Latin parts of speech in historical and typological context

Abstract

It is usually assumed that Latin parts of speech cannot be properly applied to other languages, especially outside the Indo-European domain. We will see, however, that the traditional distinction into eight parts of speech is established only in the late period of the classical school of grammar, while originally parts of speech varied in number and in type according to different grammarians, as well as to different periods and genres. Comparisons will be drawn on the one hand with parts of speech in the Greek and Indian tradition, and on the other with genetically unrelated languages where parts of speech - notably adjectives and adverbs - are scarcely grammaticalized. This may be revealing of the manner in which the ancients used to categorize their languag