warren - on some ancient and modern etymologies

7/27/2019 Warren - On Some Ancient and Modern Etymologies

1/12

On Some Ancient and Modern Etymologies

Author(s): Minton WarrenSource: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 32 (1901),pp. 110-120Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/282613.

Accessed: 23/09/2013 03:10

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Johns Hopkins University Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 2.228.10.5 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 03:10:31 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhuphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/282613?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/282613?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup


2/12

110 Minton Warren. [go,

VII. -On Sote Anicientnd Modern Etymologies.BY PROF. MINTON WARREN,

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Periero and peiero have long puzzled scholars. Lindsay,Latin Language, p. I99, says: Pejtro and eferocf. conierat,coniurat,G.G.L. IV. 322, 33) have not yet been thoroughlyexplained. See also p. 587. More recently erdinand Som-mer, Indogermtanischeorschungen,Bd. XI. (1900), p. 56,says: Sehr zweifelhaft stpjiirare (Osthoff, erfekt, . I I 5Anm.) das, falls es zu peior gehort, auch die Vokalstufe.P5

-- enthaltenkonnte; das Wort ist und bleibt eine crux;auch die Ausfiihrunigen on Stolz (H.G. I70) befriedigennicht.BeforeOsthoff, lcuinhad connected eierowith eius, butin a different ay,cf.Keil, G.L. VII., p. 307. Periurus quima/eiuirat, eiero vero verbumr non debethabere; est enimquasi peius iutro. This was doubtless a current popularetymology,which did not lose sight of the connection ofthe wordwith iuro. Osthoff,n I884, explainedpeiero as adenominative rom eilus n theoriginal ense of entstellen,verhunzen. In I885 Gustav Meyer,Zeits.fiir Oest. Gym.36, p. 280, gave a similarexplanation. Brugmann,Gdr. II.,p. 402, admits the explanation as possible. L. Havet,AMmoires e la Soci,t/de Linguistique,VI., p. 22, withoutmentioning Osthoff,gives essentially his view. Peieraresignifiedonc a l'origine rendre pire,alterer,fausser,violer.'lus Peieratum est un droit corrompu par faux serment).L'etymologie populaire crut voir dans ce derivede peius uncomposede per et de i'lro,doctrinieui ne parait pas concili-able avec les lois phonetiques. Wharton, in his EtymaLatina (I890), has peryero,wearfalsely; 'make worse, lter,violate,'fr.pe-es- cf. ma-jestas eside ma4/or). Despite thisarrayof authority,t seemis o me that there is very ittleto

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/12

Vol.xxxii.] Some Ancientand Modern Etymnologies. IIIbe said for this explanation. It disregards the fact thatperierare is better attested than peierare in Plautus, andignores the fact that such denominativesfromcompara-tives are of late development n the historyof the Latinlanguage. Moreover,it is difficult o believe that deiero,which is found in Plautus, although evidently compoundofiziro, wes its e solelyto the analogyofpeiero. A commonexplanationmust be found, think,forperiero, eiero, iero,and the formconierat coierat) foundonly in Glossaries andexplainedas coniiirat. The difficultyfcourseis in account-ing forthe shorte in these compounds, nd I do not think tis met by assuming,withStolz, the existenceof a primitiveverb iuirowithshort u alongsideof iuiro.Beforeproceeding o statemyview, shall speak briefly fthe forms ound nPlautus; There are some sixteencases ofthe verbperiuro periero) in Plautus, in three of which thereading s disputed. Only seven of these passages are foundin the Ambrosianus,namely,Cist. 500, Merc. 539, Poen. 480,I242, Pseud. 354, I057, Stich. I92. In all except the last ofthese passages A has the spellingwith . In Stich. I92,

ni vereperierit,icenassit omi,Bugge would read perieraverit, ut Leo takesperieritn thesense of interie;it. In Poen. I242, A has periureswith theother Mss. where the metrerequiresperieres. In two other-passag s notfoundnA, Bacch. 030 and 042, thebestMss.have periurem ndperizuret here themetrerequirestheformSwithe'. Perierat is well attested forAs. 293. There arenine passages where, o faras the metre s concerned, orms.with mightbe substituted orthebetterattestedformswithit. Moreover, n Stich. 229, A alone has perieratiunculas,.the otherMss. havingperizuratiunculas. t is quite possible,.therefore,hatperierowas the morecommonform n Plautus,.and thatperiulro as been substitutedfor t not simply n thethree passages where the metrerequiresperiero. The formsfoundare periuras Poen. 480, perieras Ussing, Leo, perieratAs. 293. Peierat Men. 8I4 withoutMs. authoritySchoell.The Mss. read delurat or delirat, and Leo reads deierat.



4/12

I12 Hinton Warren. [1901Perierant True. 30 Schoell. PerieratdumnLeo and GS.,periuraboAs. 322, periuravistiPseud. 354,periuravitMere.539. Per-ieraverit orperieritStieh. 192. PerieremBaccb.I030, periuremBCDFZ, per-icresPoen. I242, periurcs A withotherMss., perieretBaech. 1042. PeriuretMss., periurarisAs. 562 and 570, periuiraverinture. 268, periurareCist. 500andPseud. 057.For theexisteneeoftheformwithout ,peiero, he evideneeis very slight forPlautus, although it is occasionallyfoundin FZ and has been introducedby editors cf. the criticalapparatus to Asin. 293, Bacch. I042, Poen. 480 and I242,Pseud. 1057, Truc. 30). The acijective einruis nd the nounpeiuriumr re somewhat betterattested. See Studemund,Rihein.Afihs. 1, 588.The explanation,which have to propose,startsfrom hefornmOVESTOD of the Stele recentlydiscovered. n theForum, which, with Hiulsen, Skutsch, Thurneysen, andotlher cholars, I regard as the earlierformof inistod,isto.In I.. XI., p. 342, v. Grienberger xplains iovesatat thebeginningof the Duenos inscriptions equal to iurat,trans-lating es schwortbei den Gottern,der michsendet. I donot thinkthat this makes good sense, and v. Grienbergerhimselfadmitshis inability o establish the connectionwithwhatfollows.'Yet I think veryone must admitthat the earlierform fiurat would have been iovesat,which by syncopationgaveiousat and then by rhotacism oulrat. The diphthongou isabundantly ttested n inscriptions.In the compoundverb the phoneticdevelopmentwas some-what different. In the early period the accent would ofcourse rest upon the preposition. Now, just as de~novogives de?uo, erndovonduo cf. Umb., anovilzimu), 4upoveru'puer (cf. Arclziv, XII., p. 28I), So p/rioverowould givep/riuero,or, in the stage beforerhotacism, driovesowouldhave given piriueso. One further change took place.

1 I haveattempted, arvard Studies, XI. I64, reaflingoveset,oexplain his sthe olderform f ouset,ussit, n explaniationhichalso rests ndirectlyn theassumptioni hat iovestsdequals iustod.



5/12

Vol.xxxii.] Some Ancieizt nd Modern Etymologies. I 13Minerva is now explained (cf. Brugmann,Gdr. I.,2 pp. 232,3I9, 324) as coming from * menes-oua throughmenesua,MIineruta,inerz'a, arva as from asua, * lasoua. So I thinkinperiziero, esulting romperiovero, here was a tendency opronounce the vowelu as v (English w), but the difficultyfpronouncingv afterconsonantal caused the it to dropout.Thus we get insteadofperizzero1eriero, nd similarlyneieroand deiero. By thistheory he shorte is fully xplained, ndthere s inonecessityto dissociatepeierofromuroon theonehand or from ieroand deicroon the other.The dropping fv u) after consonant s seen naperio, periofor apverio,opzverio,f. Brugmann, .F: I., p. I75, in battereforbattuere,attalia forbattualia,cf.Archiv, ., p. 249 and X.,p. 42 I, andSchuchardt,Vocalismus,I., p.470. The AppendixProbi,Arcyiv,XI., p. 329hasfebruariusnonfebrarius. ee thenote ofHeraeus. Febrari?uss abundantly ttested n inscrip-tions and has its descendant in the Italian Febbraio. It isfound lso in a papyrusof the first entury, irst ublished nigoo.1 Schuchardtgives (II., p. 467 f.) manyexamplesof udropped in vulgar Latin. So lanarizusforIanuarius, Con-_iendis or Confiuentes, hich gives us the modernCoblenz.An interestingEnglish parallel is seen in swear = iuro,whereasin the compoundanswer the w, althoughwritten,snot pronounced.As to theform eiero,whichseems not to be clearlyestab-lishedforPlautus,butwhich s frequent noughin laterLatin(see Georges, Lexikon der Lat. Wor/formnen,.v.), I shouldexplainthedropping f ther as due to the same causes whichhave led to its disappearance in praestig-iae, rebescere,ndotherwords. A form ikeperierare orperieraris with threesuccessive r's was difficult o pronounce,but neitherthesecond nor the third r could be droppedwithoutmakingtheformunintelligible nd consequentlythe firstwas dropped.Cf. Grammont, a Dissimulation consonantique, . 28. Theformsdeierare nd.eieraremayalso have contributed o thedisappearance of the r, which was furtherhelped on by apopularetymology onnecting hewordwithpeius.

1 ArchivesMilitairesdu 1er Siecle,JulesNicole etCharlesMorel,Geneve,900.



6/12

114 MintonWarren. [I901As to the form eriurare ittle need be said. It is simply

due to recomposition,obringout moreclearly he connectionwith iuro, at a period when the formperiero had alreadybecome a little mysterious. So in Curc. 268 periuraverintfollows n iure iurandoof the line before, nd in Pseud. 354periuravistitakes up iuravistinof 352.In the compounds biiuro nd adizuro,nlythe formswith uare attested for Plautus. See Lodge, Lexicon Plautinum,lFasc. I. So too in the case of conizuro lthoughconierat sattested by glossaries. Editors read deieravit,Cas. 670 anddeiera, Rud. I336, althoughin the latter passage the Mss.have deilura. Eiero is not attestedforPlautus,but occurs inlaterwriters. Exiuiro is found in a fragment f theAmph.For examplesofperiero,peiero,deiero, iero in writers aterthanPlautus and in Inscriptions,ee Georges,Lex. der Lat.Wortforrnen.

SOROR AND FRATER.From Gellius,XIII. io we learn that the juristAntistiusLabeo derived ororfrom eorsum, nd that Nigidius Figulusderivedfrater from ere alter, frater est dictus qzuasi er-ealter. Labeo and Nigidiuswerepurists. Theybothbelievedin explainingLatinwords from he Latin. Their etymologies

are indefensible, ut fromanother point of view they mayhave a certain interestand value. In deriving soror fromseorsuimabeo evidently ad inview the shorter orm orsum,which s found n Plautus and Lucretius.The derivation ffraterfrom ere alter implies a possiblepronunciationffrateras feraterwiththe insertion fa para-sitice. Now it is quite possible that some persons shouldinsert n e betweenf and r inpronunciation, hentheywouldnot do so in writing, ust as Edon, Ecriture et Prononciationdu Latin savant et dii Latin populaire,p. 2 3, tells us thataPersian will pronouncefranfais feranKais. So we find ininscriptionsTerebonio nd Terebuniforthe usual Trebonius,cf. C.I.L. I. I9o, and Ephem. Epig. I., p. 29, n. ii6. Other

1 It is quite possible hat hese re latercompounds ormed hen urowas theonlyformn use of thesimpleverb.



7/12

Vol.xxxii.] Some Azncient nd Modern Etymologies. IISsimilar examples of the same tendency given by Edon areAlexandiri, Petiro, patiri, matiribus, mnateri, eracilis forGracilis, pateres, magisteres, rbiterlo, eribunatu, o whichothers mightbe added. The same possibilityseems to beindicated by Varro's derivationof Gracchusfromgero (cf.CharisiusKeil, G.L. I., p. 87), althoughWolfflin's ecentderi-vation from racus, the primitive f graculus, s more plau-sible. Serviusand Donatus do nothesitate to derive ars fromapErT4, suggestingthat the nom. pl. may have sounded likearetes. Paulus, p. io, gives as one derivation fatrium qzoda terraoriaturquasi aterrium. Lindsay, Lat. Lang., p. 93,followingMeyer-Lubke, says that the development n Ro-manceof a word like patrem suggests an almost trisyllabicpronunciation ikepaterem, nd theVenerable Bede tried todo away with spondaic hexameters ending in words likerespergebat,rgentiby assuminga pronunciation sperigebat,arz^Genti,hichremindsus at once of the anaptycticvowel inOscan in words like aragetud. A tendencyof this sort inLatin can hardlybe denied.For thedropping f I before t there is little that we cancompare n Latin,but in Oscan in thisveryword/ s droppedin the Tabula Baitina, which has atrzud or ltrud,althoughelsewhere n Oscan the I is preserved in the few instanceswhere the word occurs. Similarlythe Umbriandrops I inmotar,whichcorresponds o Lat. multa,fine, f.vonPlanta, .,p. 299. In Frenchof course alter becomesautre,but in someoftheRomance dialectsthe I seems to have been totally ost.Thus Sardinian has atter,atteru,Calabrian atru and atu,Genoese aotro and atro,cf.Moli, Introduction la Chronologiedu Latin Vulgaire,p. 278. It seems to me, then, that ingiving the derivation ffraterfrom rre alter, Nigidius maywell have had in mind a dialectic pronunciation f alter inwhich the I was not distinctly eard.1

1 We are not informeds to thebirthplace f NigidiusFigulus,but t is per-haps nterestingonote n thisconnection hatthegentilenameNigidius sfoundaccording o Conwayespecially n Campanianand Sabine areas, i.e. exactly nthose regionswhere I beforet was not distinctly eard. Cf. Conway, talicDialects, I., p. 576.



8/12

ii6 Minton Warren. [1901The fact thatNigidiusdid derive raterfromere al/ermay

lend support o theviewthat in the expressiondies ater,aterstandsfor n original lter. Mohl,p. 277, says: Que *a/truou *atrupour*al/rum lternm it circuledans l'Italie du Suddes une epoque tres ancienne,c'est ce que montre e latindies a/er,Varron,Ling. Lat., VI. 4, 29: Dies postridieKalen-das Nonas Iduts ppella/i tri,quodper eosdies noviinciperent.L'expression dies ater signifiedonc 'un jour d'une nouvelleserie,d'une autredivision.' Le mot nous reporte ans doutea l'epoque oiu es Campaniens etaientencore les educateursde Rome, peut-etrememe au tempsoCuNuma y introduisaitle calendrier abin. Before Mohl,Deecke had explained terin the same way,buthad attributedt to Etruscan influence.In Die Falisker(i888), p. go, he says: Es ist namlich terdie etruskischeForm furlat. alter,mit Wegfall des /vor t,wie im Beinamenhat/u eben haltu, altu lat. Fallo. Mohl'sview seems to me more probable. Wissowa in the articleon dies ater in the new Pauly admits a similarmeaningforater. I quote his words: Der Name dies aterhat mitater,'schwarz' nichts zu thun, sondern hangt, wie 0. Gruppe(Herm. XV. 624) richtig gesehen hat, zusammen mit denBildungenTria/rus,Q 7inyuatrus,ep/ima/ruts.h.post diemtertiumn,uin/tum,eptimnumVarro, de 1. 1. VI. 14. Fest.p. 254, die nur darin irrendass sie Quinquatrusetc. deutenpostdiemquintum tc. Idits,wahrendnaturlich erAusgangs-punktder Zahlung jeder beliebige sein kann), bedeutetalsonichtsanderes als eben dies postriduanus. Gruppe in thearticlereferredo by Wissowa makes no attempt o connectaterwith lter. He says: Ueber den UrsprungdesWortesvermag ich eine Vermuthungnicht aufzustellen; was denSinn betrifft,o scheint mir am wahrscheinlichsten,ass esetwa ' nach,' ' nachher' bedeutete. Deecke, however,op.cit.,p. 9I, says: trita/ruts,rspriinglich ohlnach derzweitenDeklination, fur *tri-alter(us), igentlich der 'drei-andere'd.i. 'drittnachste' Tag u.s.w. We have the distincttesti-mony of Festus to. the fact that Triatrus, Sexatrns, andSeptematrnswere n use amongtheTusculans andDecimatrnsamong the Faliscans. These words, herefore, eredialectic



9/12

Vol. xxxii.] SomneAncient and Modern Etymologies. II7and there s nothing o preventour supposingthat Qiiin za-truswas originally dialecticform. I submit, herefore,hatin view of Nigidius' etymologyoffrater and of the factsabove stated in regard to alter,this etymology f Deecke'sdeserves more serious attention than it has received fromscholars. Stolz,HistorischeGrammatik, . 549,withoutanyattemptto explain the intrusion f the r,connects the suffix-atrnswith the suffix atus. His words are Weiter reihtsich hierauch an tr4m-dtu-sAnalogiebildungnachpr7m-d/u-sVarro u.a.) 'Alter von drei Jahren' Col. Plin.,das zugleichauch den Schluisselenthalt fur Qu7nqu-dtrfi-s*qu7nqu-dtu-s'Feier am ftinften age') und die von Festus 340 Th. d. P.aufgefuihrtenntsprechendenBildungen Decim-atrFu-sfalis-kisch) und Septem-dtru-s,ex-dtrui-s,ri-dtrii-stusculanisch).Afterthis explanation,whichdoes notexplain,he coollydis-misses Deecke's view with the words Eine andere sicherunhalthare Vermuthung iber diese Substantive findetmanbei Deecke Die Falisker S. go f. Deecke is doubtlesswrongin whathe says about Etruscan influence, ut not I think nconnectingthe wordswithalter,althoughtherestill remainssome difficultyn regard to the declension of these forms.The most plausible suppositionwould be that Quinquatruswas influenced n its declension by Idus, Idus itself beingan old adjectivewitha u-stem, f.Brugmann,Gdr. II., p. 297.Comparealso Sanskrittrgr ktFunnd Delbruck, VergleichendeSyntax, ., p. I63.In connectionwithNigidius'etymologyffrater, t may beinterestingo notethatCicero, nAdfam. II. I5, speaksofhisbrotherQuintusas his alterego. quem tamen i reliquissem,dicerenztniqui non meplane post annum,ut senatits oluisset,deprovinciadecessisse, uoniam lterummereliquissem. Voss,in his Etymologicon,oes so faras to say thatin writing his,Cicero had in mind the etymology f Nigidius, but this isunnecessary. That alterand aterare oftenconfused n Mss.I need notnote. A famousexampleis Catullus,XCIII. 2,

nec cireutrumisalbusan aterhomo,where all the Mss. have alterfor ter.



10/12

ii8 lI'intonWarren. [I90ISALTEM.

Gellius, XII. I4, gives two etymologies for saltem, withboth of which he declares himself unsatisfied, censuimusig,itur mplizis quaerenduvm. The second derivationmakessal/em stand for salztem, with the extrusion of u. Thisseemedto Gellius clever but far-fetched. That it was currentin antiquity s shown by the fact that Donatus and Serviusbothgive it. Cf. Donatus, ad Adel. II. 2, 4I and Servius, dAen. IV. 327. This etymologyneed not be seriously con-sidered. The other give in thewords of Gellius. A tqueerat, quil diceret, egisse se in grammaticiscominentariis .Nigidii, sal/em x eodictum, uod esset si ali/er' idque ipsutmdici solit/umer defectionem,am plenamesse sententiamsiali/er non po/est.' S4d id nos in isdem commen/arlis .Nigidii, cutm os non,opinor, ncuriose egissemus,nuisquaminvenimuis. He goes on to state a veryvalid objection.V ident/uruztem erba is/a si a/iternonpotest'a szgnifca-tionzeuidemvocutlae nius,de qua quaerimuis, on ab/orrere.Set totverbata;nen in pazucissimas i//ei-asludere, nprobaecuiusdam szubtilitatisst. Wharton,in his EtylmaLatina,derives al/em romaltus, eaping, swiftly, ithout ifficulty.'Lindsay, Lat. Lang., p. 556, expresses himself more cau-tiously. If saltemis Acc. Sg. of *salti-, leap, lit. with aleap,' 'swiftly, asily, assuredly,' t has taken-temby analogyof au/tem, /em,etc.The derivationfrom salu/temhows that sal/emwas therecognized form,while saltim is late. In fact,with so manyadverbsin -tim as par/im, tatim, etc., it is hard to compre-hend why an original sa//im should have been changedto saltem. Therefor it seems to me that this connectionwithsa/io must be given up. The derivation rom i aliter,as thus stated, cannot be correct,but why may not saltemstand for an earlier si al/em, al/em being a syncopatedformfora/item, n adverb fromthe stem ali- formed fterthe analogy of item? The early Latin, as we know fromPaulus, had an adverb, lin/ta,whichdoes not appear in liter-ature. Why may tnothavehada/itemin the sense of other-



11/12

Vol.xxxii.] Some Ancientand Modern Etymologies. II9wise,' later supplantedbyaliter? For the elision of si andthe subsequent contraction,we maycompare sis, sultis, andsodes. Afterthe contraction ookplace,the derivationmighteasilyhave been forgotten,s it was in the case ofsirermpse,a word whose derivation s still in doubt. Whetheraltemoralitemwas the originial orm f the adverb, leave undecided.The analogy of aliter would favoralitem,and, accordingtoF. Sommer, F. XI. 4, the pronoun alter goes back to anoriginal * aliteros. Altem would then be the syncopatedAllegro formnf alitem. Syncope was doubtless very com-mon in the early period of t-he anguage,and it is a questionwhetherwe can safely ay down such definite aws governingits action as has been attemptedby von Planta and Sommer.To trace thedevelopmentofmeaningbywhich altem rrivedat theforceof at least is noteasy, as italreadyhas thatforcein the earliest iterature, nd the ordinarypeakerin the timeofPlautus had entirelyost sightof itsorigin, utwemaynotethatas we oftenfind in aliteropposed to si, so we oftenfindsaltemfollowing clause with si. Terence,Hec. 635 ff.,has:

Ego,Pamphile,sse nter os, i fieri otest,Adfinitatemanc aneperpetuamolo;Sin estutaliter ua siet ententia,Accipias uerumn.The latter propositionmighthave been abbreviatedintosin aliter,accipias puerurn, nd we can see how sin aliter asan alternativemightcome to have the meaningof at least.'In Trin. 485,

Semper u hocfacito,esbonice,ogites,Id optumumssetute ti isoptumus:Si idnequeas, altem toptumisisproxumus.At an earlier period of the language we can conceive ofsaltem, if otherwise,'taking the place of the clause si idnequeas, but in the time of Plautus it had lost thisforce andhad cometomean at least.' Compare,Ter. Eun. 639, si i ludnon licet,sal/cm hoc licebit, lso Amph. 438, Quis ego sumsaltem, i nion um Sosia Cas. 298, Nam si sic nil impetrare

potero, altemsortiiar.



12/12

120 Minton Warren. [1901So in a sentence like Cic. ad Att. IX. 6, 5, eripemihihUinc

dolorem zitminuesaltem,we can conceivethat at an earlierperiod saltem hadthe forceof if otherwise,' .e. ' if you can'tdo that.' By the association of ideas after time this mighteasily assume the meaning of at least.' Some dimnpprecia-tion of this earlier force seems to have been present to theauthor of the etymologywhen he interpretedaltem as 'sialiter nonpotest.'NOTE ONfrequenter.Fairclough, nhis commentaryn Ter. And. I07, una aderatfreqiens, says: frequens sed insteadof theadverbfrequenter,which belongs to later Latin. This is a natural mistake, sthe dictionariesgive no instance earlier than the Auctor adHerenniurn,who uses it four times, IV. 32, 46, 48, and 56.But Cato,a contemporaryfTerence, usesfrequenter de Agr.67, i, olcum requeznterapiant). Cato also uses rarenternce,de Agr. I03, and we know from Nonius that it was usedby Livius Andronicus, Ennius, Caecilius, Pomponius, andNovius. Later it crops up again in Gellius,Apuleius, andMacrobius. Now I thinkrarentermust have been formed nthe analogyoffrequenter. It was notnecessary, s the earlylanguage had raro and rare,butas raro andcrebrowerepaired,

so rarenter nd frequenter. Of coursefrequenterwould notbe cited by thegrammarians, ot being for theman unusualword. Indeed it is one of the words which later supplantssaepe. Compare myarticleon Latin Glossaries n Vol. XV.of the Transactions, . I39. Plautus,ofcourse,does notusefrequenter. His usual word s saepe,and crebro ccurs infre-quently. So Plautus does not use rarenter,ut does use raroand rare. Frequentermust have been known n the time ofLucilius,butdoes notoccur in hisfragments,ut neitherdoescrebro rraro,both ofwhichare earlier han Lucilius. In factsaepe is only found five times in Lucilius and saepius twice.I believethat, fwe had a larg,er odyofearlyLatin prose,weshould find thatfrequenterwas in common use, and thatrarenter, s I have already said, was formed n the analogyoffrequenter.

warren - on some ancient and modern etymologies

Documents