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The Neuter Plural in Latin Lyric Verse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2026
Extract
In a study of the neuter plural in Vergil by Dr. John F. Gummere it was proved that the ratio of the nominative, accusative, and vocative neuter singular nouns to the corresponding cases of the plural is considerably lower than the ratio for prose, and that this excess of nominative, accusative, and vocative neuter plural nouns in Vergil results from their metrical convenience for the production of short syllables, which, because of the syncope in Italic, are much less numerous in Latin than in Greek, from which the dactylic hexameter was borrowed. In a similar study of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, Dr. Margaret W. Herr attained the same result as Dr. Gummere. However, a study of the iambic and trochaic verse of Plautus and Terence by Dr. Jessie M. Glenn has shown that the ratio of these case-forms in these meters is similar to that found in prose, and that the difference from Vergil and Ovid is to be accounted for by the difference between the requirements of iambic and trochaic verse and those of the dactylic hexameter.
Information
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Language , Volume 24 , Issue 2-Part3: Language Dissertation No. 42: The Neuter Plural in Latin Lyric Verse, April-June , June 1948, pp. 5 - 20
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1948 Linguistic Society of America
References
page 5 note 1 John Flagg Gummere, The Neuter Plural in Vergil; Margaret Whilldin Herr, The Additional Short Syllables in Ovid; Jessie May Glenn, The Neuter Plural in Latin Iambic and Trochaic Verse. Hereafter, reference to these dissertations will be made through obvious abbreviations.
page 7 note 1 In accordance with the practice of Gummere, Herr, and Glenn, the abbreviation NAV has been used for nominative, accusative, vocative.
page 7 note 2 See bibliography.
page 7 note 3 This passage has been called trochaic dimeter by L. Mueller, De Re Metrica2 108, 184, where it is considered to be in the same meter as the trochaic verse of Hor. Od.2.18. The verses of this passage differ from the other Glyconics of Seneca in that in 20 of the lines a spondee is substituted for the dactyl of the second foot and that the first foot is uniformly a trochee, while in Horace, except Od.1.15.36, ignǐs Iliacas domos, and the rest of Seneca only a spondee is found in this position.
page 7 note 4 Gummere, NP1 in Vergil 11; Herr, Short Syllables 8; Glenn, NP1 in Latin Iambics 7–8.
page 9 note 1 For the metrical schemes of the Asclepiadean stanzas, see 16–F.
page 9 note 2 NP1 in Vergil 16.
page 9 note 3 NP1 in Latin Iambics 18.
page 12 note 4 Glenn, NP1 in Latin Iambics 18–9.
page 13 note 5 NP1 in Vergil 17.
page 13 note 6 NP1 in Latin Iambics 19.
page 13 note 7 Short Syllables 12, 19; Glenn, NP1 in Latin Iambics 21, Table XXII.
page 13 note 8 NP1 in Latin Iambics 24–7.
page 15 note 1 The texts used are Klotz, C. Iuli Caesaris Commentarii; Reis, Kasten, and Fruechtel, M. Tulli Ciceronis Scripta Quae Manserunt Omnia, vol. 6, part 2; Conway and Walters, Titi Livi Ab Urbe Condita. These texts have been accepted without alteration except that BG 1.1.5–7, bracketed by Klotz, has been included, but et P., BG 1.2.1, also bracketed by Klotz, has been excluded.
page 15 note 2 Cf. Sturtevant and Kent, TAPA 46.129–35 (1915).
page 15 note 3 PhQ 5.212–25 (1926).
page 17 note 4 That the ratio of the NAV neuter plural in Ovid does not increase in proportion with the increase in the percentage of short syllables is the problem treated by Herr, The Additional Short Syllables in Ovid. This study showed that Ovid's gain in short syllables is distributed among inflectional unelided final syllables, non-inflectional final syllables, and non-final syllables in direct proportion to the relative frequency of occurrence of each of these types of syllables in Vergil and Ovid.