FROMBUSINESS TO PROBLEMS: THE ETYMOLOGY AND USE OF THE LEXEME NEGOTIUMIN PLAUTUS’ COMEDIES

Abstract

Benveniste was not a typical structuralist of the late 1950s – early 1960s, because
he was not indifferent to matters of linguistic change. Since its publication in 1969, his book
Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society (Le vocabulaire des institutions indoeuropéennes)
has inspired many famous philosophers and linguists, Umberto Eco, Roland
Barthes, Jacques Derrida, et al. In this book, Benveniste argues that the Latin lexeme
negotium is a calque of the Greek lexeme ἀσχολία and conveys the same senses as the Greek
model – “occupation” and “difficulty”. He also argues that at a later stage the Latin negotium
became the equivalent of the Greek word πρᾶγμα (“business”). Furthermore, he says that the
compound neg-otium (“the absence of leisure”) had been formed independently of the
sentence negotium est. In this paper, I offer a novel explanation of the origin of the lexeme
negotium, examining the use of negotium in Plautus' comedies. Namely, I show two things:
first, the verbal phrase nec-otium est (from otium est) most likely presupposes the word
negotium, not vice versa; second, the Latin lexeme negotium is not a calque of the Greek
lexeme ἀσχολία.