How do we get around the fact that 'extera' appears rarely as masculine

Question

In the OLD it says that 'exter' is rare as a nom sing masc adjective but in the LASLA database it does not appear at all as a masc positive adjective in any case. As a superlative the masculine 'extremus' appears 16 times. So if you want to modify a masculine noun with 'exter' do you just use a different adjective or do you use the feminine or neuter form of the adjective?

Answer 1

So if you want to modify a masculine noun with 'exter' do you just use a different adjective or do you use the feminine or neuter form of the adjective?

My short answer would be to use the forms externus or exterior to avoid the potential problem, since no one can be certain what forms were acceptable in what contexts at any given period. Below is my longer answer.

Implicit in your question is the issue of what standard we should use in writing Latin. For the sake of argument, let's say you are trying to write Latin that we think Cicero, Julius Caesar, or another "Classical Latin" author would consider morphologically correct and/or good style.

Lewis & Short says of exter(us):

exter or extĕrus (both forms only post-class. and very rare), tĕra, tĕrum, adj. comp. form, from ex, I.on the outside, outward, of another country, family, etc., foreign, strange (syn.: extraneus; alienus, peregrinus, adventicius). I. Pos. (in Cic. and Caes. used in the plur.): “quod exter heres praestare cogeretur,” strange, Dig. 31, 1, 69: “emancipatus vero aut exterus non aliter possunt hereditatem quaerere quam si, etc.,” ib. 29, 2, 84

From this entry, we learn that Lewis & Short agree that the masculine singular nominative forms exter/exterus do not appear in classical Latin literature, but they are found "rarely" and at least in the sixth century Digest. The relative lack of citations raises the question: Is the rarity or lack of forms a systemic issue, or just an artifact of the fact chance has not allowed these forms to appear in the literature that happened to survive? Also, does sixth century usage imply that classical usage would have been fine, even if not attested?

We can begin to resolve this question be looking at other words of a similar structure and parallel meaning.

For poster(us), we find in Lewis & Short:

postĕrus or poster (not in use in I.nom. sing. masc.), a, um, adj.—Comp: posterior, us.—Sup.: postremus or postumus, a, um [post], coming after, following, next, ensuing, future.

For super(us), we find in Lewis & Short:

sŭpĕrus , a, um (ante-class. collat. form of the I.nom. sing. sŭpĕr in two passages: “super inferque vicinus,” Cato, R. R. 149, 1: “totus super ignis,” Lucr. 1, 649; gen. plur. in signif. I. B. 1. infra, superūm, Verg. A. 1, 4; Ov. M. 1, 251 et saep.), adj. super.

For infer(us) in the same source:

infĕrus , a, um (ante-class. collat. form of the I.nom. sing. infer: “ubi super inferque vicinus permittet,” Cato, R. R. 149), adj. cf. Sanscr. adh-aras, adh-amas, the lower, lowest; and Lat. infra, that is below, underneath, lower; opp. superus.

We find no adjective form corresponding to *inter(us) or *anter(us), but do find dexter and sinister in all forms.

From these data, one can conclude that there was hesitancy around the masculine singular nominative form of all the adjectives related to basic adverbs/prepositions of position that had ready comparatives in -(t)erior. What may have caused this hesitancy is hard to say, but several factors immediately present themselves.

First, although all the above words appear to have a similar structure and similar derivational possibilities, the roots/stems themselves do not have the same structure and are not all the same part of speech. Some have a form ending in "er(us)," others a form ending in "ter(us)." Of those not ending in a "t" in their basic form, some add one to make "ter(us)"; while others do not.

In some of these roots, forms ending in "-er" conflict with the form of the base adverb or preposition. This conflict and the varying semantics is probably why we have no adjective of the form inter, but then again Cato seems to have had no problem with using super and infer as adjectives, which at least had the same semantics as the corresponding prepositions.

Even more important than the the structure of these words is the fact the comparative forms of these words are very often used with almost the same meanings as the positive forms. There is little need for an exter(us) if exterior carries just about the same meaning, especially if there is hesitancy around which form is appropriate. It is telling that all the comparative forms have survived into English, but almost none of the positive forms. It is also telling that we find exter(us) only in a legal document, where a feeling of precision, formality, and archaism would have been desired stylistic traits.

In addition, there are ready synonyms of many of these words formed from the same roots by adding -(t)ernus, such as externus, giving yet another classical option for avoiding a dubious form. Such stacking of suffixes happened with many Latin words over time so that we eventually ended up structurally with ex > exter > externus > externalis.