Comic lexicon:searching for 'submerged' Latin from Plautus to Erasmus

The chapter presents the results of a fresh analysis of all lemmata found in Plautus and Terence. The aim is to assess lexical evidence that may support the ‘karstic’ theory, according to which a stream of Latin flowed from Plautus’ time to the late empire, but was ‘submerged’ in the classical period. The chapter shows that only few comic words are rarely or never attested in Classical Latin but do occur in late Latin, medieval Latin, or Romance. Moreover, in most cases the continuity between early and late Latin is only apparent, as the word is likely to be a (literary) revival and/or an independent re-coinage. The amount of comic Latin that clearly was submerged in CL is extremely small: many of these words are Greek and/or technical nouns; others, however, strongly point to continuity between early and late Latin and are discussed at length in the chapter, as good candidates for ‘submerged’ Latin