Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Comparison of nouns will reveal either their gender or their declension: in the first case, supposing the question is raised as to whether junis be masculine or feminine, panis will supply a standard of comparison: in the second case, supposing we are in doubt as to whether we should say hac domu or hac domo, domuum or domorum, the standard of comparison will be found in words such as anus or manus.
Diminutives merely reveal the gender: for instance, to return to a word previously used as an illustration, funiculus proves that funis is masculine.
The same standard may be applied in the case of verbs. For instance if it should be asserted that the middle syllable of fervere is short, we can prove this to be an error, because all verbs which in the indicative terminate in -eo, make the middle syllable of the infinitive long, if that syllable contain an e: take as examples such verbs as prandeo, pendeo, spondeo with infinitives prandēre, pendēre, spondēre.
Those verbs, however, which terminate in -o alone, if they form the infinitive in e, have the e short; compare lego, dico, curro, with the infinitives, legĕre, dicĕre, currĕre. I admit that in Lucilius we find—
- fervit aqua et fervet: firvit nunc ferverit ad annum. [*](In Book IX.)
The water boils and boil it will; it boils and for a year will boil.But with all due respect to so learned a man, if he regards fervit as on the same footing as currit and legit, we shall say fervo as we say lego and curro: but such a form has never yet come to my ears.
But this is not a true comparison: for fervit