- Allen and Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston, 1903), §380.
- Ibid., §§450, 533.
- Ernout et Thomas, Syntaxe latine (Paris, 21953), §107.
- As presented, for example, in William Diver, “The Chronological System of the English Verb,” Word XIX (1963), 141–181.
- The data on which the analysis is based will be illustrated, insofar as possible, by reference to standard grammars. Specifically, the two already referred to above will be cited, abbreviated Allen-Greenough and Ernout-Thomas. The example here is from Allen-Greenough, §362. See also Ernout-Thomas, §77, Datif complément indirect de verbes transitifs.
- Charles E. Bennett, The Syntax of Early Latin: The Cases (Boston, 1914), p. 146.
- Economie de changements phonétiques (Berne, 1955), §4.2.
- Allen-Greenough §387, Note: There is no definite line by which transitive verbs can be distinguished from intransitive. Verbs which usually take a direct object (expressed or implied) are called transitive, but many of these are often used intransitively or absolutely…. Again, many verbs are transitive in one sense and intransitive in another.
- Ibid. §274, Note: The distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs is not a fixed distinction, for most transitive verbs may be used intransitively, and many verbs usually intransitive may take a direct object and so become transitive.
- Ernout-Thomas §232: Il n'y a pas entres verbes transitifs et verbes intransitifs une distinction absolue. Et le passage d'une catégoire à l'autre était fréquent.
- Ibid. §22:…la distinction entre transitifs et intransitifs n'est pas fondamentale.
- What may be called the morphological problem of which of the two non-distinctive forms, Dative or Accusative, should appear in a given environment is essentially historical, not descriptive, in nature: the distributions are inherited. The traditional grammars do what they can to set up representative categories in which the two forms should appear, but the compartmentation is never water-tight, and, since the problem is merely one of stating an arbitrary distribution (as in the matter of which declension a noun belongs to), the ultimate reference is to the lexicon, not to the grammar. Thus Allen-Greenough §371 Note: “But the usage varies in different authors, in different words, and often in the same word and the same sense. The Lexicon must be consulted for each verb.”
- One of the attractive features of the Ernout-Thomas presentation is its tracing of the dynamics of the fluctuation between Dative and Accusative during the recorded history of the language. It is, of course, just the lack of syntactic distinction between Dative and Accusative that makes possible a fluctuation that is largely determined by lexical similarities between contexts. E.g., §25: “L'accusatif d'objet remplace dans certain cas un complément indirect au datif. Ainsi, pour curare et uitare, qui ont encore chez Plaute des restes de construction au datif…. A côté de indulgere, mederi et parcere alicui, on voit apparaître indulgere et mederi aliquem…, sans doute d'après la double construction du type ignoscere alicui ‘pardonner à qqn’ et ignoscere peccatum 'pardonner une faute'…. Plus tard: aliquem nocere, d'après laedere aliquem….”
- James George Frazer, Ovid's Fasti (Harvard, 1951), III, 708. 2+w.
- Cicero, pro Cluentio.
- E.g., Allen-Greenough §410: The deponents utor, fruor, fungor, potior, uescor with several of their compounds, govern the Ablative:
- auro heros potitur ‘the hero takes the gold’.
- E.g., Allen-Greenough §350: Verbs of remembering and forgetting take either the Accusative or the Genitive of the object:
- a. Memini takes the Accusative when it has the literal sense of retaining in the mind what one has seen, heard, or learned. Hence the accusative is used of persons whom one remembers as acquaintances, or of things which one has experienced.
- Cinnam memini ‘I remember Cinna’
- b. Memini takes the Genitive when it means to be mindful or regardful of a person or thing, to think of somebody or something (often with special interest or warmth of feeling).
- humanae infirmitatis memini ‘I remember human weakness’.
- Allen-Greenough §367c: Some verbs are used transitively with the Accusative or intransitively with the Dative with a difference in meaning:
- parti ciuium consulunt ‘they consult for a part of the citizens’
- cum te consoluissem ‘when I had consulted you’
- metuens pueris ‘anxious for the children’
- nec metuunt deos ‘they fear not even the gods’.
- E.g., Allen-Greenough §367b: Some verbs are used transitively with the Accusative or intransitively with the Dative without perceptible difference in meaning.
- Cf. Diver, op. cit., pp. 156–157: “Many words, especially those indicating times or dates, may be used either definitely or indefinitely. With these it is found that the indefinite signal [for the syntactic meaning Indefinite in the Chronological system] forces an interpretation of indefiniteness. He has played golf on Tuesday cannot mean on a specific Tuesday; I have gone skating on Christmas Day is equivalent to on a Christmas day, I have played tennis on November first means on some November first, not, for example, the specific November first of this year.”
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