Talk:proprietor

Proprietor; im so glad for Wiktionary! this word is on my quiz! Princess-of-Endor 18:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Does this word come from the Roman office of Propraetor? - EL 30 March 2011

RFV discussion: June 2019

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Latin proprietor

(Notifying Metaknowledge, Fay Freak, Brutal Russian, JohnC5): Does not exist Classically, where the correct word is proprietarius. Hard to find any cites. Benwing2 (talk) 03:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not a possible word in Latin, classical or not, because there's no participle *proprietus or any related verb it could be built to - in fact there are no participles in -ietus at all, and what seems like one in -iētus: quiētus. Brutal Russian (talk) 07:02, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

What Brutal Russian said, and the Latin term (that jurists use) is dominus; property is dominium. The gloss ownership for proprietās stinks too. Georges calls it a “metonymy”, and from the context given by its first attestation in Sueton I am not sure property is what was claimed by the parties; one has used “dominus proprietatis” but this means an owner whose property is encumbered with a usufruct, and you will find it has been continued to be used so in the usus modernus; else one has to be wary of interpolations (and Heinrich Janke speaks of some interpolation in the page given; but the time has not come for me to do Interpolationenkritik on Wiktionary). It’s astonishing how long this word has been carried over. Imma delete proprietor now, and I will rewrite the definition of proprietās, it cannot stand giving the impression that this is proper Latin for property. Fay Freak (talk) 14:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I am not convinced that the meaning of proprietās, insofar as it relates to ownership, necessarily involves a situation of usufruct. I think this may be too specific; I do not see it in the history of the blindfolded beast of burden. Compare also proprietārius – although only found in post-classical texts, Gaffiot ascribes its use in the Digesta to Ulpian.  --Lambiam 18:45, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam I found that the exceptions only confirm the rule. I see the figure in the Sueton quote. The definition might be too specific, I am not convinced either about its meaning and I have just today added Latin terms from the Digests of not wholly ascertainable meaning, but it means “the quality of being proper to someone”, so not even a legal meaning in this Sueton quote; the reason for the fewness of the quotes is precisely that it wasn’t a proper term for ownership. But the proprietārius in Ulp. Dig. 7, 1, 15 is again a locus about usufructs, contrasting with ūsufrūctuārius, so it is not improper with the state of sources to gloss as I have done “the legal position [or rather: role] of an owner whose property is encumbered with a usufruct”.

And are you aware how much of the Digests is found to be interpolated? If not, just take a glimpse into the three-volume Index interpolationum quae in Iustiniani Digestis inesse dicuntur. And the index is already from 1929–1935. The accusations have been expanded in the following fifty years (after that, one redrew a bit because there were few detailled things left that were certainly understood after all the deforestation). One can also compile a whole lexicon which consists of “fake” legal terms, or “Tribonianisms”. In fact such lexica exist, so in Henri Appleton Des interpolations dans les Pandectes et des méthodes propres à les découvrir, Paris 1894 (reprint Rome 1967), which is not digitized yet though – the field is neglected. One can make an Appendix of Tribonianisms. Or maybe we at least introduce a category for lexemes commonly thought to belong to the vocabulary of Tribonian’s men. (I won’t collect them though in the near future.)

Also note Ulpian is a classical jurist. When one talks about “classical jurisprudence” in Rome, one means a period later than that of “Classical Latin”, a period up to the soldier emperors. We note little about Roman law in the republic. Even if sources talk about Roman republic legal institutions they are often interpolated, replacing what originally stood there with an “update”; for we have little on Roman law but Tribonian’s Corpus Iuris Civilis. When Cicero talks it can be legal terminology or it can be not: No jurist from the republic available who would securely employ “Classical Latin” juristic terminology. Fay Freak (talk) 19:45, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

In texts discussing situations of usufruct, there will naturally be a need for terminology distinguishing between the positions of the usufructuary and the proprietor, leading to a term meaning “proprietorness”. This does not imply that in all contexts using that term for proprietorness the property involved is encumbered with usufruct. There must be other Latin texts than the Vita Galbae that discuss ownership disputes; what is the terminology used there? In the text by Sueton, I read no more than a sense of “whose-ness”. I assume that his audience understood what he meant by proprietas without legal background and without ability to consult a Victionarium. But had the latter existed, one of the senses could have been “quod cuidam proprium est”.  --Lambiam 21:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I imagined, as an alternative to metonymy, that since ownership is the full right over a thing, the position of an owner whose property is encumbered by a usufruct is a minus and thus also included in a dispute about ownership, thus it could be a pars pro toto. What is also possible is that it means “bei wem das Tier bleibt”, or whither the beast returns: we find in Georges the sense “bleibend, beständig, unvergänglich” for “proprius”; this because an animal becomes ownerless if it gives up the habit of returning to its owner, and then it can be occupied to gain ownership. As I said ownership is dominium. I don’t remember a specific locus discussing a comparable dispute. The jurists’ texts would rather discuss actions anyhow, i.e. vindicātiō, āctiō Pūbliciāna and so on. Fay Freak (talk) 23:48, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Let me try again. The primary meaning of proprietās, from proprius +‎ -etās, is “the state or condition of being proprius”. The meaning of proprius in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette. is: “what belongs exclusively (to somebody), what one does not share”. There is by itself nothing legal about any of this, but the application to ownership is entirely natural. Take “proprius”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; they consider the term as opposed to commūnis and more specifically aliēnus, and give a literal meaning of “a possession, property”, quoting Cicero: “id est cuiusque proprium, quo quisque fruitur atque utitur”. The fact that all the Romance languages use a descendant of proprietās with the meaning of “property” or “proprietorship” proves, in my opinion, that the term must have had this as a straightforward meaning in Latin. In view of all this, the narrow restriction of the second sense to “the legal position of an owner whose property is encumbered with a usufruct” is unjustified and should be rectified.  --Lambiam 12:28, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Must have, but this must have been Vulgar Latin. Does not sound too well as Latin. I formulated it “particularly if his property is encumbered with a usufruct” to leave more room. Apart from this, it is still unsolved what we do if a term is attested but a meaning is not but reconstructed. We could need some template to single out reconstructed meanings.

Perhaps one finds quotes from vulgar law contracts of the ninth century or something where it really means “property”, under influence of Romance. Fay Freak (talk) 16:11, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

There are also some Medieval and Late Latin uses given under proprietas in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887). We put Medieval and Late Latin lemmas all under the L2 heading “Latin” (e.g. bassus or cappa).  --Lambiam 20:34, 30 June 2019 (UTC)