Et Bella et Belle

[adrianus]

Does anyone at all know where Whitaker found a second declension nom. & acc. plural ending of "e" for his Words program, in addition to "a". He claims "A&G" for the nominative in his background notes, but I can't find where he means in A&G.

Et "bella" et "belle" pro "bellum" nomine pluraliter nominativo atque accusativo casibus dicit Whitaker, in suo programmate Words nomine. Fontem eius de hâc re frustrà quaesivi. Quisquam cognoscit ubi sit?

[MiguelM]

All I can think of is belle for bellæ, or or any showing of æ for that matter. I can't replicate the reference at Words myself.

"Belle" pro "bellæ" tantum mi occurrit, quod cuique "æ" licit monstrari. Idem problema invenire ego non queo.

[adrianus]

Whitaker applies it only to neuter words of the second declension in Words.

Whitaker solùm dictionibus neutrius generis secundae declinationis hanc terminationem in "e" adicit.

[adrianus]

Here are Whitaker's inflexional notes, MiguelM, in case you're interested.

Ecce de terminationibus notae Whitaker auctoris, si id tibi curae sit: http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/textpro ... FLECTS.LAT

[Imber Ranae]

I'm not exactly certain what you're referring to, Adrianus. At least for the online version of Words belle is not included as an alternative form of the nom/acc/voc plural of bellum,-i. Perhaps Whittaker's notes concern the irregular second declension neuters that end in -us, mentioned by A&G in section 48 a. Only two of these have plural forms, and both are words of Greek origin: pelagus,-i "sea" and cetus(-os),-i "sea-monster". The plural ending is -ē. They're actually third declension in Greek (sigma-stems), which accounts for their odd endings. The epsilon in the stem contracted with the alpha of the neuter plural ending to form eta, thus: τό πέλαγος,-εος had originally τά πελάγεα as neuter plural, which later contracted to τά πελάγη; so also with τό κῆτος,-εος and its neuter plural τά κήτη.

[benissimus]

I'm not exactly certain what you're referring to, Adrianus. At least for the online version of Words belle is not included as an alternative form of the nom/acc/voc plural of bellum,-i.

Adrianus was referring to this list, I think:
-- SECOND DECLENSION

-- Second declension nouns in "us" - N 2 1
-- With the KEY on STEM this covers normal "us" and "ius" both
-- by including or excluding the "i" in the GEN stem
-- but the VOC is different ("e") from the "filius" declension following
-- Ex: amicus amici => amic amic
N 2 1 NOM S X 1 2 us X A -- Hark 52
-- GENDER X although only three of N 2 1 N virus, vulgus, pelagus G&L 33 R 3
N 2 1 NOM S C 1 2 os A B -- Hark 52
N 2 1 VOC S X 1 1 e X A
N 2 1 GEN S X 2 1 i X A
N 2 0 LOC S X 2 1 i X A
N 2 0 DAT S X 2 1 o X A
N 2 0 ABL S X 2 1 o X A
N 2 0 ACC S C 2 2 um X A
N 2 1 ACC S N 2 2 us X A -- GENDER exception for above
N 2 0 ACC S C 2 2 om A B -- Hark 52

N 2 0 NOM P C 2 1 i X A -- GENDER X almost never
N 2 0 NOM P N 2 1 e X A -- A&G
N 2 0 VOC P C 2 1 i X A -- GENDER X in plural
N 2 0 GEN P X 2 4 orum X A
N 2 0 GEN P X 2 2 um X C -- G&L 33 R 4
N 2 0 LOC P X 2 2 is X A -- G&L 33 R 5
N 2 0 DAT P X 2 2 is X A
N 2 0 ABL P X 2 2 is X A
N 2 0 ACC P C 2 2 os X A
N 2 0 ACC P N 2 1 e X A

Perhaps Whittaker's notes concern the irregular second declension neuters that end in -us, mentioned by A&G in section 48 a. Only two of these have plural forms, and both are words of Greek origin: pelagus,-i "sea" and cetus(-os),-i "sea-monster". The plural ending is -ē. They're actually third declension in Greek (sigma-stems), which accounts for their odd endings. The epsilon in the stem contracted with the alpha of the neuter plural ending to form eta, thus: τό πέλαγος,-εος had originally τά πελάγεα as neuter plural, which later contracted to τά πελάγη; so also with τό κῆτος,-εος and its neuter plural τά κήτη.

I think this must be what the text was referring to, with a few problems. Words doesn't include the form "cete", and neither uulgus or uirus would have a plural ending in -e (if they even had a plural). Furthermore, it's a bit misleading to call pelagus 2nd declension, as Words does, since it is actually a heteroclite - hence the -e ending is not properly a 2nd declension ending. The important thing, at least, is that it gives the right parsings, and Words does usually do that, even if it does it in a weird way.

[Imber Ranae]

Words seems to often include "hypothetical" forms that don't actually exist in extant literature, like full passive forms of intransitive verbs which are only used impersonally, if at all. It's strange that it doesn't include cete, though. A&G doesn't categorize these words as heteroclite, either.

[Diaphanus]

Does anyone at all know where Whitaker found a second declension nom. & acc. plural ending of "e" for his Words program, in addition to "a". He claims "A&G" for the nominative in his background notes, but I can't find where he means in A&G.

Et "bella" et "belle" pro "bellum" nomine pluraliter nominativo atque accusativo casibus dicit Whitaker, in suo programmate Words nomine. Fontem eius de hâc re frustrà quaesivi. Quisquam cognoscit ubi sit?

You are talking about bellum -i n., right? It could be that Whitaker went with a technicality of the second declension. The second declension's stem vowel is said to be -o, but it might be better said to be -o/-e because of the variant stem vowel -e. This variant shows up in the vocative, and technically, all second-declension words ought to have the vocative in -e, and if this chart at the Old Latin entry at Wikipedia is to be trusted, even neuters in -om/-um had vocatives in -e at some point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Latin# ... on_.28b.29

See: saxom, vocative saxe.

But various groups of words followed their own rules. Vulgus and virus are o-stem neuters that have their nominative, accusative, and vocative singular forms disguised as those of r-/s-stems like genus but forming all of their other case forms normally, like how puer and ager are o-stem masculines that have their nominative and vocative singular forms disguised as those of r-stems like carcer and pater but forming all of their other case forms normally.

Pelagus and cete are second-declension in Latin in the sense that they are are seen as having stems in -o when given Latin case forms, but they have heteroclite plural forms in -e derived from their Greek third-declension case forms.

[adrianus]

Yes, it's fine in the online version ( http://archives.nd.edu/words.html). I hadn't noticed that because I don't use that one. There, "belle" does not show as nom and acc plural, viâ N 2 0 NOM P N 2 1 e X A -- A&G and N 2 0 ACC P N 2 1 e X A. It appears in the desktop version. And thanks, everyone, for explaining possibilities. I see now what the problem is. It's just an offline-version glitch.

Ità, interretialis versio bona est. Id non animadverti quià illâ non utor. Ibi, "belle" nominativo et accusativo pluraliter non datur. Adversum autem per versionem extra systema ostenditur. Et gratias omnibus, qui res quae fieri possunt demonstravere. Nunc quid sit negoti video. Tantùm macula est in versione extra systema.