found, such as the nature of what is called ‘Gender’ (§§ 205–11), or of the Impersonal Passive (§§ 311–2). And many well-known stumbling-blocks in Latin usage become natural and interesting as soon as their history is understood; for example the poetical use of the Distributive Numerals (centēnus and the like, § 238); the earlier uses of the Gerundive (§§ 237–9); or the frequently Present meaning of the Participle in -tus (§ 233); or its Middle use[1] with an Accusative (p. 127).
It is not to be expected or desired that such a book should contain much that can be called original. My debt on every page to my revered teacher Karl Brugmann, especially to his Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik (Ed. 1, 1886–1892; Ed. 2, 1897–1916), and to his delightful shorter treatise (Kurze Vergleichende Grammatik 1903–4), and also, in Chapter VII, to Roby’s great Latin Grammar, will be plain to all specialists. But my endeavour has been everywhere to express clearly the results of my own study, indicating the evidence for each conclusion, and distinguishing points which are only probable from those which I count certain. For any discussion of unsettled questions the student must look elsewhere, especially to the books just mentioned. One of the difficulties which seem serious in beginning the subject but trivial afterwards is that to denote clearly the different sounds with whose history we are concerned, a certain number of new symbols have to be added to the Latin alphabet. Those used in this book are explained in the course of Chapters II and III. But it is well to state here that after careful consideration I have used the signs q (‘ku’) and ǥ (‘gu’) to denote the ‘Labialising Velars,’ without the rather laborious addition of u̯ which the more advanced student will find necessary when he comes to discuss the relation of these sounds to the ‘Pure Velars.’ In this matter the doctrine
- ↑ An interesting collection of examples of this use by Dr. Clara M Knight will be found in Am. Journ. Philol., xxxix. (1918), p. 184. The history of the Participle was first clearly set forth by Brugmann in a monumental article in Indog. Forschungen V. (1895), p. 87.
