Quondam in the Treatises of Tacitus

Tikva Zadok
2020 Athens Journal of Philology  
In studies on Latin adverbs the discussion of a specific temporal adverb in a certain corpus is rare. Moreover, an adverb peculiar to Tacitus" books has not yet been analyzed in the studies concerning his language and style. Our study fills a gap in the researches on adverbs in Latin prose in general and in Tacitus" corpora in particular by examining the characteristic and unique usages of quondam in his treatises. Our grammatical approach adopted here is descriptive. It offers a thorough
more » ... is of a specific adverb in a prose opus of one author, which is a restricted and homogeneous corpus. This enables us to present the full documentation of the adverb under discussion in the selected corpus. Our main results are: quondam functions as a temporal adverb or an adjective in a temporal sense and mostly occurs in Ann. It mainly modifies a finite verb, participial and an apposition. In a few cases it modifies more than one element in a clause/sentence. Its prevalent position is before the modified part of speech. Quondam is sometimes in proximity to a contrasting temporal adverb. A concluding comparison of quondam as an adverb and an adjective between Tacitus" treatises yielded mostly different features.
doi:10.30958/ajp.7-3-3 fatcat:jndm6j7o2rfknmy6s7kumjpu44