Reference edition:

Ps. Remmii Palaemonis Regulae, introduction, critical text and commentary by M. Rosellini, Hildesheim 2001 (Collectanea grammatica latina, 1)  

The work, which lacks a preface, is framed as a discourse addressed to a student by his teacher, who assumes a tone that is sometimes colloquial and encouraging; the text frequently exhibits the erroneous forms that the teacher explains should be avoided. A particular attention is given to euphony as a factor in the evolution of linguistic conventions, through which scholars seem intent on musicare Latinitatem. The material is subdivided into six sections: De nomine, De pronomine, De verbo, De participio, De adverbiis, and De praepositionibus. Conjunctions and interjections are absent, but the little work must not be thought shortened, because it is likely that there were not rules on the parts of speech that were not subject to declension and which were tied, like certain prepositions, to the use of different cases. The sections are of very unequal sizes, and are organised into general regulae and specific quaestiones. The work does not distinguish nouns by declension, which is a characteristic of the ars genre, and it considers verbs only through the present stem, grouping the forms into three conjugations (the third is subdivided into tertia correpta and producta). It pays particular attention only to the utriusque casus prepositions. The exposition does not include literary examples (there are only two Virgilian citations, and one reference to Terence as evidence of an unusual form). Essentially, the short work is intended as a quick pro-memoria for Latin native speakers who were novices in linguistic learning, with a limited educational curriculum aimed at a basic level. In the course of the tradition, probably in the transition between the medieval and humanist eras, these basic contents were enriched and adjusted with the addition of short passages from other grammatical texts (where identifiable, these have been attributed to Priscian’s Ars). These radically altered the facies of the text, by introducing, for example, the classification of nouns by declension; in consequence, the work was dated to the end of Late Antiquity, after Priscian. These modifications are present in all the editions, from the princeps of 1503 up to the Grammatici Latini by Keil; the discovery of two medieval witnesses without such modifications has allowed us to backdate the work and to recognise it as one of the earliest examples of its genre. [M. Rosellini, tr. C. Belanger]