SUPINES

The supine is a verbal noun of the fourth declension, used in various purpose constructions and appearing only in forms ending -um (accusative singular) and -u (dative singular but sometimes regarded as ablative).

The supine stem, more familiar from its appearance in the perfect passive participle, can be found by removing -um from the supine. Any verb that displays a fourth principle part (e.g. laudatum) has a supine stem in use and thus, in theory, can generate a masculine fourth declension noun, e.g., cantus, casus, exsulatus. (There are, of course, many fourth declension nouns that are masculine, feminine, or neuter, and not generated from verbs.)

The accusative of the supine is used after verbs of motion to express purpose; the supine thus employed can be followed by an object, as can a finite verb:

deos salutatum aliqui venerunt cum cenatus cubitum in idem conclave cum duobus adulescentibus filiis isset, inventus est mane iugulatus de tui comitis iniuria questum ad te potius quam te oppugnatum venebunt

The future passive infinitive (see BA 403) is formed by the present passive infinitive iri of the verb eo plus the accusative of the supine. The standard advice in textbooks is to avoid using that form and write instead the periphrasis fore ut + subjunctive. Cicero, however, is quite happy to use the future passive infinitive and does so over five dozen times. Some examples:

absolutum iri Sopatrum videbant sciebas tibi crimini datum iri? numquam, mihi credite, populus Romanus hic qui silet consulem me fecisset, si vestro clamore perturbatum iri arbitraretur. puto Id. Sext. de ea re actum iri. omnia certiora perlatum iri ad senatum putabam

The supine in -u appears with fas, nefas, opus and with adjectives denoting ease, pleasure, belief and their opposites, especially adjectives that indicate an effect upon the senses; not all such supines relate only to one's senses. Nouns commonly used in this way are: auditu, dictu, factu, memoratu, natu, visu. (cognitu also in Cicero) O rem cum auditu crudelem tum visu nefariam! incredibile dictu est, iudices forsitan hoc quod dicturus sum mirabile auditu esse videatur omnia praeteribo quae mihi turpia dictu videbuntur