for perrogitando instead? Or is perrogitandod some kind of acceptable variant spelling?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dadvena
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dperrogito
Probably not a typo. The ablative singular ending of the 2d declension was originally -od. The entry for perrogito has probably normalized the ending. See Allen & Greenough 49e:
Glad you know this!
Here is OLD’s definition on per-rogito:
So OLD’s interpretation is more or less “cross-examine each other” whereas Lewis and Short is not “cross examine” but rather ask too many in a row?
The OLD definition “go on questioning in turn” doesn’t mean “cross-examine each other.” It means the same thing as L&S “ask one after another,” as the Pacuvius fragment shows: “He got tired [perrogitando] everyone who arrived about their kids.” OLD “in turn” means “one after another.”
Incidentally, Weiss, Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin, 2d ed., p. 239, cites POPLICOD in an inscription dated 186 BCE, so the -od ending was still in use, if not universally, in Pacuvius’ lifetime (BCE 220-130).
Also, without seeing the text of the fragment in Priscian, it’s impossible to tell whether perrogitado_as reported by L&S and the OLD under perrogito is a normaization, or perrogitando as reported by L&S under_advena is philologist’s correction. Or maybe just a typo after all, though I doubt it.
Glad to see this post attracted your immediate attention and very informative answers. It really gave me food for thought on how to get more out of existing lexicons than knowing the mere answers themselves.
Here is something else that baffled me recently. I felt like a total illiterate when the downloaded copy of Johannes Despauterius’ book opened in front of me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Despauterius
https://books.google.com/books?id=tWE-AAAAcAAJ
Is this kind of Latin textbook still relevant in this day and age? What’s the intended audience/who are most likely to benefit the most from this kind of really old textbooks? Feel free to shed whatever light you might have on this.
I’m not an academic scholar, so take what I write with a grain of salt.
Latin writers in the 16th century knew Latin backwards and forwards and could write Latin almost as well as Cicero or Seneca. But there has been progress in understanding Latin grammar and usage since then. In particular, scholars in the 19th century – mostly German – undertook an enormous number of detailed studies of specific points of grammar and usage, culminating in the Kühner-Stegmann grammar, and the results trickled down into the Anglo-Saxon world though the grammars of Gildersleeve & Lodge and, to a lesser extent, Allen & Greenough. In recent years, modern linguistics has shed light on Latin syntax, too.
I think Renaissance Latin grammarians took as a given the grammatical framework of ancient grammarians, which I think most scholars today would consider naive. Mastery of a language at the highest level does not necessarily entail a deep understanding of the grammar.
Again, I probably shouldn’t be commenting on your question, and maybe someone else can provide a better answer.
Your comments are a very good starter. So is it fair to say that for recent scholars such as Kühner-Stegmann-Gildersleeve & Lodge-Allen & Greenough, Latin is chiefly learned and studied as “pure science” because its value as a medium of everyday communication let alone for new literary creations has dwindled so much as to be almost non-existent; whereas for Renaissance scholars, Latin was only “half” as dead then, so they still learned and acquired Latin as a living thing, for self-expressions, etc. etc.. They were sort of like modern day bilingual or trilingual, ready to switch between (medieval) Latin and their respective vernaculars. So while the differences in between are well known to them, there is perhaps really no need nor space for them to overthink or overanalyze any part of either languages (or dialects)?
The other question is, which you may or may not have read prior, did any of the ancients who were really proficient bilinguals of Greek & Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, etc., etc. firmly believe or hint these were “sister” languages back then? Or is this language family thing a modern concept/invention only? If the affinity between Greek and Sanskrit were so obvious to a scholar like Sir William Jones, were the ancient themselves totally oblivious to this? If they had been so blind for so long, perhaps that’s another evidence that people from different eras do have very different perspectives when it comes to relationship of languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jones_(philologist)
Jones is known today for making and propagating the observation about relationships between the Indo-European languages.
PS
Didn’t see any mention of the contribution from ancient sources in the development of the concept of “language family” as we know today in the Wiki entry below:
My point about Despauterius was simply that analysis of Latin grammar has advanced since the Renaissance. As for whether the ancient Greeks and Romans had any idea that Latin and Greek were part of a language family, I’m not familiar with ancient thinking on the subject. But their horizon was limited to Latin and Greek, and they don’t seem to have been interested in other languages, except maybe Etruscan in the case of the Romans. They seem to have had a sense that Latin and Greek were somehow related to one another, but spurious etymologies in circulation in antiquity make it clear that they had no concept of a systematic relationship or a language family. Ancient grammarians knew nothing of other Indo-European languages, especially the languages of India.
So it seems that the idea of “systems” gained and perfected in recent generations is such a powerful tool that the ancient simply didn’t have and couldn’t possibly have developed. And the rest is history? (Now I’m wondering what would the ancient sage say about modern day “standardized test” in general, something to be jealous about or…)
Topic split to the Google-shielded Academy.