--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Michael J Smith
<lookwhoscross-eyednow@...> wrote:
> What other features of Old Latin distinguished it from Classical
> Latin besides the nom. masculine singular -os ending rather than
> -us, and the gen. singular of second declension nouns ending in -ius
> or -ium ending with a single -i rather than -ii?
The differences are innumerable, and depend upon where one draws
the line between Archaic Latin and Old Latin. Considering just
the second declension of nouns, the oldest Latin had such forms as
Dat. sing. -oi (classical -i:)
Abl. sing. -o:d (classical -o:)
Gen. pl. -om (classical -o:rum)
Some of these are still found in Plautus (e.g. "me:d" and "te:d"
as abl. and acc. sing. of the personal pronouns were still regular)
and even early classical authors used forms such as "divom=of the
gods".
For all the conjugations and declensions, many older forms are
attested. For example, in the 1st declension, there were gen. sing.
-a:s and dat.abl. pl. -a:bus, which are still found in isolated
words in classical Latin, e.g. "pater familia:s" and "dea:bus".
In verbs, Plautus uses such archaic forms as optative "duim=may I
give" for classical "dem" and future "faxo=I will make" for classical
"faciam" (originally an s-aorist subjunctive, like classical "ero:
=I will be")
Good Latin grammars such as Allen & Greenborough list many such
archaic forms. See
http://www.hhhh.org/perseant/libellus/aides/allgre/
I hope this helps!
Best - Greg