Besides potens, too, serves to show the ancient existence of the active participle of sum, etc. (21 Oct. 1823.)
The v is simply the aspiration of ancient Latin, etc. It stands in place of the breathing in words taken from Greek, and not in fact of the rough breathing but of the smooth, etc., as in my theory of continuatives. “Paphlagonia insignis loco Heneto, a quo, ut Cornelius [3745] Nepos perhibet, Paphlagones in Italiam transvecti, mox Veneti sunt nominati” [“Paphlagonia is famous for a place called Henetum, and, as Cornelius Nepos asserts, once the Paphlagonians had crossed to Italy from there, they soon became called Veneti”]. Solinus, ch. 44, ed. Salmasius, or in other editions 46,1 Plinius, bk. 6, ch. 2. See Ménage on Laertius, 11, § 113,2 and note that there the Greek ᾿Ενετὸς [Enetos] always has the smooth breathing, although in the quoted passage it is written Heneto. See also Cellarius,3 etc. In any case those observations of mine could well confirm this etymology and this history. See Forcellini under Veneti and under Velia.
For p. 3734, margin. Here we can deal with futum and fusum from fundo [to pour], confutum and confusum, etc., as elsewhere [→Z 2821ff., 3585] on the subject of confuto; and it confirms these observations, and in particular from these we can notably confirm the derivation of confuto [to repress, to confute] from fundo or confundo and the existence of an ancient confutum or futum, etc., on which topic see in several places elsewhere [→Z 3625–26, 3635]. (21 Oct. 1823.)
Pleasure is always past or future, and never present, in the same way as happiness is always someone else’s and belongs to no one, or always conditioned and never absolute, and so it is impossible for someone to say with complete confidence of [3746] speaking truly, and with complete sincerity and conviction, “I experience a pleasure,” albeit minimal, even though everyone says, “I have experienced and I will experience pleasure”; and it is equally impossible for someone to say with all his heart “I am happy,” or “How fortunate am I!” when, however, everyone says, “How lucky that person is” or “that other person,” and “I would be happy if I were so-and-so” or “so-and-so,” and “How happy I would be if I could get such and such” or “such and such a thing,” and “if it were this” or “this other.” And the reasons why the two aforesaid things are equally impossible are pretty much the same. And just as the fact that there is no one who says “How fortunate am I!” shows the self-deception of all those who say “how happy you are” or “he is,” and “I would be happy in such and such” or “such and such a case” (and all men speak like this and will speak like this always and with all their hearts), in the same way the fact that there is no one who says wholeheartedly “I feel pleasure at this moment,” shows that no one ever felt or ever will feel any pleasure, although everyone thinks and many claim with a feeling that it is true, that they have felt it and that they will feel it in the future. (21 Oct. 1823.)
[3747] Just as illustrious French is dominated, determined, and regulated almost entirely by usage, certainly more than any other illustrious language, so, since usage is extremely variable and extremely inexact, illustrious French not only cannot be constant, nor last long in one form, as I have noted elsewhere [→Z 1999ff., 3633–35], but we also see that the proper nature of words in that language is disregarded more than in the other illustrious languages, and disregarded by norm, that is constantly in the best writers, no less than in ordinary speech. I mean that the uses of many words and phrases, etc., even in the best writers, are much further away from the etymology and the origin and the proper value of those words, etc., corresponding with them less, etc., than the normal uses of words in the other illustrious languages in not only the best writers, but in good writers, and in a greater number of words than are to be found in the other illustrious languages. Which shows that such uses and meanings are more corrupt, etc. And it could not be otherwise, because current daily and vulgar use and generally the language spoken, by the educated as well (which is what written French follows), corrupts and alters everything and never ceases to vary and to impair, etc. E.g., when speaking of the material and the spiritual, or the tangible and the intellectual, the French say the physical and the moral (“le physique et le moral,” “le physique et le moral de l’homme,” “le monde physique et le [3748] monde moral” [“the physical and the moral,” “the physical and the moral in man,” “the physical world and the moral world”], etc.).1 What could be more improper than these meanings, whether they are considered in themselves or in their interchangeable opposition and each in relation to the other? Does physical perhaps properly mean material or tangible? And is the physical, which means natural, perhaps the opposite of the spiritual or intelligible? As if this last were not natural, but outside of nature, and as if there could ever be anything not natural and outside of nature, which encompasses and includes everything, according to the value of this word and this idea, and is composed of everything which exists or could exist, or could be imagined, etc. And the moral as the opposite of the natural? Whether we are looking at the proper meaning of moral or the French meaning. And ideas, intellect, the human mind, other minds, the world, and abstract things, etc., what have they to do with behavior, to which alone the word moral belongs? and indeed it belongs there in French too, and also in ordinary spoken and written French (la morale, moralité [morals, morality]). You can say the same of the adverbs physiquement [physically] or moralement [morally], etc.
[3749] One could produce an infinite number of such examples.
Illustrious Latin was, not only among the ancient languages but perhaps among all languages, the most separate and diverse, and the least influenced and dominated by the vulgar tongue. I am speaking here of illustrious Latin prose language (which differs little from the poetic) with respect to other prose languages because, e.g., poetic Greek was certainly (at least after Homer, etc.) even more separate, etc., from vulgar Greek. But that is as poetic, not as illustrious language, and whatever language in whatever nation is truly poetic and proper to poetry, is necessarily and by its nature very distinct from the vulgar tongue; so that it is almost the same to say a proper poetic language as it is to say a language which is very different from the vernacular. If it proves to be very different from illustrious prose language, it will be even more different from the vulgar. Among modern illustrious languages, the most separate and least dominated by usage, is, I believe, the Italian, especially today, because Italy has less society than any other cultured nation, and because among Italians literature is much more exclusively than elsewhere the preserve of men of letters, and because Italy does not have a modern illustrious language, etc. For all these reasons [3750] illustrious Italian is perhaps of all modern languages the one which best and most generally observes and preserves the proper nature of words and phrases. This is so in good writers, that is those who possess and deal with illustrious Italian well, who today are very, very few, and those who write in illustrious Italian, who today are in a minority compared with those who do not write in it, or they write in it more rarely than they do in the vulgar Italian. Because today the language most commonly written and understood in writings is not illustrious, but vulgar Italian, barbarous and corrupt, and therefore it does not preserve at all the proper nature of words, etc., but utterly departs from it, as the vulgar language does. And, e.g., that physical and moral, physically and morally, etc., in the French sense, are today part of vulgar Italian, and of nonillustrious writing, no less than they are of illustrious and vulgar French, etc. But in our good writers of any century (let alone the best), perhaps more than in any other modern illustrious language, [3751] the proper nature of words and phrases will be seen to be observed and preserved, etc. That is, their usage is totally and always, or almost totally and always, or more totally and more often than in other illustrious languages, and in a much greater number of words and phrases, in conformity with the meaning which they had from the beginning in the language and in the early Italian writers, and also in conformity with their known etymology, and with the sense and usag
e which they had in the language from which they derived these things in ours, that is mainly in Latin, mother of our language. Certainly Latin propriety in the usage and significance of words and phrases (as also the form, the spirit, etc., of Latinity, of Latin speech, the mode of oratory in general, of composing words, of setting out and ordering periods, of style, etc. etc. And as far as these things are concerned, illustrious Italian is also the closest there is in relation to Greek, etc. etc.) is much better preserved and to a much greater degree in truly illustrious Italian, right down to today, than in any other language, and perhaps more in the illustrious Italian of our recent good writers, than in the language of the older and better French and Spanish writers, etc. (21 Oct. 1823.)
Positivized diminutives. Novello, nouveau, Novella [new], rinnovellare [to renew], etc. etc. See Forcellini under Novellus (almost iuvenculus) and the derivatives before and after that entry: the Spanish, etc. (22 Oct. 1823.)
[3752] For p. 3685. I spoke of the genitive, etc. All Latin nouns or verbs or adverbs, etc., which are formed directly from some noun, are formed from the genitive or the oblique cases of this noun, never from the nominative (nor from the vocative if it is the same as the nominative, nor from the accusative as from manum [hand] or else it would be manalis and not manualis, or from tempus [time] as an accusative or it would be tempalis and not temporalis, etc. etc. Tempestas [storm] however appears to come from tempus either as accusative or nominative). In very many cases (as in dominor [to rule] from dominus i [master], etc.) this cannot be recognized or distinguished, but in very many it can. Miles itis [soldier]–milito, militia, militaris, etc., nomen inis [name]–nomino [to call by name], etc.,a1 salus utis [health]–saluto [to salute, to preserve], etc. Imago inis [image]–imagino [to give an image of], etc. Virgo inis [virgin, maiden]–virgineus [virginal], etc. Magister istri [master]–magistratus [magistracy], etc. Whenever it can be distinguished, you will find that this is so. (See p. 3006, margin.) Exception. Propago inis [shoot]–propagare [to propagate] instead of propaginare (which we however do have, as does Tertullian. See Forcellini and the Glossary, etc.), unless indeed propagare is formed rather from propages is [layer, progeny], or unless propago comes instead from propagare (which to me is very likely, if the etymology is from pango [to fix, to plant], as in Forcellini under propago inis. So propago as for propango is would belong to that category of verbs for which see pp. 2813ff. and the categories there recalled, etc. [3753] And in those pages would be seen the examples and the analogy and the reason why pango giving propago as or propago inis has lost the n, and why it has changed conjugation, etc., since otherwise they are not things easy to describe. And certainly the observation made above, persuades me that propagare cannot come from propago inis: but rather propaginare). And if other such exceptions can be found; but they will be very few, if I am not deceived. Imaguncula, icuncula [little image], homuncio [little man], homunculus [little man], latrunculus [robber] is the same as imagincula (see p. 3007 among others), and therefore formed from the oblique cases of imago, not from the direct, as would seem at first sight. And the same applies to other similar words. I except here those derivatives which are inflections, etc., of the respective nouns, rather than other nouns formed from them, as lapillus [little stone] (if this and similar are not contractions, see p. 3901) vetusculus [somewhat old] from the nominative of vetus eris [old], etc. But this diminutive is from Sidonius.1 The ancients had vetulus [somewhat old]. Nigellus [somewhat black] could be from nigeri and not from niger [black], as puellus [little boy] comes from pueri and not from puer [boy]. See p. 3909; nigellus which is from the nominative of niger, and other such diminutives, etc. If indeed the ancients did not instead say magister isteri, niger eri, etc. (22 Oct. 1823.) And this is something I hold to be certain; whence come magisterium [directorship], ministerium [ministry], etc., for magistrium, from the oblique magísteri, magístero, etc., then contracted, rather than from magistrium, ministrium through epenthesis of the e. In fact the ancients said magisterare [to direct], but the more modern said magistrare, whence magistratus us, etc., like ministrare, [3754] etc. In a word these do not appear to me to be exceptions, because they are reduced to the norm when we examine the method of antiquity and the primitive state of words, afterward changed, and in this way a thousand other such apparent exceptions will be resolved. In any case on most occasions it is true that the derivatives of nouns come from the oblique cases, as I have said, no matter what the declension is of the original nouns, as has been shown with examples, and not only if they are fourth-declension nouns, because one could then deny what we assert about the derivatives of these, that is that they come from the oblique cases and among these derivatives from oblique cases are certainly those formed from fourth-declension nouns and noted by us, etc. And this is sufficient for our case. (22 Oct. 1823.)
For p. 3728. This Latin usage of sometimes changing the first n to g, when the combination of two ns would be required—a usage which can be seen in agnatus, cognatus, cognosco, ignosco, ignotus, ignobilis, ignarus, ignavus, etc., for annatus, connatus (which still exists), connosco, innosco, innotus (see Forcellini), innobilis, innarus, innavus (which would be like innocens, innumerus, innobilitatus), etc. etc. (p. 3695.) Agnomen, agnomentum, etc., cognomen, etc., ignotitia (for innotitia), all derived from noo. Ignoro, etc., corresponds with the usage in Spanish pronunciation which usually changes to gn the double n of Latin words or whatever (as año [year], caña [cane] for canna, etc.), and which generally [3755] represent its gn with the character ñ which is the sign of a double n. (If however the Latins pronounced ig-navus, etc., as on p. 2657, the Spanish usage of saying agno for annus, etc., has nothing to do with the Latin ignavus for innavus. However it may still have some connection with it, in that with the Spanish that año always has a pronunciation of g.
Besides not only in the concurrence of the two ns, but even outside of this case, the Romans used to prefix or interpose the g before the n. As in prognatus for pronatus (which still exists), adgnascor for adnascor, adgnatus for adnatus (which therefore demonstrate a simple gnascor), and in gnarus, gnavus, gnavo, gnosco, gnobilis, etc. (so perhaps ignarus, etc., are not for innarus, etc., but more probably for i-gnarus, i-gnavus, etc., that is, for ingnavus, ingnarus, etc.). By which what I said on p. 3695 remains constant: that the Romans, like the Aeolians, used the genuinely protactic g (because also in pro-gnatus for pro-natus, in i-gnobilis for in-nobilis, etc., the g turns out to be protactic). And this usage too [3756] would have some correspondence with the Spanish usage of sometimes changing, if I am not mistaken, even the simple n of Latin words to ñ. (22 Oct. 1823.)
Prolicio, prolecto as [to entice], etc. These should be added to what I said in my theory of continuatives (at the beginning) [→Z 1110–11] about the verbs allicio, allecto [to entice], etc. (22 Oct. 1823.)
Diminutive verb in a positive sense. Nidulor [to build a nest] for nidor aris (which does not exist) from nidulus for nidus [nest]. We have annidare [to nest], etc. (22 Oct. 1823.)
For p. 3706. Without any possibility of error our verb was noo is, not no nis (and the same is to be said of poo, not po, from πόω, which must have been poo pois povi potum according to the reasons which will now be discussed). (1) From no would be formed not nosco but nisco. See p. 3709, end–10, beginning. (2) No would not have formed in the preterite novi but ni (or neni by duplication), as suo sui, luo lui, etc. Noo however must have formed noi, as suo sui, etc. (pp. 3731ff., 3706, margin), then to avoid the hiatus it formed novi, like amai amavi, docei docevi, [3757] lui luvi, etc. (p. 3706, 3732. See Forcellini under luo toward the end). (3) Thus no would not have formed notum but nĭtum.a Nor would this ever have changed to notum, nor would ni or neni have changed to novi. But rather noi to novi in the way described; and the regular noĭtum of noo would have gone to notum (p. 3708, margin, 3731–32, 3735). Also Nomen, agnomen, cognomen, etc., come from noo, and serve to demonstrate, first of all, noo not no (because from that would come nĭmen, as regĭmen comes from rego [to le
ad], etc.); second, noo from which it comes, not from nosco, whatever Forcellini says under nomen, beginning and Festus also in Forcellini, etc. (4) Nobilis could not come from no. Rather from noo. Since the verbal adjectives in bilis in good Latin can only be formed from the supine in tum (or participle in tus), and not from other forms, tum (or tus) having been changed to bilis. See p. 3825. To be sure, such supines (or participles) are not always known, but given the verbal adjective in bilis, they can be recognized through analogy and the knowledge of the ancient character and the rules of the Latin language, which even on their own can demonstrate them, and the verbal adjective in bilis, always granted that it exists, confirms them. E.g., Docibilis [teachable] is from doci-tum. We were already aware of this supine through another route, although it is unattested, that is through other arguments, etc. The verbal adjective docibilis confirms it. Immarcescibilis [unfading] from the unattested marcescitus. We have already said and maintained that the proper participle [3758] or supine of verbs in sco was in scĭtus. Here is another proof of it in marcescitum from marcesco [to wither] (which does not now have or have attributed to it any supine at all) shown by immarcescibilis. Solu-tum, volu-tum, solu-bilis, volu-bilis, etc. Labilis, nubilis, habilis, etc., are from the regular, true, and complete, though unattested supines, labitum, nubitum (habitum is used, in fact the only one used, but it is not the original), etc., following the norm, except only that they are contracted from labi-bilis, nubi-bilis through the effect of rapid or confused pronunciation, etc., or to avoid the ugly sound, etc. See p. 3851. And so from no nĭtum we would have nibilis. Nobilis can only be from no-tum or from gnotum, ignobilis from no-tum or gno-tum or igno-tus or gnobilis or nobilis. Or else nobilis, etc., are contractions of noibilis as notum is of noĭtum. See page 3832, end.
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