Personal pronouns in the vocative

[pmda]

In Orberg LLPSI Cap. XLIV the legate who is sent to demand satisfaction from the Latini: is qui fines legatus, ad res repetendas, Latinis dicit: "Audi, Iuppiter, et tu, Iane Quirine, dique omnes caelestes vosque terrestres vosque inferni, audite: ego vos testor populum iniustum esse neque ius persolvere!"

I'm not sure about a couple of things:

1) My sense of this is that he is directly addressing every authority in sight - covering all the bases. '...dique omnes caelestes vosque terrestres...' seems to mean '...and (you) heavenly deities and you earthly deities..'

which leads me to ask...

2) 'vos' and other pronouns are never given (in grammars) in the vocative but surely the meaning of these underlined (accusatives presumably) is vocative..

3) 'Ego vos testor' is 'I make you a witness', right?

[Timothée]

Note that personal pronouns of the 2nd person—irrespective of language—are logically always "vocative", if one wants to name them with this word. On the other hand, it is difficult for me to conceive how 3rd person personal pronouns could ever be vocative; they denote third person, i.e. someone who is not there. When the 3rd person is addressed, he becomes 2nd person.

That leaves the 1st person personal pronouns, but the problem remains: how (and when) does one address oneself, or maybe better, is ego / I / io etc. etc. always vocatively used? Addressing the group whereof one is part, we are again, I would think, automatically in the realm of vocative. It may thus be a question of how we define these terms. Meus > mi is obviously independent of this usage.

I hope my reasoning is sound. Dickey most likely has more on this.


EDIT. Apparently mi is probably not from meus but a form of ego, comparable with Greek μοι. (Dickey p. 214)

On tu: "There is room for doubt on the status of tu, which is normally nominative but sometimes looks very like a vocative. — — Vairel, after an exhaustive study of the apparent vocative uses, has decided that tu is 'toujours et exclusivement un nominatif'." (Dickey p. 22)

By the way, is "very like a vocative" correct English or should it be "very much like a vocative"?

[pmda]

Many, many thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I believe that "very like" is not incorrect English - though not as often used as "very much like".

[mwh]

Vos is surely vocative (as distinct from nominative) when attended by unequivocal vocatives and imperative. And I don’t see why the same shouldn’t be true of tu. It would seem very perverse to call it nominative in a case like "Audi, Iuppiter, et tu, Iane Quirine, dique omnes caelestes vosque terrestres vosque inferni, audite.” Or is tu never in fact used like this? OLD quotes o bone vir, salveto, et tu, bona liberta” from Plautus and there are surely other instances. (I guess Tu ne quaesieris is only arguably vocative, though I’d certainly call it one. Et tu Brute? I take to be nominative.)

In Greek, nominatives are sometimes followed by imperatives, in which case they’re often labelled “nominative for vocative.” I would resist this and regard them as exclamatory nominatives. But with vos and tu, why should they not be considered vocative?

Perhaps grammars don't give the voc. because it couldn't be any different in form from the nominative? But that doesn't invalidate the distinction.

As to your vos testor question, pmda, it’s “I call you to witness," vos accus. as I think you realize.