativa, 3.) Stuttgart-
Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.
Robertus Kilwardby. MS. Commentary on "Priscianus Minor." MSS Cam­
bridge, Peterhouse 191, ff.112-229 (= Cod.191, vol.2, ff.1-118); Oxford,
CCC119, ff.11-125.
. MS. "Sophismata grammaticalia." MSS Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche
Stadtbibliothek 0.10, ff.47-82; Zwettl, Stiftsbibliothek 338, ff.135-61.
Sirridge, Mary. 1983. "Socrates' Hood: Lexical meaning and syntax in Jor­
danus and Kilwardby." CIMAGL 44.102-121.
 Mental Reservation
and Mental Language in Suarez

John A . Trentman
Huron College - University of Western Ontario

"Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open [...] and from
whom no secrets are hid. ..." {Book of Common Prayer)

The Oxford Dictionary of Current English ed. by F.G. & H.W. Fowler
gives as a secondary definition of Jesuit "deceitful person" and of Jesuitical
"crafty."1 Nor is this only modern usage; already by the early 17th century
the words had taken on such meanings, admittedly mostly, but not exclu­
sively, among Protestants (see ED for some sample references). This
usage stuck because the Jesuits, whether fairly or not, were widely thought
to be preoccupied with providing specious reasons for doing what was
clearly wrong and, generally, for making the worse appear to be the better
cause. They were particularly thought to carry on this disreputable practice
with respect to questions of lying and telling the truth, and the doctrines
that were thought to exemplify this devilish craftiness in a particularly obvi­
ous way were their teachings about equivocation and mental reservation.
One of their best known critics was, of course, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662),2
but his attack reflects a very considerable body of criticism from the earlier
17th century.
In this essay I shall start with some review of the historical context of
doctrines of mental reservation. For better or worse, this is not widely
known nowadays, in spite of certain obvious parallels to current concern
with such tropics as lying and deception in discussions of medical ethics.
Then I shall go through Francisco Suarez's (1584-1617) analysis as he
340 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

sets it out. Finally I shall comment on Suarez's doctrine, making compari­

sons to modern authors and contemporary concerns. My commentary and
these comparisons will focus on the relations between mind and speech,
between mental language and spoken language. I shall suggest that Suarez's
doctrine perhaps raises more problems than it solves but that these prob­
lems are very interesting for the history of philosophy and, more specifi­
cally, philosophy of mind and language in the late medieval and early mod­
ern period.
Jesuits and other defenders of equivocation and mental reservation
have not always been treated fairly by their critics. Their interest in these
theories came not from the fact that the truth was not in them, as Protes­
tants commonly alleged, but rather from their very high regard for truth. Of
course, if one is not concerned about lying, one has no reason to use
equivocations and mental reservations, as Robert Parsons caustically
pointed out.3 Most Protestants, finding support in some of the church
fathers, tended to maintain that an outright lie in extenuating circumstances
could be less morally and spiritually dangerous than intentionally mislead­
ing someone and that in such circumstances the lie could be defended as
permissible in that it was the least of evils. Later in the 17th century Jeremy
Taylor (1613-1667) was one of the most distinguished defenders of this doc­
trine.4
Although it has generally been maintained in the Judeo-Christian tra­
dition that lying is always wrong, there is no clear parallel injunction always
in all circumstances to tell the whole truth. So Aquinas (in Summa
Theologiae 2a 2ae, 109.4) distinguished telling a lie from keeping some
truth hidden. Likewise to assert a restricted truth is not, thereby, to deny a
more extensive truth. So if someone you know to be notoriously bad about
repaying his debts asks you whether you have $5 to lend him, you may
truthfully answer 'yes,' while feeling no obligation to volunteer the informa­
tion that, in fact, you have $20. Of course, in such a situation you may not
reply, "I have only $5," but with such qualifications we are immediately
into the world of equivocations and mental reservations.
Generally the tradition has distinguished equivocation from mental
reservation. In a strict sense equivocation means that a set of words can be
taken in two senses, in one of which they are true, in another of which (usu­
ally the sense in which the speaker hopes the hearer will take them) they
are in fact false, or at least not clearly true. A standard case in the literature
is one in which a woman (it always seems to be a woman) has committed
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 341

adultery. On the way home she meets a priest who hears her confession and
pronounces absolution. When her husband asks if she has been faithful to
him, she replies, "I am without sin." Mental reservation, on the other hand,
occurs when one utters audibly and expressly a false statement while adding
mentally or under one's breath a condition or clause, both of which
together make a true statement. As we shall see, Suarez blurs this distinc­
tion and describes what is really mental reservation in terms of equivoca­
tion. This blurring may have been deliberate since mental reservation in the
strict sense has always seemed more outrageous than mere equivocation.
Whatever moral outrage these doctrines might have occasioned, they
clearly are of very significant philosophical interest because they have obvi­
ous implications not only for moral philosophy and theology but also for the
philosophy of language and for psychological concerns. These theoretical
aspects of Suarez's doctrine, especially as they deal with the philosophy of
language and mind will be the primary concern of this essay, and it is obvi­
ous that they must account for much of the interest that was shown in ques­
tions of equivocation and mental reservation by academic philosophers and
theologians, safely ensconced in university positions well away from the
concerns of everyday politics and life in the 'real world.'
Nevertheless, the doctrines were intended for practical application in
casuistry or in what Anglicans came to call 'case divinity'; they were
intended to help one to address real cases of possible moral conflict in the
everyday world. But in the overcharged political and religious atmosphere
of the 16th and 17th centuries what was safe enough for academic specula­
tion could very well have most dangerous consequences in everyday politi­
cal and religious life. Suarez was certainly not above mixing in political con­
troversy, as his famous dispute with James I of England over the legitimacy
of James's kingship and authority amply illustrates, 5 but he could carry on
this dispute from the safety of his academic chair. Things were different for
those in the thick of the political and religious fight. Perhaps the best
known example is Henry Garnet, the Superior of the Jesuits in England at
the time of the Gunpowder Plot. The unfortunate Garnet was clearly guilty
of treason in the strict sense for not revealing his knowledge of the Gun­
powder Plot, knowledge (which the defence stressed) was gained in the
confessional, but the case was complicated by the issue of mental reserva­
tion. In 1598 Garnet had written Λ Treatise of Equivocation, and although
it was probably never printed (at least there is no extant printed copy), it
was clearly well known, and Sir Edward Coke used a MS copy with Gar-
342 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

net's marginal notes at Garnet's trial.6 The question of equivocation and

mental reservation came up several times at his examination and trial. How
could one believe anything these crafty Jesuits said, since they taught that
equivocation and mental reservation were sometimes permissible? Garnet
was duly found guilty, hanged, drawn and quartered. In this context it is
interesting to note that the oath of allegiance to King James I, framed after
the Gunpowder Plot, required one to swear, "And all these things I do
plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear according to these express
words by me spoken, and according to the plain and common sense of the
same words, without any equivocation, or mental evasion, or secret reser­
vation whatsoever." One also had to swear that the oath had been offered
lawfully and with good and full authority and that no one (particularly the
pope) had power to absolve or pardon one from the oath.7 No loophole was
to be left for crafty Jesuits and their dissembling. Of course, if one could
make an oath with a mental reservation, presumably one could make a
meta-mental reservation, but not much seems to have been made of this
possibility at the time.
Against this historical backround I wish to examine the doctrine of
another Jesuit, crafty or otherwise, Francisco Suarez. So far as what we
might call the epistemology of mental reservation is concerned, we should
doubtless have to classify Suarez as what was called a probabiliorist, one
who balances all authorities and arguments and through a reasoned consid­
eration decides where the truth is to be found. He was certainly not a prob-
abilist, the holder of a position rather unfairly attributed to the Jesuits,
which held that an action was permissible if any respectible authority ever
defended it. Nor was he a tutiorist, who maintained that the stricter or safer
rule was always to be followed. But the tutiorist position was hardly consis­
tent with a serious and sympathetic interest in mental reservation and,
indeed, came to be seen as a rule appropriate only for heroes and saints,
not for ordinary people facing moral conflict.
Furthermore, it is clear from his discussion and the examples he con­
siders that Suarez was a defender (admittedly with qualifications) of strict
mental reservation. This may seem far from obvious from the question he
raises as a title for his discussion: An liceat cum amphibologia sola mente
concepta?8 I cannot see that there is any significant difference in meaning
between amphibologia and equivocatio (aequivocatio). Both have classical
roots and occur in the earlier Middle Ages. Amphibologia applies to
ambiguity of complex expressions, propositions, and equivocatio to indi-
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 343

vidual words. Both equally mean 'ambiguity,' 'double meaning/ what we

call in English 'equivocation.' I should not wish to impute to Suarez any
intention to deceive his readers, but, as I have noted, defenders of strict
mental reservation often tended to blur the distinction between equivoca­
tion and mental reservation because the latter seemed morally more out­
rageous, and Suarez seems to want to pass off mental reservation as
ambiguity in propositions. A particularly extravagant example of both
given by Elliot Rose is that of Father Ward alias Sickemore, who when
accused of perjury defended himself by saying,
first he swore he was no priest, that is, saieth he, not Apollos
Pnest at Delphos. Secondly he sware he was never beyond the
Seas, its trew saieth he, for he was never beyond the Indian Seas.
Thirdly he was never at, or of the Seminaries. Duplex est
seminarium, materiale, et spirituale, he was never of the spirituall
Seminarie. Fourthly, he never knew Mr. Hawksworth, verum
est, saith he, scientia scientifica. Fifthly, he never saw Mr.
Hawksworth, verum est, saith he, visione beatifica.9
This is a nice blend of equivocation and mental reservation, but it well illus­
trates how outrageous applications of the doctrine could be, and we shall
see in Suarez that examples for academic discussion could also seem out­
rageous.
In the previous chapter of his work, Suarez discussed 'sensible' equivo­
cation, that is, equivocation that occurs only in the use of external, i.e.,
'sensible,' spoken or written words. Now he is to consider equivocation
involving mental words, concepts in the mind, indeed, equivocation only
involving such mental words. He defines this sort of amphibologia as an
equivocation that occurs when external (spoken or written) words, taken in
their precise sense do not have a complete and proper signification by
which they can effect a true sense. Rather, they are drawn away, as it were
from their proper signification by some inwardly conceived restriction. We
may note here that written and spoken words, when used properly are
taken to have a signification by virtue of which they effect a complete and
appropriate sense in the mind of both speaker and hearer. This sense is
something mental that can be shared by different rational beings. The
notion brings to mind earlier medieval doctrines as well as, as we shall
shortly see, Suarez's own objective concept (and, indeed, Frege's
Gedanke).
According to Suarez, however, there is a major difficulty with all this.
344 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

That is, one cannot bring together an external proposition, which is a phys­
ical object, and an internal, mental restriction to form a unity that can have
one significandum. It lies in nobody's power to do such a thing because
even to talk about it is to be guilty of a kind of category mistake. Therefore,
(and here Suarez uses a standard example in the literature) if one says or
writes 'I did not eat this thing' and internally understands 'today,' when in
fact one did eat it yesterday, one lies. One says what is false because the
form of words expresses a false proposition and its negation is true. Furth­
ermore, if one swears an oath using precisely that form of spoken words,
one is guilty of perjury. And Suarez adds a list of authorities who are taken
to support this reading of the matter.
Here Suarez refers us to an opposing authority, the Doctor Navarrus
(Martin Azpilcueta). This is an appropriate citation because Azpilcueta was
one of the classic sources on the topic of equivocation and mental reserva­
tion. The primary text for his teaching on the subject is his treatise, Com-
mentarius in cap. Humanae Aures XXII q. V: de veritate responsi partim
verbo partim mente concepti; et de arte bona et mala simulandi (Rome,
1584). One finds the same teaching also in his Enchiridion (first published
in 1573).10 The heart of Azpilcueta's doctrine is the view that one can distin­
guish different forms of speech (nothing very original), namely, spoken,
written and mental speech. These forms of language are, however, more or
less to be seen on a par as subsets of the set of all linguistic expressions.
Here Azpilcueta, in spite of being the classic source on this particular sub­
ject, is also an innovator, going against the tradition. If it is allowed, follow­
ing Azpilcueta, that these three kinds of language are on equal footing with
no ordering of logical priority among them, there is no logical or conceptual
bar against mixing them to make up one well-formed formula, made up of
different parts of different orders of language, an oratio mixta, Azpilcueta
calls it. Thus the expression that bears a truth value is the 'mixed' expres­
sion made up of components from different orders of language. Therefore,
if I say, "I did not eat it" and think 'today,' what has a truth value (and
what God knows to have a truth value) is the mixture 'I did not eat it/
today.' This Suarez declares to be simply a category mistake, and, in spite
of his later defence of mental reservation, I do not see that he ever really
retreats from this position.
Although there is much that is new in Suarez's treatment of this sub­
ject, we can, then, see that his starting point is very old; as against Azpil­
cueta, he reaffirms an ordering in the fundamental kinds of language. Men-
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 345

tal has a conceptual and logical priority. This is certainly nothing new; it
goes back to Aristotle in De Interpretatione and was commonplace in later
medieval logic and speculative grammar. Furthermore, it was also invoked
in this debate by other of Suarez's contemporaries, e.g., Gregorio de Val­
encia and Lessius (Léonard Leys).11 Therefore, even for this reason Azpil-
cueta's oratio mixta will not do; it really is a mixture, a result of a concep­
tual mixup. One must make a new start.
Suarez has more to say about Azpilcueta, however, before he finally
resolves the question. The oratio mixta presupposes that spoken, written
and mental propositions are wholes or unities of an equal standing with
each other such that they can be blended in any combination at will to make
up a whole complex proposition. But this is not so. As we have seen, they
are not of equal standing, and it is hard to see how (Suarez uses a standard
example) a written 'God is' together with a thought 'an angel' could be
taken to make up one false proposition with a written subject and copula
and a mental predicate. Suarez goes on to reiterate and amplify his argu­
ment. Every expression is a kind of sign and has an appropriate significa­
tion, but signs signify differently, according to their order. Thus all terms of
a given order signify appropriately to their order of language (cum propor­
tion). But this ordering is necessarily mixed up and confounded in alleged
combinations from different orders. He reminds us that mental words are
spiritual signs, whereas spoken words are sensible or physical signs. Furth­
ermore, there is a significant difference between different kinds of physical
signs, spoken and written. Spoken expressions are transient signs signifying
only what is present on the occasion of utterance; therefore, they can only
be restricted, so far as their truth or falsity goes, by a transient restriction
which applied at the time of utterance. Written expressions, however, are
'permanent' signs; they can signify what is absent at a particular time or
what is the case or exists over a period or duration of time. Therefore, a
written expression cannot be determined to be true or false by a transient,
spoken restriction, which applies only to the time of its utterance. A written
expression is true or false for particular durations of time. It is not either
true or false for all of time, of course, or it would be a necessary proposi­
tion. Likewise, mental propositions, regarded now as the contents of
thought that can be shared by all thinkers and speakers, can be true over a
duration of time. Although he does not raise the point here, he doubtless
agreed with the general medieval tradition that propositions (including,
pre-eminently, mental propositions) could change their truth values so that
346 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

one can distinguish propositions true for some (perhaps extended) period of
time from propositions true for all times simpliciter. His aim here is simply
to show that there are significant differences between expressions in differ­
ent orders such that mixing them, particularly mixing spoken expressions
with those of other orders, is completely impossible. He concludes this sec­
tion with an appeal, not to linguistic or logical theory, but to the claim that
if such mixing as allegedly occurs in the oratio mixta were possible, all
human faith, trust and, indeed, human society would be undermined, and
people could lie with impunity.
In spite of this negative conclusion about the doctrine of the oratio
mixta, Suarez thought there was much sense to what Azpilcueta was saying.
It had been supported by reputable authority, and one might even say that
sacramental theology seems to involve the 'mixing' of visible and invisible
things. Furthermore, Suarez himself wanted to defend mental reservation.
Clearly the doctrine of oratio mixta in itself could not provide an adequate
answer, but Suarez thought the persuasive point of Azpilcueta's doctrine
could be seen through a sounder explication of what is going on in mental
reservation. This sounder explication and Suarez's resolution of the ques­
tion will be our next topic for consideration.
Suarez resolves the question by maintaining that mental amphibologia
is legitimate, given certain qualifications. Although the oratio mixta as such
will not do for an explication, mental reservation in practise seems to be
legitimate enough so long as the requisite restriction is not outrageous but
is appropriate and proportionate to the sense of the words physically
uttered and to the external matter signified by those words. Obviously the
law of excluded middle must obtain; at the least one must know in a general
sense what would count against and falsify the total truth-bearing expres­
sion (whatever, for the time being, this is to be). The particularly appropri­
ate conditions might be unknown, but one must know where to look for a
falsification of the whole true or false proposition. And, as we shall see, the
morality of using mental reservations depends on the situation in which the
statement with a reservation is offered. Now we must look at the details of
Suarez's explication.
Malloch (see note 11), in describing Suarez's position in his very useful
survey of the subject of mental reservation, it seems to me, slightly misses
the mark. He writes (p.136), "[Suarez] rests his conclusion, however, on a
broad conception of what it lies in the freedom of man to choose to do,
rather than on an argument concerning the nature of speech." He does,
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 347

indeed, invoke in his argument the question of what one is free to do, but
as I shall try to show, his resolution of the question also depends on an
interesting account of language and mind as it applies to the question of
mental reservation. As Malloch stresses, Suarez does, however, appeal to
what the human will can do. One can think whatever one wills. Since the
sense of all types of language is to be found in the mind, more precisely in
the objective concepts utilized in mental language, apparently mixed or
allegedly mixed expressions would find their sense in what one willed to
think, in what was going on in the mind. Anything logically conceivable
may be going on in a particular mind depending on what the thinker wills to
be going on. But how are we to understand these possibilities for the
speaker's will? We cannot peer directly into different minds, and simply to
say that it all happens in the mind is not to offer an explanation. Suarez,
therefore provides an explication (potest etiam ita explicari) of the will's
possibilities for mental language in terms of spoken language: what one can
say, if one wishes. I shall first examine the analogy of mental to spoken lan­
guage as Suarez develops it. Then, I shall compare it to a modern treatment
of mental acts and consider some questions that are raised by the analogy.
One can speak as loudly or as softly as one wills. Therefore, one can
begin a proposition loudly and continue or conclude it softly. So one can
say in a loud and clear voice, Ί did not do it,' and then mutter in a soft
voice 'today.' Indeed, one might utter 'today' in such a whisper that
nobody could hear it. but no one would deny that the whole proposition, "I
did not do it today," was an integral, whole proposition. There is no
attempt here to mix orders of language; the whole proposition is entirely a
spoken proposition. The fact that someone did not hear part of it has no
bearing on its truth value. One could even utter a whole proposition in such
a low voice that no one could hear any of it; that would have no bearing on
the truth or falsity of the uttered proposition. Generally, what is heard or
not heard is irrelevant to the truth of propositions or whatever sort, spoken,
written or mental. Furthermore, according to Suarez, the effect from a
moral point of view of thinking, saying or swearing a proposition does not
differ with respect to which parts are heard and which are unheard. It is
sometimes permissible to start a proposition in a loud voice and conclude it
softly; it must then be equally permissible to think the same thing.
If the direction this analysis is taking seems morally, if not philosophi­
cally, outrageous, there is more of the same (if not worse) to come. Suarez
says that there is another, similar way in which we can explicate mental
348 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

amphibologia in terms of spoken language. We can distinguish using words

materially from using them formally; we can distinguish utterances of
quoted expressions from utterances of unquoted ones. Putting this together
with the fact that we can, if we wish, utter words loudly or softly, we get the
following example. One can begin by saying, "I swear," followed by saying
in a low voice, "that I am saying," followed by saying in a loud and clear
voice, "that I did not do it." The whole expression is one whole spoken
proposition, which proposition is true. If the hearer hears only, "I did not
do it," this has no bearing on the truth value of the whole proposition. In
fact, in this case, "I did not do it," according to Suarez, was used mate­
rially; it was used as an extremum, a term of the proposition with no truth
value of its own, because in effect it was a quoted expression. If the hearer
missed the fact that it was so used, that has no bearing on the truth value of
the whole spoken proposition, which was, "I swear that I am saying that I
did not do it." This example is offered as another analogy of mental to spo­
ken amphibologia. Thinking such a thing is like saying such a thing.
But surely to say such a thing (in the way it is said in the example, the
quoted expression in a loud voice and 'that I am saying' in a low, if not
inaudible, voice) is morally outrageous. According to Suarez, that depends.
What it depends upon are the standard qualifications much discussed by
authors on mental reservation. Was the mental reservation done from 'just
cause and necessity'? Did the hearer have a legal or moral right to the
truth? One may not offer such a response to a just interrogation; nor may
one volunteer such a response or offer it gratuitously, as it were. For the
time being I want to leave these moral concerns and return to the other
philosophical problems raised by this analysis of mental reservation.
Thinking has long and often been described in terms of saying. In the
familiar words of the Authorized Version of the Bible, "The fool hath said
in his heart, There is no God'." This is what the fool thinks, and his think­
ing is described as a saying in the heart. Here Suarez seems to push the
analogy very far. In "I did not do it today" the mental word is just like the
softly or inaudibly spoken 'today.' Is mental language simply subvocal
speech? Does this analysis amount to a reduction of the mental to the spo­
ken? Had he raised them, Suarez would doubtless have had to reply 'no' to
both of these questions. In order to see how he understands the relation
between thinking and saying, we must briefly review his teaching about
mental acts and language. Then we can return to the analogy of mental lan­
guage to spoken language. A review of Suarez's teaching about concepts
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 349

and mental acts will also be helpful when at the conclusion of this essay we
look at the implications of Suarez's full-blown theory concerning mental
reservation. We shall see that, although Suarez's explication of mental
amphibologia seems to go in the direction of a near identification of mind
and speech with all the consequences that would entail, in the end his
analysis focuses not on speech but on concepts in the mind, which entails
some very different consequences.
Thinking has to do with concepts, so we must begin with Suarez's dis­
tinction between formal and objective concepts. 12 He tells us that this is the
'common' distinction, but he does not tell us exactly who the vulgus might
have been who made this distinction vulgaris. In fact, Suarez himself has
taken much of the credit for this particular distinction down through the cen­
turies. Certainly the basis of the distinction is common enough; it is the dis­
tinction between acts of mind and their contents, which are taken to be
what the acts intend or signify. The formal concept, according to Suarez, is
just the mental act itself by virtue of which the intellect conceives some par­
ticular thing or some common ratio. He likens it to the offspring or fruit of
mind (yeluti proles mentis). It formally represents what is known to the
mind. What is it that is thus represented and made known? It is the objec­
tive concept, the ratio properly and immediately known or represented
through the formal concept. It is 'objective' because it is the object or mat­
ter about which the formal concept is concerned and to which the insight or
penetration (acies) of the mind directly and immediately inclines. In this we
see that mind has an intentional character; what is intended in acts of mind
is what Suarez calls the objective concept. 13
The formal concept is, of course, particular and numerically one in its
nature because it is just the particular mental act. The objective concept
can, however, be either particular or common to many things depending on
what is intended in thought, a particular thing or a universal. Of course,
Suarez's rather Ockhamized Thomism prevents him from allowing that
there can be any entities in the external world that are themselves universal
and common. In our thought we can conceive what is common to many
things; indeed, that is the sort of thing minds do. In so acting what they
intend are universal objective concepts.
Formal or objective concepts, or rather both together, can be either
simple or complex, i.e., propositional. 'Both together' is better because
Suarez insists that every formal concept must have a corresponding objec­
tive concept (vide, e.g., Disp. II, sect. 2, Vol. I, pp.378ff.). Thus I can
350 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

think of a man. My particular thinking is a formal concept, which intends

the objective concept of Man. Or one can think about the fact that
5+7=12. Again, my particular thinking about this fact is the formal con­
cept; the thought that 5+7=12 is what is intended in this formal concept; it
is the objective concept.
We can now relate this brief account of concepts to the idea of mental
language. According to Suarez, mental words are to be identified with for­
mal concepts; these utterances, sayings in the heart of what the mind thinks
are particular mental acts.14 The universality of language derives from the
capacity of mental words to represent or intend what is universal or com­
mon to many things. They can do this through their capacity to intend
objective concepts. Up to a point this looks like Ockhamism, and I have
pointed out elsewhere15 that it is very characteristic of Suarez's thought,
together with that of many like-minded late scholastics, to accept
Ockhamist presuppositions or Scotist presuppositions in the process of
attempting to refute Ockham or Scotus. Suarez's account is different from
Ockhamism, however. Ockham thought the mental word, i.e., the mental
act, could be universal simply in that it referred to many externally existing
things. According to Suarez, the matter is not so simple. The mental word
can denote many external objects only because it intends a universal objec­
tive concept. There is, of course, a corollary to this in Suarez's general
account of universals. The unity of the universal is not, according Suarez, a
real, i.e., extramental unity. It is something mind-dependent, a so-called
rational unity. But minds are not completely free to do whatever they
please, independently of what is universal in thought. What is universal in
thought has an ontological grounding in things, this is the point of the
Suarezian concept cum fundamento in re.
The mental word or formal concept, then, is a saying in the heart that
intends a corresponding objective concept. This doctrine might be further
illuminated by comparing it to the analysis in Peter Geach's Mental Acts
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958). Geach states (p.98) his general
thesis as the thesis "that language about thoughts is an analogical develop­
ment of language about language." We need not go through the details of
his analysis here; a general outline will suffice to make the appropriate
comparison. Geach understands what he calls an Idea (capitalized thus) as
the exercise of a concept. The concept is a mental capacity. Thus (in terms
of his example) the Idea every man is the exercise of the concept every man,
which is a mental capacity exercised in judgements that are expressible by
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 351

the use of the words 'every man' (Geach, op. cit., 98ff.). The Idea is a say-
ing-in-the-heart or a mental utterance of some words, i.e., 'every man,'
which saying-in-the-heart need not, however, consist in having mental
images of any words. Geach understands a judgement to involve a relation
holding between Ideas, which is explicated in terms of a relation holding
between expressions, which in turn is explicated in terms of a relation hold­
ing between the utterances of expressions. The exercise of a concept in the
mind is, therefore, ultimately explicated in terms of the utterances of
words.
The similarity of this to the analysis given by Suarez of the relation
between mental language and spoken language in the case of mental
amphibologia is obvious. Mental words, which Suarez understands as for­
mal concepts (particular mental acts), are explicated in terms of the utter­
ances of spoken words. As on some occasion I can say "I did not do it
today," expressing 'today' in a low voice, even so low as to be inaudible, so
on some occasion I can think the same thing. We seem to be back then to
the question of whether mental language is just subvocal speech. Clearly it
is not, for Suarez as well as for Geach, although Suarez does not face this
problem directly. Suarez does not face the problem not because no problem
of the relation between thinking and spoken language existed for him,
because it did, but rather because the focus of the problem was located in a
different place. The independent existence of thought, and with it mental
language, was not problematic for Suarez in quite the same way in which it
is for a 20th-century philosopher. He was not concerned about what we
have come to call metaphysical behaviourism, the doctrine that thought can
be reduced without remainder to behaviour, in particular to speech. Geach,
writing when he did, could not avoid addressing this sort of concern, and we
must now turn to the limits he sets to the analogy of thought to speech,
because they can shed some light on Suarez's doctrine, even though Suarez
did not explicitly consider the problem in this way.
Geach (pp. 102-103) points out, first, that one cannot simply suppose
that all the grammatical features of spoken language and thought, mental
language, are the same. He accuses Ockham of merely transferring features
of Latin grammar to mental grammar and then regarding this as explaining
why these features occur in Latin. Plainly this is not explanatory and is,
indeed, foolish, but some time ago I argued that such an objection against
Ockham misunderstands what Ockham was doing.16 I do not wish to
rehearse that argument here. Both Ockham and Suarez would suppose that
352 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

the logical structure of mental language was rather like the universal gram­
mar, underlying the deep structure of conventional languages, that modern
transformational grammarians have discussed. Neither would suppose that
one could simply read the grammatical and logical structure of thought off
the grammar of a particular spoken language like Latin. Geach adds, how­
ever, that some grammatical features of spoken language (tense is an exam­
ple he gives) must have counterparts in thought. Suarez would certainly
agree, and his agreement would be shared by the main tradition of
medieval logicians and speculative grammarians.
An interesting and for our purposes more important difference
between thought and speech that Geach (pp. 104-106) notes has to do with
time and temporal duration. Spoken words occur in physical time and are
uttered in a temporal succession, but this does not seem true of thought. A
judgement does not have parts that must be thought in a temporal succes­
sion, nor is there anything more than a vague connection between a mental
act, understood to be a unity, and some moment or interval of physical
time. This observation seems perfectly sound, but Suarez does not make it.
He does explicitly distinguish spoken words from written or mental words
in that spoken words are uttered at some particular time and are true only
for that particular time, which is not true of written or, at least, the sense of
mental words, but he does not say that it makes no sense to see mental
words as 'uttered' in a temporal order of succession. Indeed, his analysis of
mental reservation, solely mental amphibologia, suggests the very opposite.
You say in your heart 'today' after you have uttered and thought "I did not
do it." Since Suarez says nothing to the contrary, we must conclude that on
this point Suarez's analogy of thought to language looks much too close.
Therefore, although we can be confident that Suarez did not wish to reduce
thought to speech and, indeed, is unlikely to have thought of the problem
in quite that way, he left us with an analogy that is very close, perhaps too
close for comfort, that suggests something approaching an identification of
thought and speech. Certainly mental language appears to share more of
the features of spoken language than Geach would allow.
It is significant that this close analogy of thought to speech comes up in
a discussion of mental reservation and equivocation, since a primary con­
cern of the doctrine of mental reservation was the question of how one
could swear an oath so as to avoid perjury and moral blame. In discussing
the relations between minds and oaths, Harry Bracken points out that oaths
were used as an attempt to externalize the mind. By means of the oath one
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 353

could make public what somebody was thinking; in the oath the speaker
attested to the fact that his spoken words were identical to his mental
words, that he was thinking exactly what he was saying. Not only did oaths
externalize the mind; according to Bracken, "oaths did something equally
important: they helped break down an inheritance from dualist metaphysics
that speech was a reflection of the mental. Instead, talking and walking
gradually came to be placed in the same category."17 Furthermore, accord­
ing to Bracken (p.225), "the discussion over oaths marks another instance
where empiricism wins out over rationalism." If the use of oaths was an
attempt to externalize the mind, to make the content of thought to be as
evident and accessible to the external observer as any observable
behaviour, e.g., walking, the aim of doctrines of equivocation and mental
reservation was to secure the privacy of thought, at the least to make it dif­
ficult for the external observer to know what was going on in the mind. In
equivocation in the strict sense, the external observer has a chance of catch­
ing the meaning that makes the proposition true, but the equivocator typi­
cally frames his equivocation in such a way that the hearer is far more likely
to take what he says in a way that is false but serves the equivocator's pur­
poses. In strict mental reservation one goes further and effectively prevents
the hearer from grasping the real meaning of the speaker. Mental privacy is
not only made prQbable, it is effectively secured.
Given the aim of these doctrines, it is remarkable and paradoxical
that Suarez in his analysis of amphibologia seems to take a giant step away
from securing mental privacy. Spoken language is as open and accessible to
the external observer as walking or any other external behaviour is. In
order to secure mental privacy and the possibility of keeping secrets, while
at the same time avoiding perjury and lying, doctrines of equivocation and
mental reservation were propounded. In order to explicate these doctrines
Suarez appeals to the apparently close analogy between thought and
speech. Things seem to have run full circle. We start with speech, which is
as accessible to the external observer as walking. But we can think what we
need not say, and we can keep what we think secret from all external obser­
vers. How we can do this, while not lying, is explained in doctrines of
equivocation and mental reservation. Suarez, in turn, explicates these doc­
trines in terms of speech, which is in principle accessible to the external
observer. But if Bracken is right, this result is precisely what the use of
oaths was intended to accomplish. The secrets of the mind are as externally
accessible as spoken words. One hardly needed to require one to swear that
354 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

the oath was made without equivocation or mental reservation, if the

amphibologia was to be understood in terms of spoken words. The mind is
already and remains in principle externalized. Furthermore, if the use of
oaths marks the victory of empiricism over rationalism, one would have to
say that Suarez's analysis of amphibologia appears to give empiricism
remarkable support. But this is all a bit swift. Suarez was not an empiricist
in Bracken's sense, and we must look deeper to see what he thought was
going on in mental reservation.
Aristotelianism has, of course, not infrequently been viewed by both
Aristotelians and non-Aristotelians as a kind of empiricism. But medieval
Aristotelianism in general and Suarez's Aristotelianism in particular show
many obvious and important differences from modern empiricism of the
sort that, roughly speaking, goes back to Locke, the sort of empiricism that
is at stake in Bracken's discussion of oaths. The account I have given of
concepts and mental acts in Suarez clearly shows that Suarez gave the mind
a creative function that is incompatible with modern 'Lockean' empiricism.
According to Suarez, the mind is no tabula rasa; it has a very significant
role to play in concept formation and in the consequent use of language.
Furthermore, it is too much to suppose that, according to Suarez, all that is
involved in mental reservation is a matter of how loud one utters words.
The analogy of thought to speech may be very close, but it remains an anal­
ogy. To see what more there is to mental reservation and how Suarez's
theories of concepts and mental language play critical roles in it we must
look again at amphibologia sola mente concepta. Having made these roles
explicit, however, we shall have to conclude by noting some serious prob­
lems concerning the concept of lying that Suarez's full-blown doctrine must
face.
We might do well now to return to Suarez's opening definition of men­
tal amphibologia. As Suarez puts it, in mental amphibologia we have exter­
nal (i.e., spoken or written) words, which taken precisely do not in the con­
text in question have a proper and complete signification by which they pro­
duce a true sense. Rather, they are drawn away (distrahuntur) from their
proper signification by some restriction which is internally conceived.
Therefore, in the sentence, "I did not do it today," uttered so that "I did
not do it" is a spoken and audible expression and 'today' is only thought in
the mind, "I did not do it" does not signify the sense the hearer might
expect. These words are drawn away from their expected signification by
the restriction 'today' which is only thought. The verum sensum, the real
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 355

sense they help to convey is the sense of "I did not do it today," which is the
complex objective concept signified by the mental proposition Ί did not do
it today' or, for that matter, the complex objective concept that would be
signified by a spoken utterance of the clear and audible words 'I did not do
it' followed by the word 'today' uttered in a low voice. This complex objec­
tive concept is what must match or square with the external world and
events in it for a truth to be uttered. It exhibits the adequatio seu confor-
mitas between the intellect and things in the world that constitutes truth.18
Therefore, for a proposition, mental, written or spoken, to be true, its
sense, the appropriate complex or propositional objective concept, must
conform to the way things are in the world. The mental proposition
(Suarez's complex formal concept) is a saying in the heart, a particular
mental utterance of some form of words, which intends its appropriate
objective concept as its sense. One may, if one wills, give physical utterance
to the mental proposition by speaking or writing an appropriate set of phys­
ical words. What goes wrong in amphibologia is that the speaker wills not to
finish the external expression of his mental proposition, Τ did not do it
today,' and leaves off his speech after 'it.' The hearer may well then be mis­
led into thinking that the conformity of the sense of Τ did not do it' to the
external world was what was at issue for the truth of what the speaker had
in mind, but in fact it was not. The point is even clearer in Suarez's other
example, "I swear that I am saying that I did not do it." Here "I did not do
it" is in effect a quoted expression and, therefore, as Suarez reminds us, has
the logical properties of a term in a proposition not of a proposition. "I
swear that I am saying that I did not do it" is what is true or false in this
case, depending on the conformity or lack of it between its sense and the
external world.
But if all this is true, how can it be possible for anybody to lie? It would
seem that one could lie only through neglect, laziness or oversight, because
lying could occur only through a failure to frame the appropriate mental
reservation. The conclusion to which Suarez's analysis of amphibologia
seems to lead is that the concept of lying is vacuous, because for all practi­
cal purposes one cannot both think about what one is doing and lie. So long
as one took care to frame the relevant qualification or restriction, the
objective concept intended by any particular mental proposition would
always be in conformity with the world — unless, of course, one had fooled
oneself. But if this is the case, then all lying must be self-deception. If
Suarez's doctrine implies that lying is self-deception, he ought to have taken
356 JOHN A. TRENTMAN

greater heed of the teaching of his countryman, Bañez,19 who argued that it
is impossible to lie to oneself or to another, e.g., God, whom one cannot
hope to deceive. God knows all the secrets of our hearts, so we cannot hope
to lie to him. We have seen that we cannot lie to another person so long as
we take care to frame the appropriate mental reservation. We cannot lie to
ourselves. So we cannot lie. But, as one might well say, some doubt
remains.

NOTES
1. The Oxford English Dictionary (hereforth: OED) gives us 'dissembling person,'
'equivocator'!
2. See Blaise Pascal, The Provincial Letters transi, by Thomas M'Crie, Pensées-The Provin­
cial Letters, 443ff. New York: Modern Library, 1941.
3. "He that sticketh not at lies, never needeth to use equivocations," A Briefe Apologie,
London, 1601, fol.201 V. Quoted in Malloch, A.E. 1978. "Equivocation: A Circuit of
Reasons." Familiar Colloquy: Essays presented to Arthur Edward Barker ed. by Patricia
Bruckmann, 132-143. Ottawa: Oberon Press.
4. Jeremy Taylor, Doctor Dubitantium, The Whole Works ed. by Reginald Heber, rev. and
corrected by Charles Page Eden, vol. X, 3.2.5, 100-132. London: Longman, 1852.
5. See William V. Bangert, S. J., A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: The Institute of
Jesuit Sources, 1972), p. 129.
6. Philip Caraman, Henry Garnet, 1555-1606, and the Gunpowder Plot, p.255. London:
Longmans, 1964.
7. G.B. Harrison, A Second Jacobean Journal, 4-5. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1958.
8. Francisco Suarez, Opus de virtute et statu religionis. Opera Omnia, vol.XIV, 697-99.
Paris, 1859. (1st ed., 1609.)
9. Elliot Rose, Cases of Conscience, p.90. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975.
10. Enchiridon, sive manuale confessariorum et poenitentium, 12.8, 182-183. Mainz, 1601.
11. Cf. Malloch 1978 [see note 3 (above)].
12. Francisco Suarez, Disputaciones Metafísicas/Disputationes Metaphysicae, ed. and transi,
by Sergio Rábade Romeo, Salvador Cabellero Sanchez & Antonio Puigcerver Zanon,
Disp. II, sec. 1, vol.1, 360-62. Madrid: Gredos, 1960-66.
13. For further development of the distinction, see my "Universality, Privacy and Suarez's
Objective Concept," Paideia (forthcoming).
14. See, e.g., Suarez 1960-66 [see note 12 (above)], Disp. VIII, sec.4.
15. J.A. Trentman, "Scholasticism in the Seventeenth Century." Cambridge History of Later
Medieval Philosophy ed. by N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny & J. Pinborg, 818-38. Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982.
 MENTAL RESERVATION IN SUAREZ 357

16. John Trentman, "Ockham on Mental," Mind 79.586-90, 1970.

17. Harry Bracken, "Minds and oaths." Dialogue 18.223-30, 1978.
18. Suarez 1960-66 [see note 12 above], Dist. VIII, Sect. I, 3, vol.11, 77.
19. Domingo Bañez, Super secunda secundae, 1.3.1. Slamanca, 1584.
 INDEX AUCTORUM
Α.
Abailard, Pierre, see Peter Abelard
Albert of Saxony (. 1316-1390): 35, 46,
266
Albertus Magnus (Albert, Graf von
Bollstädt, 'Doctor universalis', 71193-
1280): 39, 151, 152, 155, 156, 158,
213, 214, 220, 223, 233, 234, 236
Alexander de Villa-Dei (fl.1200): 10,
162, 187, 279-282 pass., 284
Alfarabi (Abu-Nasr Muhammad al-
Farabi, c.873-950): 234
Algazal (Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muham­
mad,  1058-1111): 234
Alonso de la Vera Cruz (fl.1572): 36,
48
Anon., see under manuscript title (given
in italics)
Amsterdam, Nicolas of, see Nicolas of
Amsterdam
Apollonius Dyscolus (2nd cent. A.D.):
162, 163, 187, 290, 311
Aquinas, Thomas, see Thomas Aquinas
Aristotle (384-327 B.C.): 13,16,19, 20,
44, 46-48 pass., 51-61 pass., 63, 66,
77, 78, 80, 84, 85, 147-155 pass., 157,
158, 203, 209, 223, 230, 231, 235, 236,
240-248 pass., 251-253 pass., 267,
269, 291, 345, 354
Asper, Aemilius (2nd cent. A.D.?):
144, 145
Audax (4th cent. A.D.): 195, 203, 205
Augustine, St. Aurelius (354-430): 7,
13, 14, 17-33 pass., 35, 40, 41, 46, 47,
141, 142, 145, 191-207 pass., 253
Aurelius, Petrus Daniel (fl.1564): 14
Aurifaber, see Johannes Aurifaber
Averroes (Abu al-Walid ibn Rushd,
1126-1198): 7, 59
Avicebron, see Ibn-Gabirol, Solomon
ben Judah
Avicenna (Abu-Ali al-Husain ibn Sïnā,
980-1037): 7, 59-61 pass., 63, 65, 66,
234
Azpilcueta, Martin (16th cent.): 344-
346 pass.
B.
Bacon, Roger, see Roger Bacon
Bañez, Domingo (1528-1604): 356, 357
Bartholomew of Bruges (fl. 1300/1310):
16
Bede, The Venerable (672-735): 145,
244, 251
Blund, Robert, see Robert Blund
Boethius, Anicius Manilius Severinus
(480-524): 32, 39, 62, 63, 65, 66, 103,
147, 149-153 pass., 157,158, 231, 243,
244, 251, 252
Boethius of Dacia (fl.1270): 11-15 pass.,
105, 108, 109,115,119, 121, 124,130,
148, 150,155,158, 228, 298, 302, 312,
313, 315, 318, 319
Bonaventure, St. (John of Fidanza —
'Doctor seraphicus', 1221-1274): 148,
152-154 pass., 158
Bradwardine, see Thomas Bradwardine
Brito, Radulphus, see Radulphus Brito
Buridan, John, see John Buridan
Burley (or Burleigh) , Walter, see Wal­
ter Burleigh
360 INDEX AUCTORUM
.
Campsall, Richard, see Richard of
Campsall
Caper, Flavius (4th cent. A.D.): 142,
145
Cassiodorus (Flavius Magnus Aurelius
Cassiodorus Senator, c.490-585): 192,
241, 271, 282
Cato, Dionysius, see Pseudo-Cato
Celaya, Juan de (fl. c.1516): 37, 38, 42-
44 pass., 46
Charisius, Flavius Sosipater (4th cent.
A.D.): 195, 196, 206
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (105-43 B.C.):
23, 36, 147, 149, 197, 204, 205, 239,
241, 243, 245, 250-252 pass.
Ciño da Pistoia (Cino Sigibaldi, c.1270-
C.1336): 316
Cledonius (5th cent. A.D.): 204
Conimbricense Collegium (16th cent.
A.D.): 36, 39, 45, 46
D.
Dacus, Boethius, see Boethius of Dacia
Dacus, Johannes, see John of Dacia
Dacus, Martinus, see Martin of Dacia
Dacus, Simon, see Simon of Dacia
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321): 305-319
pass.
Descartes, René (1596-1650): 106
Despauterius, Johannes (Jan van Paute-
ren, d.1520): 95, 280, 282
Diomedes (3rd cent. A.D.): 22, 193,
195, 203
Dionysius Thrax (fl. c.120 B.C.): 19,
285
Domingo de Soto, see Soto, Domingo
de.
Donatus, Aelius (4th cent. A.D.): 9,
97, 133-136 pass., 141, 144-147 pass.,
157,158, 204, 239, 241,280-283 pass.,
286, 298, 302, 333, 335, 337
Duns Scotus, Johannes ('Doctor sub-
tilis', 1266-1308): 149, 150, 153, 156,
158, 209, 221, 312, 350
E.
Eberhardus Bethuniensis (d.  1212):
10,272, 279-282 pass., 284
Enzinas, Fernando de (fl.1523): 36-43
pass., 47
Erchambertus of Freising (9th cent.
A.D.): 133, 144, 145
F.
Faversham, Simon de, see Simon of
Faversham
Francisco de Toledo (1532-1596): 36,
44, 45, 48
G.
Garlandus Compotista (fl.1030): 150,
158
Garnet, Henry (1555-1606): 341, 342,
356
Gennadios Scholarios (fl.1435): 16
Gentile da Cingoli (fl. 1290/1300): 312
George of Brussels (d.1510): 37-40
pass., 47
Giles of Rome (c. 1247-1316): 148
Giovanni Balbi, see John of Genoa
Glose, Promisimus'. 295
Glosule in Priscianum: 288-290 pass.,
292-297 pass., 301, 302
Godfrey of Fontaines (c. 1250-1306/09):
319
Gregorio de Valencia (16th cent. A.D.):
345
H.
Helias, Peter, see Peter Helias
Hélie, Pierre, see Peter Helias
Henry of Ghent (d.1293): 65
Hermagoras of Temnos (2nd cent.
B.C.): 242
Hervaeus Natalis (1260-1323): 14
Hieronymus of St. Mark (fl.1507): 38-
40 pass., 42, 43, 47
Hispanus, Petrus, see Peter of Spain
Homer (8th cent. B.C.): 246
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8
B.C.): 317
Hugutio Pisanus (d.1210): 171
 INDEX AUCTORUM
I.
Ibn-Gabriol, Solomon ben Judah
(C.1021-C.1058): 61
Isidorus of Seville (c.560-636): 134,
145, 241, 317
J.
James of Venice (fl. c.1128): 214
Jerome, St. (Eusebius Hieronymus,
c.347-420): 134, 144, 317
Johannes Aurifaber (fl.1330): 87, 88
Johannes de Rus (fl. . 1250): 165
John Buridan (. 1295-1356): 15, 36, 46,
222, 225
John of Dada (fl.1280): 121, 124, 130,
150, 158, 291, 299, 300, 303
John of Genoa (Johannes Balbis de
Janua, d.1298): 279-283 pass.
John of Salisbury (Bishop of Chartres,
d.1180): 240
John of St.Thomas (1589-1644): 45-47
pass.
Jordan of Saxony (d.1221): 333, 337
John Wyclif(c. 1320-1384): 266
Julian of Toledo (d.690): 133, 143, 146
K.
Kilwardby, Robert, see Robert Kil-
wardby
L.
Lambert of Auxerre (fl. c.1250): 209,
213-215 pass., 218-225 pass., 257,
258, 260, 262, 264, 265, 267, 302
Lessius (Leonard Leys, 16th cent.
A.D.): 345
Locke, John (1632-1704): 46
Lucanus, Marcus Annaeus (39-65 A.D.):
281, 283
Ludolphus de Lucho (de Hildesheim,
13th cent. A.D.): 279, 281, 283
Luther, Martin (1483-1546): 31
361
M.
Marbais, Michel de, see Michel de Mar-
bais
Marsilius of Inghen (d.1396): 266
Martianus Capella (fl.430): 241
Martin of Dacia (d.1304): 149, 150,
154, 155, 159, 165, 299, 303
Mas, Diego (fl.1621): 36, 47
Master Guido (12th cent. A.D.): 165-
169 pass., 173, 188
Master Nicholas (12th cent. A.D.): 165
Melanchthon, Philipp (1497-1560): 36,
47
Mercado, Tomas de (d.l575): 36, 47
Michel de Marbais (fl. 1280-1285): 8,
149, 154, 155, 159
Modistae: 9, 10, 14, 79, 80, 82, 83, 87,
88, 96, 118, 119, 124, 125, 128, 130,
148, 152, 156, 159,165,184, 215, 221,
256, 287, 293, 298, 301, 303, 312, 313,
315, 317, 318
N.
Natalis, Hervaeus, see Hervaeus Natalis
Naveros, Jacobus (fl.  1533): 46
Nebrissensis, Aelius Antonius (Nebrija,
1444-1522): 280, 283
Nicolas Theoderici of Amsterdam
(d.1460): 13
Note Dunelmenses: 292-296 pass., 301
.
Ockham, William, see William of
Ockham
P.
Parmenides (b. c.515 B.C.): 57
Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662): 339, 356
Paul Diacre(of Genoa, d. c.1100): 141
Perottus, Nicolas (Sieur d'Ablancourt,
1606-1664): 280, 284
Peter Abelard (1079-1142): 99, 100,
102, 103, 107 110, 111, 11-115 pass.
152, 153, 156, 157
362 INDEX AUCTORUM
Peter Helias (fl.1150) 9, 13, 119, 151,
152, 154, 157, 159, 165, 166, 168-172
pass., 179, 182, 186-189 pass., 280,
289, 290, 293-297 pass., 299, 301,303,
318, 322, 333, 337
Peter of Ailly (Petrus AUiacus, 1350-
1421): 36-39 pass., 41, 45, 47
Peter of Pisa (fl. c.776): 134, 141, 144,
145
Peter of Spain (Pope John XXI, . 1205-
1277): 16, 35, 47, 48, 69-71 pass., 74,
75, 78-85 pass., 210, 226, 257-259
pass., 262, 264-269 pass.
Peter of Spain (non-Papa, 12th cent.
A.D.): 162, 165, 182-184 pass., 186-
188 pass., 297, 303, 333, 337
Petrus de Alvernia (fl.  1275): 14
Pietro da Isolella (Petrus Isolella Cre-
monensis, 13th cent. A.D.): 282
Plato (C.427-C.348 B.C.): 18,19, 49, 54,
64, 65, 67, 84, 107, 239
Plotin (Plotinus Enneades, A.D. 205-
270): 49, 54-58 pass., 63, 64, 67
Priscianus (Caesariensis, 6th cent.
A.D.): 7-10 pass., 13, 14, 93, 147,
150-152 pass., 155-157 pass., 159,
161, 162,163,165-170 pass., 172,182,
185,188, 205, 211,216-218 pass., 226,
239, 274, 275, 280-283 pass., 285-293
pass., 295, 297-303 pass., 319, 322,
327-329 pass., 331-333 pass., 337
Probus, Marcus Valerius (fl. 60 A.D.):
204, 283
Pseudo-Albertus Magnus (c.1280): 149,
154, 156, 158
Pseudo-Cato (4th cent. A.D.): 134
Pseudo-Robert Grosseteste (c.1260?):
130, 149, 152, 159
Pseudo-Scotus (13th cent. A.D.): 228,
236, 237
Q.
Quaestiones: 174
Quintilian, Marcus Fabius (. A.D. 35-
95): 36, 147, 149, 194, 195, 198, 205,
207, 239, 241, 253, 317
R.
Radulphus Brito (c. 1270-1320): 12, 14-
16 pass., 149,155-157 pass., 159, 279,
282, 298-300 pass., 303, 332, 337
Ralph of Beauvais (fl. c.1170): 188,
298, 303
Raulin, Petrus (. 1443-1514): 36, 38,
40, 41, 45, 48
Rémi d'Auxerre (Remigius Autissio-
dorensis, c.841-908): 133, 144-146
pass.
Richard of Campsall (.1285-.1355):
227-237 pass.
Richard of Hambury (fl.1290): 156
Robert Blund (12th cent. A.D.): 165,
174-183 pass., 186-188 pass.
Robert Kilwardby (d.1279): 14, 35,
119, 124,130,148,149,159, 214, 220,
223, 321-337 pass.
Robertus Anglicus (13th cent. A.D.):
257, 266, 269
Robertus of Paris (12th cent. A.D.):
171-174 pass., 181-183 pass., 186,187
Roger Bacon ('Doctor mirabilis',  1214-
1292): 7, 8, 15, 16, 35, 40-44 pass.,
48, 117-131 pass., 154, 158, 209, 212-
215 pass., 217-219 pass., 220, 222-226
pass., 261, 265, 267
Roscelin (fl.1090): 99
S.
Sanchez Ciruelo, Pedro (d.1554): 36-41
pass., 48
Scholastics: 7, 15, 151, 153
Schoolmen: 7, 9
Servius (fl.  A.D. 400): 22, 204, 283
Siger de Brabant (c. 1240-1284): 65, 315
Siger de Courtrai (d.1341): 12, 15, 159,
303
Simon of Dacia (fl.1280): 13, 149, 150,
159
Simon of Faversham (c. 1240-1306):
222, 225
Socrates (469-399 B.C.): 18, 239
Soto, Domingo de (1494-1560): 35-48
pass.
 INDEX AUCTORUM
Sponcius Provincialis (13th cent. A.D.):
171, 189
Stanyol, Angel (fl.1504): 36, 38-40
pass., 48
Stoa: 13
Suarez, Francisco ('Doctor eximius',
1548-1617): 339-357 pass.
Summa, Ars Emmerana: 174
Summa, Ars Meliduna: 173
Summa, Tonus Eloquentiae: 288
T.
Taylor, Jeremy (1613-1667): 340, 356
Theophrastus (c.371-286 B.C.): 242
Thomas Aquinas, St. ('Doctor angeli-
cus', c.1225-1274): 36, 39, 49, 50,
58-64 pass., 66, 112, 148, 150-153
pass., 155, 158, 340,349
Thomas Bradwardine (1290-1349): 16
Thomas of Erfurt (fl.1310): 94-97 pass.,
147, 149, 150, 152, 154-157 pass., 159
Toledo, Francisco de, see Francisco de
Toledo
V.
Varro, Marcus Terentius (116-27 B.C.):
21, 98, 193-195 pass., 203, 206, 311
363
Versor, Johannes (c.l410-after 1482):
36, 41, 42, 48
Victorinus, Marius (4th cent. A.D.):
195, 203
Vincent Ferrer (c. 1350-1419): 256, 266
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70-19
B.C.): 20, 142, 204, 281, 282, 306,
324, 326
W.
Walter Burleigh (1275-C.1345): 13, 16,
48, 266
William of Champeau (c.l070-c.H21):
301
William of Conches (1080-C.1153): 9,
10, 152, 165, 167-169 pass., 172, 179,
182, 183, 188, 287-290 pass., 292-296
pass., 299, 301,302
William of Ockham ('Venerabilis Incep­
tor', c.1285-1347): 15, 16, 35, 41, 48,
152,153,159, 227,256,261-268 pass.,
349, 350, 351
William of Sherwood (Shyreswoode,
C.1200-C.1270): 16, 210-213 pass.,
222,224,225,261,265,267
 INDEX RERUM

Α.
abstraction: 62, 70 Arabic: 128
accent, fallacy of: 82 archaeology, in Foucault's sense: 228
acceptance: 71 arrangement: 242, 251
accident: 50, 51, 83, 150,151,153,155, art (ars): 141; dictaminis: 92, 307; lib­
156, 300, 313, 324; fallacy of: 82; eral: 285, 305, 306 (trivium: 305, 310;
grammatical: 322; of the noun: 142; quadrivium: 305, 306; arithmetical
of the verb 147, 149, 217; vs. sub­ 306; grammatica: 305-318; música:
ject: 148 306)
accidental: 75, 127, 312, 313 article: see word-class
act: 53, 59, 61, 156, 176, 178, 210; articulation, non-articulate utterances:
(verb): 154, 155, 162, 169, 172, 179, 41-43
184; vs. potency: 148, 151, 152; of Attic: 123
being (actus essendi): 64. Cf. transido attribute: 286
action: 80, 82, 152 auctoritas, in Augustine: 191-202
Adamitic language: 313, 314, 317 autopatheia: 162, 167
adjective: 154, 155, 216, 217, 293
adverb: 169,215-216 B.
Aeolic: 123 be: 148, 150; 'to be' contained in verbs:
agens: 162, 163, 181 148
agreement: 326 being: 49-64, 150, 151, 153, 286; abso­
allopatheia: 162 lute/substantial: 50; predicative 50,
ambiguity: 71, 73, 211, 219, 343 59. Cf. mode.
amphibol(og)y: 71, 82, 342, 348, 351- Bible, oldest Danish translation of: 94
355 binary: 163, 164, 166, 168, 169, 175,
ampliatio: 261 178, 184, 185
analogy: 74, 75, 193-195 Burgundian: 123
anaphora: 81,290
anomaly: 194 C.
antecedent: 78, 81, 288, 291 case: 125, 154, 155, 169, 170, 272, 327;
antiptosis: 279, 324, 325, 327 ablative: 125, 156, 327; accusative:
antithesis: 245 168-170, 175-179, 321, 322, 326;
aphaeresis: 278 dative: 327; genitive: 125; nomina­
apocope: 278 tive: 154-156,163,175,177,178, 322,
appellation (property of terms): 83 324, 326; case grammar: 80, 81; casus
appositum: 157 obliquus/rectus: 155, 163, 183
366 INDEX RERUM
categorematic: 78, 81
categorial language: 101, 102, 104, 105
categories, Aristotelian: 51, 52 , 59, 60,
81-83; grammatical: 73; semantic: 292
cause, fallacy of non-c. as c : 82;  of
invention: 299
change, (motus): 153, 154; linguistic:
317
chiasmus: 167, 173
chimera: 83, 286
class: 75, 77, 78, 107
clause: 71, 78, 79, 163, 164, 167, 178,
181, 185, 321
cognition: 75; cognitio rei vs.  Homi­
nis: 26-28
commentaries, on Donatus' Ars Minor:
133
comparison: 245
competence: 73, 74, 84; (performance)
73,74
composition: 147-157, 209-222; fallacy
of  (and division): 82, 209-224;
principle of  : 261
concepts: 88, 232, 234; formal vs.
objective: 347, 349, 350;  forma­
tion: 354; as signs: 40
conceptio: 277
congruity, (= grammatically): 152,
156, 220, 321-332; of figurative dis­
course 321-332; incongruity simplici-
ter vs. relatively 325, 326; of meaning
(congruitas sensus) 329, 330
consequences, theory of: 227, 228
consequent, fallacy of: 82
consignification: 71, 79, 80
consonant: 272
constructibile, primum/secundum: 94,
212
constructio(n): 10, 71, 73, 78, 80, 161-
186, 219-222, 272-299, 397, 308, 321-
332; composite vs. simple: 183, 184;
figurative: 321-332; mixed: 168, 173,
273; modist theory of: 219; neuter:
169, 172, 273; reciprocal / reflexive:
167-185, 273; retransitive: 166-185;
transitive / intransitive: 94, 161-186,
273; vs. logical sense: 222; vs. pro­
nunciation: 220-222; constructio dic-
uonisl-um (cum dictione): 164, 169,
175, 177-179, 185, 186; constructio
excelsa: 308; constructio oradonisI
-urn: 164, 179, 180, 185, 186
consuetudo: 43, 44; in Augustine 191-
202
content: 75
context, and supposition: 256-264
convention: 43, 160, 200, 202
copula: 62,151,176, 177,179, 277
copulatio: 79, 83
co-reference, of noun phrases: 174,
180-182. Cf. reference
cuius: 197
D.
Danish: 90-94
declension, as argument in assigning
words to parts of speech: 286, 287
definiteness 289, 292, 293, 323
definition: 239, 245, 247
deixis: 286, 290, 297, 298
delivery: 242, 251
demonstratio, = deixis: 242, 286, 287,
290, 297, 298, 300
dependence: 211, 216, 218; dependere
ante l post se: 94
determinatio: 78,175,177,178,209-224
determination, i.e. determinate mean­
ing: 286,288
diabasis: 162
dialect: 118,120,122, 123,124, 306
dialectic: 151, 240, 244, 306
dictio: 70, 164, 165, 178, 179. Cf. con­
struction
difference, constitutive vs. divisive: 77;
real vs. notional: 62; vs. diversity:
112
discreteness: 110-113, 323
discursive formation: 229
distance: 154
division, fallacy of: 82, 210. Cf. com­
position
Doric: 123
 INDEX RERUM
E.
education: see teaching
elision: 127
English: 123
entelechy: 53
enthymeme: 240, 242, 245
epanaphora: 242
epenthesis: 278
equivocation: 71, 82, 339-343, 353
Erfurt, teaching of grammar at: 88, 95,
96
essence: 51, 52, 56, 59, 62, 75, 104, 148
esse: see 'be'
evocatio: 278
exigentia: 274-277
existence: 50-52, 148
exprimere: 44
extension, of term: 262
F.
fallacy: 82, 209-224
figure: 239-250, 272-279, 321-332; fal­
lacy of word f. (= figure of speech):
82
finite, infinite: 49-64
form(al): 53, 59, 61, 79, 148, 151, 175,
180-182, 185, 287
French: 122, 123, 127, 308, 315, 316
functor: 101, 102
G.
genus: 75-78, 245, 286
German: 91, 123
gerund(ive): 92-95
government: 272
gradus constructionis: 308
grammar: 5-10, 70, 77-80, 161, 186,
241, 321-332, 326; contrastive: 128,
129; descriptive: 117; in Dante: 305-
318; in Middle Ages: 87-96; Latin vs.
mental: 351; of individual languages:
88; of Greek: 119; of Greek, by
Bacon: 117-129; of Hebrew: 119; of
Hebrew, by Bacon: 121; of Proven­
çal: 119; of Syriac: 119; prescriptive:
198; real vs. surface: 327, 328; Roger
367
Bacon's views about g.: 117-129; uni­
versal: 88, 96,117-128, 311, 312, 352;
vs. dialectic / logic / philosophy: 7, 9,
10, 87, 151, 156, 157, 214, 215, 220,
221, 239, 240, 243, 259, 306-309
grammar school: 5
grammarian, vs. dialectician: 151, 293
grammatical category: 92; gender 297,
327; mood: 155; number: 286, 297,
321, 322; person: 162, 166, 169, 178-
180, 321-323; voice (genus): 152, 154;
inflection: 90, 91, 93, 324; tense:
153-156
grammatical levels acc. to Boethius de
Dacia: 312
grammatical relation: 326, 330 (syntac­
tic), 331
grammaticality: see congruity
Greek: 117-129, 163, 312
H.
Hebrew: 119,121,122, 128
historicity of language: 310
hylomorphism: 61
hyponymy: 77, 78, 80, 81
hypostasis 54, 56
I.
idea: 55
identity, etical vs. emical: 70, 71, 79, 83;
in person (individual) vs. in nature /
quiddity: 101, 105, 106; material vs.
formal: 210
idioma: 120, 121, 122, 123, 316
ignoratio elenchi, fallacy of: 82
illumination: 29, 31, 32
immediate constituent: 73
imposition: 43-44, 71, 256, 263
impropriety: 166-169, 322-325
inclination: 154-156, 218
inclusion: 211
indefinite: 285, 289-291, 298, 299
indeterminacy: 105
individual: 75, 77, 101-109, 111, 259,
286
infinitive, with 'skullende' as auxiliary:
90-96
368 INDEX RERUM
inherence: 151, 153, 154
instantiae, argumentation by: 171
intellect: 327; intellectus — intelligible
sense: 149, 150
intellection: 75
intellectum signification: 326
intelligence, in Plotinus: 54-58
intentions, second: 231
interrogative: 285, 289, 290, 293, 298-
300
intransitio: see construction and trans­
ido
intransitivity: 94, 161-186
invention, causa inventionis: 299; of
arguments: 242-247; relation to style:
242-247, 251
Ionic: 123
Irish, Latin grammar of I. origin: 141-
143
isomorphism: 70, 74, 75, 77, 82, 83,
329, 331
Italian: 122, 307, 308, 312-314, 316, 317
Italy, teaching of grammar in Northern
L: 143
J.
Jesuits: 339-342
K.
knowledge, divine and human: 157;
make known (faceré cognoscere): 37-
38,44
L.
language: 5-10, 75, 77, 81-84, 121, 152,
239, 240, 244, 247, 307, 310, 311, 317;
1. change: 311, 317; mental vs. exter­
nal (spoken or written): 339-356;
mixed: 344-346; 1. study: 7, 9, 239.
Cf. vernacular and Adamitic, Arabic
etc.
Langue d'oc/oïl: 311, 316
Latin: 87-96,128, 306-308, 310-316, 332
level: 168
lexical: 78, 80
lexis: 240
locus: see topos
logic: Cf. grammar
lying: 339-356
M.
manuscripts:
Amiens BM 426: 141,142
Berlin SPK lat. 2° 641: 133-143
Cambridge Peterhouse 191: 333
Cambridge Peterhouse 205: 223
Cambridge Mass. E.T.S.Lib. 240:
220, 223
Durham Cath.L. V.IV.29: 301
Erfurt WAB Ampl. 8° 10: 334
Erfurt WAB Ampl. 12o 2: 88
Erfurt WAB Ampl. 12° 5: 95
Firenze BMed.Laur. S.Marco 310:
301
London BL Burney 238: 166, 167
London BL Harley 2515: 171
Munich BSB elm 18908: 171
Oxford Corpus Christi 119: 333
Oxford Corpus Christi 250: 175
Paris Arsenal 711: 301
Paris BN lat. 15130: 167, 301
Paris BN lat. 16616: 220, 223
Rome B.Angelica 1527 (V.4.7): 111
Zwettl Stiftsb. 338: 334
matter: 210. Cf. identity, supposition
meaning: 6, 9, 73, 307, 326, 329, 332.
Cf. sense, signification
memory: 242,251
mentis conceptus: 88
metabasis: 162
mereology: 99-114
metalanguage: 9, 23, 78, 83, 200, 231
metaphor: 240
metaphysics: 49-64, 263; of Aristotle:
50-54; of Plotinus: 54-58; of Thomas
Aquinas: 58-64, 263
metrics: 122
modal words: 78
mode, of being (modus essendi): 79, 82,
83, 120, 148, 150; of signifying (mo­
dus significandi): 8-10, 79-84, 88,
120, 148-150, 153-156, 287, 288, 298-
 INDEX RERUM 369

300, 311, 312, 331; of understanding O.

(modus intelligendi): 79, 80, 83, 120, oaths: 339-356
148,150,152. Cf. modus object (direct/indirect): 93, 163, 166,
model: 73-75, 77, 79, 81-83, 128, 161, 169, 174-179, 182
170, 331 oblique cases/forms: 163, 170; significa­
moderate realism: 83, 151 tion of : 324
modifier: 321,322 Ockhamism: 350
modism, modists: 121, 124, 148, 156, officium: 187
209, 214, 216, 218, 219, 221, 222, 287, omnis, signification of: 294
293, 299, 301, 311-313, 315. Cf. ontology: see metaphysics
mode. See also Index Auctorum. oratio: 149, 164, 165, 183; . constructa:
modus, absolutus: 156; accidentalis: 164, 165, 169, 179, 182, 185
149, 150, 156; communissimus: 150, oratory: 244
157; construendi 171; dicibilis de ordination: 211,274
altero: 155; entis: 155; esse: 154,155; ordo: see word order
essentialis: 150; fluxus et fieri: 155; orthography: 272; bizarre in grammati­
habitus: 298; inclinabilis ad aliud: cal manuscript: 134
155; loquendi: 293, 295, 296; motus: ostension, as means to explain meaning:
153, 154; proferendi/prolationis: 210, 20, 21; ostensio: 180, 182, 183
218, 221; respectivus: 156. Cf. mode. Oxford: see Paris
morpheme: 71,73,78
morphology: 73,128, 147, 285 P.
morpho-syntactic: 181, 185 paradigm: 75, 128, 285; syntagm: 75
multiplicitas: see polysemy paragoge: 278
paraphrase, of verbs as 'esse' + noun or
N. participle: 150
name: 18; general: 286-301; proper: Paris, logic in 13th-c. Oxford and P.:
78, 259, 260, 285, 289. Cf noun, word 212, 214, 219, 222
naturalitas: 314, 317 participation: 63
nature: 101, 103, 104, 127, 193, 194; participles, v. nouns: 195, 196. Cf.
common: 256, 262, 264. Cf. sense, word-class
supposition particle: 177
nobilitas: 315 parts of speech: 10, 70, 88, 164, 239,
nomen, meaning of '.': 21-24; nomina 285-301, 322-324
sunt consequentia rerum: 315. Cf. passio: 152
name, noun passive: 156, 166, 169, 177, 185
nominal: 78, 80, 81, 148 patiens: 163, 181
nominalism: 9, 10, 222, 263 Pavia, teaching of grammar at: 143
nominative forms, signification of: 324 pedagogy: see teaching
Norman: 123 perfection: 210; grammatical: 152, 329,
noun, appellative/common: 260, 285- 330
288, 289; function (officium) of: 136, person: 156, 163, 167, 170, 176, 177,
287, 288; signification of: 137, 291- 181, 290, 323
297 person(al) = individual, discrete (en­
nullus, signification of: 294 tity): 101-109, 111, 286. Cf. supposi­
number: 273, 274, 291 tion
370 INDEX RERUM
petitio principii, fallacy of: 82
phoneme: 71
phonetic: 74,119
phonology: 6, 81, 122, 127, 128. Cf.
sound
Picardian: 123
poetics, poetry: 305-318; poetic li­
cence: 325-327, 332
polysemy (multiplicitas), actual/poten­
tial/imaginary: 82,209,210
possessive: 163, 167,173
possible entities: 262, 263
predicable: 79
predicament: 79
predicate: 70, 78, 79, 81, 91, 151, 153,
162, 163, 166, 176, 177, 179, 263
predication: 151, 153, 154
principium: 155
principle, first: 56
process: 80-8Í
pro-form: 78-80
prolepsis: 272, 277
pro-noun: 78
pronoun: 136, 167, 197, 285-301, 323;
indefinite 289; interrogative: 289,293
pronunciation (prolatio): 210, 218; vs.
construction: 220-222
proportion: 74
proposition: 70, 155; mental: 345; uni­
versal, particular, and mixed: 173;
truth conditions of: 355; proposi-
tional context and supposition: 256-
264
propnus, vs. improprius 166,168; prop­
ria operado verbi: 156
prothesis: 278
Provençal: 119,308,311,315,316
Q.
quality: 286, 290-300, 323
quantity: 290-292, 299, 300
quadrivium: 305, 306
questions, fallacy of many q.s as one: 82
quiddity: 53, 60, 64, 101, 102, 107,108,
111
qui(s), signification and classification
of: 286-297
R.
ratio, in Augustine: 191-202; qua debet/
potest fieri: 323-332
reciprocity, vs. reciprocatio: 162. Cf.
construction
reference: 69, 70, 74, 77, 163, 167, 170,
172-174, 176, 177, 181, 182, 184-186,
256, 261, 263, 327. Cf. supposition
reflexivity: 162,163,172,174,183,184,
186. Cf. construction
relation: 70, 73, 83, 178, 330, 331
relative: 285, 287, 288, 290-292, 295,
298-300
representation: 37-39, 232, 259
reservation, mental: 339-356
res vs. nomen/vox: 26-28, 99, 100, 107,
109, 200; res gestae: 7
retransitivity: 163. Cf. construction
rhetoric: 239-243, 305-307, 309
root: 78, 81
rule: 88, 107, 312, 315, 321, 322, 325,
326, 332; rule-governed: 326
S.
schema: see figure
science: 128, 322; Bacon's philosophy
of: 126, 127, 129; scientia gram­
matica: 315
Scotists: 227
secundum quid et simpliciter (Simply or
After-a-Fashion), fallacy of: 82
semantic: 6-9, 176, 178, 180, 181, 184,
307. f sign, signification
semiology: 122
sense, compounded vs. divided: 210;
natural: 215, 217, 222; vs. intellect:
328, 329; vs. reference: 69, 70, 77;
Cf. intellectus, signification
sentence: 71, 73, 77, 164, 165, 168-170,
173-175, 178-186
serviré, as grammatical term: 170
sign (signum): 37, 40-45, 82, 90, 307,
315, 329, 330, 345; instrumental: 40-
42; natural: 40-42; spiritual vs. sensi­
ble: 345; vocal vs. non-vocal: 41-45;
significare vs. signum esse: 37; sig­
num teutonicale: 90. Cf. signification
 INDEX RERUM
significabile: 21
significatio(n): 152, 180, 211, 285-288,
290-299; conventional (ad placitum):
43; customary (ex consuetudine): 43-
44; formal: 39-42; lexical: 80; princi­
pal: 78, 80; in Augustine: 19-27; in
late scholasticism: 35-45; in Ockham:
255-264; in Peter of Spain: 69-84;
words signifying words: 21-23. Cf.
sign
silensis: 272, 278
singular: see individual
skullende (Danish), + infinitive: 90-96
solecism: 331
sophist: 239,244
sound: 75, 82, 329; principal s.s: 126;
study of s.s: 126, 127
Spanish: 122
speaking (loqui): 19
species: 75, 77, 105, 245, 257, 286, 292;
species grammaticae: 119, 124
speculative (grammar): 9,118,312, 315
stasis (Lat.: status): 242
string: 331
structure, deep: see surface & universal
grammar s. v. grammar
style: 240-242, 247, 251, 306-309
subject: 51, 70, 78, 79, 91, 148, 151,
163, 166, 173-179, 182, 183, 217, 263,
321; conjunctive s.: 321, 324-326: s.
of logic: 230-235; s.-term/s.-matter:
299
substance: 50-53, 59, 75-77, 81, 83,150,
151, 156, 210, 286, 290-300, 324; (in­
definite ((in)finita): 292,293
substantive (-ival): 78, 79, 83,179, 286,
293, 299, 322
substitution: 286,288
suilende (German), + infinitive: 91, 92
supposition (a property of terms): 69-
83, 231, 255-264; accidental: 257;
actual: 262; confused and distribu­
tive: 262; material: 70, 231,348; nat­
ural: 255-264; personal: 70,102,231,
256, 262; potential: 262; simple: 231,
257
371
suppositum: 152, 154-157
surface: 74, 80-82, 330, 331; s. structure
82, 174, 181; vs. deep 6; vs. real 327,
328
syllable: 71
syllepsis: 278
syllogistic: 227-235
syncategorematic: 78, 81
syncopa: 278
synecdoche: 245, 272, 275
syntax: 71, 73, 74, 81, 128, 147, 161,
162, 164,174,179,184,185,272, 299,
308, 321-324, 327, 330, 331; medieval
investigations of boundaries of s.:
322; syntactic figures: 271-279; syn­
tactic structure (component): 165,
166. Cf. construction
Syriac: 119, 122
T.
teaching, and learning in Augustine:
18, 19, 27-29, 31, 199-202; of gram­
mar: 134, 143, 165, 199-202, 239; of
languages: 121, 122; of Latin: 87-96
term: 69-71, 73, 74, 78, 79, 82, 83, 174,
175, 348; categorematic vs. syncate­
gorematic: 78
terminists: 209, 212, 259-261
theology, importance of language stu­
dies for th.: 7, 117, 121, 127, 128;
negative: 63
theory: 73, 77, 82-84, 161, 168, 171,
173, 176,178,182,184, 259, 261, 322,
323; Standard Theory 74, 75
thought: 339-356; vs. language: 239,
247; thinking described in terms of
saying: 348. Cf. intelligence
time: 153,157
topos: 239-250
Tower of Babel: 317
transformation: 77, 185; transforma­
tion, generative: 73, 74
transitio, actus vs. personarum: 163-
185, 273, 274; casuum: 273, 274; vs.
intransitio: 186; numerorum: 273,
274; passionis: 273, 274; propria vs.
impropria: 166, 169
372 INDEX RERUM
transitivity: 94, 161-186, 273, 274
tree, of Porphyry: 75-77,81-83
Trinity: 105
trivium: 305, 310
trope: 241
truth: 29, 31, 32, 156, 221, 222, 305,
339-356
U.
understand, term understood but not
expressed: 213
understanding (intellectus), primary vs.
secondary: 330, 331
ungrammaticality: see congruity
universal: 9, 10, 78, 79, 88, 125, 127,
256, 259, 315, 350. Cf. grammar, pro­
position
V.
verb, active and passive: 152; and com-
positio: 147-157; function of (propria
operatio): 149, 150, 156; impersonal:
163, 276; medieval categorization of
present and future forms: 90, 91;
periphrastic verb forms: 91-93; per­
sonal: 276; verbs and state, process,
action: 80-82. Cf. word-class
verbum: meaning of 'v.': 21-24; vs.
vox: 142
vernacular, used in teaching of Latin:
87-96; Bacon's use of v. examples:
128; and Dante: 307-318
vetustas: 194
vocabulum: 24
vowel: 127
vox: 35, 70; imaginata: 232, 235; vs.
res: 99, 100, 107, 109; vs. verbum:
142
vulgare: see vernacular
W.
whole, and part: 99-114, 233, 245; in­
tegral vs. distributive: 103, 107
word: 71, 82,164,175,182, 287,298; as
phonological entity vs. w. as sign: 25-
27, 35, 70; Greek loan words in Latin:
128; (natural) w. order: 91, 94, 96,
222
word-class, article: 79, 285, 290; adjec­
tive: 78, 79, 83, 93, 154, 155, 299,
322; adverb: 78, 163, 297; interjec­
tion: 127; noun: 79, 128, 154, 172,
176, 177, 179, 285-301, 323, 324; par­
ticiple: 91-93, 148-151; preposition:
169, 175; pronoun: 154, 163, 169;
(reflexive) 185, 285-301; 322-324;
verb: 79-83, 162, 166, 168, 169, 172,
175-181, 183-186, 321, 322, 325, 326,
(substantival, adjectival, vocatival)
150; finite 163, 177, 185
Z.
zeugma: 277,278