Words of the hypothetical form fluctuba, fluctubum, have not been discovered. They would have existed if the word just quoted had been (if used in ancient Rome at all) used as an adjective, omnibus currus, omniba esseda, omnibum plaustrum.
(B.) Deflection with superaddition.—Here the inflection is dealt with as if it were not inflectional but radical. This is the case with [a]ἴφιος]. Words like it-, as proved by the genitive i-t-s, and the so-called petrified (versteinerte) nominative cases of the German grammarians, are of this class.
ON THE AORISTS IN -KA.
READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 11, 1853.
A well-known rule in the Eton Greek Grammar may serve to introduce the subject of the present remarks:—"Quinque sunt aoristi primi qui futuri primi characteristicam non assumunt: [a]ἔθηκα] posui, [a]ἔδωκα] dedi, [a]ἥκα] misi, [a]εἴπα] dixi, [a]ἥνεγκα] tuli." The absolute accuracy of this sentence is no part of our considerations: it has merely been quoted for the sake of illustration.
What is the import of this abnormal [a]κ]? or, changing the expression, what is the explanation of the aorist in [a]-κα]? Is it certain that it is an aorist? or, granting this, is it certain that its relations to the future are exceptional?
The present writer was at one time inclined to the doubts implied by the first of these alternatives, and gave some reasons[2] for making the form a perfect rather than an aorist. He finds, however, that this is only shifting the difficulty. How do perfects come to end in [a]-κα]? The typical and unequivocal perfects are formed by a reduplication at the beginning, and a modification of the final radical consonant at the end of words, [a]τύπ(τ)ω], [a]τέ-τυφ-α]; and this is the origin of the [a]χ] in [a]λέλεχα], &c., which represents the [a]γ] of the root. Hence, even if we allow ourselves to put the [a]κ] in [a]ἔθηκα] in the same category with the [a]κ] in [a]ὀμώμοκα], &c., we are as far as ever from the true origin of the form.
In this same category, however, the two words—and the classes they represent—can be placed, notwithstanding some small difficulties of detail. At any rate, it is easier to refer [a]ὀμώμοκα] and [a]ἔθηκα] to the same tense than it is to do so with [a]ὀμώμοκα] and [a]τέτυφα].