CHAPTER X. PRONOUNS AND PRONOMINAL WORDS. § 1. General definitions. § 2. Personal Pronouns. § 3. Indicative Pronouns. § 4. Distinctive Pronouns. § 5. Relative, interrogative, and indefinite Pronouns. § 6. Numerals and degrees of comparison. § 7. Prepositions. § 8. Negative Particles. THE HE term pronoun, in accordance with its original meaning, (pronomen, avτwvvuía), ought to denote only those words which are used as substitutes for nouns. But according to that which appears to me to be the only scientific classification, all words fall into two great divisions,-pronouns, or words which indicate space or position; and words containing roots, which express the positional relations of general attributes. The former do not allow any admixture with the other element of language: the latter require the addition of at least one pronominal suffix to make them words. I have therefore proposed1 to call the pronouns, or positional words, the organizing, constituent, or formative element of inflected language, and the roots I would designate as the material element of human speech. With this extension of meaning the term pronoun will include not only the personal, demonstrative, and relative words, which it generally denotes, but also the prepositions, the conjunctions, and those adverbs which are not merely cases of nouns. § 2. Personal Pronouns. Although the verb has three persons, the Latin language does not use more than two personal pronouns or general indications of the nominative case. For although ego and tu may be used with the first and second persons of the verb, which, as we shall see, are not consistently expressed by the inflexions; with the third person, which always ends in -t or -tur, the nominative is either omitted or expressed by a noun substantive. When, however, in the objective construction it is necessary to introduce a pronoun referring to the nominative of the verb, we employ the reciprocal or reflexive se. Thus, although diceba-t is a suf 1 New Crat. § 128. ficient expression of "he said, or used to say," we must introduce se before an infinitive expressing the assertion; as: diceba-t SE esse bonum virum, "he said that he (the person, in question, who said) was a good man ;" and as we should write ego diceba-m ME esse, or tu diceba-s TE esse, we may infer an original pronoun of the third person beginning with 8- and corresponding to the Greek oor í, just as è corresponds to se. But this form occurs only in the oblique cases, sui, sibi, se, and in the particles si-c, si-ne, si, and se-d. The original inflexions of the two personal pronouns were as follows: But For the plural, or rather the collective form, of the personal pronouns, we have two different roots corresponding to v and op, which are used as the dual in Greek; and from these roots we have the nom., ac., voc. no-s, vo-s; dat., abl. no-bi-s, vo-bi-s. According to the analogy of vŵiv, opwiv, we ought also to have genitives no-um or no-sum, and vo-um or vo-sum. these are not found. Indeed, although the singular genitives mis, tis, which may have been originally forms in -jus, like hu-jus, e-jus, &c., retained their use as late as Plautus, these also became obsolete in classical Latinity, and the genitive forms for the singular and plural were derived from the possessive adjectives meus, tuus, nos-ter, ves-ter. The connexion between the genitive and the epithet is well known (New Crat. § 298), and in all languages the possessive may take the place of the genitive of a pronoun. But in Latin and Greek we have not only a possessive in direct adjectival agreement with its noun, but, by a singular attraction, we have the genitive of the possessive used as if it were the genitive of the pronoun itself. I call this an attraction, for I think it must be explained by a transition from those idiomatic collocations, in which a dependent genitive stands by the side of the possessive. Thus we may say not only mea scripta, "my writings," for "the writings of me," but even mea scripta recitare timentis (Hor. I. Serm. 4, 23), "the writings of me fearing to recite ;" and not only nuerépa έρις, epis, "our contention," for "the contention of us," but even ȧyaðŵv čρis nμеrépa (Eschyl. Eum. 975), "the contention of us good persons." We see then how easy the transition may be from such phrases as mea unius opera respublica est salva, or vestris paucorum respondet laudibus, to eam unius tui studio me assequi posse confido, or vestrum omnium voluntati paruit. Hence we find that ultimately mei and tui were the only genitives of ego and tu, and nostri or nostrum, and vestri or vestrum, the only genitives of nos and vos. The same applies to the very defective pronoun of the third person, the reciprocal se, which has lost its nominative, and has only the genitive sui, the dative sibi, and the accusative or ablative se, for all genders and numbers. We must also consider the Greek ἐμοῦ, or μοῦ, anciently μeoû (N. Crat. § 134), and σou, as properly belonging to the possessive. The hypothesis of an attraction, which I have proposed, is the only way of explaining the difference in the usage of nostri, nostrum, and of vestri, vestrum. That nostrum, vestrum are genitives plural, is clear from the fact that they were anciently used in the full forms nostrorum, vestrorum; thus in Plautus (Mostell. I.3,123) we have: verum illud est, maximaque pars vostrorum intelligit. As genitives they can only be explained by an attraction into the case of some plural genitive expressed or understood. In general, we do not find the genitive except when the personality is emphatically expressed; as in Ovid, Heroid. XIII. 166: Si tibi cura mei, sit tibi cura tui. Cic. Catil. IV. 9: habetis ducem memorem vestri, oblitum sui. And here it may stand by the side of an inflected possessive, as in Cic. ad Fam. XII. 17: grata mihi vehementer est memoria nostri tua; or even be opposed to one, as in Ovid, Heroid. VII. 134: parsque tui lateat corpore clausa meo. But whereas nostri, vestri, are used only when we speak of the persons as a whole; as: memoria nostri tua, "your recollection of us," as a single object of thought; nostrum, vestrum are employed when we speak of the persons as a collection of separate or separable elements. Accordingly, the latter is the form adopted after such a word as pars (in the passage quoted above from Plautus), and by the side of omnium, as in Cic. Cat. I. 7: patria est communis omnium nostrûm parens, our native land is the common parent of all of us," many and separable as we are. But that it is really in this case an attraction from the inflected possessive, is 66 clear from such passages as Cic. Cat. IV. 2: hi ad vestram omnium cædem Romæ restiterunt. We have a genitive by the side of the possessive in the construction of the impersonal verbs, or rather phrases, re-fert-rei fert, "it contributes to the interest," and interest, "it is concerned about the business," where rei is understood in the sense in which the Latin verb has become an English substantive1. In these phrases we have either a gen. of the person or persons interested, or the possessive pronouns, meā, tuā, suā, nostrā, vestrā, agreeing with the dative rei, expressed in re-fert, and understood in interest. Thus we have faciundum aliquid, quod illorum magis, quam sua re-tulisse videretur, "he must do something which might seem to have been more for the interest of those others than for his own;" Cæsar dicere solebat non tam suâ quam reipublica interesse, ut salvus esset, "Cæsar used to say that it was not so much for his interest as for that of the state that he should be safe." That re for rei is the dative, and consequently that meā, suā, &c., here stand for meæ, suæ, &c., is proved by the competent testimony of Verrius (Festus, p. 282, ed. Müller): re-fert quum dicimus, errare nos ait Verrius. Esse enim rectum REI FERT, dativo scilicet, non ablativo casu. In Cato, R. R. c. 3, we have: et rei et virtuti et gloriæ erit. That fero may be used absolutely without any accusative is clear from such phrases as: dum tempus ad eam rem tulit (Ter. Andr. I. 2, 17), dum ætas tulit (id. ibid. II. 6, 12), nunc ita tempus fert, ut cupiam (Heaut. IV. 1, 54), scilicet ita tempus fert (Adelph. V. 3, 5). And it is unnecessary to show that fero, like λvoireλéw, may govern the dativus commodi. The change of a into a is found also in post-hac, inter-ea, &c., which will be explained immediately. §3. Indicative Pronouns. The three pronouns, hic, iste, ille are called indicative, because they indicate, as objects, the three personal pronouns, which, in the cases already considered, are expressed as subjects of the verb. Hic, "this," "the person or thing here," indicates the speaker and all close to him; iste, "that of yours," indicates the person addressed and those in his proximity; ille, "that 1 For re= rei in this sense cf. Plaut. Trinumm. III. 2, 9 = 635: tuæ re consulere cupio. other," indicates all distant persons and objects. This distinction was well known to the oldest grammarians, and is fully borne out by the consistent usage of the best writers. Priscian's distinction is rather vague: he says (XVII. 9. § 58, Vol. II. p. 39, Krehl): "Demonstrativa [sunt] hic, iste, et ille. Sed interest quod ille spatio longiore intelligitur, iste vero propinquiore; hic autem non solum de præsente, verum etiam de absente possumus dicere, ad intellectum referentes demonstrationem, ut, hoc regnum dea gentibus esse Virgilius ad absentem Carthaginem retulit demonstrationem." But Laurentius Valla has given the personal reference of the three pronouns with the greatest accuracy (Elegant. II. c. iv. p. 39. ed. Aldina 1536): "de me loquens dicere debeo hoc caput, hæc manus, hæc civitas. De te vero istud caput, ista manus, ista civitas. De tertia autem persona illud caput, illa manus, illa civitas. Cicero in Antonium (Phil. II. 25): tu istis faucibus, &c., h. e. istis tuis faucibus, &c. Unde nascuntur adverbia istic, istinc, istac, istuc, istorsum, isto. Ut idem ad Valerium juris consultum: qui istinc veniunt aiunt te superbiorem esse factum, i. e. qui ab ista provincia in qua agis, huc in Italiam Romamque veniunt." Practically we find that hic and iste are opposed as I and you, and hic and ille as near and distant. Thus we find (Cic. Acad. IV. 33): "iisdem hic sapiens, de quo loquor, oculis, quibus iste vester terram, mare, intuebitur;" and (pro Rabirio II.): "si illos, quos jam videre non possumus, negligis, ne his quidem, quos vides, consuli putas oportere." And thus in reference to circumstances previously mentioned, ille denotes the former or more distant, hic the latter or nearer particular; as in Propert. III. 14, 17: Qualis et Eurota Pollux et Castor arenis, Hic victor pugnis, ille futurus equis. In The same distinctions are observable in certain peculiar usages. Thus Terence has (Andr. II. 1, 10): "tu si hic sis, aliter sentias," "if you were in my place, you would think otherwise." lawsuits iste, "the man before you," i. e. the judices, is the defendant: hence, we find this pronoun used with a certain expression of contempt to indicate a person who has been brought unfavourably before the notice of those whom we are addressing; whereas ille," that other," as indicating a person so striking as to attract our attention in spite of his remoteness, is often used to denote a well-known or eminent individual, as: "magnus ille |