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Further Observations on Habeo + Infinitive as an Exponent of Futurity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Robert Coleman
Robert Coleman
Affiliation:
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
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Extract

In his interesting paper on babeo and aueo published in CQ 66 (1972), 388–98, Dr. A.S. Gratwick raised a number of questions bearing on my own discussion of the origin and development of the babeo+infinitive construction in CQ 65 (1971), 215–31.

First the collapse of the earlier future-tense system. As I said, this was ‘the product of a number of different linguistic events’, phonetic, grammatical, and semantic, which were summarized and illustrated on pp. 220–1 of my paper. Even so Dr. Gratwick (p. 397) believes that I assigned too much weight to ‘phonetic attrition of the future simple’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , May 1976 , pp. 151 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

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References

1 For the convergence of /e/ and /i/, which produced homophony between dicēs and dicis and, in most parts of the Western Empire, dicētis and diitis (dícitis), see now, R. Coleman, ‘The monophthongization of /ae/ and the Vulgar Latin vowel system’, TPS 1971, esp. pp. 175–80.

2 Together with probaisti, probaimus, an probaistis, which though (unlike probai) they are not even indirectly attested in Romance, are plausible enough analogical formations from e.g. audiisti, audiimus etc. and need not be taken as merely hypothetical.

3 Respectively CIL 10. 216, 8. 5667, 6. 6870, 4. 2048, 11. 1074, 3. 12700.

4 Romance philologists tend to operate with a single base-form, usually -aut (e.g. E. Bourciez, Eléments de linguistique romane, Paris 19464, §91a, W. Meyer-Lübke, Grammaire des langues romanes, Paris 1890–1906, 2 §266). But just as It. cantó <cantaut, so it seems preferable to derive O.Fr. chantat from cantát, O. Sard. cantait from cantait directly rather than by analogical pressures within the paradigms of the independent languages.

5 It was similar analogical patterns that produced respectively -ai and -amus.

6 Before [w[ > [β], since probably [āβit > *[āβt] > * [aft] rather than [a: wt]. The dissyllabic form [a: ut] may have been the model for -iut, attested on CIL 6. 36377, petiut (cf. O. It. io), and on 2. 6302, posiut (cf. Sp: 46), if these are not also syncopated from ‘restored’ forms in īuit.

7 It is the older form ērunt, rather than the more recent -ērunt, due to the influence of -ēire, that is probably the starting point in all this. For the frequency of -ērunt in literary texts see D.W. Pye, TPS 1963, 1–27.

8 Respectively CIL 6. 35381, 3. 9508, 10. 8189.

9 There are a few examples of u for b in verb forms, e.g. on CIL 8. 19174 infereuit as the future of inferre; a reminder incidentally that in assessing the range of homophonic clash we should not have in mind only the classical paradigms. b-futures continued to find their way into i- stems from Plautus (scibit, seruibit, etc.) onwards; and uestibit, which occurs as a future in Ven. Fort. 9. 2. 124, is found as a perfect on CIL 31033.

10 The true reason for excluding this group is revealed on p. 392 n. 3: ‘habens+inf. which would be parallel to auens+inf., does not appear before Tertullian.’

11 Who with Varro and Ovid must be excepted from Dr. Gratwick's rule (p. 393) that if ‘a Classical or Augustan author’ uses aueo with audire etc., he also uses aueo with dicere etc. In fact the only three to whom the rule positively applies are Lucretius, Cicero, and Horace.

12 His arguments here and p. 390, n. 5 for reading auet at Arg. 1. 672, aueo at Theb. 6. 160 and aues in Gell. N.A. 20. 10. 2 are very convincing.

13 See the lists in Väänänen, V., Le Latin vulgaire des inscriptions pompéiennes (Berlin 1966), 57–8, 50–2.Google Scholar

14 For both examples see Bloomfield, L., Language (London 1935 2), 396–9).Google Scholar

15 Is More fully recorded in the edition of J. Gildemeister (Berlin 1889) than in that of Geyer, P., in CSEL xxxix (Vienna 1898).Google Scholar

16 The Greek original from A. Hilgenfeld' s edition (Leipzig 18812), the Vulgata version from Hilgenfeld's edition (Leipzig 1873), the Palatina from the edition of Gebhardt, O. vonGoogle Scholar and Harnack, A., Patrum apostolicorum opera iii (Leipzig 1877).Google Scholar

17 The Greek optative shows an extension from potentiality to conditioned futurity only. As for Dr. Gratwick's assertion that ‘atonic can [kn] is often so used in colloquial English’ (p. 396, n. 1), it would be interesting to see the evidence for this.

18 As a general proposition this is refuted by the evidence of Sardinian, where all the exponents of futurity derive from exponents of obligation (depo kantare < debeo cantare; apa a kantare < babeat ad cantare) and there is no trace of rival volitives.

19 It is hard to see why Mitchell, B., A Guide to Old English (Oxford 1965), §211, is so cautious about these two examples.Google Scholar

20 For an ingenious attempt to enlist the obsolete modalities in support of the rules and in explanation of the numerous exceptions see Sweet, H., A New English Grammar ii (Oxford 1898), §§2196–202.Google Scholar