Deponent verbs in Plautus’s Aulularia

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the verbal forms, especially deponent verbs, which appear in a work by Plautus: the Aulularia. Verbal analysis includes the notions of lexical transitivity and intransitivity, tense and mood, in order to appreciate broadly the use of some syntactic features, the form of involvement of the subject, the context in which they are used, and their classification according to the process or verbal class to which they belong. 65% reported an intransitive construction. There was an increase of deponent forms’ applications (without specifying mood) in passages where speakers refer to subjective perception of the environment. Verbs most frequently used were those which express a verbal process, with 36.4%, and a mental process, with 28%.