Santo Agostinho entre a gramática e a dialética: combinação e ordenação das palavras na Ars breuiata e no De dialectica

Abstract

Our doctoral thesis aims to investigate the elements of a “syntactic theory” in the reflections that St. Augustine (4th -5 th c. AD) made on grammar and dialectics. In order to accomplish this task, we analyzed the works by Augustine, particularly the Ars (Augustini pro fratrum mediocritate) breuiata, De dialectica and De ordine. Specifically, we’ve paid especial attention to the Ars breuiata and the De dialectic, texts which present, in an explicit way, the concepts of coniunctio and ordinatio uerborum. The theoretical and methodological framework of our thesis comes from the History of Language Sciences (HLS) (KOERNER, 1989, 1995, 2014). Our objective is to demonstrate how the concepts of coniunctio e ordinatio uerborum (combination and ordering of words) are the main pillars of a “syntactic” reflection concerning language in the Augustinian output. Besides, we’ve investigated the way that some postulates of Stoic doctrine, including those developed by Chrysippus (century III BC), echoed in Saint Augustine's reflection on the theme of syntax and its elements. For this, we have also used some works by Cicero (1st century BC), mostly the remaining fragments of Hortensius, as well as the work by Varro (1st century BC), whose De lingua Latina and the fragments of Disciplinarum libri were also central to the discussion on the birth and development of syntactic analysis in the Latin domain (BARATIN, 1989a, 1992, 2001; TAYLOR, 1993, 2020). Therefore, we sought to demonstrate, through a contextualized analysis of the works of Saint Augustine, that the concepts of coniunctio and ordinatio uerborum both in the context of Augustinian grammar and dialectics are, to a certain extent, complementary, thus helping us to reconstruct the trajectory of thought about syntax in Late Antiquity.