Bianca Liebermann and Diana Bormann have published the first valency dictionary of Latin verbs, thereby filling a long-standing gap. While traditional dictionaries do provide general information on verb valencies, they offer neither a systematic valency notation nor a clear distinction between syntactic and semantic valency. Valency grammar books, on the other hand, while offering the theoretical foundations of valency grammar and extensive information on the valencies of specific verbs, are rather impractical as reference works. This gap between valency grammar and the traditional dictionary has now been filled.
Liebermann and Bormann include an extensive introduction to their valency dictionary, in which they explain its objectives and provide users with all necessary formal information regarding the structure of the dictionary and its individual entries; above all, they present the underlying theoretical foundations of valency grammar and its application in a detailed and clear manner. The core of the work consists of the main section, which contains 1,535 headwords arranged in alphabetical order. The dictionary is supplemented by an appendix that includes a list of abbreviations and translations, a bibliography, and an alphabetical index of the Latin verbs appearing in the main section.
The authors base the usefulness of the valency dictionary they have presented on the practical requirements of university language education. The book is therefore primarily aimed at students of Latin and is intended to serve as a tool to help them analyze and formulate Latin sentences using sentence structure diagrams. It has thus been designed for use in German-Latin translation and prose composition exercises as well as in Latin language courses and reading exercises. This is based on the observation that knowledge of the verb and its morphosyntactic and semantic valency is of central importance for understanding the Latin language. Since students of Latin—unlike in their native language or an actively used and familiar modern foreign language—lack a linguistic feel for Latin and the intuition for the correct use of Latin verbs, it is necessary to provide them with the necessary knowledge in a clear and well-structured manner. At the same time, Liebermann and Bormann aim to sharpen students’ awareness of the contrastive modes of thought and expression in Latin and German.
All of the verbs included in the dictionary are found in classical Latin prose, primarily in the works of Cicero, Caesar, Sallust, Livy, and Seneca, but occasionally also in those of Cato, Tacitus, Gellius, Suetonius, Nepos, Pliny, or Quintilian, insofar as this is important for understanding the verb. Poetic usage is included only in exceptional cases. The authors justify this by referring to the freer use of verb valencies in poetry and their more frequent deviation from what is customary in prose. For this reason, Liebermann and Bormann do not claim to have presented an exhaustive account of Latin sentence structures, but rather a catalog of typical sentence structures in the Latin language in order to convey to the user an understanding of the concept of a verb. Another criterion for selecting the verbs included in the dictionary is their frequency of occurrence in Latin literature. For this purpose, the authors first consulted glossaries and dictionaries compiled on the basis of frequency statistics, namely the Klett Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz,[1] the Vischer-Wortkunde,[2] and the PONS-Wörterbuch für Schule und Studium.[3] In addition, they included several verbs that they considered relevant for other reasons.
The authors provide a detailed explanation of the structure of the individual entries in their dictionary: In addition to the standard listing of the lemma in the first-person singular, the verb’s stem forms are presented, separated by morphemes (lexemes and grammemes), following the principle of morpheme separation described by Thouratier and Liebermann;[4] e.g. “abalienare” ‘to sell something, to turn away from something, to distract oneself from something, to renounce something, to be averse to someone’ as “ab-aliēnā-re, ab-aliēn-ō, ab-aliēnā-vī, ab-aliēnā-t-um.” Below the lemma and the series of stem forms, the user will find a two-column presentation of the information provided. On the left are the complete morphosyntactic and semantic valencies of the verb, clearly organized according to the various possible verb variants; on the first level—numbered with Roman numerals—are complete sentence patterns, and on the second level—numbered with Arabic numerals—are, where applicable, various possible complements or differentiations. To the right of this, one finds the corresponding German translations. Below that, in small print, there is an example from classical prose for each of the sentence structures presented on the left, with the German translation for this example to the right. Using the example of “abalieno,” the detailed structure of the dictionary entries is once again clearly illustrated visually.
With reference to relevant works on valency grammar, particularly the constituent syntax approach, Liebermann and Bormann also provide the dictionary’s users with an introductory overview of the theoretical framework of valency grammar. In doing so, they address the concept of valency and the sentence model they employ as the abstract basic structure of a sentence. Furthermore, they explain clearly and comprehensibly why, regarding the relationship between subject and predicate, they deviate from the otherwise standard view of valency grammarians, according to which the subject is on the same level as the objects and the remaining complements. They illustrate this theoretical introduction visually with example syntax trees. They also discuss in great detail the sentence structure schema by Torrego and la Villa Polo[5] on which they base their work, as well as the decision derived from it to include in their sentence structure diagrams at least the elements of nuclear predication and at most the elements of basic predication. The phenomenon of gapping, in which slots in the sentence structure remain unoccupied when they are immediately implied by the textual or situational context, and its presentation in the dictionary entries, is also explained in detail using an example.
In addition, the authors examine the relationship between morphological form, syntactic function, and semantic function. They say that the aim of their dictionary—and the strength of their valency-oriented approach, which takes into account both the syntactic and semantic levels—is to capture the combinatorial aspects as well as the pragmatics of a verb.
Liebermann and Bormann also discuss in depth the labels they use for the nominal constituents of a sentence. The readability of the dictionary entries is significantly enhanced by the use of abbreviations for the nominative (Nom), accusative (Akk), dative (Dat), genitive (Gen), and ablative (Abl) cases, preposition (Prep), and adverbial (Adv) instead of the usual division of complements into E1 through E7 in valency grammar. The aim of capturing both semantic roles and syntactic functions with labels results in a long list of label combinations, but these are explained in detail in the introduction and are easy to understand thanks to clearly derivable abbreviations. In contrast, the list of the various classifications of verbs that cannot be inflected at random, e.g. verbs occuring only in the passive voice, verbs only existing in the part. perf. pass., verbs only used in the imperative is, of course, short and concise.
The main part of the dictionary, containing 1,535 alphabetically arranged headwords, is printed in two columns. The first line of each entry contains the lemma with its stem forms. These are followed by the various morphosyntactic and semantic valences along with their German translations. Each level of the outline begins on a separate line for clarity. The examples and translations in smaller print, located one level below, are, however, printed in a single block. Nevertheless, it is easy to navigate this section as well, since the respective section numbers are printed in bold. There is ample spacing between the individual sections, and the margins are not too narrow. Overall, this visual layout makes it much easier for the reader to find the information they need.
This valency dictionary enables its users to understand the various syntactic and semantic functions of verb complements when reading Latin prose texts, particularly when these go beyond simple objects or standard constructions; and, on the other hand, it helps students in style exercises and Latin Prose Composition courses to correctly learn the use of verbs with their complements using sentence structure diagrams and examples. Thanks to its clear and easy-to-follow labeling, the valency dictionary is also suitable for users who are not native German speakers. Even those who are not yet familiar with valency grammar in detail can benefit from this dictionary thanks to its comprehensive introductions.
This dictionary by Liebermann and Bormann not only fills a conceptual gap but also impresses with its structure and clarity.
Notes
[1] Klett Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz Latein (22014). Bearb. v. Ernst Habenstein. Neubearb. v. Eberhard Hermes. Stuttgart: Klett.
[2] Vischer, Rüdiger (42007): Lateinische Wortkunde für Anfänger und Fortgeschrittene. Berlin: De Gruyter.
[3] PONS Wörterbuch für Schule und Studium (21999). Lateinisch-deutsch. Von Rita Hau unter Mitwirkung von Eberhard Kulf. Stuttgart/Düsseldorf/Leipzig: Klett.
[4] Cf. Liebermann, Bianca (2023): „Linguistik“. In: Kipf, Stefan / Schauer, Markus (edd.), Fachlexikon zum Latein- und Griechischunterricht. Stuttgart: UTB. Cf. also Thouratier, Christian: Lateinische Grammatk: Linguistische Einführung in die Lateinische Sprache. Aus dem Frnzösischen übersetzt von Bianca Liebermann. Darmstadt WBG.
[5] Cf. M. Torrego / J. de la Villa Polo (2021): La oración: concepto, estructura, constituyentes y nivles. Tipos. In: Baños, José Miguel (ed.) (2021): Sintaxis Latina. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, pp. 35-71