The Latin Prope—What Part of Speech Is It?

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne vol. 57, issue 3 (2009). This paper seeks to revise the description of the grammatical properties of the Latin lexeme prope, which are fundamental for its inclusion in specific classes of words (parts of speech). The change proposed here amounts to saying that behind the entry prope there are two parts of speech, and that they are not adverb and preposition but adverb and particle. The particle is prope, meaning almost, nearly—it occurs in the positive degree, does not govern case, and is syntactically related to various parts of speech. In the remaining cases, prope most generally means near (somebody / something); it is a gradable adverb that governs an obligatory point of reference (in the form of the accusative, the dative, or the prepositional phrase a [ab] with the ablative). This point of reference may, however, be subject to context-dependent ellipsis when the recipient has an opportunity to reliably reconstruct it.