W. M. Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus

---

The genesis of Prepositions from Adverbs may be illustrated from lines like Cas. 763 “omnes festinant intus totis aedibus”, Most. 596 “an metuis ne quo abeat foras urbe exsulatum?”, where the meaning, already expressed by the Case-forms aedibus ‘in the house,’ urbe ‘from the city,’ is made definite by the addition of the Adverbs intus and foras. These Adverbs at a much later time came to be used as Prepositions.

The independent existence of Prepositions in Compound Verbs, e.g. supplico, which is seen in Old Latin Tmesis¹, e.g. sub vos placo for supplico vos (cf. Trin. 833 “distraxissent disque tulissent”), leaves a trace of itself in Plautus in the retention of the bare Ablative (or Accusative) without a Preposition after Compound Verbs like abeo (or accedo） (see II. 1).

It is seen, too, in the collocation of the words in lines like

• Stich. 453 “ite hac secundum vos me”,
• Cas. 815 “sensim super attolle limen pedes, nova nupta” (where some editors read supera, i.e. supra）

and in lines like

• Merc. 821 “uxor virum si clam domo egressast foras”,
• Cist. 677 “loca haec circiter excidit mi”.

Possibly also in, e.g. amicum erga (Trin. 1126, 1128, etc.), me advorsum (Poen. 400, etc.). But the Postpositon of Prepositions is a feature of all the Italic languages, and must date from a very early time. In classical Latin it survives in quocum, mecum, quamobrem, etc. In Plautus postposition with the Interrog. Pronoun is normal, with the Relative very frequent, e.g.

• Mil. 1047 “qua ab illarum?”,
• Asin. 397 “qui (Instrumental-Ablative) pro istuc?”,
• Merc. 752 “quos inter iudex datu's”,
• Ter. Eun. 542 “quo in loco dictumst, parati nihil est”;
• Lucilius 182 Ma. “quando in eo numero mansi, quo in maxima non est pars hominum”,
• Lucilius 1327 “quīs in versamur”.

We find also, e.g.

• Capt. 406 “rebus in dubiis”,
• Most. 30 “iuventute ex omni”,
• Ter. Hec. 473 “ni te ex ipsă haec magis velim resciscere”.

In Stich. 71 “gratiam per (a patre P） si petimus”, the reading is not quite certain; more so in Amph. 238 “sed fugam in se tamen nemo convortitur” ‘but however no one turns himself to flight.’

(For fuller details see Studemund in Verhandlungen der philolog. Versammlung in Karlsruhe. Leipzig, 1883, pp. 49, 57, 58; Degering: Beiträge zu hist. Syntax. Erlangen, 1893.)