Ablative of -ns, -ntis adjectives and present participles

I

interprete

Civis Illustris

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Hello,

Two questions:

Would anyone by any chance know the historical factors that led to adjectives like prudens to have their ablative in -i for things and -e for humans ? How come it is limited to only -ns, -ntis adjectives and doesn't concern the others?

Incidentally, I wonder how animals are treated under this rule. Are they considered things? What about slaves?

Secondly, I also see that in the case of the absolute ablative, present participles always take -e.

I find this very confusing and wonder how I'm going to keep in mind that -i/-e distinction in normal cases while disregarding it in the case of an absolute ablative but *only* for present participles, assuming that adjectives keep the distinction within absolute ablative clauses. Any tips?

Thanks.
 
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Notascooby

Notascooby

Civis Illustris

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I've never heard that rule? The rule I am aware of is that all adjectives from -i stems the abl sg generally in in -i when the adjective is used as a substantive and -e when it stands in place of a substantive. (Kennedy 74 note 1).

Adjectives ending in ens are of -i stems. Hence why most present participle has gen pl in -ium.

The I/e distinction is not so clear cut. Poets according to Gildersleeve 83 used e in the ablative more than I. That the e is short and the I is long may answer for this.

However there are exceptions. Gildersleeve lists a number of them.

As to why the abl abs always has it in -e I can't find a reason but it does seem to be the one area where the rule is always adhered to.

As with all these things, rules will get your foot in the door but usage and experience will get you a seat at the table.
 
I

interprete

Civis Illustris

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According to examples given in my texbook, one would write "prudenti ratione", but "prudente viro", for example. Interesting that it is apparently a rule specific to the French system of Latin education.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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I'm not aware of this person-vs.-thing rule either. I just went over the prudens, sapiens (adj.) and ingens entries in the OLD. I only found one ablative singular instance referring to a person, in Livy, and it had the -i ending. Maybe the rule doesn't exist, or maybe there's a tendency that I've never noticed because the situations where the -e ending would be used according to it are so few.

In general, present participles take the -e ablative ending when they're used as pure participles or as nouns, and -i when used as adjectives. This rule explains why they end -e in the ablative absolute: the participles there are usually pure participles; i.e. they have their full verbal force, describing someone or something as doing a particular thing at some point (e.g. domo ardente = while the house was burning); they don't describe someone or something as having a certain quality (that would be an adjectival use; e.g. ardenti amore = with burning/ardent love).
 
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I

interprete

Civis Illustris

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Thank you all. I must confess this 'version' is much more rational. Is it maybe a French thing? I wouldn't be surprised that a fictitious rule would be passed on from generation to generation of learners, especially if the textual instances are so rare.

A first example, quite unambiguous: prudente consule : par un prudent consul ≠ prudenti consilio : par un prudent conseil
I found it on the website of Arrête Ton Char, a well-known French association of classics teachers.
- Les Adj. en –ens, -entis (ex. : prudens, ingens, participes présents) se déclinent sur fortis, -e ; ils présentent une seule terminaison au Nom. et Voc. pour les trois genres (Nom.-Voc. Sing. Masc.-Fém.-Neut. : prud-ens) !!! ils ont l’Abl. Sing. en –i s’ils qualifient une chose, en –e s’ils qualifient une personne :
ex. : prudente consule : par un prudent consul ≠ prudenti consilio : par un prudent conseil
Click to expand...

Here is what Normale Sup (very prestigious!) says:
L’ablatif singulier en -i
Click to expand...
concerne - les adjectifs ou participes en -ns, -ntis se rapportant à une chose inanimée - les autres adjectifs de cette catégorie (typiquement ceux en -ax, -ox, -ex, -ix).
L’ablatif singulier en -e concerne - les adjectifs ou participes en -ns, -ntis se rapportant à une personne - les participes qui sont le verbe d’un ablatif absolu (voir un cours ultérieur).
Click to expand...

Latin sans Peine:
Le dictionnaire donne (potens, potentis) : le nominatif et génitif de l’adjectif.
Ils ont un ablatif soit en i soit en e :
-en i quand l’adjectif se rapporte à une chose
-en e quand l’adjectif se rapporte a un animé
Click to expand...
http://lelatinsanspeine.fr.nf/les-adjectifs

However I find this in a "Cours complet de grammaire latin" from the 19th century:
77. Les adjectifs qui se déclinent sur prudens admettent à l'ablatif singulier les deux terminaisons e et i; mais ceux qui se déclinent sur fortis et sur celeber font toujours l'ablatif en i.
Click to expand...

Now this Belgian website is even more restrictive, only allowing -i :
Ingens, ingens, ingens (G. sg.: ingentis) "immense"
(mêmes formes aux trois genres; règle des neutres; le radical ingent- n'apparaît pas aux N. V. et Acc. sg.)
Click to expand...
What a surprising mess!
 
I

interprete

Civis Illustris

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Is there an online tool to find out whether "prudente consule" and "prudenti consilio" have ever been used in authentic literature?
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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PHI has most (all?) classical texts (see link below).

It returns no result for prudente consule. There's one for prudenti consilio, which is interesting. It looks like it may be a partial source for your rule—but unfortunately the passage is lacunary and what's left of it isn't really about -ns adjectives.

I can't conclude how real or fake the rule is without further researching the matter (that is, looking for more actual examples of person + ablative -ns adjective).
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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Location:
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The form prudente has very few hits; only one relevant to the matter at hand: Seneca has homine prudente here:


Prudenti has more hits, but of course most of them are dative or about things. There are two instances of prudenti viro in the ablative, both in Livy, including the one I'd already found earlier:


So, still pretty inconclusive. Maybe I'll look up other -ns adjectives later.
 
I

interprete

Civis Illustris

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Thank you! I'm tempted to ask the question on a French forum (études littéraires, maybe you know it...) and see if anyone can come up with illustrations of this rule.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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There's more data for sapiens.

Here are examples of it used as an adjective with the -e ending when referring to a person;


And here are examples of the -i ending used in the same context:




The last one could theoretically be dative, but they're almost certainly ablative. Dignus + dat. occurs, but very rarely.

I think we can now conclude that the "rule" as stated isn't exactly a rule. There may be a tendency (not clearly demonstrated yet); but since the -i ending is used for people a few times even in Cicero, it can hardly be called a mistake or nonstandard usage.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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^ Sorry, the last one, not the last two. An irrelevant link had crept in.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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Maybe the rule can be reformulated more accurately like this:

Adjectives in -ns, -ntis (most of which are originally present participles) usually end -i in the ablative singular, like most third-declension adjectives. However, when such an adjective refers to a person (as opposed to a thing) the -e ending also occurs often enough (but -i does too).
 
I

interprete

Civis Illustris

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Wow, thanks a lot for digging up all those concrete examples!
I'll share them on the French forum and see what they think.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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Location:
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As for why the -e ending appears so often when sapiens is used as an adjective referring to a human being, I wonder if it could be due to the influence of sapiens used as a noun (of course, when it's used as a noun, -e is the normal ending, and it usually refers to a human being—a "wise man"). If that is the case, it raises the question of whether the same -e alternative exists, with equal frequency, in -ns adjectives that, unlike sapiens, are not commonly used as nouns.
 
Glabrigausapes

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

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Generally speaking, IE tonic final *-í "reduces" to (atonic) -e in Latin (cf. G πατρί, ἀντί patre, ante), whereas atonic final *-i deletes entirely (cf. †S बिभर्ति / bíbharti v. fert).
Participles in *-(w)Vn-t- clearly did not have a fixed accent, but at least in Sanscrit many of them were oxytones, meaning an oxytonal generalization could've taken place in Italic and elsewhere (as appears to be the case).

As to the -ī/-e distribution, a likely diachronic explanation for the two collateral forms is simply levelling/syncretism of the dative & ablative on analogy with o-stems puerō/puerō (puerīs/puerīs) and (true) i-stems ignī/ignī (although "backformations" like igne do occur). However, there's probably also a synchronic element: that is, speakers themselves contrived some such rule as you've been discussing much in the way we contrived (out of complete & utter bullshit) the notion that there are two distinct English words: born & borne. (I myself don't endorse this at all, and only use the former).

†Sanscrit, or rather the Indo-Aryan branch, extended the 'reduplicating' class of verbs considerably in its early stages
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

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Location:
Belgium
Glabrigausapes dixit:
born & borne. (I myself don't endorse this at all, and only use to former).
Click to expand...
You're great. (I'm not sure I would dare to do that myself, though, since everybody save either language nerds like you or people who don't know shit about spelling would think I'm just making a mistake.)
 
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