Notes on the Late Latin Accusative Absolute construction

This paper investigates the accusative absolute (ACC ABS) construction in Late Latin, a syntactic innovation distinguishing post-Classical Latin from its Classical predecessor. While the ablative absolute (ABL ABS) predominates in Classical Latin, Late Latin exhibits a broader range of absolute constructions, including nominative, accusative, and mixed forms. Focusing on the ACC ABS, this study examines its distribution, semantic properties, and syntactic relationship to the matrix clause. Special attention is given to its compatibility with present active and perfect passive participles, and with telic versus atelic predicates. Based on a limited but representative corpus, the analysis suggests that the emergence of the ACC ABS reflects broader changes in Latin’s clause-marking and case alignment systems.