You two certainly have more stamina than I do for disputing about such things; I’ll just say that my sympathies are very much with Calvinist here. My Latin interests are fables and proverbs, which range from the low-brow to the high-brow and are certainly not confined to use in classical times or even to use by native speakers - and I’m quite certain that for great swaths of Latin speakers (classical and later, native and non-native) who both made and used those Latin fables and proverbs, the distinctions Adrianus maintains here would not be especially pertinent, although it is an interesting topic in its own right of course.
Sorry, Laura, but I disagree. Among proverbs you yourself note (http://latinviaproverbs.pbworks.com/w/page/15131093/group263), is there ambiguity about which tense is involved? For example, in “Ne citò credideris! (with long final i)” (“Nor must you hastily believe!”) it can’t be future perfect indicative, can it? Isn’t it subjunctive? If the tenses meant the same thing, I could say “Non citò credideris! (with short final i)” (“You will not hastily have believed!”) but isn’t that far from the intended meaning?
Me paenitet sed tecum dissentio, Laura. Inter adagia à te ipsâ nota, ubi est ambiguitas temporis? Exempli gratiâ cum “Ne citò credideris! (per i ultimam longam)”, nonnè subjunctivo modo est verbum? “Non citò credideris (per i ultimam correptam)” eandem rem aliàs significet, quod clarè falsum est, nisi fallor.
Adrianus, when it is used with ne, of course it is subjunctive… Indeed, we know it is subjunctive because of the ne. The essential issue there, linguistically, is the REDUNDANCY: Latin needs not just indicatives and subjunctives, but also distinctions like the distinction between ne and non to make sure the meaning is clearly conveyed; the form credideris by itself would not be enough - hence the distinction also between ne and non. The words ne and non are clear and unambiguous markers, and as such they are very important words - with non instead of ne, the meaning would indeed be different; we would interpret the form differently because ne and non each give a different context (in addition to the larger context in which the statement is being used, which would further reinforce the meaning). It’s the context that resolves the ambiguity of the form, insofar as it needs to be resolved… and really, once you distinguish between ne and non, I’m not sure whether Latin speakers, even highly educated ones, would even consciously resolve the verb form … but that’s a purely hypothetical question, unless you can think of some way to actually answer it - is there a Latin grammarian who discusses such examples? My guess is that a grammarian would tell you that it must be the context - whether pragmatic, or metrical, but some kind of context - is what allows you to resolve the form, right?
No, “credideris” spoken can be enough. Speech is supremely important. It is capable of more than the written word.
Minimé. “Credideris” sonari sufficit. Maximi momenti sunt sermones, capaciores vocabulis scriptis.
Well, I did already say that Diomedes does mention it,—that there need be no ambiguity when spoken because, even though they are spelt the same, the words sound different. You wouldn’t say “venī” and “vēnī” mean the same thing. Nor are they ambiguous is speech, unless spoken without due regard.
If “crediderim” and “credidero” do not mean the same thing, why should “crediderīs” and “credideris” etc. And even when they have the same sound, as in “crediderit/crediderint”, it’s ambiguous, i.e., it is capable of two different meanings. The perfect subjunctive does not have the same meaning as the future perfect indicative.
Iam dixi Diomedem rem discriminis per sonum summatim tractasse, etiamsi orthographia (sine signis) non mutetur. Clarâ voce sonita “venī” et “vēnī” verba distinguuntur. Non ambiguua locutione sunt, nisi incuriosè sonita.
Non synonyma sunt “crederim” et “credero”; cur ergo “crēdideris” et “crēdiderīs” et sequentes? Et cum “crediderit/crediderint” verè ambigua est figura, id est, duplex est eius significatio, non simplex, quod mutat sensus inter subjunctivum modum et indicativum.
Hi Adrianus, I imagine you would be appalled by most of the kinds of Latin that are of interest to me, when the vowel length distinction had long since broken down. There’s a reason why the modern Romance languages distinguish between long and short vowels; the distinction had broken down already in so-called vulgar Latin and was no longer phonemic in proto-Romance. As to exactly how and exactly when the breakdown in vowel length occurred, especially in final syllables which have no reinforcement from accent, it is hard to say - but that’s because we have only the written evidence. So, yes, speech does much that writing cannot and it is an entirely different experience to learn a living language rather than a dead one; the grammarians did their best to keep an understanding of Latin vowel length alive amongst the hyper-erudite, but the Romance languages themselves show what a losing battle that was.
This same discussion has come up many times at LatinTeach as well so I thought I would share this remark from John Traupman there, who is a keen student of the Latin grammarians:
The ancient grammarians referred to a future subjunctive in place of “our” future perfect indicative.
John Traupman
Salvete Adriane et Laura. First I want to say that I enjoy discussions like this. They are very edifying because they force me to think through my own positions as well as listen to and analyze other positions.
I want to clarify my position, which I think Laura will agree with as well. I am not saying that there is no distinction between the two. I am saying, however, that the distinction is one that an average speaker probably either did not notice or did not care to pay attention to. I am also saying that I believe the two began to merge into one, and this was probably well under way by the Imperial period. This would be due to two things: 1) the similarity in form (even if there was a distinction in accent) 2) the similarity in meaning/usage (even though there was a subtle distinction). As far as pronunciation goes, keep in mind that the accent in Classical Latin was very subtle and not comparable to the stress accent in modern European languages (Greek originally had pitch accents).
I want to give a few examples to show how common this process is in languages. All of us on Textkit understand the subtle distinction between “in” and “into”, because both Latin and Greek make these distinctions more than our native language does. However, we see that in Koine Greek εις (into) and εν (in) were beginning to merge in meaning. We find εν where we would expect εις and vice versa. The authors didn’t care what the purist grammarians would’ve said… to them the distinction was not necessary to communicate their ideas, and obviously the language community as a whole was in agreement.
In English, “in” can be used in any instance where “into” can, but the reverse isn’t true; “into” can only be used for movement in and not static location: “I put it in/into the car” but “It’s in the car” (“It’s into the car” is ungrammatical) So is there a distinction? The answer is somewhat complex. Sometimes there is, and sometimes there isn’t.
Another example we are all familiar with is “can/may”. It can be said that the former expresses ability while the latter represents permission, but in real spoken English that isn’t true. There is considerable overlap between the two. Talk of exceptions is not an adequate description… if a usage is widespread it’s not an exception, even though it destroys some grammarians’ idealistic perfect semantic distinctions between the two. The question “Can I have some water?” is not understood by any native English speaker to be a question of the speaker’s own abilities. It’s a request. In fact “can” is probably much more frequent in this construction than “may”, even though some English teachers might be rolling in their graves… but they don’t own the language, the speakers as a community do.
In an earlier period of English the two probably did not overlap like this, but that is not the situation now. In fact, the only distinction between “Can I have some water?” and “May I have some water?” is not denotative but connotative. That is to say, there is really no semantic difference, but the latter expresses politeness. So the English professors that explained that "Can I… " is wrong because it expresses ability and not permission were flat wrong. They both express permission/request, one just carries more formality/politeness.
This antithesis between grammar purists and the reality of the language is as old as language itself. Grammarians, both ancient and present, are suspect for this reason. We must listen to them, but we must also be careful. It’s quite possible that the distinction between future perfect indicative and perfect subjunctive was like our own “in/into” or “can I/may I”. It’s a distinction that is at the most very subtle, if even present at all. A distinction unobserved by the native speaker, and only really noticed (and then only sometimes maintained) after education. Is the phrase “I jumped in the pool” ambiguous? Those who have studied Latin and Greek might say so… but we’d have to explain why it’s ambiguous to most native speakers, as they wouldn’t have any difficulty understanding exactly what was meant, and without even considering the distinction between “into/in”. As Laura said earlier… CONTEXT.
Thanks for bringing up formality/politeness, Calvinist - that kind of distinction is almost impossible for us to recover from the limited written record of Latin, but of course there were different registers in Latin; sociolinguistics and pragmatics are linguistic dimensions that are just as important as phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. As English speakers, we can appreciate the tremendous difference between saying – It’s me – or – 'Tis I – statements which are both grammatical English… but obviously still very different linguistically.
Don’t. I don’t know why you would imagine that. I’m personally more interested in Renaissance+ latin than in classical latin. That’s why I mark the accents the way I do when I try to write in Latin.
Noli consternata esse. Id contrarium esse opineris. Lingua latina renascentiae aevi ante eam classici mihi majoris curae est. Quare accentus distinguentes in scriptis denoto, vel sic saepè conor.
Exactly. And since we are forced to construct our understanding of the language from a limited collection of writings mostly from highly educated authors (and may I say elitist, although not in a negative way), we can sometimes miss real distinctions such as register and at the same time over-exaggerate distinctions that may have gone mostly unnoticed by the average speaker. For instance, was “amicus” the term that friends used for each other? Or was there a word equivalent to our “bro” or “dude” or “hey, man… what’s up!” Most of this type of language is lost in the formal writings of the elite.
Hi Adrianus, the chaos is in the Middle Ages - the Renaissance is imitating classical style and usage (even hypercorrectly); this was not always the goal of medieval writers. The medieval writers often had no idea about vowel quantities, and they also had no erudite references to help them as the Renaissance writers did. The rhyming Latin poetry of the Middle Ages is like nothing classical, and like nothing neo-classical from the Renaissance - but I find it to be wonderful stuff. Often the rhymes depend on very un-classical pronunciation.
If we could find lyric books for the hip-hop music of that time (folk poetry) we would probably find a very different Latin:
The new moon rose high in the crown of the metropolis
Shinin’, like who on top of this?
People was hustlin’, arguin’ and bustlin’
Gangstas of Gotham hardcore hustlin’
I’m wrestlin’ with words and ideas
My ears is picky, seekin’ what will transmit
the scribes can apply to transcript, yo
This ain’t no time where the usual is suitable
Tonight’s alive, let’s describe the inscrutable
The indisputable, we New York the narcotics
Strength in metal and fiber optics
where mercenaries is paid to trade hot stock tips
for profits, thirsty criminals take pockets
Hard knuckles on the second hands of workin’ class watches
Skyscrapers is colossus,
the cost of living is preposterous,
stay alive, you play or die, no options
No Batman and Robin,
can’t tell between the cops and the robbers,
they both partners, they all heartless
With no conscience, back streets stay darkened
Where unbelievin’ hearts stay hardened
-Mos Def “Respiration”
Medieval Latin is a glorious hodge-podge of folk tradition and erudite tradition, twisted and tangled. One of my favorites is the way the Goliardic poets will take a rhythmical meter and then throw in a dactylic hexameter, kind of like they are showing off that they can go either way - for example, see below, where the first three lines of each stanza are rhythmic (you can sing it to the tune of Yankee Doodle or Good King Wenceslas), but the fourth line is a hexameter… yet all four lines rhyme. It’s the fable of the rooster and the gemstone:
Quidam Gallinacius victum quaeritavit.
Pretiosus interim lapis latitavit
In luto quem proferens, maerens suspiravit,
Quod victu caruit, quem sic reperire putavit:
“Escam mihi petii, sed cum te iacere
In luto perspiciam, nil mihi praebere
Potes; si te cupido velles exhibere,
Tunc poteris fieri praeclarus eique placere.”
Changes and regional variation may look chaotic but may often be healthy. Certainly latin never ever existed as a single dialect. Many medieval writers certainly understood about vowel quantities and marked them in many manuscripts (otherwise certain poets couldn’t continue to write or play with classical scansion, or word emphasis would be chaotic indeed,—and poets and songsters in any language often twist pronunciation to suit their needs) and Vergil and Priscian et cetera et cetera were great model references, surely, in the middle ages. But why on earth should people imitate how others spoke over a thousand years before? Academism (and Renaissance academism especially, ironically) only hobbled the language.
Mutationes variationesque regionum medio aevo indigentae videntur; immò salubres saepè sunt. Nec unquàm obiter ut dialectos simplex latinum. Multi aevo medio qui quantitatem vocalum cogitaverunt nec carent apices in multis manuscriptis (aliter nec continuò poetae metris classicis capaces scribendi aptandique mansissent, nec continuò vocabula publica eandem vim plerumquè possedissent,—nota quoque, multis linguis aliquorum aevorum, ut suspicor, carmen et musica sermones mutant), et certè etiam tunc exstant fontes docti ut opus Vergili ut opus Prisciani ut opera multorum aliorum. Cur quidem hercule ut homines ampliùs mille annos discessi loquaris? Scholastici fuerunt (praesentìm ironicè Renascentiae aevi) qui linguam claudere fecerunt.
Adrianus, I still would like to hear your response to my long post from earlier today explaining why I think the distinction can be ignored.
I want to bring up a point you made earlier, Adrianus. You referred to English “I will have… / I might have…”. I contend that there isn’t a significant difference semantically at all. If I say, “By tomorrow morning I will have finished my paper” and I have to go to the emergency room I will be found to be a liar. However, I will probably say that of course the act of me finishing the paper was dependent upon some certain conditions. This is understood even though the indicative mood is used.
I could’ve said “By tomorrow morning I may have finished my paper” making the idea of conditionality more explicit, but anything that is yet to happen is always conditional, unless you are God. This has nothing to do with language, it has to do with reality. To say that when the future perfect indicative is used there is not an idea of conditionality is wrong. The subjunctive just expresses it more explicitly. One cannot guarantee a future event simply by using the indicative mood.
If we describe the indicative mood as the mood of “fact/reality” then a future indicative is by definition a contradiction. I think you are hanging on to the distinction between indicative/subjunctive → fact/hypothetical too much. Any future tense in any language carries the idea of conditionality/hypothetical. As Laura said earlier, it isn’t a coincidence that the Latin subjunctive/future tenses are similar in form, they come from the same forms, and slowly acquired subtle distinctions. In this case though, I think the distinctions are pretty much non-existent.
This is the what you’re referring to, I suppose, Calvinist.
Hoc est quod denotas, Calvinistice, ut suppono:
That’s not what is in controversy ('though it was said there was no difference in meaning). I know that pronunciation of these tenses would have blurred in five out of six cases/persons. Certain latin speakers did try to restore distinction in pronunciation (and many text-book writers still do) but even then it is possible for anyone to hide ignorance of distinction by not observing differences in accent, and not unreasonably justifying that by past practices. But in the first-person singular case it is not possible to hide ignorance. That to me is crucial and it addresses the original point of this thread: is there any basis to discriminate? [“There seems to be a distinction in meaning there - is it one Latin recognises?”] Had brookter asked, "How do I put this into Latin substituting “ego” for “omnes”? you couldn’t dodge the issue by saying “it doesn’t matter whether you say “cepero” or “ceperim” because they mean the same”. There are subtle bases for using one tense over the other, and the knowing speaker or writer understands which tense they intend, even though a reader needs to disambiguate (if they care to take the trouble) in cases other than first-person singular.
Non dubitandum; non autem contentio nostra (dictum verò est discrimina sensus non exstare). Locutionem horum temporum per aeva cum quinque è sex personis mutare scio et discrimina inter se perdidisse. Sunt qui distinctiones restituere affectabant (multi eorum grammatici moderni) at iam possible est morum anteriorum denotando ignorantiam distinctionum operire. Cum unâ autem personâ id non possible est: eâ primae personae. Hoc mihi transversum est quod ad rem huius fili pertineat: estne possible inter usus distinguere? Si rogasset brookter quomodo hanc sententiam in sermones latinos vertat si “ego” pro “omnes” substituatur, rem fugere non potest ita in dicendo: nihil refert an “cepero” vel “cererim” scribatur quia synonyma. Subtilia discrimina deprehendantur quae oratori vel scriptori docto clara sunt, etiamsi lectori (illi cui id curae est) omnibus cum personis separatim primâ singulariter significationem verbi deliberari oportet.
I’ve been following this thread with interest - and I’m glad I asked the question: it’s been really stimulating.
What I’ve taken from it so far is:
- In the sentence I quoted, there is no way of knowing whether Orberg had in mind the perfect subjunctive or the future perfect. Each would have been grammatically correct.
- It is possible to distinguish a difference in meaning, between the two, although this is slight — because the concept of the subjunctive and the future both include uncertainty — and one that may well have been ignored by most speakers.
Once clarification, please: given the Roman’s propensity for shoving the subjunctive into every possible occasion (OK, I exaggerate a little: given their greater fondness for the subjunctive than ours in English), is it possible to say whether they would have been more likely to use the subjunctive here than the future perfect (in those occasions when the form of the verb makes them choose: cēperim vs cēperō…)? I’m thinking that if the distinction is so fine, then most would opt for the more ‘comfortable’ rather than the most accurate form: the difference between “may” and “can” mentioned in a post above.
Again, thanks for the very interesting discussion,
David
You see no difference of meaning in English between “I will” and “I might” and you believe that to fail to deliver what you predicted means that you lied? I speak a different English than you, calvinist.
Estne verum ut inter anglicè “I will” et “I might” mutationem significationis non agnoscas, ut non facere id quod facere dixisses mendacium esse credas? Non sicut tu, calvanistice, anglicè loquor.
“Omnēs enim quī cēperint gladium, gladiō perībunt.”
As I said above, brookter, “ceperint” is future perfect here, not past perfect subjunctive. There is no reason for it to be past perfect subjunctive, but there is a reason for it to be future perfect (completed in the future at the time to which “peribunt” refers). [Only ancient grammarians such as Priscian or Probus etc refer to the future perfect as subjunctive; we today say indicative for the future perfect.]
Ut suprà dixi, brookter, verbum “ceperint” enim illîc futuri perfecti temporis est, non praeteriti perfecti. Nulla ratio exstat cur praeteriti perfecti sit, at exstat ratio cur sit futuri perfecti (quia tempore ad quod principale verbum “peribunt” pertinet veteraverat actio “ceperint” verbi). [Solùm grammatici antiqui ut Priscianus ut Probus et sequentes illum modum futuri perfecti temporis “subjunctivum” nomen vocant; nos nunc istum modum “indicativum” vocamus.]