LA GENESI DELLA CATEGORIA DELL'AGGETTIVO E IL BILINGUISMO DELLA TRADIZIONE GRAMMATICALE ANTICA

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyse the birth of the category "adjective" in the light of the Greek-Latin bilingualism typical of the classical tradition. One of the main differences between the Greek-Latin parts of speech theory and that of later European linguistics (from the Middle Ages onwards) lies in the existence of the adjective as an independent word class. The paper sums up the definitions of the categories of noun, verb and epithet/adjective from Aristotle through the 16th century, with the aim of showing that the birth of the adjective as an independent word class has occurred between the late antiquity and the Middle Ages, as a consequence of the reinterpretation of Aristotle's metaphysic in the light of Neoplatonic ontology.