Morphologies in contact in Bible translations. The nomina agentis in New Testament Latin

This article offers new insights on the expansion of derived forms in Biblical Latin, which some scholars explain by the preference for lengthened words or the emergence of Vulgar Latin. The comparative study of agent nouns in New Testament books shows that contact with Greek prompts translators to implement the potential of Latin morphology through reasoned choices and creative solutions. The almost one hundred -tor derivatives found in the Vulgate confirm that, in most cases, literal translation does not imply altering the features of Latin, but rather delving into the meanings and structures of Greek words to reproduce them ‘morpheme by morpheme’. Textual comparison highlights the asymmetry between the nouns in -της and their counterparts in -tor, which yet find formal and semantic correspondences with a wide range of Greek expressions. The general properties of nominalisations clarify the polyfunctionality of the Latin derivatives and the ways in which translators have exploited their versatility.