Quintilian and Latin Phonology

Abstract

The chapters on grammar in Book 1 and the chapter on Greek and Latin letters in Book 12 of Quintilian’sInstitutio oratoria have been thoroughly inspected, revised and interpreted a number of times. There are, however, still other, albeit shorter passages that may be considered sources of interesting and highly relevant linguistic data. Yet these passages, mostly due to their dispersion throughout Quintilian’s voluminous work, have received somewhat less commentary. In the present paper, some of them are laid out and subjected to a tentative interpretation in view of certain phonetic and prosodic features of Latin.