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

This suggests further that the monastic rules employed deponent and synthetic passive verb
forms in a frequency that was not only comparable with contemporary texts, but also suggests
a stability of usage that can be found throughout Latin literature.
Since the monastic rules have been argued to be representative of the spoken language,
the evidence would appear to agree with the hypothesis that their presence implies their
continued use, or for Banniard, at least, a passive competence even if they were not used
actively by all speakers. Since there is little difference from other texts, both contemporary
and historically throughout Latin literature, this suggests a stability of usage that is reflected
in their employment. Nevertheless, although the Muller position is attractive, namely that
their presence in a text implies their use in the spoken language, it is too simplistic: the
simple presence of forms in written texts cannot imply automatically their use in the spoken
language because of the differences between the two. Therefore, the situation must be
explored further.
6.7 Further Analysis of Appearance
The often classical Latinity of the monastic rules has already been noted. To
demonstrate the wide range of deponent and synthetic passives used, here follows a list of all
those employed in the monastic rules. Note that where a verb is used more than once, this is
indicated in brackets. In the first instance, deponent verbs: adipiscor, amplector (x 2),
anxior, attestor, commoror, comprobo, confiteor, conor, consector; consequor, consolor,
delabor (x 4), dedignor, dignor, egredior (x 2), elabor (x 2), euagor (x 6), exsecror, fabulor,
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