Latin verbal system: how perfect and aorist joined in the new perfect?

[petegray]

There are several points in Steven's posting on Classical Latin which
require response.

Firstly, There is no need to suggest that Classical Latin was ever at any
stage actually spoken.    It has its sources in many things, not least the
drive to produce a language as capable of great literature as Greek.   We
can even trace in the literature the development of the so called Classical
Norms, as certain forms or constructions are felt to be in some way more
appropriate than others.   The achievement of Vergil and Caesar (rather than
Cicero) is to write great Latin within the norms which had been established
for written literature over the previous hundred years.

We know that Caesar, Cicero and the rest spoke very differently from the way
they wrote (see Cicero's more intimate letters);  and we know that the drive
to refine the language begins in earnest somewhere between Plautus (writing
about 200 BC) and Terence (writing after the full impact of Greek literature
has hit Rome, and dying in 154BC).   The spoken language continued as spoken
language does, with the educated people using some of the more "refined"
forms in their speech, but not all, while the less educated used few or
none.

It is the connection of this spoken language to proto-Romance that is
puzzling.   A simple equation of the two is not adequate, as it leaves lots
of problems.   For example, the common (in both senses) pronunciation
of -au- as /o:/ is "extremely well attested".   Yet in Romance the vowel
seems to have been not /o:/ but short /o/, and the original /a/ seems to
have survived very late - at least as late as the 5th century - for several
reasons, not least the French initial consonant in "chose"  (co- would have
given co-).

Likewise CL has sapere (short first e) but Romance points to sape:re.  And
many more such examples.

Another problem is the remarkable uniformity of the Vulgar Latin texts from
the 3rd to the 8th centuries BC.    It is scarcely conceivable that peasants
in Spain, France and Romania all spoke alike;  yet they seem to have written
alike.   So again, a simple equation of Vulgar Latin with proto-Romance may
not be adequate.

However, the claim that Classical Latin is proto-Romance is yet more
difficult, or even far-fetched.   There are too many things from
pre-classical Latin which have disappeared in the written language, but
resurface in both Vulgar Latin and Romance.   The actual speech of the
Romans must have maintained these features through the classical period.

Steven also said:

> This suggests, if it does not prove, that if Augustus thought that the
> /au/ pronunciation of his title was obsolescent,

If you mean he thought it should be eschewed, then I think this is highly
unlikely, given the political overtones of this diphthong.   He might well
have been aware of the tendency towards /o:/, but we cannot really think he
approved of it!

Steven said:

> And, if Augustus' ordinary speech was proto-Romance,

Highly unlikely.   Quite a few Romance features were in evidence before his
time, and just as with any modern language, there were many different
varieties of spoken Latin.

Stgeven said:

> this really
> squeezes the time frame during which CL might have reasonably resembled
> a spoken language.

Precisely.   CL developed through the first century BC, and even Lucretius
(dies 55 BC) cannot be considered a model of Classical Latin.  CL, properly
speaking, does have a very brief time span.   This is another sign of the
fact that it is an artifical fashion, not an actual spoken language.

Peter