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Case and Genre in Gaulish: From Mont Auxois to the Pont d'Ancy

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A close textual examination of case-marking and role in Gaulish suggests that the instrumental (and ablative) formants and functions inherited from Indo-European remained largely independent in use from those of the other oblique cases. Although a distinct morphological locative seems to have been given up at a prehistoric stage, the Gaulish of the Roman period appears to have preserved a much fuller and more synthetic system of grammatical case than did any of the medieval Celtic languages. The practice of projecting Insular Celtic behaviours onto Continental Celtic (or even cross-linguistic abstractions derived from broader linguistic theory) should not serve as a substitute for analysing Gaulish inscriptions from the perspective of interlingual intertextuality and of properly contextualized epigraphic genre. Gaulish should be understood principally as a closely historicized inscriptional language, its attested expressions constrained by typical ancient Mediterranean epigraphic pragmatics, yet representing an idiosyncratic development of Celtic linguistic tradition nonetheless.

Document Type: Research Article

Publication date: 01 November 2008

More about this publication?
  • The Journal of Celtic Linguistics publishes articles and reviews on all aspects of the linguistics of the Celtic languages, modern, medieval and ancient, with particular emphasis on synchronic studies, while not excluding diachronic and comparative-historical work. This journal is of great interest to students of languages and Celtic studies, as well as members of the general public interested in the linguistic progression within Celtic languages and linguistic history. The editor is Lecturer in the Welsh Department at Aberystwyth University, and is supported by an editorial board including representatives from Oxford and Cambridge universities, and from universities across Europe and North America. Papers are invited in English, French or German on all fields/‘levels’ of analysis; phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics; formal or functional, cross-language typological or language-internal, dialectological or sociolinguistic, any theoretical paradigm.

    Mae’r Journal of Celtic Linguistics yn cynnwys erthyglau ac adolygiadau ar bob agwedd ar ieithoedd Celtaidd - modern, canoloesol a hynafol - gyda phwyslais arbennig ar astudiaethau syncronig, a heb eithrio gwaith diacronig a hanesyddol-gymharol. Y mae’r cyfnodolyn hwn yn ddefnyddiol i fyfyrwyr sydd yn astudio ieithoedd ac astudiaethau Celtaidd, yn ogystal â darllenwyr sy’n ymddiddori yn hanes datblygiadau’r ieithoedd Celtaidd. Mae’r golygydd yn Ddarlithydd yn Adran y Gymraeg, Prifysgol Aberystwyth, ac yn cydweithio â’r bwrdd golygyddol sydd â chynrychiolaeth o brifysgolion Rhydychen, Caergrawnt, ac o brifysgolion ledled Ewrop a Gogledd America.

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