The Monastic Rules of Visigothic Iberia - eTheses Repository ...

Commentators from the mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth century began to note an
expanded semantic use of uel in later Latin texts as a copulative, synonymous with et.
Bonnet (1890: 315) notes the phenomenon in the works of Gregory of Tours; Löfstedt (1911:
198) informed that: “im Spätlatein […] eine disjunktiv Partikel statt einer kopulativen
eintreten kann”, and (1959: 21): “in Late Latin uel is often in the sense of et”; Leumann &
Hofmann (1925: 676) highlight the distinction, stating simply: “im Spätlatein ist uel = et”,
and quoting various examples; Souter (1949: 437) illustrates how uel…uel = ET…ET; De
Climent (1963: 114) notes that, “en el latín decadente asume con frecuencia una acepción
copulativa, y por tanto uel=et, uel…uel= et…et”. The reasons behind this change have been
explored more fully than is possible here in Allies (2008). However, sufficient to say that by
the seventh century, uel possessed three functions: an exclusive disjunctive particle; an
inclusive disjunctive particle; and a copulative particle. This polysemy led to a greatly
increased frequency in its use, a feature that is now accepted as indicative of later Latin.
follows:
This phenomenon is seen in the monastic rules, which make use of both aut and uel as
AUT UEL
Rule of Isidore 50 81
Rule of Fructuosus 37 74
Common Rule 35 29
209