Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>We investigate the possibility that contact with Greek through the translation of biblical texts may have played a role in the development of Latin <jats:italic>proprius</jats:italic> ‘personal’, ‘peculiar’ into a reflexive possessive adjective. A few centuries earlier, post‐Classical Greek witnesses a similar development with the adjective <jats:italic>ídios</jats:italic> ‘private’, ‘personal’: we determine that in the New Testament this adjective has innovative uses as a reflexive possessive, and we argue that this is a system‐internal development triggered by the loss of the reflexive possessive forms of Classical Greek. The comparison between the Greek original and the Latin <jats:italic>Vulgata</jats:italic> translation of the New Testament furthermore shows that Latin <jats:italic>proprius</jats:italic> was used, with just one exception, as a translation equivalent of Greek <jats:italic>ídios</jats:italic>. We conclude that contact through translation acts as a catalyst for a change that, also in Latin, responds to the system‐internal pressure created by the loss of an unambiguous 3rd person reflexive possessive.</jats:p>