The Syntax of the Finite Verb and the Nominal Forms fo the Verb in Pliny's Natural History Book Seventeen
Graduation Date
Spring 1961
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Degree Granting Institution
Catholic University of America
Program Name
Humanities
Abstract
This dissertation aims to analyze the syntax of the finite verb and the nominal forms of the verb in Pliny the Elder's Natural History, Book 17, and, furthermore, to point out the author’s adherence to or divergence from Classical norms in this portion of his work. In assuming such a task, one must recognize from the outset the nature of the Latin language—a synthetic structure, built up, as it were, of words in huge blocks, each pregnant with implicit thought. The analysis of syntax, therefore, is a difficult task, and the Investigator is forced at times to cut, rather than untie, the Gordian Knot of an author's literary work.
The text used In this study is H. Rackham's reprint (The Loeb Classical Library) of Detlefsen, Berlin, 1866. The Loeb edition was checked by Its editor with the Teubner edition as re-edited by Karl Mayhoff In two volumes (1905, 1909).