K
Klaus G
Guest
Luigi de Guzman <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 21:24:17 -0800, Benjamin Lewis <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> <snip>
> >Here's what this says about "vira".
> >
> <snip>
>
>
> The discussion to which you have linked cites, Allen & Greenough's (O
> you twin banes of schoolboys everywhere!) opinion on the matter, with
> which I concur:
>
> I have yet to encounter any Latin neuter noun whose nominative and
> accusative plurals did not end in -a. Donatus bears me out, using
> *scamnum (bench) as his example:
>
> [I have capitalised the inflections]
>
>
> The rule is quite explicit: any noun of the neuter gender has a
> single simple case in the nominative, accusative, and vocative cases
> together. In the case of *virus, that form is, in the singular,
> *virus, and in the plural, (theoretically) *vira. The essay you have
> cited is therefore in error when it expects the vocative form of
> *virus to be *O vire.
Never. "virus" is a rare case of a neuter noun of the o-declension.
So the "would-be" plural is viri, virorum, viris, viros, viris.
Klaus G.
>
> [...]
> On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 21:24:17 -0800, Benjamin Lewis <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> <snip>
> >Here's what this says about "vira".
> >
> <snip>
>
>
> The discussion to which you have linked cites, Allen & Greenough's (O
> you twin banes of schoolboys everywhere!) opinion on the matter, with
> which I concur:
>
> I have yet to encounter any Latin neuter noun whose nominative and
> accusative plurals did not end in -a. Donatus bears me out, using
> *scamnum (bench) as his example:
>
> [I have capitalised the inflections]
>
>
> The rule is quite explicit: any noun of the neuter gender has a
> single simple case in the nominative, accusative, and vocative cases
> together. In the case of *virus, that form is, in the singular,
> *virus, and in the plural, (theoretically) *vira. The essay you have
> cited is therefore in error when it expects the vocative form of
> *virus to be *O vire.
Never. "virus" is a rare case of a neuter noun of the o-declension.
So the "would-be" plural is viri, virorum, viris, viros, viris.
Klaus G.
>
> [...]
