- Consentius
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Consentius was a 5th century Gallic grammarian and the author of two treatises, which are perhaps the fragments of a complete grammar: one on the noun and the verb, much used during the Carolingian period, and the other on barbarisms and metaplasm.
Some of Consentius' ideas are surprisingly modern for a "Dark Age" scholar. He explicitly differentiates signifié and signifiant, the word itself and the thing signified by it. He explains grammatical gender by saying that masculine or feminine gender was ascribed, either randomly or by some consensus (seu licenter seu decenter), to some entities which lack natural gender.
References
- Keil, Grammatici Latini (Leipzig), vol. V, p. 336.
- Thorsten Fögen, Der Grammatiker Consentius, Glotta 74 (1997/98), 164-192.
External links
Categories:- Linguists
- Grammarians
- Linguist stubs
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