Book contents
- Asyndeton and its Interpretation in Latin Literature
- Frontispiece
- Asyndeton and its Interpretation in Latin Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Part 1 Introduction
- Part 2 ‘Grammatical’ Types
- Chapter VI Asyndetic Pairs (Mainly of Adjectives) of Which at Least One Member Is a Term with a Negative Prefix (in Latin, Usually in-)
- Chapter VII Simplex + Compound in Asyndeton
- Chapter VIII Juxtaposition of Active and Passive Forms of the Same Verb
- Chapter IX Asyndetic Pairs of Verbs of Different Tense or Mood
- Chapter X Pairs of Imperatives
- Chapter XI Masculine + Feminine Pairs
- Chapter XII Recapitulation: ‘Grammatical’ Types and Their Distribution
- Part 3 Semantic Types
- Part 4 Structures
- Part 5 Genres And Texts
- Part 6 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Index Mainly of Selected Pairs and Longer Sequences
- Selective Index Locorum
Chapter XI - Masculine + Feminine Pairs
from Part 2 - ‘Grammatical’ Types
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2021
- Asyndeton and its Interpretation in Latin Literature
- Frontispiece
- Asyndeton and its Interpretation in Latin Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Part 1 Introduction
- Part 2 ‘Grammatical’ Types
- Chapter VI Asyndetic Pairs (Mainly of Adjectives) of Which at Least One Member Is a Term with a Negative Prefix (in Latin, Usually in-)
- Chapter VII Simplex + Compound in Asyndeton
- Chapter VIII Juxtaposition of Active and Passive Forms of the Same Verb
- Chapter IX Asyndetic Pairs of Verbs of Different Tense or Mood
- Chapter X Pairs of Imperatives
- Chapter XI Masculine + Feminine Pairs
- Chapter XII Recapitulation: ‘Grammatical’ Types and Their Distribution
- Part 3 Semantic Types
- Part 4 Structures
- Part 5 Genres And Texts
- Part 6 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Index Mainly of Selected Pairs and Longer Sequences
- Selective Index Locorum
Summary
Types of living beings are sometimes expressed by pairing the masculine term for that being with the feminine. For example, the totality of divine beings may be rendered by ‘(all) gods (and) goddesses’. Such pairings in Latin show variations between syndetic and asyndetic coordination, with the asyndetic variant common in legal language but coordination usually preferred otherwise. I have just used the term ‘totality’, but it is misleading without specification. ‘Men (and) women’ may refer to the infinite number of male and female adults in the world, but the phrase is more likely in ordinary narrative to denote a finite, even small, group in a particular context. The term ‘merism’ is all very well in idealised accounts of Indo-European poetics, but most people in the real world do not speak only in universals. Watkins’ definition (1995: 9, 15) of merism is ‘a two-part figure which makes reference to the totality of a single higher concept’. West (2007: 99–100), more clearly, refers to ‘pairings of contrasted terms, as an emphatic expression of the totality that they make up’. The method of coordination in male–female pairs in Latin seems unaffected by the difference between a finite set and an infinite.
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- Asyndeton and its Interpretation in Latin LiteratureHistory, Patterns, Textual Criticism, pp. 138 - 142Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021