4 ms·
Pinus and quercus are both fourth declination, not second, but there seem to be some elements of the second declination that have been included at some point (p
by arnsholt 6y ago
Pinus and quercus are both fourth declination, not second, but there seem to be some elements of the second declination that have been included at some point (pini/pinorum/pinis and querci/quercorum) which muddy the waters a bit.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoHuh. The Lewis and Short entry just makes me feel like I'm missing something - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=pinus&la=la#lexicon http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=pinus&la=la#lexi... "abl. sing. only pinu; gen. and abl. plur. pinorum and pinis)", but then it goes on to cite the accusative plural pinos in Virgil. And that note implies a strict distinction between dative plural pinibus and ablative pinis, which seems weird. Not that the rest of it isn't weird, I guess. (As an aside, the note for quercus that "dat. and abl. plural do not occur"... I can believe that a lack of genitive and dative forms for vis is a fact about the language. Dative and ablative plural forms existing for pine trees, but not oak trees, feels more like a coincidence of the historical record than a fact about the language.)