Word order as a feature of titus Livius’ idiostyle

Abstract

Modern linguistics is marked by an increased interest in the study of rhetoric, which is closely intertwined with poetics, logic, and stylistics. The work of the renowned Roman historian Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita (referred to in Ukrainian as “History”), serves as valuable material in this regard. The speeches of historical figures incorporated by the author into this work are classical examples of rhetorical art. While a significant amount of research has been devoted to the linguistic and stylistic features of speeches in other decades of the work, the speeches of the first decade have remained largely unexplored.In this context, a comprehensive analysis of the syntactic means of expression in the speeches becomes particularly relevant. This article examines the role of word order and word arrangement in the speeches of historical figures, focusing on their emotional and expressive connotations as a factor in argumentation. The research reveals that most speech constructions feature stylistically active placement of components. For example, while the postposition of the subject relative to the predicate is less frequent, it emphasizes the rheme, whereas predicates are typically located at the end of the sentence. A distinctive feature of Livius’ use of adjectives is their preposition relative to nouns. Such prepositioning is often driven by a specific interrogative intonation and the author’s desire to strongly emphasize the adjective.The study also highlights prepositional and postpositional constructions containing two adjectives, as well as the distant placement of elements that are normally in contact, which enhances expressiveness and argumentation. Another notable feature of Livius’ style is the placement of objects in absolute preposition, often as a series of homogeneous objects, which contributes to their logical emphasis.The article also investigates the role of adverbials in this context. An analysis of the quantitative relationships between prepositional and postpositional sentence elements provides deeper insight into the stylistic structure of “History” and reveals the specifics of Titus Livius’ idiostyle.