Appendix Probi

Appendix Probi
The ("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. Its name derives from the fact that the documents were found attached to a copy of the , a treatise named after (but probably not written by) the first-century grammarian Marcus Valerius Probus.
The Appendix was likely composed in Rome around the first half of the fourth century AD.
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 which is kept at the as MS Lat. 1 (formerly Vindobonensis 17).
Phenomena visible in the spelling mistakes
Note that the format is "[correct spelling], not [incorrect spelling]". 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 to
Reduction of pretonic to
Loss of final
Loss of
Reduction of to
Loss of intervocalic before a back vowel
Confusion of and
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. (in the third declension) to
Reduction of the endings and to
Loss of the masculine flexion -us
Metathesis, assimilation, dissimilation, etc.
See also
Reichenau Glossary
Proto-Romance language
Phonological changes from Classical Latin to Proto-Romance
Notes
References
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
External links
Transcription of the Appendix Probi by Sean Crist, following W. A. Baehrens, 1922, Sprachlicher Kommentar zur vulgärlateinischen Appendix Probi.
Texts in Latin
Linguistic purism
Palimpsests