Wilson Nicole
American Council of Learned Societies, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY 10028, USA.
J Hist Neurosci. 2013;22(2):129-43. doi: 10.1080/0964704X.2012.684610.
The semantics of pain are an important and interesting aspect of any language. Ancient Greek and Latin had multiple words for pain, which makes scrutinizing different meanings problematic. The ancient physician Galen approached this issue through the use of adjectives to describe the qualities for pain, instead of the words for pain themselves. The medical texts of Celsus and Caelius Aurelianus reveal that Latin also vested particular significance in qualifiers to distinguish between different types of pain. This article looks at the qualifying terms used for pain in the ancient Greek and Latin languages to reveal a sophisticated Greco-Roman vocabulary for pain.
疼痛的语义是任何语言中一个重要且有趣的方面。古希腊语和拉丁语中有多个表示疼痛的词汇，这使得仔细研究不同含义变得有问题。古代医生盖伦通过使用形容词来描述疼痛的性质，而不是疼痛本身的词汇来处理这个问题。塞尔苏斯和凯利乌斯·奥雷利亚努斯的医学文本表明，拉丁语在区分不同类型疼痛的限定词方面也赋予了特殊意义。本文着眼于古希腊语和拉丁语中用于描述疼痛的限定词，以揭示一套复杂的希腊 - 罗马疼痛词汇。
