Latin as a dead language can be dissected analytically while living languages cannot

Evidence

Latin is learnt (or rather studied) by analysing it down to its smallest parts—analysing it like a dead thing, it is true, but all analyses made by children can only be of dead things. Besides, one must not forget that the life of the Romans is a myth which to some extent has already interested the child and continues to interest him, so that in the dead object there is always present a greater living being. Thus, the language is dead, it is analysed as an inert object, as a corpse on the dissecting table, but it continually comes to life again in examples and in stories. Could one study Italian in the same way? Impossible. No living language could be studied like Latin: it would be and would seem absurd. No child knows Latin when he starts to study it by these analytical methods. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 360

Categorization

• DEFINE: The corpse-on-the-dissecting-table metaphor defines the analytical method: only a dead object permits total fragmentation, yet it comes alive in examples and stories.