Zur Konstruktion ab urbe condita

An essay on the Latin construction called Ab urbe condita, including the explanation of the term and its adequate construction in English, German, Spanish and Italian. There is also an explanation of the structure of the dominant participle term, and its types (absolutive and prepositional) are described. The starting point is an almost forgotten O. W. Heick's book The Ab Urbe Condita Construction in Latin from 1936, which contains an incredibly broad material. Partly influenced by the modern lingustics, the author is trying to outline the development of the construction from both linguistic and philosophical point of view. She localizes the occurrence of the dominant participle in different fields and literary genres – to mention the most important: state administration, legal phraseology, and rhetoric as well as practical rhetoric. All these fields are strongly connected with M. Tullius Cicero. The author also mentions coin inscriptions, where we also find the ab urbe condita construction. In the evaluation of the study materials concerning both frequency and typology, there are not only authors taken into account, but prosaic literary genres, too.