Paeniteo errorem (Hier. Tract. in Ps. II, 84, 37). Un caso di mutamento sintattico semanticamente motivato

In this paper I investigate the diachronic development of the "fratris me pudet" (Ter. Ad. 391) construction type in Late Latin, with a view to exploring the factors that played a significant role in the analogical process that lead this impersonal pattern to be reinterpreted as personal and transitive over centuries. By comparing the kind of Stimuli typically associated with the pudet-type verbs and their specific meaning, I show that they differ in view of different degrees of agentivity, control and volitionality exerted by the Experiencer. Paenitet ‘to repent’ reveals itself as being the most agentive verb and this is why it underwent an early process of personalization, achieved only later by those verbs whose semantics implied a lower degree of rational involvement and control over the experience. This paper shows that semantic factors may influence the formal coding of a given verb and accelerate its syntactic reinterpretation, and explores in what terms such constructional changes took place in Late Latin.