Developments in Latin syntax after the publication of Szantyr (1965)

In 1965 Anton Szantyr completed his re-edition of, Hofmann’s volume II (Syntax und Stilistik, 1928) of the Lateinische Grammatik, itself part of the multi-volume Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft. The work constitutes a monumental compilation and critical assessment of the majority of publications on Latin syntax that were available at that time. The descriptive framework is more or less the same as the traditional one that has been used from Antiquity onwards. The approach is diachronic, with much attention to Indo-European roots and to so-called vulgar and late Latin phenomena. The diachronic developments are often described from a psychological and social perspective, which has received special attention in Hofmann’s classic Lateinische Umgangssprache (19513).
Since Szantyr finished, and indeed already when he was in the process of finishing his work, there have been many developments in linguistics in general and in the linguistic study of Latin in particular. In the first place new data have been discovered, such as the Banker’s archive from Pozzuoli found near Pompeii (1959), the Vindolanda tablets (from 1973 onwards), and the Senatus consultum de Gn. Pisone patre (end of the eighties). Secondly, new instruments for doing research have become available, of which digital corpora are perhaps the most notable. Thirdly, numerous monographs and articles have been published on a wide range of syntactic subjects, both along traditional lines and with a specific theoretical approach. Fourthly, there are new linguistic theories and models, and new methodologies have been developed. In this article I will concentrate on the third and fourth points.