"Some notes on the use of stare"

The complex series of semantic and syntactic functions borne by the Romance offshoots of lat. stare has been at times related to early developments already attested in Latin (cf. Bourciez 1956; Ribeiro 1958). The verbal form that we find in Latin, however, is consistently considered as a postural verb, i.e. stare ‘stand (on a erected position, on foot)’, (cf. Stengaard 1991; Pountain 1982). Looking at things from a Latin perspective, after an analysis of an extensive collection of the occurrences from Plautus to Late Latin texts, it is possible to draw a diachronical sequence of meanings and functions. Far from being semantically static, stare displays profiles that extend from a verb that expresses absence of movement, to a plainly “situative” verb (i.e. pointing generically to the physical presence of an animate/inanimate entity in a certain place), to a durative verb referring to a temporal scope. While a significantly wide range of semantic cores is attested already in the early Imperial period (Livy, Petronius) and continues in later authors (Augustinus, Ammianus, Peregrinatio Egeriae), more syntax-oriented phenomena can only sporadically be found in texts from different temporal stages, in occurrences where stare entwines with other lexical items having a predicative status or bearing an aspectual function (Valerius Flaccus, Tacitus, Script. Hist. Aug., Vulgata, Avienus). Possibly, some semantic features that seem to characterize a few uses of this verb (i.e. mainly the espression of transitory vs. inherent state or condition), could be related to aspects and features supposedly relevant in later Romance developments (cf., for ex., King 1991 for an analysis of the opposition sp. ser vs. estar). The aim of this paper, thus, is to offer a brief description of the uses of stare within the Latin language; to search for a rationale of its diachronic evolution; and, tentatively, to draw parallels and to look for functional similarities between uses of this verb and later, Romance phenomena