The non-literary Latin letters. A study of their syntax and pragmatics

This dissertation studies the language of Latin letters that were written in Egypt and Vindolanda (in northern Britain) during the period 1st century BC 3rd century AD on papyri, ostraca, and wooden tablets. The majority of the texts is, in one way or another, connected with the Roman army. The focus of the study is on syntax and pragmatics. Besides traditional philological methods, modern syntactic theory is used as well, especially in the pragmatic analysis. The study begins with a critical survey of certain concepts that are current in the research on the Latin language, most importantly the concept of vulgar Latin , which, it is argued, seems to be used as an abstract noun for variation and change in Latin . Further, it is necessary to treat even the non-literary material primarily as written texts and not as straightforward reflections of spoken language. An examination of letter phraseology shows that there is considerable variation between the two major geographical areas of provenance. Latin letter writing in Egypt was influenced by Greek. The study highlights the importance of seeing the letters as a text type, with recurring phraseological elements appearing in the body text as well. It is argued that recognising these elements is essential for the correct analysis of the syntax. Three areas of syntax are discussed in detail: sentence connection (mainly parataxis), syntactically incoherent structures and word order (the order of the object and the verb). For certain types of sentence connection we may plausibly posit an origin in spoken Latin, but for many other linguistic phenomena attested in this material the issue of spoken Latin is anything but simple. Concerning the study of historical syntax, the letters offer information about the changing status of the accusative case. Incoherent structures may reflect contaminations in spoken language but usually the reason for them is the inability of the writer to put his thoughts into writing, especially when there is something more complicated to be expressed. Many incoherent expressions reflect the need to start the predication with a thematic constituent. Latin word order is seen as resulting from an interaction of syntactic and pragmatic factors. The preference for an order where the topic is placed sentence-initially can be seen in word order more generally as well. Furthermore, there appears a difference between Egypt and Vindolanda. The letters from Vindolanda show the order O(bject) V(erb) clearly more often than the letters from Egypt. Interestingly, this difference correlates with another, namely the use of the anaphoric pronoun is. This is an interesting observation in view of the fact that both of these are traditional Latin features, as opposed to those that foreshadow the Romance development (VO order and use of the anaphoric ille). However, it is difficult to say whether this is an indication of social or regional variation.

The Phraseology and Structure of Latin Building Inscriptions in Roman North Africa

This study analyses the diction of Latin building inscriptions. Despite its importance, this topic has rarely been discussed before: the most substantial contribution on the subject is a short dissertation by Klaus Gast (1965) that focuses on 100 inscriptions dating mostly from the Republican period. Marietta Horster (2001) also touched upon this theme in her thesis on imperial building inscriptions. I have collected my source material in North Africa because more Latin building inscriptions dating from the Imperial period have survived there than in any other area of the Roman Empire. By means of a thorough and independent survey, I have assembled all relevant African Latin building inscriptions datable to the Roman period (between 146 BC and AD 425), 1002 texts, into a corpus. These inscriptions are all fully edited in Appendix 1; Appendix 2 contains references to earlier editions. To facilitate search operations, both are also available in electronic form. They are downloadable from the address http://www.helsinki.fi/hum/kla/htm/jatkoopinnot.htm. Chapter one is an introduction dealing with the nature of building inscriptions as source material. Chapter two offers a statistical overview of the material. The following main section of the work falls into five chapters, each of which analyses one main part of a building inscription. An average building inscription can be divided into five parts: the starting phrase opens the inscription (a dedication to gods, for example), the subject part identifies the builder, the object part describes the constructed or repaired building, the predicate part records the building activity and the supplement part offers additional information on the project (it can specify the funding, for instance). These chapters are systematic and chronological and their purpose is to register and interpret the phrases used, to analyse reasons for their use and for their popularity among the different groups of builders. Chapter eight, which follows the main section of the work, creates a typology of building inscriptions based on their structure. It also presents the most frequently attested types of building inscriptions. The conclusion describes, on a general level, how the diction of building inscriptions developed during the period of study and how this striking development resulted from socio-economic changes that took place in Romano-African society during Antiquity. This study shows that the phraseology of building inscriptions had a clear correlation both with the type of builder and with the date of carving. Private builders tended to accentuate their participation (especially its financial side) in the project; honouring the emperor received more emphasis in the building inscriptions set up by communities; the texts produced by the army were concise. The chronological development is so clear that it enables stylistic dating. At the beginning of the imperial period the phrases were clear, concrete, formal and stereotyped but by Late Antiquity they have become vague, subjective, flexible, varied and even rhetorically or poetically coloured.

Changing Lived Worlds of Contemporary Amazonian Native Young People : Manchineri Youths in the Reserve and the City, Brazil-Acre

This thesis discusses the contemporary construction of the lived worlds of indigenous Amazonian youths. Today’s native peoples are considerably affected by the processes of globalization and urbanization, which have led to new ways of relating to their cultural traditions. This work presents a case study of Manchineri youngsters aged between 14 and 24 years old living in Acre state in Brazilian Amazonia. The Arawak-speaking Manchineri number some 1,000 people; their legally demarcated reserve is situated next to the River Yaco. The research is based on ethnographic material collected in the Mamoadate reserve and in the state capital, Rio Branco. By comparing the youth in different physical and social environments (the reserve and the city), my attempt has been to search for the most typical elements maintained, altered and created in the current lived worlds of Manchineri youths. Fieldwork methods included interviews, participant observation, photographs, video recordings, and drawings. The material was analyzed within the multidisciplinary framework of the social and cultural construction of knowledge. The study applies the concepts of social field, symbolic capital, and habitus as they have been used by Pierre Bourdieu; perspective as developed recently in Amazonian ethnology; the sacred as a cultural category as understood in the study of religion; and individual and person as concepts central to anthropology and sociology. Additionally, the study can be contextualized within youth studies, Latin American studies, and urban studies. The results of the study show that the everyday lives of young Amazonian native people are formed by a complex mixture of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’, fragmentation, and transitions between different conceptual frameworks. Part II discusses the ethnographic material in depth and shows that indigenous adolescents act from a variety of social perspectives: the native youth’s own ethnic group, divided into sub-groups, especially into urban residents and those living in the reserve; ancestors, super-human agents and spirits; other indigenous groups and non-natives. Consequently, besides the traditional initiation ritual, we find various contemporary rites of passage to adulthood: state-education, learning traditional practices, shamanism, matrimony, and transitions between the reserve and urban areas. According to these results, new social roles, political organization, responsibilities, and in general the desire to be respected, require both ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ abilities. In Part III, the study shows that the current power relations constituted by new social contacts, ethnic recognition, and cooperation with different institutions have resulted in the formation of new social fields: youth cultures, the ethnic group, shamanic practices, the ethnopolitical movement, and indigenous students. The capacity of young Amazonian Indians to act in contemporary social fields produces them as full persons. The study also argues that the elements of the lived worlds can be divided into these social fields. When focusing on these fields, it became evident that these comprise the strategies adopted by young Indians to break through social and cultural barriers.

Non-finite constructions in Old English : with special reference to syntactic borrowing from Latin

My dissertation is a corpus-based study of non-finite constructions in Old English (OE). It revisits the question of Latin influence on the OE syntax, offering a new evaluation of syntactic interference between Latin and OE, and, more generally, of the contact situation in the OE period, drawing on methods used in studying grammaticalization and language contact. I address three non-finite constructions: absolute participial construction, accusative-and-infinitive construction, and nominative-and-infinitive construction, exemplified respectively in present-day English as - She looked like a pixie sometimes, her eyes darting here and there, forever watchful (BNC CCM 98); - My first acquaintance with her was when I heard her sing (BNC CFY 2215); - Charles the Bald was said to resemble his grandfather physically (BNC HPT 175). This study compares data from translated texts against the background of original OE writings, establishing dependencies and differences between the two. Although the contrastive analysis of source and target texts is one of the major methods employed in the study, translation and translation strategies as such are only my secondary foci. The emphasis is rather on what source/target comparison can tell us about the OE non-finite syntax and the typological differences between Latin and OE in this domain, and on whether contact-induced change can originate in translation. In terms of theoretical framework, I have adopted functional-typological approach, which rests on the principles of iconicity and event integration, and to the best of my knowledge, has not been applied systematically to OE non-finite constructions. Therefore one more aim of the dissertation is to test this framework and to see how OE fits into the cross-linguistic picture of non-finites. My research corpus consists of two samples: 1) written OE closely dependent on the Latin originals, based on editions of two gloss texts, five translations, and Latin originals of these texts, representing four text types: hymns, religious regulations, homily/life narrative, and biblical narrative (180,622 words); and 2) written OE as far independent from Latin as possible, based on a selection from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE) and representing five text types: laws, charters, correspondence, chronicle narrative, and homily/life narrative (274,757 words).

The Mediated Immediacy : João Batista Libanio and the Question of Latin American Liberation Theology

This study is a systematic analysis of mediated immediacy in the production of the Brazilian professor of theology João Batista Libanio. He stresses both ethical mediation and the immediate character of the faith. Libanio has sought an answer to the problem of science and faith. He makes use of the neo-scholastic distinction between matter and form. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, God cannot be known as a scientific object, but it is possible to predicate a formal theological content of other subject matter with the help of revelation. This viewpoint was emphasized in neo-Thomism and supported by the liberation theologians. For them, the material starting point was social science. It becomes a theologizable or revealable (revelabile) reality. This social science has its roots in Latin American Marxism which was influenced by the school of Louis Althusser and considered Marxism a science of history . The synthesis of Thomism and Marxism is a challenge Libanio faced, especially in his Teologia da libertação from 1987. He emphasized the need for a genuinely spiritual and ethical discernment, and was particularly critical of the ethical implications of class struggle. Libanio s thinking has a strong hermeneutic flavor. It is more important to understand than to explain. He does not deny the need for social scientific data, but that they cannot be the exclusive starting point of theology. There are different readings of the world, both scientific and theological. A holistic understanding of the nature of religious experience is needed. Libanio follows the interpretation given by H. C. de Lima Vaz, according to whom the Hegelian dialectic is a rational circulation between the totality and its parts. He also recalls Oscar Cullmann s idea of God s Kingdom that is already and not yet . In other words, there is a continuous mediation of grace into the natural world. This dialectic is reflected in ethics. Faith must be verified in good works. Libanio uses the Thomist fides caritate formata principle and the modern orthopraxis thinking represented by Edward Schillebeeckx. One needs both the ortho of good faith and the praxis of the right action. The mediation of praxis is the mediation of human and divine love. Libanio s theology has strong roots in the Jesuit spirituality that places the emphasis on contemplation in action.

Discursive (de)legitimation of a contested Finnish greenfield investment project in Latin America

Despite the central role of legitimacy in corporate social responsibility debate, little is known of subtle meaning-making processes through which social actors attempt to establish or de-establish legitimacy for socially contested corporate undertakings, and through which they, at the same time, struggle to define the proper social role and responsibility of corporations. We investigated these processes in the context of the intense socio-political conflict around the Finnish forest industry company Metsa¨-Botnia’s world-scale pulp mill in Uruguay. A critical discursive analysis of Finnish media texts highlights three types of struggle that characterized the media coverage: legalistic argumentation, truth fights, and political battles. Interestingly, this case illustrates how the corporate representatives — with the help of the national media — tend to frame the issue in legalistic terms, emphasize their expert knowledge in technical and environmental evaluations, and distance themselves from political disputes. We argue that similar tendencies are likely to characterize corporate social responsibility debates more generally.