A Short Historical Latin Grammar: Chapter IX: Conjunctions and Interjections

As Prepositions are hardly separable from Adverbs of Locality, so Conjunctions are closely connected with Pronominal Adverbs. These Pronominal Adverbs, as we have seen (ch. vii. § 5), are not always capable of being referred to their proper case form (e.g. ibi, ubi), owing to our imperfect knowledge of the declension of the I.-Eur. Pronoun. Nor is it easy to find their cognates in the various I.-Eur. languages; so rapidly does the meaning of a Conjunction alter. Thus Latin enim, which in the older literature is a particle of asseveration, "indeed," had by the classical period appropriated the sense of "for"; and in French pas (Lat. passus) and point (Lat. punctum) have acquired a negative sense from their use in the phrases ne ... pas, ne ... point. A feature of I.-Eur. Conjunctions is their tendency to append other Conjunctions or conjunctive Particles (e.g. ὡς in Greek may append δή, περ, &c., ὡς δή, ὥσπερ); and this habit puts another obstacle in the way of identifying cognate Conjunctions in different languages, for in one language they may appear extended by one particle, in another language by another.

The exact form of these conjunctive Particles is also a difficult thing to ascertain; we often see parallel stems in -o, -i, -u, &c. (e.g. quo-, que-, qui-, quu- are all various forms of the Relative and Interrogative Pronoun-stem, ch. v. § 6; -te and -ti appear in Gk. αὖ-τε, ἔ-τι), and parallel forms with long and with short vowel (e.g. Lat. nē- and ne-, the Negative Particle); and the tendency was always present to adapt the ending of one Conjunction to the ending of another Conjunction of similar meaning (e.g. Lat. saltem for saltim, adapted to au-tem, i-tem). It is therefore best to designate these conjunctive Particles according to their consonants, and in tracing the origin of the Latin Conjunctions to mention such Pronouns (or pronominal Particles) as (1) the T-pronoun of Lat. tam, i-tem, u-t(i), Gk. αὖ-τε, ἔ-τι; (2) the D-pronoun of Lat. dum, ibi-dem, Gk. δή, δέ, ὅ-δε; (3) the DH-pronoun of Gk. ἔν-θα; (4) the P-pronoun of Lat. quip-pe, nem-pe; (5) the N-pronoun of Lat. num, nam, nem-pe, quis-nam.

Que, I.-Eur. que (Gk. τε), apparently the bare stem of the Relative quo-, que- (ch. v. § 6), is in Latin, as it was in I.-Eur., an enclitic appended to the first word of the sentence. Through Syncope, to which final -e was always liable in Latin (ch. ii. § 12), it became -c in ac for atc (at-que), &c., and probably often had this sound before an initial consonant in the rapid utterance of every-day life. I.-Eur. -que gave a relative and indefinite sense to Pronouns (e.g. Hom. ὅς τε), and so in Early Latin, though in the classical period the fuller ending -cunque was preferred; e.g. quem-que Plaut. for quem-cunque in Mil. 156: quemque in tegulis Videritis alienum; so quis-que, each (ch. v. § 7). This -cunque, -cumque (O. Lat. -quomque) seems to be nothing but cum-que, "whenever" (Hor. C. i. 32. 15 mihi cumque salve Rite vocanti), like quando-que.

In O. Lat. atque often signifies "forthwith," e.g. Plaut. Most. 1050:

quōniam conuocāui, atque illi me ex senatu segregant,

and Virgil uses the word sometimes in this archaic sense, e.g. Georg. i. 201:

Non aliter quam qui adverso vix flumine lembum remigiis subigit, si brachia forte remisit, atque illum in praeceps prono rapit alveus amni.

Quoque has some part of the Pronoun-stem quo-, que- as its first element. Et is the I.-Eur. Adverb ēti (Gk. ἔτι, further), used in Latin, as in Gothic (iþ, "and"), for the copula. In etiam, et is associated with the Adverb jam, now, the j (y) becoming the vowel i by the Latin phonetic law in the middle of a word, as in medius from I.-Eur. medhyos (Gk. μέσ(σ)ος) (ch. x. § 13).

Ve is I.-Eur. we (Hom. Gk. ἠ-(ϝ)ε), a particle which had also the sense of "as," "like" (e.g. Lat. ce-u, § 10). Aut is compounded of I.-Eur. au (Gk. αὖ, again, Engl. eke from Goth. au-k [quasi αὖ-γε]), and the T-pronoun (§ 1). Vel is the old 2 Sg. Pres. Imperative of volo, I wish (ch. vi. § 14), and means literally "choose," as Germ. wohl (e.g. Homer, wohl der grösste Dichter, "Homerus vel summus poeta") was originally Imper. of wollen. Sive is compounded of si, older sei (§ 13), and -ve. Before -u, the curtailed or syncopated form of -ve (as -c of -que, -n of Interrogative -ne), the ei-diphthong was by the Latin phonetic law reduced to ē, as in deus from dei(u)us (ch. x. § 13).

At is the I.-Eur. Adverb ati, "back," "from," used in Latin, as in Gothic (aþ-þan, "but"), as a Conjunction. Ast, found in old laws with the sense "if further," e.g.:

si parentem puer uerberet, ast olle plorassit, puer diuis parentum sacer esto,

had originally the sense of "further" merely, being ad-sti, a derivative from the Preposition ad like post(i) from the Preposition po (ch. viii. §§ 2, 27). It came to be used exclusively in conditional sentences and so acquired the notion of "if further" and even of "if," e.g. in the curious law of the XII Tables which refers to the use of gold in dentistry:

Neue aurum addito, at cui auro dentes iuncti escunt, ast im cum illo sepeliet uretue, se fraude esto. "No gold shall men put in a tomb; but, when the deceased has his teeth fastened with gold, if they bury or burn him with that gold, it shall not be a punishable offence."

The Augustan poets revived the use of the word, as a substitute for at, where the metre required a long syllable; and in the second cent. A.D. it passed into prose. Sed, in early Latin sedum, is a compound of s(w)e, the Reflexive Pronoun stem (ch. v. § 1) with the particle dum. With its loss of -um compare non for noenum (§ 17). Autem adds the particle -tem (cf. i-tem) to the I.-Eur. Adverb au (Gk. αὖ, Engl. eke from au-k, p. 138), which is probably identical with the Preposition au- of au-fero, au-fugio (ch. viii. § 2). Atqui adds to the Conjunction at the particle qui, so often used by the early Dramatists as a mere particle of emphasis (e.g. Hercle qui, utinam qui, ut qui Plaut.), apparently either the Abl., Loc., or Instr. Sg. of the Relative. Tamen, however, "none the less," is clearly related to tam, so, "equally much," which was in the early literature used in the sense of tamen (cf. class. tam-etsi and tamen-etsi). Ceterum is the adverbial Acc. Sg. Neut. of the stem cetero- (Nom. Pl. ceteri), from ce- the lengthened form of the Pron. stem ce- (ch. v. § 4), as cetera in such a line as Virg. A. ix. 656: cetera parce puer bello, "for the rest - you are a boy - deal sparingly with war," is an adverbial Acc. Pl. Neut. Verum is similarly an adverbial Acc. Sg. Neut. of verus, true, and vero an adverbial Abl. (Instr.?) Sg. Neut. of the same.

Quidem shows the stem of the Indefinite Pronoun quis (ch. v. § 6) with the particle dem (ch. v. § 3). Immo is perhaps in-mo, "in magis," from mo an old Comparative, "more."

Enim is in O. Lat. an asseverative particle merely (cf. class. enim-vero), a usage imitated by Virgil, e.g. A. viii. 84:

Quam pius Aeneas tibi enim, tibi, maxima Juno, mactat sacra ferens.

It comes from an I.-Eur. Pronoun stem eno-, "this," "that." Nam, Acc. Sg. Fem. of no-, another form of this stem, is often used in O. Lat. in questions, e.g. quid cerussa opus nam? "why, what is the use of paint?" Plaut. (cf. quisnam, and in O. Lat. poetry quianam, "why?"; cf. Virg. A. v. 13, x. 6), without that definite sense of "for," "because" to which the word is restricted in the classical literature (but cf. uti-nam). Quippe for qui-pe, adds the particle pe (§ 1) to the Loc. Instr. Sg. of the Pronoun. Nempe adds the same particle to a form nem, which is the same case-form of the N-Pronoun as -tem is of the T-Pronoun (ch. v. § 3).

Igitur had in O. Lat. the sense of tum as in the first law of the XII Tab.: si in ius uocat, ni it, antestamino, igitur em capito (ch. v. § 5). On ergo, see ch. viii. § 15.

Ut, in wishes, e.g.:

Juppiter ut Danaum omne genus pereat,

is the Conjunction ut, that (older uti, ch. ii. § 12), with suppression of the idea "I wish" or "do thou grant." In utinam the final i of ut(i) is retained (so in ne-uti-quam, pronounced as a trisyllable with the first two syllables short), and nam has its older sense of a strengthening particle "indeed" (§ 6).

In class. Latin -ne is the general interrogative particle, while nonne is limited to questions which expect an affirmative, num to those which expect a negative answer. This distinction is unknown to Plautus, who uses nonne hardly at all (-ne being used instead), and num, numquis without a negative sense occasionally. It is easy to see how these meanings came to be attached to nonne, "is ... not," and num, "now," e.g. nonne haec ita sunt?, "is not this the case?"; num haec ita sunt?, "now is this the case?" (with emphasis on the word "is").

Ne is I.-Eur. ne. Num is the I.-Eur. num, "now" (Gk. νῦν; cf. nunc for num-c(e), ch. v. § 4). Utrum is the adverbial Acc. Sg. Neut. of uter (ch. vi. § 8), like Gk. πότερον. An is the same as Gk. ἄν "in that case." Cur (O. Lat. quor) is I.-Eur. quōr, related to Engl. "where," and is quite unconnected with quā-re (cf. cui rei Plaut., quam-ob-rem).

On ut, see § 8. Quasi, "as if," comes from qua Neut. Pl. "as" and si. Ceu, which is restricted to the Epic and Lyric Poets and a few Silver Age prose writers, is compounded of the Pronoun stem ko-, ke- (ch. v. § 4) and the particle -we, "as, like" (§ 3), and stands for ce-ve (cf. ce-teri). Quam is Acc. Sg. Fem. of the Relative, as tam of the Demonstrative. The two words are combined in tanquam.