t44:9^ SHORT HISTORICAL LATIN GRAMMAR r/' W. M. LINDSAY, M.A. t » » FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1895 bonbon HENRY FROWDE Oxford University Press Warehouse Amen Corner, E.C. Qten? ^orft MACMILLA.N & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE PREFACE Teachers of Latin Grammar have for a long time felt the need of a book which will exhibit the his- torical development of Latin Accidence and explain the anomalies of Latin Declension and Conjugation^ which will explain, for example, how itineris became the Genitiv(J of iter, how volo, vis, vult differ from lego, legis, legit^ why the Comparative of magnijicus should be the circum should have magnificentior, why Preposition a by-form circa. In this 8hort Historical Latin Grammar, designed for the Universities and the Higher Forms of Schools, I have tried to present this information in an intelligible and, if possible, interesting form. While making full use of the discoveries of Comparative Philo- logy, which have in recent years added so much to our knowledge of Latin, I have avoided the technical vocabulary of that science, and in quoting parallels to Latin words have restricted myself to the Greek, to the exclusion of Sanscrit, Gothic, and the other Indo- European languages. It is true that each and every problem of the Latin language has not yet been solved, but for all that the stability of most of the results reached by the methods of Comparative Philology is beyond question; and every one who has studied the ^3 vi Preface. subject witli any minuteness knows which results are certain and which may have to be modified by subsequent research. I have endeavoured to steer a middle course between leaving difficulties untouched and offering ex- planations which may have to be discarded later. For a discussion of questions which are still sub judice, and for a detailed account of the evidence on which judgements in this book are grounded^ I refer the reader to my larger work, The Latin Language (Clarendon Press, 1894). W. M. LINDSAY. Oxford : September, 1895. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ix Chap. I. Alphabet i II. Pronunciation, Accentuation, AND Changes OF Sound 8 III. Noun 37 IV. Adjective 63 Y. Pronoun 69 VI. Verb . 86 VII. Adverbs : . 118 VIII. Prepositions 126 IX. Conjunctions and Interjections . 136 X. History of Latin Sounds . .148 XI. Formation of Words 160 Appendix A. Specimens of Early Latin . 175 „ B. List of Spellings . v . 179 „ C. List of Hidden Quantities . .181 Index 185 INTRODUCTION Latin was the language of the Latini, who inhabited ancient Latium, the plain at the mouth of the Tiber. The subsequent greatness of Rome, the chief town of Latium, made the Latin language in time the language, not only of the whole of Italy, but also of the Roman provinces, Gaul, Spain, and the like. The languages of modern Italy and these other countries where Latin was formerly spoken are called ^Romance languages^; and it is possible with the help of inscriptions and parchments to trace step by step the way by which, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 a.d.), the 'Vulgar ^ Latin of Italy, France, Spain, &c., passed into the form of modern and for Italian, French, Spanish ; how, example, Latin cahallus, a horse, became Italian cavallo, Spanish caballo, Portuguese cavallo, Proven9al cavals, French cheval, Roumanian cal. A is never and if what be language stationary ; may ' ' called the modern Latin of the Romance languages has developed in this way, we may be sure that ancient Latin had a corresponding development. Of this we may mark several stages : (i) Prehistoric Latin, the language in its earliest form, (2) Preliterary Latin, till the beginnings of literature at Rome in the latter part X Introduction. of the third century B.C., (3) Early or Old Latin, as used by the earliest writers, Livius Andronicus^Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, and the like, (4) Republican Latin, till Cicero^s time, (5) Classical Latin, the Latin of the ' '' Golden Age from Cicero to Augustus, (6) Silver Age Latin, of the earlier writers of the Empire, (7) Late Latin, till the fall of the Western Empire. The Romans took at all times a keen interest in their language. Some of the greatest names of Roman History are connected with reforms of spelling or grammar, statesmen like Appius Claudius Caecus, Scipio Africanus Minor, Julius Caesar, and the Emperors Augustus and Claudius. The earlier writers, e.g. Ennius, Accius, Lucilius, were Grammarians as well as Poets. The studies of Grammar and Phonetics, imported from Greece in the last century of the Republic, were prose- cuted with the utmost zest for many centuries, the most famous names being, in the time of Cicero, M. Terentius Varro in the first a. the elder ; century d., Probus, Velius in the second Aulus Pliny, Longus ; century, Gellius in in the ; the third, Marius Plotius Sacerdos ; fourth. Nonius Marcellus, Donatus, Charisius, Diomedes, Macrobius, Martianus Capella; and in the sixth, Priscian. Their writings, such as have been preserved to us, give us a great deal of information, not only about the language of their own time, but also of the earlier stages of Latin. For these earlier stages we have further the help of the old inscriptions, few of which however are prior to the second century b. c. Our materials therefore for a Historical Grammar of Latin from c, 250 B.C. onwards are fairly complete. For the still earlier periods we have the help of the kindred languages of Italy, the Oscan, Umbrian, &c. Introduction, xi They are closely connected with Latin and throw a great deal of light on the origin of Latin forms and constructions. In . fact, if we had enough of these ' ' dialectal inscriptions there would be few problems of the language which remained unsolved. But unfortu- nately there has not yet been any systematic and thorough search for the records of these kindred stocks, and the inscriptions that have been discovered are tantalizingly meagre. For the earhest history of all we must fall back on the Science of Comparative Philology. The discovery in recent years that some Asiatic languages (Indian, Persian) and most European are so closely connected that they must have sprung from a common parent language, usually called the ^Indo-European,^ has brought into existence a new study, the comparison of these languages with each other in order to find what this parent language was. By comparing the various ^ Romance words for horse,^ just mentioned, it would be possible to conjecture the form of the Latin prototype from which they have all descended, caballus. In the same way we can guess at the early form, what is called the 'Indo-European' form, underlying any cognate group of words in the various Indo-European languages; e.g. Lat. mater, Dor. Gk. [laT^ip^ Sanscrit matar-, Old Irish mathir. Old Slavonic mater-, Armenian mair, Old English modor, point to something like mater as their prototype. We may similarly trace back ' ' inflexions to an Indo-European form, and may out of these conjectured words and inflexions construct an ' ' Indo-European alphabet. Of the various members of the I.-Eur. family the most closely related to Latin and the Italian languages xii Introduction, seems to be the Celtic group (Irish, Welsh, and in ancient times Gaulish). Thus in Celtic as in Latin we have a Passive in -R (ch. vi. § 6), a Dat. PI. of the Third Declension in -bhos (e.g. Gaulish matrebos, O. Ir, matrib_, Lat. mdtrihus), a Future in -BH- (e.g. O. Ir. ' I will ^ Lat. and carub, love/ quasi carabo,' amaho) ; Irish Nouns in -tiu, e.g. mitiu (ancient stem mention-) in correspond to Latin -tidj e.g. mentio (ch. xi. § 12). For our knowledge of the relationship of Latin to the other Indo-European languages we are most indebted to Corssen, and to the three great Comparative Philologists of the and Johannes Schmidt day, Brugmann, Osthoff, ; for the history of Early Latin to Ritschl and Buecheler. NOTE. Paragraphs in small type may be omitted by all but advanced students. An asterisk prefixed to a word indicates that the word does not occur in the extant literature. Italic type is, as a rule, used for Latin words, stems, and inflexions. A SHORT HISTORICAL LATIN GRAMMAR. CHAPTER I. THE ALPHABET. § 1. The Greeks of Chalcis in Euboea had at an early time founded colonies at Cumae and other spots on the coast of Campania—colonies which took a leading place among those mercantile centres of Southern Italy which played so great a part in Italian civilisation. It was from these Chalcidic neighbours of theirs that the Latins first learnt the art of writing. The connexion of the Latin with the Greek Alphabet is seen plainly enough, even when we look at the later forms of the two, the forms which we are in the habit of using in editions of the classical authors : — (Latin) ABC B^EYGll IKLMN OP (Greek) ABTAE ZH(^)0IKAMNH(^)On (Latin) QRSTV X [Y Z] (Greek) P 2 T T * X (ck) <y 12. But when we go farther back and compare the forms of the letters on the earliest Latin inscriptions with those on the earliest Euboean inscriptions, we see that the two alphabets are one and the same : — //( B 2 i The Alphabet, [ch. [Harly Latin) A^C(()l>^ F^ZB \YV B C ^ {^ Z B l< U {Early Euhoean) A (<) > (I) (/^) | {Earhj Latin) /^Ho n9I^^TVX (Early Euhoean) /^ H o P 1^ 5 T V X CD V {<?') 9 (^) {ch), the fact being that the Latins took over bodily from the Greeks of Campania the written signs by which these Greeks expressed the various words and sounds of their language.