“Between aspect and deixis: vado in classical Latin and the evolution of motion verbs”

Late Latin presents an increasing competition between eo and vado, which has been related mainly to phenomena of phonetic nature (Wackernagel, 1906; Löfsted, 1933; Ernout, 1954). Allegedly, in the early occurrences from Cicero’s letters, vado would have already been used as a synonym of eo. The analysis of the occurrences of vado from Classical Latin, which I present in this paper, points out that in the Classical stage this verb is not a mere synonym of eo: rather, it displays distinctive features such as [inchoative] or [iterative], and its role in Classical Latin can be fully understood only if we consider it within the whole evolutionary frame of Latin motion verbs, most notably eo and venio, where we see that vado has a place of its own. In short, vado behaves as a functional (i.e. “aspectually marked”) by-form of eo, with a different profile in terms of textual exploitation. A few passages from Martial, moreover, suggest that, in the 1st cent. AD, vado is also beginning to keep pace with eo in the drift towards a deictic-sensitive characterization.