Leipzig, 1888, foll.); H. J. Roby’s Latin 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’s Latin 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, where Q. k. Cestio Q. f. seems to be nom. dual); so C.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 in longē. And here may be added the other adverbial developments, in -m (palam, sensim) probably accusative, and -iter, which is simply the accusative of iter, “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 with iter especially natural, such as longiter, firmiter, largiter (cf. English straightway, 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 type constanter arose in and was felt to be proper to Participial adverbs, while firmiter and 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 like māteriēs) to match the inflexion of two old root-nouns rēs and diēs, the stems of which were originally rēi̭- (Sans. rās, rāyas, cf. Lat. reor) and diēṷ-.
(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 in natio beside the Gr. γνὴσι–ος, &c.) or else (2) confined to a concrete sense; thus vectis, properly “a carrying, lifting,” came to mean “pole, lever”; ratis, properly a “reckoning, devising,” came to mean “an (improvised) raft” (contrast ratiō); 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 300 B.C. the inflexions probably were:
| conson. stem | -ĭ- stem | |
| Nom. plur. | *rēg–ĕs | host-ēs |
| Acc. plur. | rĕg–ēs | host-īs |
The confusing difference of signification of the long -ēs ending led to a levelling of these and other forms in the two paradigms.
(vii.) The disuse of the u declension (Gr. ἡδύς, στάχυς) in adjectives; this group in Latin, thanks to its feminine form (Sans. fem. svādvī, “sweet”), was transferred to the i declension (suavis, gravis, levis, dulcis).
30. In verbs.
(i.) The disuse of the distinction between the personal endings of primary and secondary tenses, the -t and -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 -d regularly used in the third person singular of past tenses, e.g. deded, feced in place of the later dedit, fecit; and since in Oscan the distinction was preserved to the end, both in singular and plural, e.g. faamat (perhaps meaning “auctionatur”), but deded (“dedit”). It is commonly assumed from the evidence of Greek and Sanskrit (Gr. ἕστι, Sans. asti beside 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; thus tutudī, earlier *tutudai, is a true middle perfect; dīxī is an s aorist with the same ending attached; dīxit is an aorist active; tutudisti is a conflation of perfect and aorist with a middle personal ending.
(iv.) The development of perfects in -uī and -vī, derived partly from true perfects of roots ending in v or u, e.g. mōvī ruī. For the origin of monuī see 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, whereas rexerim, rexissem are certainly and regerem most probably optative; the origin of amem and 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 like erō, rexerō, &c.
(vi.) The development of the future in -bo and imperfect in -bam by compounding some form of the verb, possibly the Present Participle with forms from the root of fuī, *amans-fuo becoming amabō, *amans-fṷām becoming amābam at 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, Attic λέγου). The interesting forms in -minī are 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 with sum to 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 participle ratus, 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, the passive meaning, 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, 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) apud Gell. 1. 7, and Priscian ix. 864 (p. 475 Keil), which arose from combining the dative or locative of the verbal noun in -tu with an old infinitive esom “esse” which survives in Oscan, *dictu esom becoming dicturum. This was discovered by J. P. Postgate (Class. Review, v. 301, and Idg. Forschungen iv. 252). (b) From the same infinitival accusative with the post-position -dō, meaning “to,” “for,” “in” (cf. quandō for *quam-do, and Eng. to, Germ, zu) was formed the so-called gerund agen-dō, “for doing,” “in doing,” which was taken for a Case, and so gave rise to the accusative and genitive in -dum and -dī. The form in -dō still lives in Italian as an indeclinable present participle. The modal and purposive meanings of -dō appear 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’s Grundriss, 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 by cum, 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 like dominīs, the ending being that of Sans. çivāiş); and (c) the locative (noct-e, “at night”; itiner-e, “on the road,” with the ending of Greek ἐλπίδ–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 on
