Abstract
We propose a comparative analysis of basic verb morphology in macaronic Latin, a peculiar family of artistic idioms that were used as a literary device in various parts of Europe starting in the Italian Renaissance and lasting until the present time. In macaronic Latin, a significant portion of the vocabulary is hybrid, generated by attaching Latin endings to lexical bases from several modern languages. In the present study we observe the frequencies of individual verb conjugations in a corpus of macaronic works and in a selection of ancient Latin texts. The results suggest a twofold conclusion. Firstly, the pattern of verb conjugation selection in hybrid verbs differs significantly from that in Latin verbs; secondly, among the hybrid verbs, the selection preferences are affected by the morphonological properties of the language involved in combining with Latin.
