Unanswered Questions
531 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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Which verbs come from *deh₃ and which from *dʰeh₁?
Latin has quite a few prefixed verbs looking like -dō, -dere, -didī, -ditus (condō, abdō, reddō, trādō, ēdō, etc).
I'd previously thought these came from the verb dō, dare, dedī, datus (< *deh₃ &...
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13
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the kiskis and kankan debate: primary sources
There's a very famous story about how in the middle of the sixteenth century the Sorbonne University filed a legal claim to the Parlement de Paris re: the correct pronunciation of qu- in Latin, viz. ...
- 11.6k
12
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Just how out of date are the major 19th/early 20th century English grammars of Latin (G&L, A&G, Bennett)
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were a slew of Latin grammars published in English that stuck around are still popular today (in the Anglophone world). A survey of various resources ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
12
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Why is "porticus, porticūs" a feminine fourth-declension noun?
The fourth declension was one of the less common inflection pattern for Latin nouns, and the vast majority of fourth declension nouns are masculine nouns ending in the deverbal abstract noun suffix -...
- 27.3k
12
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Received pronunciation in Ancient Greek
As S. Teodorsson argues in his work on the phonemic system of the Attic dialect, there is evidence that already in the IV century BC, 'popular' Athenian speech underwent changes such as the merger of ...
- 6,494
10
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Ranking the Difficulty of Latin Authors
Has there been a rigorous study of ranking the difficulty of ancient Latin authors? You often see (and, from personal experience, feel) the increase in difficult going from Caesar to Tacitus or Vergil ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
10
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Did the Romans walk their dogs?
Here is a mosaic from Pompeii showing a Roman dog in a leash:
(Image from Wikipedia.)
Other similar pictures of mosaics are easy to find online, so I am confident that dog leashes were a well known ...
- 111k
10
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What are the research topics of Latin scholars?
Given that dozens of grammars and dictionaries exist I wonder what questions the Latin scholars are working on.
Are there any big unknowns left?
The only one I can think of is the author of classic ...
- 101
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How can I use Perseus for Boolean searches?
Background and question
Encouraged by Joonas Ilmavirta in chat, as ‘Corpus tool questions are a useful thing to have for reference’, I boldly go forth asking this publicly: Does anyone know how to do ...
- 3,379
9
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Construction with ecce
According to the usual authorities the particle ecce is construed with the accusative in pre-classical Latin, but with the nominative in classical and post-classical Latin. Thus, Lewis and Short: “(...
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On the syntax of some datives in a beautiful Ciceronian structure
I was wondering if you would like to share your thoughts on the grammar of the datives in the following texts from Cicero. The second example is a very interesting one provided by Kingshorsey in an ...
- 3,379
8
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Quidquid vs quæcumque
Both quidquid and quæcumque are ways of translating English whatever or all things that [sth.], but is there any difference in meaning in that specific context?
I have a vague notion, not based in ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
8
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How is Conradus de Mure's Latin poem on parchment-making to be understood?
In a few different sources, I have found this poem on parchment-making attributed to Conradus de Mure. It is mostly intelligible, but several parts are obscure to me, either because of the language or ...
- 6,279
8
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How should a question be formulated to call for an ablative of respect as the answer?
Imagine a sentence that contains an ablative of respect: Quintus est pedibus aeger.
Now that same sentence with the ablative of respect removed: Quintus est aeger.
What is the best way to formulate a ...
- 6,279
8
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559
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When did "si" become the standard word for "yes" in the Italian peninsula?
I am aware that classical Latin did not have words for "yes" and "no" in the same sense that English does. I know that they could express the idea of "yes" by either ...
