Robert Coleman

The Origin and Development of Latin Habeo+Infinitive

It is well known that the future indicative and conditional (or future-in-thepast) paradigms of most Central and West Romance languages reflect a Latin infinitival construction with habeo , e.g. Italian canterd Although the development was essentially a Vulgar Latin one and so belongs to the subliterate register of the language, it is reflected now and again in the written material from the classical and post-classical periods. It is, therefore, possible by a study of its occurrences in the written material to make inferences about its origins within the antecedent morpho-syntactic system and the structural pressures that gave rise to its development.

Two Linguistic Topics in Quintilian

( Proposed text ) Atque etiam in ipsis uocalibus grammatici est uidere an ahquas pro consonantibus usus acceperit, quia ‘iam’ sicut ‘tarn’ scribitur et ‘uos’ ut ‘cos’, at quae ut uocales iunguntur aut unam longam faciunt, ut ueteres scri-pserunt, qui geminatione earum uelut apice utebantur, aut duas,—nisi quis putat etiam ex tribus uocalibus syllabam fieri, si non aliquae officio consonantium fungantur. quaeret hoc etiam, quo modo duabus demum uocalibus in se coeundi natura sit, cum consonantium nulla nisi alteram frangat. atqui littera i sibi insidit— ‘conicit’ enim est ab illo ‘iacit’—et u, quo modo nunc scribitur ‘uulgus’ et ‘seruus’. sciat etiam Ciceroni placuisse ‘aiio Maiiamque’ geminata ‘i’ scribere: quod si est, etiam ‘i’ iungetur ut consonans.

Cicero De Natvra Deorvm I65 and the Stoic Criticism of the Atomic Theory

Abuteris ad omnia atomorum regno et licentia; hinc quodcumque in solum uenit, ut dicitur, effing?s atque efficis. Quae primum nullae sunt. Nihil est enim quod uacet corpore, corporibus autem omnis obsidetur locus; ita nullum inane, nihil esse indiuiduum potest. Haec ego nunc physicorum oracula fundo, uera an falsa nescio, sed ueri tarnen similiora quam uestra. There are two difficulties in the received text of this paragraph : primum seems to have no correlate, and nihil est enim.indiuiduum potest is a curiously oblique and elliptical way of refuting the atomic theory. Editors from Lambinus to A. S. Pease have therefore assumed a lacuna after enim, and many suggestions as to its length and content have been made x). The object of the present note is to show that the manuscript text is in fact sound and that the unusual form of the argument as it stands is of special significance.