La storia dell’aggettivo nella tradizione grammaticale, filosofica e retorica antica.

This paper deals with the history of adjectives, considered as a (sub)part of speech in both Greek and Latin tradition. Plato and Aristotle define adjectives a rhetoric embellishment in the same way as appositions, genitive complements and other periphrases. Despite adjectives are classified as a noun (sub)type, Dionysius Thrax describes them, for the first time, as grammatical elements, characterized by distinctive features. For this reason, Dionysius Thrax represents the starting point for future grammatical researches by Trypho and Apollonius Dyscolus, which influenced Priscianus’ Institutio de arte grammatica. From a linguistic point of view, this paper shows that ancient grammars’ progress in the description of the parts of speech culminates in the anticipation of some concepts that will be of modern linguistics; from a philological point of view, it suggests that it is possible to individuate a grammatical tradition which distinguishes Trypho, Apollonius Dyscolus and Priscianus from Dionysius Thrax.