Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/332

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322 On certain Affirmative and Negative more fully into the possible connection of this root with other Greek verbs ^^ A subjective question may be answered in the affirmative by repeating the word on which the stress was laid in the question, or by an affirmative particle, or by uniting the two. The first of these methods is the most usual in Latin, which possesses no negative or affirmative particles, properly so called, as a7iswers. Scin"* me tuum esse herum Amphitruonem ? scio. Plant. Amph. v. 1. SO. Egone istuc dixi ? Tute istic (istuc. Meursius). Amph. II. 2. 115. As these questions have reference to the decision of the person addressed ain is often prefixed, and then the answer will be by repeating the first person aio. But in one or two cases the usage of ita and non by themselves approaches very nearly to that of independent affirmative and negative particles. Thus in the Eunuch of Terence, iv. 4. 29, Dor. Venit Chaerea. Phced. Fraterne ? Dor, Ita. PhcEd. Quando ? &c. Dor, De istac rogas Virgine? Pyth. Ita. iv. 4. 54. Vidistin' fratrem Chaeream ? Dor. Non. iv. 4. 46. JEschinus. Nonne haec justa tibi videntur postea.? Micio. Non. Adeljjh. iv. v. 27. Still the Latin language does not seem to have possessed any particles like our yes appropriated to the answer of sub- jective questions, and necessarily unconnected with any words following them. They seem to have used ita, immo, non, nmiime elliptically, by which I merely understand that they could have been connected with and formed part of a regu- larly constructed sentence, and they only answer the purpose of negatives and affirmatives by supplying the place of what might have accompanied them. Thus in the above cases of ita, the answer might have been ^' ita est, "ita rogo; and again, " non vidi and " non videntur : whereas such words ^5 I only mention the interchange of X and u in the Cretan /^eV-rtoy for ^eXnov^ and the Sicilian rjvdov for riXdov, cpivTan-o^ for (plXTan-o^ (Miiller's Dorians, ii. Append. VIII. p. 504), considered with inuna, fxiveiv^ fxc^.ei^ jueXXw, meinen, mens, &c. Is it possible that the original idea should have been that oUhlnking about a thi7ig9