The authorities giving a fuller account of Latin morphology are the same as those cited in § 28 above, save that the reader must consult the second volume of Brugmann’s Grundriss, which in the English translation (by Conway and Rouse, Strassburg, 1890-1896) is divided into volumes ii, iii. and iv.; and that Niedermann does not deal with morphology.
III. Syntax
The chief innovations of syntax developed in Latin may now be briefly noted.
33. In nouns.
(i.) Latin restricted the various Cases to more sharply defined uses than either Greek or Sanskrit; the free use of the internal accusative in Greek (e.g. ἁβρὸν βαίνειν, τυφλὸς τὰ ὦτα) is strange to Latin, save in poetical imitations of Greek; and so is the freedom of the Sanskrit instrumental, which often covers meanings expressed in Latin by cum, ab, inter.
(ii.) The syncretism of the so-called ablative case, which combines the uses of (a) the true ablative which ended in -d (O. Lat. praidād); (b) the instrumental sociative (plural forms like dominīs, the ending being that of Sans. çivāiş); and (c) the locative (noct-e, “at night”; itiner-e, “on the road,” with the ending of Greek ἐλπίδ-ι). The so-called absolute construction is mainly derived from the second of these, since it is regularly attached fairly closely to the subject of the clause in which it stands, and when accompanied by a passive participle most commonly denotes an action performed by that subject. But the other two sources cannot be altogether excluded (orto sole, “starting from sunrise”; campo patente, “on, in sight of, the open plain”).
34. In verbs.
(i.) The rich development and fine discrimination of the uses of the subjunctive mood, especially (a) in indirect questions (based on direct deliberative questions and not fully developed by the time of Plautus, who constantly writes such phrases as dic quis es for the Ciceronian dic quis sis); (b) after the relative of essential definition (non is sum qui negem) and the circumstantial cum (“at such a time as that”). The two uses (a) and (b) with (c) the common Purpose and Consequence-clauses spring from the “prospective” or “anticipatory” meaning of the mood. (d) Observe further its use in subordinate oblique clauses (irascitur quod abierim, “he is angry because, as he asserts, I went away”). This and all the uses of the mood in oratio obliqua are derived partly from (a) and (b) and partly from the (e) Unreal Jussive of past time (Non illi argentum redderem? Non redderes, “Ought I not to have returned the money to him?” “You certainly ought not to have,” or, more literally, “You were not to”).
On this interesting chapter of Latin syntax see W. G. Hale’s “Cum-constructions” (Cornell University Studies in Classical Philology, No. 1, 1887-1889), and The Anticipatory Subjunctive (Chicago, 1894).
(ii.) The complex system of oratio obliqua with the sequence of tenses (on the growth of the latter see Conway, Livy II., Appendix ii., Cambridge, 1901).