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

From these examples, it can be seen that the use of conjunctions in the monastic rules
is reflective of changes that took place elsewhere in later Latin. The reason behind these
changes has been explored fully in Allies (2008), where it was suggested that the semantic
expansion of uel was due to its flexibility as an inclusive disjunctive, whose polysemy would
lead eventually to its disappearance from Romance.
5.14 Quod
Another conjunction of interest is quod, which in later Latin acquires a range of
semantic expansions beyond the Classical Latin „because of‟. The polysemous nature of
quod in later Latin was noted by Herman (2000: 90), who called it a “universal conjunction”.
He continued to remark on its following possible meanings in later Latin: quod of purpose
(„in order that‟); quod with a consecutive meaning („so...that‟); quod as a comparative („as‟);
quod as a temporal meaning („when‟) (ibid.: 91). Finally, quod meant simply „that‟, as in the
phrase dico quod. In this way, it was synonymous with later Romance reflexes such as Sp.
que and It. che.
The monastic rules demonstrate a wide ranging employment of quod. By far the most
frequent are examples of the „what-quod‟, which would survive into Romance but is not
found in Classical Latin: “Abbas uel praepositus diuinis semper officiis et uigiliis intersint, et
prius ipsi agant quod alios doceant”; 501 “Iste quod habet tribuat, et communicet, in quantum
potest, non ex tristitia, aut necessitate”; 502 “Comedant sine querela quidquid eis appositum
fuerit; uestiant quod acceperint”. 503
501 Rule of Fructuosus 2.
502 Rule of Isidore 21.
503 Common Rule 12.
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