I. Phonology10.The Latin Accent.—It will be convenient to begin with some account of the most important discovery made since the application of scientific method to the study of Latin, for, though it is not strictly a part of phonology, it is wrapped up with much of the development both of the sounds and, by consequence, of the inflexions. It has long been observed (as we have seen § 4, iv. above) that the restriction of the word-accent in Latin to the last three syllables of the word, and its attachment to a long syllable in the penult, were certainly not its earliest traceable condition; between this, the classical system, and the comparative freedom with which the word-accent was placed in pro-ethnic Indo-European, there had intervened a period of first-syllable accentuation to which were due many of the characteristic contractions of Oscan and Umbrian, and in Latin the degradation of the vowels in such forms asaccentusfromad+cantusorpraecipitemfromprae+caput- (§ 19 below). R. von Planta (Osk.-Umbr. Grammatik, 1893, i. p. 594) pointed out that in Oscan also, by the 3rd centuryB.C., this first-syllable-accent had probably given way to a system which limited the word-accent in some such way as in classical Latin. But it remained for C. Exon, in a brilliant article (Hermathena(1906), xiv. 117, seq.), to deduce from the more precise stages of the change (which had been gradually noted, seee.g.F. Skutsch in Kroll’sAltertumswissenschaftimletzten Vierteljahrhundert, 1905) their actual effect on the language.11.Accent in Time of Plautus.—The rules which have been established for the position of the accent in the time of Plautus are these:(i.) The quantity of the final syllable had no effect on accent.(ii.) If the penult was long, it bore the accent (amābấmus).(iii.) If the penult was short, then(a) if the ante-penult was long, it bore the accent (amấbimus);(b) if the ante-penult was short, then(i.) if the ante-ante-penult was long, the accent was on the ante-penult (amīcítia); but(ii.) if the ante-ante-penult was also short, it bore the accent (cólumine, puéritia).Exon’s Laws of Syncope.—With these facts are now linked what may be called Exon’s Laws, viz:—In pre-Plautine Latinin all words or word-groups of four or more syllables whose chief accent is on one long syllable, a short unaccented medial vowel was syncopated; thus *quínquedecembecame *quínqdecemand thencequíndecim(for the -imsee § 19), *súps-emerebecame *súpsmereand thatsūmere(on -psm- v. inf.) *súrregere, *surregémus, and the like becamesurgere,surgémus, and the rest of the paradigm followed; so probablyvalidébonusbecamevaldébonus,exteráviambecameextráviam; so *supo-téndobecamesubtendo(pronouncedsup-tendo), *āridére, *avidére(fromāridus,avidus) becameārdére,audére. But the influence of cognate forms often interfered;posterí-diēbecamepostrídiē, but inposterórum,posterárumthe short syllable was restored by the influence of the trisyllabic cases,pósterus,pósterī, &c., to which the law did not apply. Conversely, the nom. *áridor(more correctly at this period *āridōs), which would not have been contracted, followed the form ofārdórem(from *āridórem),ārdére, &c.The same change produced the monosyllabic formsnec,ac,neu,seu, fromneque, &c., before consonants, since they had no accent of their own, but were always pronounced in one breath with the following word,neque tántumbecomingnec tantum, and the like. So in Plautus (and probably always in spoken Latin) the wordsnemp(e),ind(e),quipp(e),ill(e), are regularly monosyllables.12.Syncope of Final Syllables.—It is possible that the frequent but far from universal syncope of final syllables in Latin (especially before -s, as inmēns, which represents both Gr.μένοςand Sans. matís = Ind.-Eur.mṇtís, Eng.mind) is due also to this law operating on such combinations asbona mēnsand the like, but this has not yet been clearly shown. In any case the effects of any such phonetic change have been very greatly modified by analogical changes. The Oscan and Umbrian syncope of short vowels before finalsseems to be an independent change, at all events in its detailed working. The outbreak of the unconscious affection of slurring final syllables may have been contemporaneous.13.In post-Plautine Latinwords accented on the ante-antepenult:—(i.) suffered syncope in the short syllable following the accented syllable (bálineaebecamebálneae,puéritiabecamepuértia(Horace),cólumine,tégimine, &c., becamecúlmine,tégmine, &c., beside the trisyllabiccólumen,tégimen) unless(ii.) that short vowel waseori, followed by another vowel (as inpárietem,múlierem,Púteoli), when, instead of contraction, the accent shifted to the penult, which at a later stage of the language became lengthened,pariétemgiving Ital.paréếte, Fr.paroi,Puteóligiving Ital.Pozzuốli.The restriction of the accent to the last three syllables was completed by these changes, which did away with all the cases in which it had stood on the fourth syllable.14.The Law of the Brevis Brevians.—Next must be mentioned another great phonetic change, also dependent upon accent, which had come about before the time of Plautus, the law long known to students as theBrevis Brevians, which may be stated as follows (Exon,Hermathena(1903), xii. 491, following Skutsch in,e.g., Vollmöller’sJahresbericht für romanische Sprachwissenschaft, i. 33): a syllable long by nature or position, and preceded by a short syllable, was itself shortened if the word-accent fell immediately before or immediately after it—that is, on the preceding short syllable or on the next following syllable. The sequence of syllables need not be in the same word, but must be as closely connected in utterance as if it were. Thusmốdōbecamemódŏ,vŏlūptấtēmbecamevŏlŭ(p)tấtem,quḯd ēst?becamequid ĕst?either thesor thetor both being but faintly pronounced.It is clear that a great number of flexional syllables so shortened would have their quantity immediately restored by the analogy of the same inflexion occurring in words not of this particular shape; thus, for instance, the long vowel ofấmāand the like is due to that in other verbs (pulsā,agitā) not of iambic shape. So ablatives likemodö,sonōget back their -ō, while in particles likemodo, “only,”quōmodo, “how,” the shortened form remains. Conversely, the shortening of the final -ain the nom. sing. fem. of thea-declension (contrastlūnăwith Gr.χωρᾷ) was probably partly due to the influence of common forms likeeă,bonă,mală, which had come under the law.15.Effect on Verb Inflexion.—These processes had far-reaching effects on Latin inflexion. The chief of these was the creation of the type of conjugation known as thecapio-class. All these verbs were originally inflected likeaudio, but the accident of their short root-syllable, (in such early forms as *fúgīs, *fugītṹrus, *fugīsếtis, &c., becoming laterfúgĭs,fugĭtṹrus,fugĕrếtis) brought great parts of their paradigm under this law, and the rest followed suit; but true forms likefugīre,cupīre,morīri, never altogether died out of the spoken language. St Augustine, for instance, confessed in 387A.D.(Epist.iii. 5, quoted by Exon,Hermathena(1901), xi. 383,) that he does not know whethercupiorcupiriis the pass. inf. ofcupio. Hence we have Ital.fuggīre,morīre, Fr.fuir,mourir. (See further on this conjugation, C. Exon,l.c., and F. Skutsch,Archiv für lat. Lexicographie, xii. 210, two papers which were written independently.)16. The question has been raised how far the true phonetic shortening appears in Plautus, produced not by word-accent but by metrical ictus—e.g.whether the reading is to be trusted in such lines asAmph.761, which gives usdedisseas the first foot (tribrach) of a trochaic line “because the metrical ictus fell on the syllableded-”—but this remarkable theory cannot be discussed here. See the articles cited and also F. Skutsch,Forschungen zu Latein. Grammatik und Metrik, i. (1892); C. Exon,Hermathena(1903) xii. p. 492, W. M. Lindsay,Captivi(1900), appendix.In the history of the vowels and diphthongs in Latin we must distinguish the changes which came about independently of accent and those produced by the preponderance of accent in another syllable.17.Vowel Changes independent of Accent.—In the former category the following are those of chief importance:—(i.)ĭbecameĕ(a) when final, as inant-ebeside Gr.ἀντί,trīstebesidestrīsti-s, contrasted withe.g., the Greek neuterἴδρι(the final -eof the infinitive—regere, &c.—is the -ĭof the locative, just as in the so-called ablativesgenere, &c.); (b) before -r- which has arisen from -s-, as incinerisbesidecinis,cinisculus;serōbeside Gr.ἴ(σ)ημι(Ind.-Eur. *si-sēmi, a reduplicated non-thematic present).(ii.) Finalŏbecameĕ; imperativesequere= Gr.ἔπε(σ)ο; Lat.illemay contain the old pronoun *so, “he,” Gr.ὁ, Sans.sa(otherwise Skutsch,Glotta, i. Hefte 2-3).(iii.)elbecameolwhen followed by any sound savee,iorl, as involō,voltbesidevelle;colōbeside Gr.τέλλομαι,πολεῖν, Att.τέλος;colōnusfor *quelōnus, besideinquilīnusfor *en-quēlenus.(iv.)ebecamei(i.) before a nasal followed by a palatal or velar consonant (tingo, Gr.τέγγω;in-cipiofrom *en-capio); (ii.) under certain conditions not yet precisely defined, one of which wasiin a following syllable (nihil,nisi,initium). From these formsin- spread and banisheden-, the earlier form.(v.) The “neutral vowel” (“schwa Indo-Germanicum”) which arose in pro-ethnic Indo-European from the reduction of longā,ēorōin unaccented syllables (as in the -tósparticiples of such roots asstā-,dhē-,dō-, *stƏtós, *dhƏtós, *dƏtós) becameain Latin (status con-ditus[from *con-dhatos],datus), and it is the same sound which is represented byain most of the forms ofdō(damus,dabō, &c.).(vi.) When a long vowel came to stand before another vowel in the same word through loss ofḭorṷ, it was always shortened; thus the -eōof intransitive verbs likecandeō,caleōis for -ēḭō(where theēis identical with the η in Gr.ἐφάνην,ἐμάνμν) and was thus confused with the causative -eiō(as inmoneō, “I make to think,” &c.), where the shorteis original. Soaudīuībecameaudīīand thenceaudiī(the form audīvī would have disappeared altogether but for being restored fromaudīveram, &c.; converselyaudieramis formed fromaudiī). In certain cases the vowels contracted, as intrēs,partēs, &c. with -ēsfromeḭes, *amōfromamā(ḭ)ō.18.Of the Diphthongs.(vii.)eubecameouin pro-ethnic Italic, Lat.novus: Gr.νέος, Lat.novem, Umb.nuviper(i.e.noviper), “usque adChanges of the diphthongs independent of accent.noviens”: Gr.(ἐν-)νέα; in unaccented syllables this -ov- sank to -u(v)- as indếnuōfromdế novō,suus(which is rarely anything but an enclitic word), Old Lat.sovos: Gr.ἑ(ϝ)ός.(viii.)ou, whether original or fromeu, when in one syllable became -ū-, probably about 200B.C., as indūcō, Old Lat.doucō, Goth,tiuhan, Eng.tow, Ind.-Eur. *deṷcō.(ix.)eibecameī(as indīcō, Old Lat.deico: Gr.δείκ-νυμι,fīdo: Gr.πείθομαι, Ind.-Eur. *bheidhō) just before the time of Lucilius, who prescribes the spellingspuerei(nom. plur.) butpuerī(gen. sing.), which indicates that the two forms were pronounced alike in his time, but that the traditional distinction in spelling had been more or less preserved. But after his time, since the sound ofeiwas merely that ofī,eiis continually used merely to denote a longī, even where, as infaxeisfor faxīs, there never had been any diphthongal sound at all.(x.) In rustic Latin (Volscian and Sabine)aubecameōas in the vulgar termsexplōdere,plōstrum. Hence arose interesting doublets of meaning;—lautus(the Roman form), “elegant,” butlōtus, “washed”;haustus, “draught,” buthōstus(Cato), “the season’s yield of fruit.”(xi.)oibecameoeand thenceūsome time after Plautus, as inūnus, Old Lat.oenus: Gr.οἰνή“ace.” In Plautus the forms have nearly all been modernized, save in special cases,e.g.inTrin.i. 1, 2,immoene facinus, “a thankless task,” has not been changed toimmunebecause that meaning had died out of the adjective so thatimmune facinuswould have made nonsense; but at the end of the same lineutilehas replacedoetile. Similarly in a small group of words the old form was preserved through their frequent use in legal or religious documents where tradition was strictly preserved—poena,foedus(neut.),foedus(adj.), “ill-omened.” So the archaic and poeticalmoenia, “ramparts,” beside the true classical formmūnia, “duties”; the historicPoenibeside the living and frequently usedPūnicum(bellum)—an example which demonstrates conclusively (paceSommer) that the variation betweenūandoeis not due to any difference in the surrounding sounds.(xii.)aibecameaeand this in rustic and later Latin (2nd or 3rd centuryA.D.) simpleē, though of an open quality—Gr.αἴθος,αἴθω, Lat.aedēs(originally “the place for the fire”); the country forms ofhaedus,praetorwereedus,pretor(Varro,Ling. Lat.v. 97, Lindsay,Lat. Lang.p. 44).19.Vowels and Diphthongs in unaccented Syllables.—The changes of the short vowels and of the diphthongs in unaccented syllables are too numerous and complex to be set forth here. Some took place under the first-syllable system of accent, some later (§§ 9, 10). Typical examples arepepErcifrom *péparcaiandónustusfrom *ónostos(before two consonants);concInofrom *cóncanoandhospItIsfrom *hóstipotes,legImusbeside Gr.λέγομεν(before one consonant);SicUlifrom *Siceloi(before a thickl, see § 17, 3);dilIgItfrom *dísleget(contrast, however, the preservation of the secondeinneglEgIt);occUpatfrom *opcapat(contrastaccipitwithiin the following syllable); the varying spelling inmonumentumandmonimentum,maxumusandmaximus, points to an intermediate sound (ü) betweenuandi(cf. Quint. i. 4. 8, readingoptumumandoptimum[notopimum] with W. M. Lindsay,Latin Language§§ 14, 16, seq.), which could not be correctly represented in spelling; this difference may, however, be due merely to the effect of differences in the neighbouring sounds, an effect greatly obscured by analogical influences.Inscriptions of the 4th or 3rd century,B.C.which show original -esand -osin final syllables (e.g.Venerĕs, gen. sing.,nāvebosabl. pl.) compared with the usual forms in -is, -usa century later, give us roughly the date of these changes. But final -os, -om, remained after -u- (andv) down to 50B.C.as inservos.20. Special mention should be made of the change of -rĭ- and -ro- to -er- (incertusfrom *encritos;ager,ācerfrom *agros, *ācris; thefeminineācriswas restored in Latin (though not in North Oscan) by the analogy of other adjectives, liketristis, while the masculineācerwas protected by the parallel masculine forms of the -o- declension, liketener,niger[from *teneros, *nigros]).21. Long vowels generally remained unchanged, as incompāgo,condōno.22. Of the diphthongs,aiandoiboth sank toei, and with originaleifurther toī, in unaccented syllables, as inAchivifrom Gr.Ἀχαιϝοί,olīivom, earlier *oleivom(borrowed into Gothic and there becomingalēv) from Gr.ἔλαιϝον. This gives us interesting chronological data, since theel- must have changed tool- (§ 16. 3) before the change of -ai- to -ei-, and that before the change of the accent from the first syllable to the penultimate (§ 9); and the borrowing took place after -ai- had become -ei-, but before -eivomhad become -eum, as it regularly did before the time of Plautus.But cases ofai,ae, which arose later than the change toei,ī, were unaffected by it; thus the nom. plur. of the first declension originally ended in -ās(as in Oscan), but was changed at some period before Plautus to -aeby the influence of the pronominal nom. plur. ending -aeinquae?hae, &c., which was accented in these monosyllables and had therefore been preserved. The history of the -aeof the dative, genitive and locative is hardly yet clear (see Exon,Hermathena(1905), xiii. 555; K. Brugmann,Grundriss, 1st ed. ii. 571, 601).The diphthongsau,ouin unaccented syllables sank to -u-, as ininclūdōbesideclaudō; the formclūdō, taken from the compounds, supersededclaudoaltogether after Cicero’s time. Socūdō, taken fromincūdō,excūdō, banished the older *caudō, “I cut, strike,” with which is probably connectedcauda, “the striking member, tail,” and from which comescaussa, “a cutting, decision, legal case,” whose -ss- shows that it is derived from a root ending in a dental (see §25 (b) below and Conway,Verner’s Law in Italy, p. 72).Consonants.—Passing now to the chief changes of the consonants we may notice the following points:—23. Consonanti(wrongly writtenj; there is nog-sound in the letter), conveniently writtenḭby phoneticians,(i.) was lost between vowels, as intrēsfor *treḭes, &c. (§ 17. 6);(ii.) in combination: -mḭ- became -ni-, as inveniö, from Ind.-Eur. *Ƨṷmḭo, “I come,” Sans.gam-, Eng.come; -nḭ- probably (under certain conditions at least) became -nd-, as intendōbeside Gr.τείνω,fendō= Gr.θείνω, and in the gerundive stem -endus, -undus, probably for -enḭos, -onḭos; cf. the Sanskrit gerundive in -an-īya-s; -gḭ-, -dḭ- became -ḭ- as inmāiorfrom *mag-ior,pēiorfrom *ped-ior;(iii.) otherwise -ḭ- after a consonant became generally syllabic (-iḭ-), as incapiō(trisyllabic) beside Goth.hafya.24. Consonantu(formerly represented by Englishv), conveniently writtenṷ,(i.) was lost between similar vowels when the first was accented, as inaudīui, which becameaudiī(§ 17 [6]), but not inamāuī, nor inavārus.(ii.) in combination:dṷbecameb, as inbonus,bellum, O. Lat.dṷonus, *dṷellum(though the poets finding this written form in old literary sources treated it as trisyllabic);pṷ-,fṷ-,bṷ-, lost theṷ, as inap-erio,op-eriobeside Lith. -veriu, “I open,” Osc.veru, “gate,” and in the verbal endings -bam, -bō, from -bhṷ-ām, -bhṷō(with the root of Lat.fui), andfīo,du-bius,super-bus,vasta-bundus, &c., from the same; -sṷ- between vowels (at least when the second was accented) disappeared (see below § 25 (a), iv.), as inpruīnaforprusuīna, cf. Eng.fros-t, Sans,pruṣvā, “hoar-frost.” ContrastMinérvafrom an earlier *menes-ṷā,sṷe-,sṷo-, both became so-, as insorōor(em) beside Sans.svasār-am, Ger.schwes-t-er, Eng.sister,sordēs, beside O. Ger.swart-s, mod.schwarz. -ṷo- in final syllables became -u-, as incumfromquom,parumfromparṷom; but in the declensional forms -ṷu- was commonly restored by the analogy of the other cases, thus (a)serṷos,serṷom,serṷībecame (b) *serus, *serum, *serṷi, but finally (c)serṷus,serṷum,serṷi.(iii.) In the 2nd centuryA.D., Lat.v(i.e.ṷ) had become a voiced labio-dental fricative, like Eng.v; and the voiced labial plosivebhad broken down (at least in certain positions) into the same sound; hence they are frequently confused as in spellings likeveneforbene,BictorinusforVictorinus.25. (a) Latins(i.) becamerbetween vowels between 450 and 350B.C.(for the date see R. S. Conway,Verner’s Law in Italy, pp. 61-64), asāra, beside O. Lat.āsa,generisfrom *geneses, Gr.γένεος;eram,erōfor *esām, *esō, and so in the verbal endings -erām, -erō, -erim. But a considerable number of words came into Latin, partly from neighbouring dialects, with -s- between vowels, after 350B.C., when the change ceased, and so show -s-, asrosa(probably from S. Oscan for *rodḭa“rose-bush” cf. Gr.ῥόδον),cāseus, “cheese,”miser, a term of abuse, beside Gr.μυσαρός(probably also borrowed from south Italy), and many more, especially the participles in -sus(fūsus), where the -s- was -ss- at the time of the change of -s- to -r- (so incausa, see above). All attempts to explain the retention of the -s- otherwise must be said to have failed (e.g.the theory of accentual difference inVerner’s Law in Italy, or that of dissimilation, given by Brugmann,Kurze vergl. Gram.p. 242).(ii.)srbecameþr(= Eng.thrinthrow) in pro-ethnic Italic, and this became initiallyfr- as infrīgus, Gr.ῥῖγος(Ind.-Eur. *srīgos), but medially -br-, as infunebris, fromfunus, stemfunes-.(iii.) -rs-,ls- became -rr-, -ll-, as inferre,velle, for *fer-se, *vel-se(cf.es-se).(iv.) Beforem,n,l, andv, -s- vanished, having previously caused the loss of any preceding plosive or -n-, and the preceding vowel, if short, was lengthened as inprīmusfrom *prismos, Paelig.prismu, “prima,” besidepris-cus.iūmentumfrom O. Lat.iouxmentum, older *ieugsmentom; cf. Gr.ζεῦγμα,ζύγον, Lat.iugum,iungo.lūnafrom *leucsnā-, Praenest,losna, Zendraoχsna-; cf. Gr.λεῦκος, “white-ness” neut.e.g.λευκός, “white,” Lat.lūceō.tēlumfrom *tēns-lomor *tends-lom,trānārefrom *trāns-nāre.sēvirīfrom *sex-virī,ēvehōfrom *ex-vehō, and soē-mittō,ē-līdō,ē-numerō, and from these forms arose the propositionēinstead ofex.(v.) Similarly -sd- became -d-, as inīdemfromis-dem.(vi.) Beforen-,m-,l-, initiallys- disappeared, as innūbobeside Old Church Slavonicsnubiti, “to love, pay court to”;mīrorbeside Sans,smáyatē, “laughs,” Eng.smi-le;lūbricusbeside Goth,sliupan, Eng.slip.(b) Latin -ss- arose from an original -t+t-, -d+t-, -dh+t- (except before -r), as inmissus, earlier *mit-tos;tōnsus, earlier *tond-tos, buttonstrīxfrom *tond-trīx. After long vowels this -ss- became a single -s- some time before Cicero (who wrotecaussa[see above],divissio, &c., but probably only pronounced them with -s-, since the -ss- came to be written single directly after his time).26. Of the Indo-European velars the breathedqwas usually preserved in Latin with a labial addition of -ṷ- (as insequor, Gr.ἕπομαι, Goth,saihvan, Eng.see;quod, Gr.ποδ-(απός), Eng.what); but the voiced Ƨṷremained (as -gu-) only after -n- (unguobeside Ir.imb, “butter”) and (asg) beforer,l, andu(as ingravis, Gr.βαρύς;glans, Gr.βάλανος;legūmen, Gr.λοβός,λεβίνθος). Elsewhere it becamev, as inveniō(see § 23, ii.),nūdusfrom *novedos, Eng.naked. Hencebōs(Sans.gāus, Eng.cow) must be regarded as a farmer’s word borrowed from one of the country dialects (e.g.Sabine); the pure Latin would be *vōs, and its oblique cases,e.g.acc. *vovem, would be inconveniently close in sound to the word for sheepovem.27. The treatment of the Indo-European voiced aspirates (bh,dh,ḡhƧh) in Latin is one of the most marked characteristics of the language, which separates it from all the other Italic dialects, since the fricative sounds, which represented the Indo-European aspirates in pro-ethnic Italic, remained fricatives medially if they remained at all in that position in Oscan and Umbrian, whereas in Latin they were nearly always changed into voiced explosives. Thus—Ind.-Eur.bh: initially Lat.f- (ferō; Gr.φέρω).medially Lat. -b- (tibi; Umb.tefe; Sans,tubhy-(am), “to thee”; the same suffix in Gr.βίη-φι, &c.).Ind.-Eur.dh: initially Lat.f- (fa-c-ere,fē-c-ī; Gr.θετός(instead of *θατός),ἔθη-κα).medially -d- (medius; Osc.mefio-; Gr.μέσσος,μέσοςfrom *μεθιος); except afteru(iubērebesideiussusfor *ḭudh-tos; Sans.yốdhati, “rouses to battle”); beforel(stabulum, but Umb.staflo-, with the suffix of Gr.οτέργηθρον, &c.); before or afterr(verbum: Umb.verfale: Eng.word. Lat.glaber[v. inf].: Ger.glatt: Eng.glad).Ind.-Eur.ḡh: initiallyh- (humī: Gr.χαμαί); except before -u- (fundo: Gr.χέ(ϝ)ω,χύτρα).medially -h- (veho: Gr.ἔχω,ὄχος; cf. Eng.wagon); except after -n- (fingere: Osc.feiho-, “wall”: Gr.θιγγάνω: Ind.-Eur.dheiĝh-,dhinĝh-); and beforel(fīg(u)lus, from the same root).Ind.-Eurgṷh: initiallyf- (formusandfurnus, “oven”, Gr.θερμός,θέρμη, cf. LigurianBormiō, “a place with hot springs,”Bormanus, “a god of hot springs”;fendō: Gr.θείνω, φόνος, πρόσ-φατος).mediallyv, -gu- or -g- just as Ind.-Eur. Ƨṷ(ninguere,nivembeside Gr.νίφα,νείφει;frāgrārebeside Gr.ὀσφραίνομαι[ὀσ- forods-, cf. Lat.odor], a reduplicated verb from a rootƧṷhra-).For the “non-labializing velars” (Hostis,conGius, Glaber) reference must be made to the fuller accounts in the handbooks.28.Authorities.—This summary account of the chief points in Latin phonology may serve as an introduction to its principles, and give some insight into the phonetic character of the language. For systematic study reference must be made to the standard books, Karl Brugmann,Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der Indo-Germanischen Sprachen(vol. i.,Lautlehre, 2nd ed. Strassburg, 1897; Eng. trans. of ed. 1 by Joseph Wright, Strassburg, 1888) and hisKurze vergleichende Grammatik(Strassburg, 1902); these contain still by far the best accounts of Latin; Max Niederman,Précis de phonétique du Latin(Paris, 1906), a very convenient handbook, excellently planned; F. Sommer,Lateinische Laut- und Flexionslehre(Heidelberg, 1902), containing many new conjectures; W. M. Lindsay,The Latin Language(Oxford, 1894), translated into German (with corrections) by Nohl (Leipzig, 1897), a most valuable collection of material, especially from the ancient grammarians, but not always accurate in phonology; F. Stolz, vol. i. of a jointHistorische Grammatik d. lat. Spracheby Blase, Landgraf, Stolz and others (Leipzig, 1894); Neue-Wagener,Formenlehre d. lat. Sprache(3 vols., 3rd ed.Leipzig, 1888, foll.); H. J. Roby’sLatin Grammar(from Plautus to Suetonius; London, 7th ed., 1896) contains a masterly collection of material, especially in morphology, which is still of great value. W. G. Hale and C. D. Buck’sLatin Grammar(Boston, 1903), though on a smaller scale, is of very great importance, as it contains the fruit of much independent research on the part of both authors; in the difficult questions of orthography it was, as late as 1907, the only safe guide.II. MorphologyIn morphology the following are the most characteristic Latin innovations:—29.In nouns.(i.) The complete loss of the dual number, save for a survival in the dialect of Praeneste (C.I.L.xiv. 2891, = Conway,Ital. Dial.p. 285, whereQ. k. Cestio Q. f.seems to be nom. dual); soC.I.L.xi. 67065, T. C. Vomanio, see W. Schulze,Lat. Eigennamen, p. 117.(ii.) The introduction of new forms in the gen. sing, of the -o- stems (dominī), of the -ā- stems (mēnsae) and in the nom. plural of the same two declensions; innovations mostly derived from the pronominal declension.(iii.) The development of an adverbial formation out of what was either an instrumental or a locative of the -o- stems, as inlongē. And here may be added the other adverbial developments, in -m(palam,sensim) probably accusative, and -iter, which is simply the accusative ofiter, “way,” crystallized, as is shown especially by the fact that though in the end it attached itself particularly to adjectives of the third declension (molliter), it appears also from adjectives of the second declension whose meaning made their combination withiterespecially natural, such aslongiter,firmiter,largiter(cf. Englishstraightway,longways). The only objections to this derivation which had any real weight (see F. Skutsch,De nominibus no- suffixi ope formatis, 1890, pp. 4-7) have been removed by Exon’s Law (§ 11), which supplies a clear reason why the contracted typeconstanterarose in and was felt to be proper to Participial adverbs, whilefirmiterand the like set the type for those formed from adjectives.(iv.) The development of the so-called fifth declension by a re-adjustment of the declension of the nouns formed with the suffix -iē-:ia- (which appears, for instance, in all the Greek feminine participles, and in a more abstract sense in words likemāteriēs) to match the inflexion of two old root-nounsrēsanddiēs, the stems of which were originallyrēḭ- (Sans.rās,rāyas, cf. Lat.reor) anddiēṷ-.(v.) The disuse of the -ti- suffix in an abstract sense. The great number of nouns which Latin inherited formed with this suffix were either (1) marked as abstract by the addition of the further suffix -ōn- (as innatiobeside the Gr.γνὴσι-ος, &c.) or else (2) confined to a concrete sense; thusvectis, properly “a carrying, lifting,” came to mean “pole, lever”;ratis, properly a “reckoning, devising,” came to mean “an (improvised) raft” (contrastratiō);postis, a “placing,” came to mean “post.”(vi.) The confusion of the consonantal stems with stems ending in -ĭ-. This was probably due very largely to the forms assumed through phonetic changes by the gen. sing. and the nom. and acc. plural. Thus at say 300B.C.the inflexions probably were:conson. stem-ĭ- stemNom. plur.*rēg-ĕshost-ēsAcc. plur.rĕg-ēshost-īsThe confusing difference of signification of the long -ēsending led to a levelling of these and other forms in the two paradigms.(vii.) The disuse of theudeclension (Gr.ἡδύς,στάχυς) in adjectives; this group in Latin, thanks to its feminine form (Sans. fem.svādvī, “sweet”), was transferred to theideclension (suavis,gravis,levis,dulcis).30.In verbs.(i.) The disuse of the distinction between the personal endings of primary and secondary tenses, the -tand -nt, for instance, being used for the third person singular and plural respectively in all tenses and moods of the active. This change was completed after the archaic period, since we find in the oldest inscriptions -dregularly used in the third person singular of past tenses,e.g.deded,fecedin place of the laterdedit,fecit; and since in Oscan the distinction was preserved to the end, both in singular and plural,e.g.faamat(perhaps meaning “auctionatur”), butdeded(“dedit”). It is commonly assumed from the evidence of Greek and Sanskrit (Gr.ἕστι, Sans.astibeside Lat. est) that the primary endings in Latin have lost a final -i, partly or wholly by some phonetic change.(ii.) The non-thematic conjugation is almost wholly lost, surviving only in a few forms of very common use,est, “is”;ēst, “eats”;volt, “wills,” &c.(iii.) The complete fusion of the aorist and perfect forms, and in the same tense the fusion of active and middle endings; thustutudī, earlier *tutudai, is a true middle perfect;dīxīis ansaorist with the same ending attached;dīxitis an aorist active;tutudistiis a conflation of perfect and aorist with a middle personal ending.(iv.) The development of perfects in -uīand -vī, derived partly from true perfects of roots ending invoru,e.g.mōvīruī. For the origin ofmonuīsee Exon,Hermathena(1901), xi. 396 sq.(v.) The complete fusion of conjunctive and optative into a single mood, the subjunctive;regam, &c., are conjunctive forms, whereasrexerim,rexissemare certainly andregeremmost probably optative; the origin ofamemand the like is still doubtful. Notice, however, that true conjunctive forms were often used as futures,regēs,reget, &c., and also the simple thematic conjunctive in forms likeerō,rexerō, &c.(vi.) The development of the future in -boand imperfect in -bamby compounding some form of the verb, possibly the Present Participle with forms from the root offuī, *amans-fuobecomingamabō, *amans-fṷāmbecomingamābamat a very early period of Latin; see F. Skutsch,Atti d. Congresso Storico Intern.(1903), vol. ii. p. 191.(vii.) We have already noticed the rise of the passive in -r(§ 5 (d)). Observe, however, that several middle forms have been pressed into the service, partly because the -r- in them which had come from -s- seemed to give them a passive colour (legere= Gr.λέγε(σ)ο, Atticλέγου). The interesting forms in -minīare a confusion of two distinct inflexions, namely, an old infinitive in -menai, used for the imperative, and the participial -menoi, masculine, -menai, feminine, used with the verb “to be” in place of the ordinary inflexions. Since these forms had all come to have the same shape, through phonetic change, their meanings were fused; the imperative forms being restricted to the plural, and the participial forms being restricted to the second person.31.Past Participle Passive.—Next should be mentioned the great development in the use of the participle in -tos(factus,fusus, &c.). This participle was taken withsumto form the perfect tenses of the passive, in which, thanks partly to the fusion of perfect and aorist active, a past aorist sense was also evolved. This reacted on the participle itself giving it a prevailingly past colour, but its originally timeless use survives in many places,e.g.in the participleratus, which has as a rule no past sense, and more definitely still in such passages as Vergil,Georg.i. 206 (vectis),Aen.vi. 22 (ductis), both of which passages demand a present sense. It is to be noticed also that in the earliest Latin, as in Greek and Sanskrit, thepassivemeaning, though the commonest, is not universal. Many traces of this survive in classical Latin, of which the chief are1. The active meaning of deponent participles, in spite of the fact that some of them (e.g.adeptus,ēmēnsus,expertus) have also a passive sense, and2. The familiar use of these participles by the Augustan poets with an accusative attached (galeam indutus,traiectus lora). Here no doubt the use of the Greek middle influenced the Latin poets, but no doubt they thought also that they were reviving an old Latin idiom.32.Future Participle.—Finally may be mentioned together (a) the development of the future participle active (in -ūrus, never so freely used as the other participles, being rare in the ablative absolute even in Tacitus) from an old infinitive in -ūrum(“scio inimicos meos hoc dicturum,” C. Gracchus (and others)apudGell. 1. 7, and Priscian ix. 864 (p. 475 Keil), which arose from combining the dative or locative of the verbal noun in -tuwith an old infinitiveesom“esse” which survives in Oscan, *dictu esombecomingdicturum. This was discovered by J. P. Postgate (Class. Review, v. 301, andIdg. Forschungeniv. 252). (b) From the same infinitival accusative with the post-position -dō, meaning “to,” “for,” “in” (cf.quandōfor *quam-do, and Eng.to, Germ,zu) was formed the so-called gerundagen-dō, “for doing,” “in doing,” which was taken for a Case, and so gave rise to the accusative and genitive in -dumand -dī. The form in -dō still lives in Italian as an indeclinable present participle. The modal and purposive meanings of -dōappear in the uses of the gerund.The authorities giving a fuller account of Latin morphology are the same as those cited in § 28 above, save that the reader must consult the second volume of Brugmann’sGrundriss, which in the English translation (by Conway and Rouse, Strassburg, 1890-1896) is divided into volumes ii, iii. and iv.; and that Niedermann does not deal with morphology.III.SyntaxThe chief innovations of syntax developed in Latin may now be briefly noted.33.In nouns.(i.) Latin restricted the various Cases to more sharply defined uses than either Greek or Sanskrit; the free use of the internal accusative in Greek (e.g.ἁβρὸν βαίνειν, τυφλὸς τὰ ὦτα) is strange to Latin, save in poetical imitations of Greek; and so is the freedom of the Sanskrit instrumental, which often covers meanings expressed in Latin bycum,ab,inter.(ii.) The syncretism of the so-called ablative case, which combines the uses of (a) the true ablative which ended in -d(O. Lat.praidād); (b) the instrumental sociative (plural forms likedominīs, the ending being that of Sans.çivāiş); and (c) the locative (noct-e, “at night”;itiner-e, “on the road,” with the ending of Greekἐλπίδ-ι). The so-called absolute construction is mainly derived from the second of these, since it is regularly attached fairly closely to the subject of the clause in which it stands, and when accompanied by a passive participle most commonly denotes an action performed by that subject. But the other two sources cannot be altogether excluded (orto sole, “starting from sunrise”;campo patente, “on, in sight of, the open plain”).34.In verbs.(i.) The rich development and fine discrimination of the uses of the subjunctive mood, especially (a) in indirect questions (based ondirect deliberative questions and not fully developed by the time of Plautus, who constantly writes such phrases asdic quis esfor the Ciceroniandic quis sis); (b) after the relative of essential definition (non is sum qui negem) and the circumstantialcum(“at such a time as that”). The two uses (a) and (b) with (c) the common Purpose and Consequence-clauses spring from the “prospective” or “anticipatory” meaning of the mood. (d) Observe further its use in subordinate oblique clauses (irascitur quod abierim, “he is angry because,as he asserts, I went away”). This and all the uses of the mood in oratio obliqua are derived partly from (a) and (b) and partly from the (e) Unreal Jussive of past time (Non illi argentum redderem? Non redderes, “Ought I not to have returned the money to him?” “You certainly ought not to have,” or, more literally, “You were not to”).On this interesting chapter of Latin syntax see W. G. Hale’s “Cum-constructions” (Cornell University Studies in Classical Philology, No. 1, 1887-1889), andThe Anticipatory Subjunctive(Chicago, 1894).(ii.) The complex system of oratio obliqua with the sequence of tenses (on the growth of the latter see Conway,Livy II., Appendix ii., Cambridge, 1901).(iii.) The curious construction of the gerundive (ad capiendam urbem), originally a present (and future?) passive participle, but restricted in its use by being linked with the so-called gerund (see § 32,b). The use, but probably not the restriction, appears in Oscan and Umbrian.(iv.) The favourite use of the impersonal passive has already been mentioned (§ 5, iv.).35. The chief authorities for the study of Latin syntax are: Brugmann’sKurze vergl. Grammatik, vol. ii. (see § 28); Landgraf’sHistorische lat. Syntax(vol. ii. of the jointHist. Gram., see § 28); Hale and Buck’sLatin Grammar(see § 28); Draeger’sHistorische lat. Syntax, 2 vols. (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1878-1881), useful but not always trustworthy; the Latin sections in Delbrück’sVergleichende Syntax, being the third volume of Brugmann’sGrundriss(§ 28).
I. Phonology
10.The Latin Accent.—It will be convenient to begin with some account of the most important discovery made since the application of scientific method to the study of Latin, for, though it is not strictly a part of phonology, it is wrapped up with much of the development both of the sounds and, by consequence, of the inflexions. It has long been observed (as we have seen § 4, iv. above) that the restriction of the word-accent in Latin to the last three syllables of the word, and its attachment to a long syllable in the penult, were certainly not its earliest traceable condition; between this, the classical system, and the comparative freedom with which the word-accent was placed in pro-ethnic Indo-European, there had intervened a period of first-syllable accentuation to which were due many of the characteristic contractions of Oscan and Umbrian, and in Latin the degradation of the vowels in such forms asaccentusfromad+cantusorpraecipitemfromprae+caput- (§ 19 below). R. von Planta (Osk.-Umbr. Grammatik, 1893, i. p. 594) pointed out that in Oscan also, by the 3rd centuryB.C., this first-syllable-accent had probably given way to a system which limited the word-accent in some such way as in classical Latin. But it remained for C. Exon, in a brilliant article (Hermathena(1906), xiv. 117, seq.), to deduce from the more precise stages of the change (which had been gradually noted, seee.g.F. Skutsch in Kroll’sAltertumswissenschaftimletzten Vierteljahrhundert, 1905) their actual effect on the language.
11.Accent in Time of Plautus.—The rules which have been established for the position of the accent in the time of Plautus are these:
(i.) The quantity of the final syllable had no effect on accent.(ii.) If the penult was long, it bore the accent (amābấmus).(iii.) If the penult was short, then
(i.) The quantity of the final syllable had no effect on accent.
(ii.) If the penult was long, it bore the accent (amābấmus).
(iii.) If the penult was short, then
(a) if the ante-penult was long, it bore the accent (amấbimus);(b) if the ante-penult was short, then
(a) if the ante-penult was long, it bore the accent (amấbimus);
(b) if the ante-penult was short, then
(i.) if the ante-ante-penult was long, the accent was on the ante-penult (amīcítia); but(ii.) if the ante-ante-penult was also short, it bore the accent (cólumine, puéritia).
(i.) if the ante-ante-penult was long, the accent was on the ante-penult (amīcítia); but
(ii.) if the ante-ante-penult was also short, it bore the accent (cólumine, puéritia).
Exon’s Laws of Syncope.—With these facts are now linked what may be called Exon’s Laws, viz:—
In pre-Plautine Latinin all words or word-groups of four or more syllables whose chief accent is on one long syllable, a short unaccented medial vowel was syncopated; thus *quínquedecembecame *quínqdecemand thencequíndecim(for the -imsee § 19), *súps-emerebecame *súpsmereand thatsūmere(on -psm- v. inf.) *súrregere, *surregémus, and the like becamesurgere,surgémus, and the rest of the paradigm followed; so probablyvalidébonusbecamevaldébonus,exteráviambecameextráviam; so *supo-téndobecamesubtendo(pronouncedsup-tendo), *āridére, *avidére(fromāridus,avidus) becameārdére,audére. But the influence of cognate forms often interfered;posterí-diēbecamepostrídiē, but inposterórum,posterárumthe short syllable was restored by the influence of the trisyllabic cases,pósterus,pósterī, &c., to which the law did not apply. Conversely, the nom. *áridor(more correctly at this period *āridōs), which would not have been contracted, followed the form ofārdórem(from *āridórem),ārdére, &c.
The same change produced the monosyllabic formsnec,ac,neu,seu, fromneque, &c., before consonants, since they had no accent of their own, but were always pronounced in one breath with the following word,neque tántumbecomingnec tantum, and the like. So in Plautus (and probably always in spoken Latin) the wordsnemp(e),ind(e),quipp(e),ill(e), are regularly monosyllables.
12.Syncope of Final Syllables.—It is possible that the frequent but far from universal syncope of final syllables in Latin (especially before -s, as inmēns, which represents both Gr.μένοςand Sans. matís = Ind.-Eur.mṇtís, Eng.mind) is due also to this law operating on such combinations asbona mēnsand the like, but this has not yet been clearly shown. In any case the effects of any such phonetic change have been very greatly modified by analogical changes. The Oscan and Umbrian syncope of short vowels before finalsseems to be an independent change, at all events in its detailed working. The outbreak of the unconscious affection of slurring final syllables may have been contemporaneous.
13.In post-Plautine Latinwords accented on the ante-antepenult:—
(i.) suffered syncope in the short syllable following the accented syllable (bálineaebecamebálneae,puéritiabecamepuértia(Horace),cólumine,tégimine, &c., becamecúlmine,tégmine, &c., beside the trisyllabiccólumen,tégimen) unless
(ii.) that short vowel waseori, followed by another vowel (as inpárietem,múlierem,Púteoli), when, instead of contraction, the accent shifted to the penult, which at a later stage of the language became lengthened,pariétemgiving Ital.paréếte, Fr.paroi,Puteóligiving Ital.Pozzuốli.
The restriction of the accent to the last three syllables was completed by these changes, which did away with all the cases in which it had stood on the fourth syllable.
14.The Law of the Brevis Brevians.—Next must be mentioned another great phonetic change, also dependent upon accent, which had come about before the time of Plautus, the law long known to students as theBrevis Brevians, which may be stated as follows (Exon,Hermathena(1903), xii. 491, following Skutsch in,e.g., Vollmöller’sJahresbericht für romanische Sprachwissenschaft, i. 33): a syllable long by nature or position, and preceded by a short syllable, was itself shortened if the word-accent fell immediately before or immediately after it—that is, on the preceding short syllable or on the next following syllable. The sequence of syllables need not be in the same word, but must be as closely connected in utterance as if it were. Thusmốdōbecamemódŏ,vŏlūptấtēmbecamevŏlŭ(p)tấtem,quḯd ēst?becamequid ĕst?either thesor thetor both being but faintly pronounced.
It is clear that a great number of flexional syllables so shortened would have their quantity immediately restored by the analogy of the same inflexion occurring in words not of this particular shape; thus, for instance, the long vowel ofấmāand the like is due to that in other verbs (pulsā,agitā) not of iambic shape. So ablatives likemodö,sonōget back their -ō, while in particles likemodo, “only,”quōmodo, “how,” the shortened form remains. Conversely, the shortening of the final -ain the nom. sing. fem. of thea-declension (contrastlūnăwith Gr.χωρᾷ) was probably partly due to the influence of common forms likeeă,bonă,mală, which had come under the law.
15.Effect on Verb Inflexion.—These processes had far-reaching effects on Latin inflexion. The chief of these was the creation of the type of conjugation known as thecapio-class. All these verbs were originally inflected likeaudio, but the accident of their short root-syllable, (in such early forms as *fúgīs, *fugītṹrus, *fugīsếtis, &c., becoming laterfúgĭs,fugĭtṹrus,fugĕrếtis) brought great parts of their paradigm under this law, and the rest followed suit; but true forms likefugīre,cupīre,morīri, never altogether died out of the spoken language. St Augustine, for instance, confessed in 387A.D.(Epist.iii. 5, quoted by Exon,Hermathena(1901), xi. 383,) that he does not know whethercupiorcupiriis the pass. inf. ofcupio. Hence we have Ital.fuggīre,morīre, Fr.fuir,mourir. (See further on this conjugation, C. Exon,l.c., and F. Skutsch,Archiv für lat. Lexicographie, xii. 210, two papers which were written independently.)
16. The question has been raised how far the true phonetic shortening appears in Plautus, produced not by word-accent but by metrical ictus—e.g.whether the reading is to be trusted in such lines asAmph.761, which gives usdedisseas the first foot (tribrach) of a trochaic line “because the metrical ictus fell on the syllableded-”—but this remarkable theory cannot be discussed here. See the articles cited and also F. Skutsch,Forschungen zu Latein. Grammatik und Metrik, i. (1892); C. Exon,Hermathena(1903) xii. p. 492, W. M. Lindsay,Captivi(1900), appendix.
In the history of the vowels and diphthongs in Latin we must distinguish the changes which came about independently of accent and those produced by the preponderance of accent in another syllable.
17.Vowel Changes independent of Accent.—In the former category the following are those of chief importance:—
(i.)ĭbecameĕ(a) when final, as inant-ebeside Gr.ἀντί,trīstebesidestrīsti-s, contrasted withe.g., the Greek neuterἴδρι(the final -eof the infinitive—regere, &c.—is the -ĭof the locative, just as in the so-called ablativesgenere, &c.); (b) before -r- which has arisen from -s-, as incinerisbesidecinis,cinisculus;serōbeside Gr.ἴ(σ)ημι(Ind.-Eur. *si-sēmi, a reduplicated non-thematic present).
(ii.) Finalŏbecameĕ; imperativesequere= Gr.ἔπε(σ)ο; Lat.illemay contain the old pronoun *so, “he,” Gr.ὁ, Sans.sa(otherwise Skutsch,Glotta, i. Hefte 2-3).
(iii.)elbecameolwhen followed by any sound savee,iorl, as involō,voltbesidevelle;colōbeside Gr.τέλλομαι,πολεῖν, Att.τέλος;colōnusfor *quelōnus, besideinquilīnusfor *en-quēlenus.
(iv.)ebecamei(i.) before a nasal followed by a palatal or velar consonant (tingo, Gr.τέγγω;in-cipiofrom *en-capio); (ii.) under certain conditions not yet precisely defined, one of which wasiin a following syllable (nihil,nisi,initium). From these formsin- spread and banisheden-, the earlier form.
(v.) The “neutral vowel” (“schwa Indo-Germanicum”) which arose in pro-ethnic Indo-European from the reduction of longā,ēorōin unaccented syllables (as in the -tósparticiples of such roots asstā-,dhē-,dō-, *stƏtós, *dhƏtós, *dƏtós) becameain Latin (status con-ditus[from *con-dhatos],datus), and it is the same sound which is represented byain most of the forms ofdō(damus,dabō, &c.).
(vi.) When a long vowel came to stand before another vowel in the same word through loss ofḭorṷ, it was always shortened; thus the -eōof intransitive verbs likecandeō,caleōis for -ēḭō(where theēis identical with the η in Gr.ἐφάνην,ἐμάνμν) and was thus confused with the causative -eiō(as inmoneō, “I make to think,” &c.), where the shorteis original. Soaudīuībecameaudīīand thenceaudiī(the form audīvī would have disappeared altogether but for being restored fromaudīveram, &c.; converselyaudieramis formed fromaudiī). In certain cases the vowels contracted, as intrēs,partēs, &c. with -ēsfromeḭes, *amōfromamā(ḭ)ō.
18.Of the Diphthongs.
(vii.)eubecameouin pro-ethnic Italic, Lat.novus: Gr.νέος, Lat.novem, Umb.nuviper(i.e.noviper), “usque adChanges of the diphthongs independent of accent.noviens”: Gr.(ἐν-)νέα; in unaccented syllables this -ov- sank to -u(v)- as indếnuōfromdế novō,suus(which is rarely anything but an enclitic word), Old Lat.sovos: Gr.ἑ(ϝ)ός.
(viii.)ou, whether original or fromeu, when in one syllable became -ū-, probably about 200B.C., as indūcō, Old Lat.doucō, Goth,tiuhan, Eng.tow, Ind.-Eur. *deṷcō.
(ix.)eibecameī(as indīcō, Old Lat.deico: Gr.δείκ-νυμι,fīdo: Gr.πείθομαι, Ind.-Eur. *bheidhō) just before the time of Lucilius, who prescribes the spellingspuerei(nom. plur.) butpuerī(gen. sing.), which indicates that the two forms were pronounced alike in his time, but that the traditional distinction in spelling had been more or less preserved. But after his time, since the sound ofeiwas merely that ofī,eiis continually used merely to denote a longī, even where, as infaxeisfor faxīs, there never had been any diphthongal sound at all.
(x.) In rustic Latin (Volscian and Sabine)aubecameōas in the vulgar termsexplōdere,plōstrum. Hence arose interesting doublets of meaning;—lautus(the Roman form), “elegant,” butlōtus, “washed”;haustus, “draught,” buthōstus(Cato), “the season’s yield of fruit.”
(xi.)oibecameoeand thenceūsome time after Plautus, as inūnus, Old Lat.oenus: Gr.οἰνή“ace.” In Plautus the forms have nearly all been modernized, save in special cases,e.g.inTrin.i. 1, 2,immoene facinus, “a thankless task,” has not been changed toimmunebecause that meaning had died out of the adjective so thatimmune facinuswould have made nonsense; but at the end of the same lineutilehas replacedoetile. Similarly in a small group of words the old form was preserved through their frequent use in legal or religious documents where tradition was strictly preserved—poena,foedus(neut.),foedus(adj.), “ill-omened.” So the archaic and poeticalmoenia, “ramparts,” beside the true classical formmūnia, “duties”; the historicPoenibeside the living and frequently usedPūnicum(bellum)—an example which demonstrates conclusively (paceSommer) that the variation betweenūandoeis not due to any difference in the surrounding sounds.
(xii.)aibecameaeand this in rustic and later Latin (2nd or 3rd centuryA.D.) simpleē, though of an open quality—Gr.αἴθος,αἴθω, Lat.aedēs(originally “the place for the fire”); the country forms ofhaedus,praetorwereedus,pretor(Varro,Ling. Lat.v. 97, Lindsay,Lat. Lang.p. 44).
19.Vowels and Diphthongs in unaccented Syllables.—The changes of the short vowels and of the diphthongs in unaccented syllables are too numerous and complex to be set forth here. Some took place under the first-syllable system of accent, some later (§§ 9, 10). Typical examples arepepErcifrom *péparcaiandónustusfrom *ónostos(before two consonants);concInofrom *cóncanoandhospItIsfrom *hóstipotes,legImusbeside Gr.λέγομεν(before one consonant);SicUlifrom *Siceloi(before a thickl, see § 17, 3);dilIgItfrom *dísleget(contrast, however, the preservation of the secondeinneglEgIt);occUpatfrom *opcapat(contrastaccipitwithiin the following syllable); the varying spelling inmonumentumandmonimentum,maxumusandmaximus, points to an intermediate sound (ü) betweenuandi(cf. Quint. i. 4. 8, readingoptumumandoptimum[notopimum] with W. M. Lindsay,Latin Language§§ 14, 16, seq.), which could not be correctly represented in spelling; this difference may, however, be due merely to the effect of differences in the neighbouring sounds, an effect greatly obscured by analogical influences.
Inscriptions of the 4th or 3rd century,B.C.which show original -esand -osin final syllables (e.g.Venerĕs, gen. sing.,nāvebosabl. pl.) compared with the usual forms in -is, -usa century later, give us roughly the date of these changes. But final -os, -om, remained after -u- (andv) down to 50B.C.as inservos.
20. Special mention should be made of the change of -rĭ- and -ro- to -er- (incertusfrom *encritos;ager,ācerfrom *agros, *ācris; thefeminineācriswas restored in Latin (though not in North Oscan) by the analogy of other adjectives, liketristis, while the masculineācerwas protected by the parallel masculine forms of the -o- declension, liketener,niger[from *teneros, *nigros]).
21. Long vowels generally remained unchanged, as incompāgo,condōno.
22. Of the diphthongs,aiandoiboth sank toei, and with originaleifurther toī, in unaccented syllables, as inAchivifrom Gr.Ἀχαιϝοί,olīivom, earlier *oleivom(borrowed into Gothic and there becomingalēv) from Gr.ἔλαιϝον. This gives us interesting chronological data, since theel- must have changed tool- (§ 16. 3) before the change of -ai- to -ei-, and that before the change of the accent from the first syllable to the penultimate (§ 9); and the borrowing took place after -ai- had become -ei-, but before -eivomhad become -eum, as it regularly did before the time of Plautus.
But cases ofai,ae, which arose later than the change toei,ī, were unaffected by it; thus the nom. plur. of the first declension originally ended in -ās(as in Oscan), but was changed at some period before Plautus to -aeby the influence of the pronominal nom. plur. ending -aeinquae?hae, &c., which was accented in these monosyllables and had therefore been preserved. The history of the -aeof the dative, genitive and locative is hardly yet clear (see Exon,Hermathena(1905), xiii. 555; K. Brugmann,Grundriss, 1st ed. ii. 571, 601).
The diphthongsau,ouin unaccented syllables sank to -u-, as ininclūdōbesideclaudō; the formclūdō, taken from the compounds, supersededclaudoaltogether after Cicero’s time. Socūdō, taken fromincūdō,excūdō, banished the older *caudō, “I cut, strike,” with which is probably connectedcauda, “the striking member, tail,” and from which comescaussa, “a cutting, decision, legal case,” whose -ss- shows that it is derived from a root ending in a dental (see §25 (b) below and Conway,Verner’s Law in Italy, p. 72).
Consonants.—Passing now to the chief changes of the consonants we may notice the following points:—
23. Consonanti(wrongly writtenj; there is nog-sound in the letter), conveniently writtenḭby phoneticians,
(i.) was lost between vowels, as intrēsfor *treḭes, &c. (§ 17. 6);
(ii.) in combination: -mḭ- became -ni-, as inveniö, from Ind.-Eur. *Ƨṷmḭo, “I come,” Sans.gam-, Eng.come; -nḭ- probably (under certain conditions at least) became -nd-, as intendōbeside Gr.τείνω,fendō= Gr.θείνω, and in the gerundive stem -endus, -undus, probably for -enḭos, -onḭos; cf. the Sanskrit gerundive in -an-īya-s; -gḭ-, -dḭ- became -ḭ- as inmāiorfrom *mag-ior,pēiorfrom *ped-ior;
(iii.) otherwise -ḭ- after a consonant became generally syllabic (-iḭ-), as incapiō(trisyllabic) beside Goth.hafya.
24. Consonantu(formerly represented by Englishv), conveniently writtenṷ,
(i.) was lost between similar vowels when the first was accented, as inaudīui, which becameaudiī(§ 17 [6]), but not inamāuī, nor inavārus.
(ii.) in combination:dṷbecameb, as inbonus,bellum, O. Lat.dṷonus, *dṷellum(though the poets finding this written form in old literary sources treated it as trisyllabic);pṷ-,fṷ-,bṷ-, lost theṷ, as inap-erio,op-eriobeside Lith. -veriu, “I open,” Osc.veru, “gate,” and in the verbal endings -bam, -bō, from -bhṷ-ām, -bhṷō(with the root of Lat.fui), andfīo,du-bius,super-bus,vasta-bundus, &c., from the same; -sṷ- between vowels (at least when the second was accented) disappeared (see below § 25 (a), iv.), as inpruīnaforprusuīna, cf. Eng.fros-t, Sans,pruṣvā, “hoar-frost.” ContrastMinérvafrom an earlier *menes-ṷā,sṷe-,sṷo-, both became so-, as insorōor(em) beside Sans.svasār-am, Ger.schwes-t-er, Eng.sister,sordēs, beside O. Ger.swart-s, mod.schwarz. -ṷo- in final syllables became -u-, as incumfromquom,parumfromparṷom; but in the declensional forms -ṷu- was commonly restored by the analogy of the other cases, thus (a)serṷos,serṷom,serṷībecame (b) *serus, *serum, *serṷi, but finally (c)serṷus,serṷum,serṷi.
(iii.) In the 2nd centuryA.D., Lat.v(i.e.ṷ) had become a voiced labio-dental fricative, like Eng.v; and the voiced labial plosivebhad broken down (at least in certain positions) into the same sound; hence they are frequently confused as in spellings likeveneforbene,BictorinusforVictorinus.
25. (a) Latins
(i.) becamerbetween vowels between 450 and 350B.C.(for the date see R. S. Conway,Verner’s Law in Italy, pp. 61-64), asāra, beside O. Lat.āsa,generisfrom *geneses, Gr.γένεος;eram,erōfor *esām, *esō, and so in the verbal endings -erām, -erō, -erim. But a considerable number of words came into Latin, partly from neighbouring dialects, with -s- between vowels, after 350B.C., when the change ceased, and so show -s-, asrosa(probably from S. Oscan for *rodḭa“rose-bush” cf. Gr.ῥόδον),cāseus, “cheese,”miser, a term of abuse, beside Gr.μυσαρός(probably also borrowed from south Italy), and many more, especially the participles in -sus(fūsus), where the -s- was -ss- at the time of the change of -s- to -r- (so incausa, see above). All attempts to explain the retention of the -s- otherwise must be said to have failed (e.g.the theory of accentual difference inVerner’s Law in Italy, or that of dissimilation, given by Brugmann,Kurze vergl. Gram.p. 242).
(ii.)srbecameþr(= Eng.thrinthrow) in pro-ethnic Italic, and this became initiallyfr- as infrīgus, Gr.ῥῖγος(Ind.-Eur. *srīgos), but medially -br-, as infunebris, fromfunus, stemfunes-.
(iii.) -rs-,ls- became -rr-, -ll-, as inferre,velle, for *fer-se, *vel-se(cf.es-se).
(iv.) Beforem,n,l, andv, -s- vanished, having previously caused the loss of any preceding plosive or -n-, and the preceding vowel, if short, was lengthened as in
prīmusfrom *prismos, Paelig.prismu, “prima,” besidepris-cus.iūmentumfrom O. Lat.iouxmentum, older *ieugsmentom; cf. Gr.ζεῦγμα,ζύγον, Lat.iugum,iungo.lūnafrom *leucsnā-, Praenest,losna, Zendraoχsna-; cf. Gr.λεῦκος, “white-ness” neut.e.g.λευκός, “white,” Lat.lūceō.tēlumfrom *tēns-lomor *tends-lom,trānārefrom *trāns-nāre.sēvirīfrom *sex-virī,ēvehōfrom *ex-vehō, and soē-mittō,ē-līdō,ē-numerō, and from these forms arose the propositionēinstead ofex.
prīmusfrom *prismos, Paelig.prismu, “prima,” besidepris-cus.
iūmentumfrom O. Lat.iouxmentum, older *ieugsmentom; cf. Gr.ζεῦγμα,ζύγον, Lat.iugum,iungo.
lūnafrom *leucsnā-, Praenest,losna, Zendraoχsna-; cf. Gr.λεῦκος, “white-ness” neut.e.g.λευκός, “white,” Lat.lūceō.
tēlumfrom *tēns-lomor *tends-lom,trānārefrom *trāns-nāre.
sēvirīfrom *sex-virī,ēvehōfrom *ex-vehō, and soē-mittō,ē-līdō,ē-numerō, and from these forms arose the propositionēinstead ofex.
(v.) Similarly -sd- became -d-, as inīdemfromis-dem.
(vi.) Beforen-,m-,l-, initiallys- disappeared, as innūbobeside Old Church Slavonicsnubiti, “to love, pay court to”;mīrorbeside Sans,smáyatē, “laughs,” Eng.smi-le;lūbricusbeside Goth,sliupan, Eng.slip.
(b) Latin -ss- arose from an original -t+t-, -d+t-, -dh+t- (except before -r), as inmissus, earlier *mit-tos;tōnsus, earlier *tond-tos, buttonstrīxfrom *tond-trīx. After long vowels this -ss- became a single -s- some time before Cicero (who wrotecaussa[see above],divissio, &c., but probably only pronounced them with -s-, since the -ss- came to be written single directly after his time).
26. Of the Indo-European velars the breathedqwas usually preserved in Latin with a labial addition of -ṷ- (as insequor, Gr.ἕπομαι, Goth,saihvan, Eng.see;quod, Gr.ποδ-(απός), Eng.what); but the voiced Ƨṷremained (as -gu-) only after -n- (unguobeside Ir.imb, “butter”) and (asg) beforer,l, andu(as ingravis, Gr.βαρύς;glans, Gr.βάλανος;legūmen, Gr.λοβός,λεβίνθος). Elsewhere it becamev, as inveniō(see § 23, ii.),nūdusfrom *novedos, Eng.naked. Hencebōs(Sans.gāus, Eng.cow) must be regarded as a farmer’s word borrowed from one of the country dialects (e.g.Sabine); the pure Latin would be *vōs, and its oblique cases,e.g.acc. *vovem, would be inconveniently close in sound to the word for sheepovem.
27. The treatment of the Indo-European voiced aspirates (bh,dh,ḡhƧh) in Latin is one of the most marked characteristics of the language, which separates it from all the other Italic dialects, since the fricative sounds, which represented the Indo-European aspirates in pro-ethnic Italic, remained fricatives medially if they remained at all in that position in Oscan and Umbrian, whereas in Latin they were nearly always changed into voiced explosives. Thus—
Ind.-Eur.bh: initially Lat.f- (ferō; Gr.φέρω).
Ind.-Eur.bh: initially Lat.f- (ferō; Gr.φέρω).
medially Lat. -b- (tibi; Umb.tefe; Sans,tubhy-(am), “to thee”; the same suffix in Gr.βίη-φι, &c.).
medially Lat. -b- (tibi; Umb.tefe; Sans,tubhy-(am), “to thee”; the same suffix in Gr.βίη-φι, &c.).
Ind.-Eur.dh: initially Lat.f- (fa-c-ere,fē-c-ī; Gr.θετός(instead of *θατός),ἔθη-κα).
Ind.-Eur.dh: initially Lat.f- (fa-c-ere,fē-c-ī; Gr.θετός(instead of *θατός),ἔθη-κα).
medially -d- (medius; Osc.mefio-; Gr.μέσσος,μέσοςfrom *μεθιος); except afteru(iubērebesideiussusfor *ḭudh-tos; Sans.yốdhati, “rouses to battle”); beforel(stabulum, but Umb.staflo-, with the suffix of Gr.οτέργηθρον, &c.); before or afterr(verbum: Umb.verfale: Eng.word. Lat.glaber[v. inf].: Ger.glatt: Eng.glad).
medially -d- (medius; Osc.mefio-; Gr.μέσσος,μέσοςfrom *μεθιος); except afteru(iubērebesideiussusfor *ḭudh-tos; Sans.yốdhati, “rouses to battle”); beforel(stabulum, but Umb.staflo-, with the suffix of Gr.οτέργηθρον, &c.); before or afterr(verbum: Umb.verfale: Eng.word. Lat.glaber[v. inf].: Ger.glatt: Eng.glad).
Ind.-Eur.ḡh: initiallyh- (humī: Gr.χαμαί); except before -u- (fundo: Gr.χέ(ϝ)ω,χύτρα).
Ind.-Eur.ḡh: initiallyh- (humī: Gr.χαμαί); except before -u- (fundo: Gr.χέ(ϝ)ω,χύτρα).
medially -h- (veho: Gr.ἔχω,ὄχος; cf. Eng.wagon); except after -n- (fingere: Osc.feiho-, “wall”: Gr.θιγγάνω: Ind.-Eur.dheiĝh-,dhinĝh-); and beforel(fīg(u)lus, from the same root).
medially -h- (veho: Gr.ἔχω,ὄχος; cf. Eng.wagon); except after -n- (fingere: Osc.feiho-, “wall”: Gr.θιγγάνω: Ind.-Eur.dheiĝh-,dhinĝh-); and beforel(fīg(u)lus, from the same root).
Ind.-Eurgṷh: initiallyf- (formusandfurnus, “oven”, Gr.θερμός,θέρμη, cf. LigurianBormiō, “a place with hot springs,”Bormanus, “a god of hot springs”;fendō: Gr.θείνω, φόνος, πρόσ-φατος).
Ind.-Eurgṷh: initiallyf- (formusandfurnus, “oven”, Gr.θερμός,θέρμη, cf. LigurianBormiō, “a place with hot springs,”Bormanus, “a god of hot springs”;fendō: Gr.θείνω, φόνος, πρόσ-φατος).
mediallyv, -gu- or -g- just as Ind.-Eur. Ƨṷ(ninguere,nivembeside Gr.νίφα,νείφει;frāgrārebeside Gr.ὀσφραίνομαι[ὀσ- forods-, cf. Lat.odor], a reduplicated verb from a rootƧṷhra-).
mediallyv, -gu- or -g- just as Ind.-Eur. Ƨṷ(ninguere,nivembeside Gr.νίφα,νείφει;frāgrārebeside Gr.ὀσφραίνομαι[ὀσ- forods-, cf. Lat.odor], a reduplicated verb from a rootƧṷhra-).
For the “non-labializing velars” (Hostis,conGius, Glaber) reference must be made to the fuller accounts in the handbooks.
28.Authorities.—This summary account of the chief points in Latin phonology may serve as an introduction to its principles, and give some insight into the phonetic character of the language. For systematic study reference must be made to the standard books, Karl Brugmann,Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der Indo-Germanischen Sprachen(vol. i.,Lautlehre, 2nd ed. Strassburg, 1897; Eng. trans. of ed. 1 by Joseph Wright, Strassburg, 1888) and hisKurze vergleichende Grammatik(Strassburg, 1902); these contain still by far the best accounts of Latin; Max Niederman,Précis de phonétique du Latin(Paris, 1906), a very convenient handbook, excellently planned; F. Sommer,Lateinische Laut- und Flexionslehre(Heidelberg, 1902), containing many new conjectures; W. M. Lindsay,The Latin Language(Oxford, 1894), translated into German (with corrections) by Nohl (Leipzig, 1897), a most valuable collection of material, especially from the ancient grammarians, but not always accurate in phonology; F. Stolz, vol. i. of a jointHistorische Grammatik d. lat. Spracheby Blase, Landgraf, Stolz and others (Leipzig, 1894); Neue-Wagener,Formenlehre d. lat. Sprache(3 vols., 3rd ed.Leipzig, 1888, foll.); H. J. Roby’sLatin Grammar(from Plautus to Suetonius; London, 7th ed., 1896) contains a masterly collection of material, especially in morphology, which is still of great value. W. G. Hale and C. D. Buck’sLatin Grammar(Boston, 1903), though on a smaller scale, is of very great importance, as it contains the fruit of much independent research on the part of both authors; in the difficult questions of orthography it was, as late as 1907, the only safe guide.
II. Morphology
In morphology the following are the most characteristic Latin innovations:—
29.In nouns.
(i.) The complete loss of the dual number, save for a survival in the dialect of Praeneste (C.I.L.xiv. 2891, = Conway,Ital. Dial.p. 285, whereQ. k. Cestio Q. f.seems to be nom. dual); soC.I.L.xi. 67065, T. C. Vomanio, see W. Schulze,Lat. Eigennamen, p. 117.
(ii.) The introduction of new forms in the gen. sing, of the -o- stems (dominī), of the -ā- stems (mēnsae) and in the nom. plural of the same two declensions; innovations mostly derived from the pronominal declension.
(iii.) The development of an adverbial formation out of what was either an instrumental or a locative of the -o- stems, as inlongē. And here may be added the other adverbial developments, in -m(palam,sensim) probably accusative, and -iter, which is simply the accusative ofiter, “way,” crystallized, as is shown especially by the fact that though in the end it attached itself particularly to adjectives of the third declension (molliter), it appears also from adjectives of the second declension whose meaning made their combination withiterespecially natural, such aslongiter,firmiter,largiter(cf. Englishstraightway,longways). The only objections to this derivation which had any real weight (see F. Skutsch,De nominibus no- suffixi ope formatis, 1890, pp. 4-7) have been removed by Exon’s Law (§ 11), which supplies a clear reason why the contracted typeconstanterarose in and was felt to be proper to Participial adverbs, whilefirmiterand the like set the type for those formed from adjectives.
(iv.) The development of the so-called fifth declension by a re-adjustment of the declension of the nouns formed with the suffix -iē-:ia- (which appears, for instance, in all the Greek feminine participles, and in a more abstract sense in words likemāteriēs) to match the inflexion of two old root-nounsrēsanddiēs, the stems of which were originallyrēḭ- (Sans.rās,rāyas, cf. Lat.reor) anddiēṷ-.
(v.) The disuse of the -ti- suffix in an abstract sense. The great number of nouns which Latin inherited formed with this suffix were either (1) marked as abstract by the addition of the further suffix -ōn- (as innatiobeside the Gr.γνὴσι-ος, &c.) or else (2) confined to a concrete sense; thusvectis, properly “a carrying, lifting,” came to mean “pole, lever”;ratis, properly a “reckoning, devising,” came to mean “an (improvised) raft” (contrastratiō);postis, a “placing,” came to mean “post.”
(vi.) The confusion of the consonantal stems with stems ending in -ĭ-. This was probably due very largely to the forms assumed through phonetic changes by the gen. sing. and the nom. and acc. plural. Thus at say 300B.C.the inflexions probably were:
The confusing difference of signification of the long -ēsending led to a levelling of these and other forms in the two paradigms.
(vii.) The disuse of theudeclension (Gr.ἡδύς,στάχυς) in adjectives; this group in Latin, thanks to its feminine form (Sans. fem.svādvī, “sweet”), was transferred to theideclension (suavis,gravis,levis,dulcis).
30.In verbs.
(i.) The disuse of the distinction between the personal endings of primary and secondary tenses, the -tand -nt, for instance, being used for the third person singular and plural respectively in all tenses and moods of the active. This change was completed after the archaic period, since we find in the oldest inscriptions -dregularly used in the third person singular of past tenses,e.g.deded,fecedin place of the laterdedit,fecit; and since in Oscan the distinction was preserved to the end, both in singular and plural,e.g.faamat(perhaps meaning “auctionatur”), butdeded(“dedit”). It is commonly assumed from the evidence of Greek and Sanskrit (Gr.ἕστι, Sans.astibeside Lat. est) that the primary endings in Latin have lost a final -i, partly or wholly by some phonetic change.
(ii.) The non-thematic conjugation is almost wholly lost, surviving only in a few forms of very common use,est, “is”;ēst, “eats”;volt, “wills,” &c.
(iii.) The complete fusion of the aorist and perfect forms, and in the same tense the fusion of active and middle endings; thustutudī, earlier *tutudai, is a true middle perfect;dīxīis ansaorist with the same ending attached;dīxitis an aorist active;tutudistiis a conflation of perfect and aorist with a middle personal ending.
(iv.) The development of perfects in -uīand -vī, derived partly from true perfects of roots ending invoru,e.g.mōvīruī. For the origin ofmonuīsee Exon,Hermathena(1901), xi. 396 sq.
(v.) The complete fusion of conjunctive and optative into a single mood, the subjunctive;regam, &c., are conjunctive forms, whereasrexerim,rexissemare certainly andregeremmost probably optative; the origin ofamemand the like is still doubtful. Notice, however, that true conjunctive forms were often used as futures,regēs,reget, &c., and also the simple thematic conjunctive in forms likeerō,rexerō, &c.
(vi.) The development of the future in -boand imperfect in -bamby compounding some form of the verb, possibly the Present Participle with forms from the root offuī, *amans-fuobecomingamabō, *amans-fṷāmbecomingamābamat a very early period of Latin; see F. Skutsch,Atti d. Congresso Storico Intern.(1903), vol. ii. p. 191.
(vii.) We have already noticed the rise of the passive in -r(§ 5 (d)). Observe, however, that several middle forms have been pressed into the service, partly because the -r- in them which had come from -s- seemed to give them a passive colour (legere= Gr.λέγε(σ)ο, Atticλέγου). The interesting forms in -minīare a confusion of two distinct inflexions, namely, an old infinitive in -menai, used for the imperative, and the participial -menoi, masculine, -menai, feminine, used with the verb “to be” in place of the ordinary inflexions. Since these forms had all come to have the same shape, through phonetic change, their meanings were fused; the imperative forms being restricted to the plural, and the participial forms being restricted to the second person.
31.Past Participle Passive.—Next should be mentioned the great development in the use of the participle in -tos(factus,fusus, &c.). This participle was taken withsumto form the perfect tenses of the passive, in which, thanks partly to the fusion of perfect and aorist active, a past aorist sense was also evolved. This reacted on the participle itself giving it a prevailingly past colour, but its originally timeless use survives in many places,e.g.in the participleratus, which has as a rule no past sense, and more definitely still in such passages as Vergil,Georg.i. 206 (vectis),Aen.vi. 22 (ductis), both of which passages demand a present sense. It is to be noticed also that in the earliest Latin, as in Greek and Sanskrit, thepassivemeaning, though the commonest, is not universal. Many traces of this survive in classical Latin, of which the chief are
1. The active meaning of deponent participles, in spite of the fact that some of them (e.g.adeptus,ēmēnsus,expertus) have also a passive sense, and2. The familiar use of these participles by the Augustan poets with an accusative attached (galeam indutus,traiectus lora). Here no doubt the use of the Greek middle influenced the Latin poets, but no doubt they thought also that they were reviving an old Latin idiom.
1. The active meaning of deponent participles, in spite of the fact that some of them (e.g.adeptus,ēmēnsus,expertus) have also a passive sense, and
2. The familiar use of these participles by the Augustan poets with an accusative attached (galeam indutus,traiectus lora). Here no doubt the use of the Greek middle influenced the Latin poets, but no doubt they thought also that they were reviving an old Latin idiom.
32.Future Participle.—Finally may be mentioned together (a) the development of the future participle active (in -ūrus, never so freely used as the other participles, being rare in the ablative absolute even in Tacitus) from an old infinitive in -ūrum(“scio inimicos meos hoc dicturum,” C. Gracchus (and others)apudGell. 1. 7, and Priscian ix. 864 (p. 475 Keil), which arose from combining the dative or locative of the verbal noun in -tuwith an old infinitiveesom“esse” which survives in Oscan, *dictu esombecomingdicturum. This was discovered by J. P. Postgate (Class. Review, v. 301, andIdg. Forschungeniv. 252). (b) From the same infinitival accusative with the post-position -dō, meaning “to,” “for,” “in” (cf.quandōfor *quam-do, and Eng.to, Germ,zu) was formed the so-called gerundagen-dō, “for doing,” “in doing,” which was taken for a Case, and so gave rise to the accusative and genitive in -dumand -dī. The form in -dō still lives in Italian as an indeclinable present participle. The modal and purposive meanings of -dōappear in the uses of the gerund.
The authorities giving a fuller account of Latin morphology are the same as those cited in § 28 above, save that the reader must consult the second volume of Brugmann’sGrundriss, which in the English translation (by Conway and Rouse, Strassburg, 1890-1896) is divided into volumes ii, iii. and iv.; and that Niedermann does not deal with morphology.
III.Syntax
The chief innovations of syntax developed in Latin may now be briefly noted.
33.In nouns.
(i.) Latin restricted the various Cases to more sharply defined uses than either Greek or Sanskrit; the free use of the internal accusative in Greek (e.g.ἁβρὸν βαίνειν, τυφλὸς τὰ ὦτα) is strange to Latin, save in poetical imitations of Greek; and so is the freedom of the Sanskrit instrumental, which often covers meanings expressed in Latin bycum,ab,inter.
(ii.) The syncretism of the so-called ablative case, which combines the uses of (a) the true ablative which ended in -d(O. Lat.praidād); (b) the instrumental sociative (plural forms likedominīs, the ending being that of Sans.çivāiş); and (c) the locative (noct-e, “at night”;itiner-e, “on the road,” with the ending of Greekἐλπίδ-ι). The so-called absolute construction is mainly derived from the second of these, since it is regularly attached fairly closely to the subject of the clause in which it stands, and when accompanied by a passive participle most commonly denotes an action performed by that subject. But the other two sources cannot be altogether excluded (orto sole, “starting from sunrise”;campo patente, “on, in sight of, the open plain”).
34.In verbs.
(i.) The rich development and fine discrimination of the uses of the subjunctive mood, especially (a) in indirect questions (based ondirect deliberative questions and not fully developed by the time of Plautus, who constantly writes such phrases asdic quis esfor the Ciceroniandic quis sis); (b) after the relative of essential definition (non is sum qui negem) and the circumstantialcum(“at such a time as that”). The two uses (a) and (b) with (c) the common Purpose and Consequence-clauses spring from the “prospective” or “anticipatory” meaning of the mood. (d) Observe further its use in subordinate oblique clauses (irascitur quod abierim, “he is angry because,as he asserts, I went away”). This and all the uses of the mood in oratio obliqua are derived partly from (a) and (b) and partly from the (e) Unreal Jussive of past time (Non illi argentum redderem? Non redderes, “Ought I not to have returned the money to him?” “You certainly ought not to have,” or, more literally, “You were not to”).
On this interesting chapter of Latin syntax see W. G. Hale’s “Cum-constructions” (Cornell University Studies in Classical Philology, No. 1, 1887-1889), andThe Anticipatory Subjunctive(Chicago, 1894).
(ii.) The complex system of oratio obliqua with the sequence of tenses (on the growth of the latter see Conway,Livy II., Appendix ii., Cambridge, 1901).
(iii.) The curious construction of the gerundive (ad capiendam urbem), originally a present (and future?) passive participle, but restricted in its use by being linked with the so-called gerund (see § 32,b). The use, but probably not the restriction, appears in Oscan and Umbrian.
(iv.) The favourite use of the impersonal passive has already been mentioned (§ 5, iv.).
35. The chief authorities for the study of Latin syntax are: Brugmann’sKurze vergl. Grammatik, vol. ii. (see § 28); Landgraf’sHistorische lat. Syntax(vol. ii. of the jointHist. Gram., see § 28); Hale and Buck’sLatin Grammar(see § 28); Draeger’sHistorische lat. Syntax, 2 vols. (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1878-1881), useful but not always trustworthy; the Latin sections in Delbrück’sVergleichende Syntax, being the third volume of Brugmann’sGrundriss(§ 28).
IV.Importation of Greek Words
36. It is convenient, before proceeding to describe the development of the language in its various epochs, to notice briefly the debt of its vocabulary to Greek, since it affords an indication of the steadily increasing influence of Greek life and literature upon the growth of the younger idiom. Corssen (Lat. Aussprache, ii. 814) pointed out four different stages in the process, and though they are by no means sharply divided in time, they do correspond to different degrees and kinds of intercourse.