...mystifying syntactical lacinae...

I looked, Amos. "Lacina" (Coming from Old French I suppose the plural would be the same as if it were Latin: Lacinae) is a name that today is spelled "Lacey" or some variant thereof which refers to a net-like fabric and is the adjectival form of the noun "lace". I would have used the word "lacunae", meaning gap or missing part, as in the statement "He is self-centered in opinion, with curious lacunae of astounding ignorance." "Lacunae" is the plural of the feminine Latin noun "Lacuna", meaning a hole or gap.