direct deliberative questions and not fully developed by the time
of Plautus, who constantly writes such phrases as dic quis es for the
Ciceronian dic quis sis); (b) after the relative of essential definition
(non is sum qui negem) and the circumstantial cum (“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), and The 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’s Kurze vergl. Grammatik, vol. ii. (see § 28); Landgraf’s Historische lat. Syntax (vol. ii. of the joint Hist. Gram., see § 28); Hale and Buck’s Latin Grammar (see § 28); Draeger’s Historische lat. Syntax, 2 vols. (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1878–1881), useful but not always trustworthy; the Latin sections in Delbrück’s Vergleichende Syntax, being the third volume of Brugmann’s Grundriss (§ 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.
(a) The first represents the period of the early intercourse of Rome with the Greek states, especially with the colonies in the south of Italy and Sicily. To this stage belong many names of nations, countries and towns, as Siculi, Tarentum, Graeci, Achivi, Poenus; and also names of weights and measures, articles of industry and terms connected with navigation, as mina, talentum, purpura, patina, ancora, aplustre, nausea. Words like amurca, scutula, pessulus, balineum, tarpessita represent familiarity with Greek customs and bear equally the mark of naturalization. To these may be added names of gods or heroes, like Apollo, Pollux and perhaps Hercules. These all became naturalized Latin words and were modified by the phonetic changes which took place in the Latin language after they had come into it (cf. §§ 9-27 supra). (b) The second stage was probably the result of the closer intercourse resulting from the conquest of southern Italy, and the wars in Sicily, and of the contemporary introduction of imitations of Greek literature into Rome, with its numerous references to Greek life and culture. It is marked by the free use of hybrid forms, whether made by the addition of Latin suffixes to Greek stems as ballistārius, hēpatārius, subbasilicānus, sycophantiōsus, cōmissārī or of Greek suffixes to Latin stems as plāgipatidas, pernōnides; or by derivation, as thermopōtāre, supparasītāri; or by composition as ineuschēmē, thyrsigerae, flagritribae, scrophipascī. The character of many of these words shows that the comic poets who coined them must have been able to calculate upon a fair knowledge of colloquial Greek on the part of a considerable portion of their audience. The most remarkable instance of this is supplied by the burlesque lines in Plautus (Pers. 702 seq.), where Sagaristio describes himself as
Vaniloquidorus, Virginisvendonides, |
During this period Greek words are still generally inflected according to the Latin usage.
(c) But with Accius (see below) begins a third stage, in which the Greek inflexion is frequently preserved, e.g. Hectora, Oresten, Cithaeron; and from this time forward the practice wavers. Cicero generally prefers the Latin case-endings, defending, e.g., Piraeeum as against Piraeea (ad Att. vii. 3, 7), but not without some fluctuation, while Varro takes the opposite side, and prefers poëmasin to the Ciceronian poëmatis. By this time also y and z were introduced, and the representation of the Greek aspirates by th, ph, ch, so that words newly borrowed from the Greek could be more faithfully reproduced. This is equally true whatever was the precise nature of the sound which at that period the Greek aspirates had reached in their secular process of change from pure aspirates (as in Eng. ant-hill, &c.) to fricatives (like Eng. th in thin). (See Arnold and Conway, The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, 4th ed., Cambridge, 1908, p. 21.)
(d) A fourth stage is marked by the practice of the Augustan poets, who, especially when writing in imitation of Greek originals, freely use the Greek inflexions, such as Arcaděs, Tethŷ, Aegida, Echūs, &c. Horace probably always used the Latin form in his Satires and Epistles, the Greek in his Odes. Later prose writers for the most part followed the example of his Odes. It must be added, however, in regard to these literary borrowings that it is not quite clear whether in this fourth class, and even in the unmodified forms in the preceding class, the words had really any living use in spoken Latin.
V. Pronunciation
This appears the proper place for a rapid survey of the pronunciation[1] of the Latin language, as spoken in its best days.
37. Consonants.—(i.) Back palatal. Breathed plosive c, pronounced always as k (except that in some early inscriptions—probably none much later, if at all later, than 300 B.C.—the character is used also for g) until about the 7th century after Christ. K went out of use at an early period, except in a few old abbreviations for words in which it had stood before a, e.g., kal. for kalendae. Q, always followed by the consonantal u, except in a few old inscriptions, in which it is used for c before the vowel u, e.g. pequnia. X, an abbreviation for cs; xs is, however, sometimes found. Voiced plosive g, pronounced as in English gone, but never as in English gem before about the 6th century after Christ. Aspirate h, the rough breathing as in English.
(ii.) Palatal.—The consonantal i, like the English y; it is only in late inscriptions that we find, in spellings like Zanuario, Giove, any definite indication of a pronunciation like the English j. The precise date of the change is difficult to determine (see Lindsay’s Latin Lang. p. 49), especially as we may, in isolated cases, have before us merely a dialectic variation; see Paeligni.
(iii.) Lingual.—r as in English, but probably produced more with the point of the tongue. l similarly more dental than in English. s always breathed (as Eng. ce in ice). z, which is only found in the transcription of Greek words in and after the time of Cicero, as dz or zz.
(iv.) Dental.—Breathed, t as in English. Voiced, d as in English; but by the end of the 4th century di before a vowel was pronounced like our j (cf. diurnal and journal). Nasal, n as in English; but also (like the English n) a guttural nasal (ng) before a guttural. Apparently it was very lightly pronounced, and easily fell away before s.
(v.) Labial.—Breathed, p as in English. Voiced, b as in English; but occasionally in inscriptions of the later empire v is written for b, showing that in some cases b had already acquired the fricative sound of the contemporary β (see § 24, iii.). b before a sharp s was pronounced p, e.g. in urbs. Nasal, m as in English, but very slightly pronounced at the end of a word. Spirant, v like the ou in French oui, but later approximating to the w heard in some parts of Germany, Ed. Sievers, Grundzüge d. Phonetik, ed. 4, p. 117, i.e. a labial v, not (like the English v) a labio-dental v.
(vi.) Labio-dental.—Breathed fricative, f as in English.
38. Vowels.—ā, ū, ī, as the English ah, oo, ee; ō, a sound coming nearer to Eng. aw than to Eng. ō; ē a close Italian ē, nearly as the a of Eng. mate, ée of Fr. passée. The short sound of the vowels was not always identical in quality with the long sound. ă was pronounced as in the French chatte, ŭ nearly as in Eng. pull, ĭ nearly as in pit, ŏ as in dot, ĕ nearly as in pet. The diphthongs were produced by pronouncing in rapid succession the vowels of which they were composed, according to the above scheme. This gives, au somewhat broader than ou in house; eu like ow in the “Yankee” pronunciation of town; ae like the vowel in hat lengthened, with perhaps somewhat more approximation to the i in wine; oe, a diphthongal sound approximating to Eng. oi; ui, as the French oui.
To this it should be added that the Classical Association, acting
- ↑ The grounds for this pronunciation will be found best stated in Postgate, How to pronounce Latin (1907), Arnold and Conway, The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin (4th ed., Cambridge, 1908); and in the grammars enumerated in § 28 above, especially the preface to vol. i. of Roby’s Grammar. The chief points about c may be briefly given as a specimen of the kind of evidence. (1) In some words the letter following c varies in a manner which makes it impossible to believe that the pronunciation of the c depended upon this, e.g. decumus and decimus, dīc from Plaut. dīce; (2) if c was pronounced before e and i otherwise than before a, o and u, it is hard to see why k should not have been retained for the latter use; (3) no ancient writer gives any hint of a varying pronunciation of c; (4) a Greek κ is always transliterated by c, and c by κ; (5) Latin words containing c borrowed by Gothic and early High German are always spelt with k; (6) the varying pronunciations of ce, ci in the Romance languages are inexplicable except as derived independently from an original ke, ki.
