The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON
The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON
The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON
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9<br />
9<br />
‘well’, CAPILLUM ‘hair’ (pl. CAPILLA for ‘hair’ collectively), UTERUM ‘belly’,<br />
‘womb’, MODIUM ‘a quarter of a bushel’, MUNDUM ‘toilet articles’, ACINUM<br />
‘grape’, ‘berry’, PALUM ‘stake’, ANULUM ‘r<strong>in</strong>g’, PANNUM ‘cloth’, CATINUM<br />
‘cook<strong>in</strong>g pot’, and the plurals ARTUA ‘limbs’, CULLEA ‘large measures of<br />
liquids’, LACERTA ‘muscles’. <strong>The</strong> reverse case also occurs: COLLUS ‘neck’,<br />
CAELUS ‘sky’, VADUS ‘ford’, CORIUS ‘hide’, ‘leather’, AEVUS ‘age’ (“vitalem<br />
aevom”), FORUS ‘open area’, ‘market-place’, SCUTUS ‘shield’, VISCUS ‘birdlime’,<br />
DORSUS ‘back’, TERGUS (2nd decl.) ‘back’, CALLUS ‘callus’, SAGUS ‘cloak’,<br />
LUTUS ‘mud’, INTESTINUS ‘<strong>in</strong>test<strong>in</strong>e’, ABROT<strong>ON</strong>US ‘aromatic plant’, AERARIUS<br />
(pl. “aerarios”) ‘treasury’, CANDELABRUS ‘candlestick’, LIBUS ‘sacrificial cake’.<br />
When it comes to alternation between the 4th and 2nd declensions, we f<strong>in</strong>d<br />
SERU ‘whey’, TESTU ‘pot-lid’ and VERU ‘spit’ also have the forms SERUM,<br />
TESTUM, VERUM, while CORNU ‘horn’, GENU ‘knee’ and GELU ‘frost’ go further<br />
and are backed up by CORNUS/CORNUM, GENUS/GENUM and GELUS/GELUM. <strong>The</strong><br />
word DORSUS ‘back’ is also said by the grammarians to have had 4th-declension<br />
forms, and the same is true of CIBUS ‘food’ and LECTUS ‘bed’, while VERSUS<br />
‘row’, ‘l<strong>in</strong>e’, GRADUS ‘step’ and ARCUS ‘bow’ have 2nd-declension forms, and<br />
DOMUS ‘house’ was at all times divided between the two, hav<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>herited two<br />
Indo-European stem-forms. <strong>The</strong> same vacillation is also especially the case with<br />
4th-declension nouns <strong>in</strong> -TUS, which often have genitives <strong>in</strong> -TI, so GEMITI,<br />
TUMULTI, SENATI, QUAESTI, FRUCTI, EXERCITI, PORTI. SPECUS ‘cave’ is generally<br />
a 4th-declension mascul<strong>in</strong>e noun, but a plural SPECA is also found, and the<br />
grammarians give many other forms, while PENUS ‘food’ can be mascul<strong>in</strong>e or<br />
fem<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>e, 2nd or 4th declension, and also neuter (gen. PENORIS), with other<br />
forms PENU/PENUM. Note also that PECU, pl. PECUA, is the earliest form of PECUS<br />
‘cattle’. <strong>The</strong> noun OS ‘bone’ had a multiplicity of forms at all stages of the<br />
language, with both OSSU (pl. OSSUA <strong>in</strong> Pacuvius) and OSSUM found <strong>in</strong> early<br />
<strong>Lat<strong>in</strong></strong>. Similarly, for VAS ‘vessel’ early VASUM is found, and the 2nd-declension<br />
forms for the plural are the standard ones <strong>in</strong> classical <strong>Lat<strong>in</strong></strong>. Another old form is