Appendix Probi

The Appendix Probi ("Probus' Appendix") is the conventional name for a series of five documents believed to have been copied in the seventh or eighth century in Bobbio, Italy.[1] Its name derives from the fact that the documents were found attached to a copy of the Instituta Artium, a treatise named after (but probably not written by) the first-century grammarian Marcus Valerius Probus.[2]

Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Appendix was likely composed in Rome[lower-roman 1] around the first half of the fourth century AD.[4]

It is specifically the third of the five documents that has attracted scholarly attention, as it contains a list of 227 spelling mistakes, along with their corrections, which shed light on the phonological and grammatical changes that the local vernacular was experiencing in the early stages of its development into Romance.

The text survives only in a carelessly transcribed water-damaged manuscript of the 7th or 8th century[5] which is kept at the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III[6] as MS Lat. 1 (formerly Vindobonensis 17).

Phenomena visible in the spelling mistakes

Note that the format is "[correct spelling], not [incorrect spelling]".[7] Scribal abbreviations have been expanded and some forms have been edited according to textual criticism.

Syncope

Development of yod from front vowels in hiatus

Change of /ŭ/ to [o]

Reduction of pretonic /au̯/ to [o]

Loss of final /m/

Loss of /h/

Reduction of /-ns-/ to /-s-/

Loss of intervocalic /β/ before a back vowel

Confusion of /b/ and /β/

Confusion of singletons and geminates

Elimination of imparisyllabic nouns

Adaptation of 3rd-decl. adjectives to the 1st class

Adaptation of 4th-decl. feminine nouns to the 1st decl.

Adaptation of 3rd/4th decl. feminines to the 1st decl. via diminutive suffix

Adaptation of neuter plural to the first declension

Elimination of the ablative

Alteration of nom. -es (in the third declension) to -is

Reduction of the endings -es and -is to -s

Loss of the masculine flexion -us

Metathesis, assimilation, dissimilation, etc.

See also

Notes
  1. There is a reference on line 134 to caput africae, the name of a grammar school known to have been located in that city.[3]
  2. Note the regular dissimilation, after syncope, of /-tl-/ to /-kl-/.
  3. An example of hypercorrection (Elcock 1960: 30), in this case the improper insertion of a silent ⟨n⟩, cf.Tooltip confer the spellings herculens and occansio below.
  4. Perhaps by analogy with existing words like urbs or plebs (Elcock 1960: 32).
  5. The unusual forms figel and mascel may reflect the replacement of the diminutive ending -ulus with -ellus, followed by the loss of both final /s/ and the unstressed /ŭ/. While the change may seem to foreshadow e.g. the Romansh form maschel, such forms are unusual for the time period and would not be seen again until the Kassel glosses (Elcock 1960: 32).

References
  1. Quirk 2006
  2. Powell 2007: §1
  3. Barnett 2007: 705
  4. Quirk 2006: 16–21, 300
  5. Rohlfs 1969: 16
  6. Quirk 2006
  7. Elcock 1960: 28–34

Sources
  • Barnett, F. J. 2007. The sources of the "Appendix Probi": A new approach. The Classical Quarterly 57(2). 701–736. doi:10.1017/s000983880700064x.
  • Elcock, William Dennis. 1960. The Romance Languages. London: Faber & Faber.
  • Rohfls, Gerhard. 1969. Sermo Vulgaris Latinus: Vulgarlateinisches Lesebuch. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
  • Leppänen, V., & Alho, T. 2018. On The Mergers Of Latin Close-Mid Vowels. Transactions of the Philological Society. doi:10.1111/1467-968x.12130
  • Powell, Jonathan G. F. 2007. A new text of the "Appendix Probi". The Classical Quarterly 57(2). 687–700. doi:10.1017/S0009838807000638.
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2005. The “Appendix Probi” as a compendium of Popular Latin: Description and bibliography. The Classical World 98(4). 397–409. doi:10.2307/4352974
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2006. The Appendix Probi: A scholar's guide to text and context. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta.
  • Quirk, Ronald J. 2017. Hypercorrection in the Appendix Probi. Philologus 161(2). 350–353. doi:10.1515/phil-2016-0119
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