CHAPTER 13
Correlative Adjectives and
Adverbs, Irregular Adjectives
Exclamations are often distinguished
from questions by punctuation alone. Since punctuation was sporadic
and inconsistent till well after the invention of printing encouraged
uniformity, and since our information about classical texts is in any
case derived almost entirely from manuscripts written many centuries
after the autograph, printing an exclamation (quam ferox est aper!)
or a question (quam ferox est aper?) is often entirely a matter
of modern editorial choice. Especially in the short exchanges in lively
dialogue form in Roman comedy, punctuation (to say nothing of the attribution
of the dialogue to speakers) can be very doubtful.
etiam is a compound
of et and iam (jam), but the i is a short
vowel, not a consonant. et can also be used alone in the sense
“even”: et piratae liberos amant.
In the expressions discussed
in this chapter, be careful to distinguish the specific sense of the
words used:
cum, for example,
is also a subordinating conjunction meaning “when”, “since”,
“although” (see Chapter 27; note also, of course, the unrelated
preposition cum);
tum also, and far more frequently, means “then”;
solum and tantum
are also forms of adjectives meaning, respectively, “alone” and
“so great”;
nē is the commonest
negative adverb/conjunction used to introduce clauses with a verb in
the subjunctive mood (see Chapter 22 etc.; the interrogative
particle -ne [see Chapter 4] and the negating prefix ne-
[as in ne + homō = nēmō] are not related);
quidem, when not
negated by nē, means “indeed”.