GRICE E CECCATO: L'IMPLICATURA CONVERSAZIONALE DEL PLUSQUAMPERFECTUM -- IMPLICATURA IMPERFETTA -- IL PERFETTO FILOSOFO -- FILOSOFIA ITALIANA -- LUIGI SPERANZA

 

Grice e Ceccato: l’implicatura conversazionale del plusquamperfectum --  implicatura imperfetta --  il perfetto filosofo – filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Montecchio Maggiore). Filosofo italiano. Grice: “I like Ceccato – like other Italian philosophers, he has an obsession with geometrical conjunctions  and my favoruite of his tracts is “La linea e la strischia’ – but he has also philosophised on other issues – notably on ‘cybernetics,’ where he purports to give a ‘mechanical explanation’ of language – he has also talked about the ‘mind,’ – ‘mente’ – an expression Italian philosophers hardly use as they see it as an Anglicism, preferring ‘anima,’ – “He has rather boldly philosophised on ‘eudaimonia,’ without taking into account J. L. Ackrill’s etymological findings – but then the Italians use ‘felicita’! – ‘the ingeneering of happiness’ – and also of the ‘fabrica del bello’ --. Grice: “How to, and how not to” “Are all ‘how not to’ ironic? Ceccato thinks not – he has philosophised on sophistry in ‘how NOT to philosophise’ – and he sees Socrates, who claims to be ‘imperfect,’ (i. e. ever unfinished), and echoing Shaw on Wagner, as the perfect philosophy – ‘il perfetto filosofo’!” Filosofo irregolare, dopo aver proposto una definizione del termine "filosofia" e un'analisi dello sviluppo storico di questa disciplina ha preferito prenderne le distanze e perseguire la costruzione di un'opzione alternativa, denominata inizialmente "metodologia operativa" e in seguito "cibernetica". Filosofo prolifico, ha numerosi saggi -- rendendosi noto in particolare nella cibernetica. Pur ottenendo notevole successo di pubblico con i suoi saggi, riscosse scarso successo nell’ambiene filosofico bolognese. Fu tra i primi in Italia ad interessarsi alla traduzione automatica di testi, settore in cui ha fornito importanti contributi. Sperimentò anche la relazione tra cibernetica e arte in collaborazione con il Gruppo V di Rimini.  Studioso della psicologia filosofica, intesa come l'insieme delle attività che l'uomo svolge per costituire i significati, memorizzarli ed esprimerli, ne propose un modello in termini di organo e funzione, scomponendo quest'ultima in fasi provvisoriamente elementari di un ipotetico organo, e nelle loro combinazioni in sequenze operazionali, in parte poi designate dalla espressione semplice e della espression complessa (frastico, frase) e del ‘codice’ utilizzato nel rapport sociale. Fondò ed animò la "Scuola Operativa Italiana", il cui patrimonio è tuttora oggetto di studio e ricerca. Studia Giurisprudenza, violoncello e composizione musicale. Fonda Methodos. Costrue “Adamo II”, un prototipo illustrativo della successione di attività proposte come costitutive dei costrutti (la lingua adamica) da lui chiamati "categorie" per analogia e in omaggio a Immanuele Kant. Insegna a Milano. Diresse il Centro di Cibernetica e di Attività Linguistiche a Milano. Incontró, durante una cena di gala, il Professore di Sistemi di controllo, a Pavia, Mella. Successivamente a questo incontro ispiratore decise di partecipare come attore nel film "32 dicembre" di Crescenzo, interpretandovi il ruolo del folle Cavalier Sanfilippo che si crede Socrate.  Un tecnico tra i filosofi, così intitolò il saggio apparso nelle Edizioni Marsilio di Padova, con i rispettivi sottotitoli: "Come filosofare" e "Come non filosofare”. Altre opere: “Il linguaggio con la Tabella di Ceccatieff”, Actualités Scientifiques et Industrielles, Éditions Hermann, Paris); Adamo II, Congresso Internazionale dell'Automatismo, Milano); “Un tecnico fra i filosofi, Marsilio, Padova); “Cibernetica per tutti, Feltrinelli, Milano); “Corso di linguistica operativa, Longanesi, Milano); “Il gioco del Teocono, All'Insegna del Pesce d'Oro, Milano); “L’anima vista da un cibernetico, ERI, Torino); “La terza cibernetica. Per una anima creativa e responsabile, Feltrinelli, Milano); “Miroglio, Ed.  Priuli&Verlucca, Ivrea); “Ingegneria della felicità” (Rizzoli, Milano); Il linguista inverosimile, Mursia, Milano); “Contentezza e intelligenza (Rizzoli); Mille tipi di bello” (Stampa alternativa, Viterbo); “C'era una volta la filosofia” (Spirali, Milano); Il maestro inverosimile” (Bompiani, Milano) (CL In Italia la Società di Cultura Metodologica Operativa a Milano, il Centro Internazionale di Didattica Operativa. l Gruppo Operazionista di Ricerca Logonica. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, La cibernetica italiana della mente nella civiltà delle macchine. Origini e attualità della logonica attenzionale a partire da Ceccato, Mantova, Universitas Studiorum. PRIMI STUDI PER UN ATTEGGIAMENTO ESTETICO NELLE MACCHINE, di C.. LA TRADUZIONE NELL'UOMO E NELLO MACCHINA, by Silvio La Mecanizzizione delle Attivita...  L ' Anatomica methodus, di Andrés Laguna (1499 - 1560 ). Pisa, Giardini, C., comp: Corso di linguistica operativa. A cura di Silvio Ceccato. Centoventotto illustrazioni nel testo. Milano, Longanesi,  lllus. Language and Behavior (1946 ) was published in Italian translation in 1949, thanks to C. (cf. Petrilli). C., padre della cibernetica italiana, che in quegli anni stava mettendo a punto insieme a Enrico Maretti un prototipo di calcolatore “ intelligente ”, di cui si può leggere in una nota su “ La grammatica insegnata alle macchine. Studi in memoria di C. - Page 5books.google.com › books· Translate this page 1999 · ‎Snippet view FOUND INSIDE – PAGE 5 In memoria di Silvio Ceccato Felice Accame Nei giorni immediatamente successivi alla sua morte, i giornali hanno dedicato pochi, imbarazzati e, a volte, imbarazzanti articoli alla figura di C.. Se qualcuno, tramite questi articoli... Silvio Ceccato's little volume Corso di linguistica operativa (Ceccato 1969 ) sits on a quiet shelf in Lauinger library, the work of a semantic pioneer. C.. C. (Civilta delle Macchine) This monograph presents a discussion of the problems encountered by members of the Italian Operational School in their attempts to develop techniques to be used in...  Foundations of Language, Page 171books.google.com › books 1965 · ‎Snippet view FOUND INSIDE .. with his hand, when he moves the pieces, he performs a manual, a physical activity. Foundations of Language. The two types of activity can be distinguished in a 171 C.. I use an operational approach to mental activity based on C.. TECNICA OPERATIVA " (Ceccato), one of the earliest approaches implemented on a computer (University of Milan). 2 - I look at the. Debbo la spinta a studiare processi di questo tipo alla ' tecnica operativa ' di C., di cui un primo abbozzo in Language with the Table of Ceccatieff. Paris: Herman & Cie. 1951. Die C. si verdano anche articoli in Methodos... C., the Italian pioneer in the analysis of mental operations and construction, told me that once, after a public discussion of his theory, he overheard a philosopher say: " If Ceccato were right, the rest of us would be fools ! C.'s group exploited semantic pattern matching using semantic categories and semantic case frames, and C.s approach (1967 ) also involved the use of world knowled.  It is the purpose of this paper to define and differentiate the  various uses of the imperfect indicative, to discover if possible  their origin and trace their interrelations, to outline in fact the  history of the tense in early Latin. The term ' early Latin ' is  used somewhat elastically as including not only all the remains of  the language down to about the time of Sulla, but also the first  volume of inscriptions (to 44 B. c.) and the works of Varro, for  Varro belongs distinctly to the older school of writers in spite  of the fact that the Rerum rusticarum libri were written as late  as 37 B. c. But exact chronological periods are of little meaning  in matters of this sort, and the present outline, being but a frag-  ment of a more complete history of the tense, may stop at this  point as well as another.   Before proceeding to the investigation of the cases of the  imperfect occurring in early Latin it is necessary to describe  briefly the system by which these cases have been classified. In  the first place all cases of the same verb have been placed together  so that the individual verb forms the basis of classification. 1 Then  verbs of similar meanings have been combined to form larger  groups. There result three main groups (and some subdivisions)  which for the better understanding of this paper may be tabulated  thus: Verbs of physical action or state. Motion of the whole of a body, e. g. eo, curro.   2. Action of a part of a body, e. g. do, iacio.Verbal communication, e. g. dico,promilto.   4. Rest or state, e. g. sum, sto, sedeo.   II. Verbs of psychic action or state.   1. Thought, e. g.puto, scio, spcro.   2. Feeling, e. g. metuo, atno.   3. Will, e. g. volo, nolo.   1 Cf. Trans. Am. Philolog. Ass., XXX, 1899, pp. 14-15. Auxiliary verbs, i. e. verbs which represent such English  words as could, should, might, &c, &c, e. g. possum, oportet, decet.   Such a system has, of course, many inconsistencies. The verb  ago, for instance, may be a verb of action (I. 2) or of verbal com-  munication (I. 3), but since instances of this sort were compara-  tively rare and affected no important groups of verbs it has seemed  best not to separate cases of the same verb.   Again I. 3 is logically a part of I. 2, or the verbs grouped under  III might perhaps have been distributed among the different  subdivisions of I and II. But the object of the classification, to  discover the function of each case, has seemed best attained by  grouping the verbs as described. By this system verbs of similar  meaning, whose tenses are therefore similarly affected, are  brought together and this is the essential point. In a very large  collection of cases a stricter subdivision would doubtless prove of  advantage.   2. The Facts 1 of Usage.   There are about 1400 cases of the imperfect indicative in the  period covered by this investigation. Of these, however, it has  been necessary to exclude 2 from 175 to 180 leaving 1226 from a  consideration of which the results have been obtained. The  tense appears, therefore, not to have been a favorite, and its  comparative infrequency which I have noted already for Plautus  and Terence 3 may here be asserted for the whole period of early  Latin. About three-quarters of the total number of cases are  supplied by Plautus, Terence, and Varro (see Table I).   A study of these 1226 cases reveals three general uses of the  imperfect indicative :   I. The progressive or true imperfect.   II. The aoristic imperfect.   III. The' shifted' imperfect.  Let us consider these in order.  In the following pages I have made an effort to state and illustrate the facts,  reserving theory and discussion for the third section of this paper. These are cases doubtful for one reason or another, chiefly because of  textual corruption or insufficient context. For the latter reason perhaps too  many cases have been excluded, but I have chosen to err in this direction since  so much of the material consists of fragments where one cannot feel absolutely  certain of the force of the tense.  Trans. Am. Philolog. Ass.. The true imperfect shows several subdivisions :   I A. The simple progressive imperfect.   I B. The imperfect of customary past action.   I C. The frequentative imperfect.   Of these I A and I B include several more or less distinct  variations, but all three uses together with their subdivisions  betray their relationship by the fact that all possess or are  immediately derived from the progressive ' function. This pro-  gressive idea, the indication of an act as progressing, going on,  taking place, in past time or the indication of a state as vivid, is  the true ear-mark of the tense. The time may be in the distant  past or at any point between that and the immediate past or it  may even in many contexts extend into the present. In duration  the time may be so short as to be inappreciable or it may extend  over years. The time is, however, not a distinguishing mark of  the imperfect. The perfect may be described in the same terms.   The kind of action * remains, therefore, the real criterion in the  distinction * of the imperfect from other past tenses. I A. The Simple Progressive Imperfect.   Under this heading are included all cases in which the tense  indicates simple progressive action, i. e. something in the 'doing',  ' being ', 4 &c. The idea of progression is present in all the cases,  but there are in other respects considerable differences according  to which some distinct varieties may be noted. All told there are  680 cases of this usage constituting more than half the total.   I I have chosen progressive as more expressive than durative which seems to  emphasize too much the time.   2 'Kind of action' will translate the convenient German Aktionsart while  ' time ' or ' period of time ' may stand for Zeitstufe.   % Herbig in his very interesting discussion, Aktionsart und Zeitstufe (I. F.  '896), comes to the conclusion that 'Aktionsart ' is older than ' Zeitstufe '  and that though many tenses are used timelessly none are used in living speech  without 'Aktionsart.' The progressive effect is also found in the present participle (and in parti-  cipial adjectives), and indeed the imperfect, especially in subordinate clauses,  is often interchangeable with a participial expression, falling naturally into  participial form in English also. How close the effect of the imperfect was  to that of the present participle is well illustrated by Terence, Heaut. 293-4  nebat . . . texebat and 285 texentem . . . offendimus. Cf. Varro R. R. Ill, 2. 2  cited on p. 167. Of these 449 are syntactically independent, 231 dependent. 1 In  its ordinary form this usage is so well understood that we may  content ourselves with a few illustrations extending over the  different groups of verbs.  I.i. Verbs of motion.  Plautus, 2 Aul. 178, Praesagibat mi animus frustra me ire,  quom exibam domo.   1 With the principles of formal description as last and best expressed by  Morris (On Principles and Methods of Syntax, 1901, pp. 197-8) all syntacticians  will, I believe, agree. Nearly all of them will be found well illustrated in the  present paper. For purposes of tense study, however, I have been unable to  see any essential modification in function resulting from variation of person  and number, although some uses have become almost idiomatic in certain  persons, e. g. the immediate past usage with first person sing, of verbs of  motion (p. 15). Just how far tense function is affected by the kind of sentence  in which the tense stands I am not prepared to say. In cases accompanied by  a negative or standing in an interrogative sentence the tense function is more  difficult to define than in simple affirmative sentences. It is easier also to  define the tense function in some forms of dependent clauses, e. g. temporal,  causal, than in others. This is an interesting phenomenon, needing for its  solution a larger and more varied collection of cases than mine. At present  I do not feel that the influence upon the tense of any of these elements is  definite enough to call for greater complexity in the system of classification.  While, therefore, I have borne these points constantly in mind, the tables  show the results rather than the complete method of my work in this respect.   ' In the citation of cases the following editions are used:   Fragments of the dramatists, O. Ribbeck, Scaenicae Romanorum poesis  fragmenta (I & II), Lipsiae -8 (third edition).   Plautus, Goetz and Schoell, T. Macci Plauti comoediae (editio minor), Lipsiae, Terence, Dziatzko, P. Terenti Afri comoediae, Lipsiae Orators, H. Meyer, Oratorum romanorum fragmenta, Turici.   Historians, C. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum fragmenta, Lipsiae.   Cato, H. Keil, M. Porci Catonis de agricultura liber, Lipsiae, and H.  Jordan, M. Catonis praeter lib. de re rustica quae extant, Lipsiae i860.   Lucilius, L. Mueller, Leipsic, Auctor ad Herennium, C. L. Kayser, Cornifici rhetoricorum ad C. Herenium libri tres, Lipsiae.   Inscriptions, Th. Mommsen, C. I. L. I.   Ennius (the Annals), L. Mueller, Q. Enni carminum reliquiae, Petropoli.   Naevius (Bell, poen.), L. Mueller, Q. Enni carminum reliquiae, Petropoli.   Varro, H. Keil, M. Terenti Varronis rerum rusticarum libri tres, Lipsiae 1883.   Varro, A. Spengel, M. Terenti Varronis de lingua latina, Berolini 1885.   Varro, BUcheler, M. Terenti Varronis saturarum Menippearum reliquiae,  Lipsiae.      Id. Amph. 199, Nam quom pugnabant maxume, ego turn   fugiebam maxume.  Lucilius, Sat., XVI. 12, l ibat forte aries' inquit;  I. 2. Verbs of action.  Ex incertis incertorum fabulis (comoed. pall.) p. 137, XXIV.  R., sed sibi cum tetulit coronam ob coligandas nuptias,  T\b\ ferebat; cum simulabat se sibi alacriter dare,  Turn ad te ludibunda docte et delicate detulit.  Plautus, True. 198 atque opperimino : iam exibit, nam   lavabat.  Cf. id. Men. 564 (ferebam), Mil. 1336 (temptabam), Epid.  138 (mittebam); Terence, Andr. 545 (dabam); Auctor ad  Herenn. 4, 20, 27 (oppetebat).  I. 3. Verbal communication.   Plautus, Men, Quin modo   Erupui, homines qui ferebant te. Apud hasce aedis. tu clamabas deum fidem,  Ex incert. incert. &c. 282. XXXII. R., Vidi te, Ulixes saxo  sternentem Hectora,  Vidi tegentem clipeo classem Doricam :  Ego tunc pudendam trepidus hortabar fugam.   I. 4. State.   Plautus, Aul. 376, Atque eo fuerunt cariora, aes non erat.  Id. Mil. 181, Sed Philocomasium hicine etiam nunc est? Pe.   Quom exibam, hie erat.  Varro, R. R. III. 2. 2., ibi Appium Claudium augurem   sedentem invenimus . . . sedebat ad sinistram ei Cornelius   Merula . . .  Cf. also Plautus, Rud. 846, (sedebanf), Amph. 603 (stabam)   &c. &c.   II. 1. Verbs of thought.   Hist. frag. p. 70, 1. 7, Et turn quo irent nesciebani, ilico   manserunt.  Plautus, Pseud. 500-1, Non a me scibas pistrinum in mundo   tibi,  Quom ea muss[c]itabas ? Ps. Scibam.  Cf. also Plautus, Rud. 1 186 ,(credebam); Varro R. R. I. 2. 25.  (ignorabat), &c.  II. 2. Feeling.  Plautus, Epid. 138, Desipiebam mentis, quom ilia scripta   mittebam tibi.     Id. Bacch. 683, Bacchidem atque hunc suspicabar propter  crimen, Chrysale,   II. 3. Will.   Lucilius, Sat. incert. 48, fingere praeterea adferri quod quis-  que volebat:   In these cases the act or state indicated by the tense is always  viewed as at some considerable distance in the past even though  in reality it may be distant by only a few seconds. The speaker  or writer stands aloof, so to speak, and views the event as at some  distance and as confined within certain fairly definite limits in the  past. If, now, the action be conceived as extending to the im-  mediate past or the present of the speaker, a different effect is  produced, although merely the limits within which the action  progresses have been extended. This phase of the progressive  imperfect we might term the imperfect of the immediate past 1 or  the interrupted 2 imperfect, since the action of the verb is often  interrupted either by accomplishment or by some other event.  A few citations will make these points clearer :   Plautus, Stich. 328, ego quid me velles visebam.   Nam mequidem harum miserebat. — '\ was coming to see  what you wanted of me (when I met you) ; for I've been pitying  (and still pity) these women.' In the first verb the action is  interrupted by the meeting ; in the second it continues into the  present, the closest translation being our English compound pro-  gressive perfect, a tense which Latin lacked. The imperfect ibam  is very common in this usage, cf. Plautus, True. 921, At ego ad  te ibam = l was on my way to see you (when you called me),  cf. Varro, R. R. II. 11. 12; Terence, Phorm. 900, Andr. 580.   But the usage is by no means confined to verbs of motion  (I. 1) alone. It extends over all the categories:   I. 2. Motion.  Plautus, Aulul. 827 (apparabas), cf. Andr. 656.   1 In Greek the aorist is used of events just past, but of course with no pro-  gressive coloring, cf. Brugmann in I. Miiller's Handbuch, &c. E. Rodenbusch, De temporum usu Plautino quaest. selectae, Argentorati  1888, pp. n-12, recognizes and correctly explains this usage, adding some  examples of similar thoughts expressed by the present, e. g. Plautus, Men. 280  (quaeris), ibid. 675 (quaerit), Amph. 542 (numquid vis, a common leave-taking  formula). In such cases the speaker uses imperfect or present according as  past or present predominates in his mind, the balance between the two being  pretty even. Verbal communication.  Terence, Eun. 378 (iocabar), Heaut. 781 (dicebam) ; Plautus,  Trin. 212 (aibanf).   I. 4. Rest.   Plautus, Cas. 532 (eratn), cf. Men. n 35. Terence, Eun. 87  (stabam), Phorm. 573 {cotnmorabar).   II. 1. Thought.   Terence, Phorm. 582 (scibam), cf. Heaut. 309. Plautus,  Men. 1072 (censebam), cf. Bacch. 342, As. 385 &c.  II. 2. Feeling.   Plautus, Stich. 329 (miserebaf) ; Turpilius, 107 V R.  (sperabam).   II. 3. Will.   Plautus, As. 392 and 395 (volebatn), Most. 9, Poen. 1231. 1   III. Auxiliary verbs.   Plautus, Epid. 98 (so/ebam), cf. Amph. 711. Terence, Phor-  mio 52 (conabar).  In this usage the present or immediate past is in the speaker's  mind only less strongly than the point in the past at which the  verb's action begins. The pervading influence of the present  is evident not only because present events are usually at hand in  the context, but also from the occasional use with the imperfect  of a temporal particle or expression of the present, cf. Plaut.  Merc. 884, Quo nunc ibas = ' whither were you (are you) going ? '  Terence, Andr. 657, immo etiam, quom tu minus scis aerumnas   meas,  Haec nuptiae non adparabanfur mihi,   ' Rodenbusch (p. 26) labors hard to show that this case is like the preceding  and not parallel with the cases of volui which he cites on p. 24 with all  of which an infinitive of the verb in the main clause is either expressed or to  be supplied. Following Bothe, he alters deicere to dice (which he assigns to  Adelphasium) and refers quod to the amabo and amflexabor of I230 = 'meine  Absicht'. But there is no need of this. Infinitives occur with some of the  cases cited by Rodenbusch himself on p. II, e. g. Bacch. 188 (189) Istuc volebatn  . . . fercontarier, Trin. 195 Istuc voUbam scire, to which may be added Cas. 674  Dicere vilicum volebatn and ibid. 702 illud . . . dicere volebatn. It is true that the  perfect is more common in such passages, but the imperfect is by no means  excluded. The difference is simply one of the speaker's point of view: quod  volui = ' what I wished * (complete) ; quod valebant = ' what I was and am  wishing ' (incomplete). As. 212, which also troubles Rodenbusch, is customary  past.   Nee postulabat nunc quisquam uxorem dare.   Merc. 197, Equidem me tarn censebam esse in terra atque in   tuto loco :  Verum video . . .   In the last two cases note the accompanying presents, set's and  video.   The immediate past also is indicated by a particle, e. g. Plautus,  Cas. 594 ad te hercle ibam commodum.   There are in all 207 l cases of this imperfect of the immediate  past. They are distributed pretty evenly over the various groups  of verbs as will be seen from the following table: No. of Cases. I. I    Verbs of motion,    26  I. 2  it  " action,  17  I.  3 (i   "verbal communication, 31 I. 4   state, 35 II.  1 it " thought,    36 II. 2 " " feeling,  35  II. 3 " " will,    13  Auxiliary verbs, The verbs proportionately most common in this use are ibam  and volebam which have become idiomatic. The usage is  especially common in colloquial Latin, but 16 cases 5 occurring  outside the dramatic literature represented chiefly, of course, by  Plautus and Terence.   By virtue of its progressive force the imperfect is a vivid tense  and as is well known, became a favorite means in the Ciceronian  period of enlivening descriptive passages. It was especially used  to fill in the details and particulars of a picture (imperfect of situa-  tion). 8 This use of the tense appears in early Latin also, but with  much less frequency. The choice of the tense for this purpose  is a matter of art, whether conscious or unconscious. At times,  indeed, there is no apparent reason for the selection of an imper-  fect rather than a perfect except that the former is more graphic,   1 Somewhat less than one-third of the total (680) progressive cases.   5 These cases are Ennius, Ann. 204, C. I. L. I. 201. 1 1 (3 cases), Varro, L.  L. 5. 9 (1 case), and Auctor ad Herenn. 1. 1. 1 (2 cases), 1. 10. 16, 2. 1. 2, 2. 2.  2 (2 cases), 3. 1. 1 (2 cases), 4. 34. 46, 4. 36. 48, 4. 37. 49. All of these are in  passages of colloquial coloring, either in speeches or, especially those in auctor  ad Herenn., in epistolary passages.   3 I use this term for all phases of the tense used for graphic purposes.  and if it were possible to separate in every instance these cases  from those in which the imperfect may be said to have been  required, we should have a criterion by which we might dis-  tinguish this use of the imperfect from others. But since the  progressive function of the tense is not altered, such a distinction  is not necessary.   Statistics as to the frequency of the imperfect of situation in  early Latin are worth little because the chief remains of the  language of that period are the dramatists in whom naturally the  present is more important than the past. The historians, to whom  we should look for the best illustrations of this usage, are for the  most part preserved to us in brief fragments. Nevertheless an  examination of the comparatively few descriptive passages in  early Latin reveals several points of interest.   In Plautus and Terence the imperfect was not a favorite tense  in descriptions. Bacch. 258-307, a long descriptive passage of  nearly 50 lines, interrupted by unimportant questions, shows only  4 imperfects (1 aoristic) amid over 40 perfects, historical presents,  &c. Capt. 497-5151 Amph. 203-261, Bacch. 947-970, show but  one case each. Stich. 539-554 shows 5 cases of erat. In Epid.  207-253 there are 10 cases.   In the descriptive passages of Terence the imperfect is still far  from being a favorite tense, though relatively more common than  in Plautus, cf. Andr. 48 ff., 74-102, Phorm. 65-135 (containing 11  imperfects). But Eunuch. 564-608 has only 4 and Heaut. 96-150  only 3.   Another very instructive passage is the well-known description  by Q. Claudius Quadrigarius of the combat between Manlius and  a Gaul (Peter, Hist. rom. fragg., p. 137, 10b). In this passage  of 28 lines there are but 2 imperfects. The very similar passage  describing the combat between Valerius and a Gaul and cited by  Gellius (IX, n) probably from the same Quadrigarius contains  8 imperfects in 24 lines. Since Gellius is obviously retelling the  second story, the presumption is that the passage in its original  form was similar in the matter of tenses to the passage about  Manlius. In other words Gellius has 'edited' the story of  Valerius, and one of his improvements consists in enlivening the  tenses a bit. He describes the Manlius passage thus : Q. Claudius  primo annalium purissime atque illustrissime simplicique et  incompta orationis antiquae suavitate descripsit. This simplex  et incompta suavitas is due in large measure to the fact that   Quadrigarius has used the simple perfect (19 times), varying it  with but few (4) presents and imperfects (2). A closer com-  parison of the passage with the story of Valerius reveals the  difference still more clearly. Quadrigarius uses (not counting  subordinate clauses) 19 perfects, 4 presents, 2 imperfects ; Gellius,  4 perfects, 9 presents, 8 imperfects. In several instances the  same act is expressed by each with a different tense :   Quadrigarius. Gellius.   processit (bis), f procedebat,   \ progrediiur,  constitit, c congrediuntur,   \ consistent,  constituerunt, conserebantur manus,   8 perfects of acts in 5 imperfects of acts   combat. of the corvus.   Gellius has secured greater vividness at the expense of simplicity  and directness.   This choice of tenses was, as has been said, a matter of art,  whether conscious or unconscious. The earlier writers seem to  have preferred on the whole the barer, simpler perfect even in  passages which might seem to be especially adapted to the  imperfect, historical present, &c. The perfect, of course, always  remained far the commoner tense in narrative, and instances are  not lacking in later times of passages 1 in which there is a striking  preponderance of perfects. Nevertheless the imperfect, as the  language developed, with the growth of the rhetorical tendency  and a consequent desire for variety in artistic prose and poetry,  seems to have come more and more into vogue. 2   The fact that the function of a tense is often revealed, denned,  and strengthened by the presence in the context of particles of  various kinds, subordinate clauses, ablative absolutes, &c, &c,   1 E. g. Caesar, B. G. I. 55 and 124-5.   s The relative infrequency of the tense in early Latin was pointed out on  p. 164. Its growth as a help in artistic prose is further proved by the fact that  the fragments of the later and more rhetorical annalists, e. g. Quadrigarius,  Sisenna, Tubero, show relatively many more cases than the earliest annalists.  This is probably not accident. When compared with the history of the same  phenomenon in Greek, where the imperfect, so common in Homer, gave way  to the aorist, this increase in use in Latin may be viewed as a revival of a  usage popular in Indo-European times. Cf. p. 185, n. 2. was pointed out in Trans. Am. Philol. Ass. XXX, pp. 17 ff.  What was there 1 said of Plautus and Terence may here be  extended to the whole period of early Latin. The words and  phrases used in this way are chiefly temporal. Some of those  occurring most frequemly are: modo, commodum ; turn, tunc;  simul; dudum, iam dudum; iam, primo, primulum ; nunc; ilico;  olim, quondam; semper, saepe; fere, plerumque ; Ha, 2 &c, &c.  A rough count shows in this class about 120 cases,' accompanied  by one or more particles or expressions of this sort. Some  merely date the tense, e. g., turn, modo, dudum, &c. Others, as  saepe, fere, primulum, have a more intimate connection with the  function. Naturally the effect of the latter group is clearest in  the imperfects of customary past action, the frequentative, &c,  and will be illustrated under those headings. Here I will notice  only a few cases with iam, primulum, &c, which illustrate very  well how close the relation between particle and tense may be.  The most striking cases are :   Plautus, Merc. 43, amare valide coepi[t] hie meretricem. ilico  Res exulatum ad illam <c>lam abibat patris. Cf. Men.  1 1 16, nam tunc dentes mihi cadebant primulum.   id. Merc. 197, Equidem me iam censebam esse in terra atque   in tuto loco :   Verum video . . .  id. Cist. 566, Iam perducebam illam ad me suadela mea,   Anus ei <quom> amplexast genua . . .  id. Merc. 212, credet hercle: nam credebat iam mihi.   The unquestionably inceptive force of these cases arises from  the combination of tense and particle. No inceptive* function can  be proved for the tense alone, for I find no cases with inceptive  force unaccompanied by such a particle.   Cf. also Morris, Syntax, p. 83.   5 How far the nature of the clause in which it stands may influence the  choice of a tense is a question needing investigation. That causal, explanatory,  characterizing, and other similar clauses very often seem to require an im-  perfect is beyond question, but the proportion of imperfects to other tenses in  such clauses is unknown. Cf. p. 166, n. 1.   s No introductory conjunctions are included in this total, nor are other  particles included, unless they are in immediate connection with the tense.   4 In Trans. Am. Philolog. Ass. XXX, p. 21, I was inclined to take at least  Merc. 43 as inceptive. This I now believe to have been an error. The  inceptive idea was most commonly expressed by coepi -\- m&n. which is very  common in Plautus and Varro. We have here the opposite of the phenomenon  discussed on p. 177. There are a few cases in which the imperfect produces the same  effect as the imperfect of the so-called first periphrastic conjuga-  tion : Terence, Hec. 172, Interea in Imbro moritur cognatus   senex.  Horunc: ea ad hos redibal lege hereditas.=reditura erat,  English ' was coming ', ' was about to revert ', cf. Greek pi\\a> with  infinitive.   Cf. Phorm. 929, Nam non est aequum me propter vos decipi,  Quom ego vostri honoris causa repudium alterae  Remiserim, quae dotis tantundem <fti£«/.=datura erat &c.  In these cases the really future event is conceived very vividly  as already being realized.   Plautus, Amph. 597 seems to have the effect of the English  'could':   Neque . . . mihi credebam primo mihimet Sosiae  Donee Sosia . . . ille . . .  But the * could ' is probably inference from what is a very vivid  statement. A Roman would probably not have felt such a  shading. 1   I B. The Imperfect of Customary Past Action.   The imperfect may indicate some act or state at some appreci-  able distance in the past as customary, usual, habitual &c. The  act or state must be at some appreciable distance in the past (and  is usually at a great distance) because this function of the tense  depends upon the contrast between past and present, a contrast  so important that in a large proportion of the cases it is enforced  by the use of particles. 2 The act (or state) is conceived as  repeated at longer or shorter intervals, for an act does not become  customary until it has been repeated. This customary act usually  takes place also as a result or necessary concomitant of certain  conditions expressed or implied in the context, e. g. maiores nosiri  olim &c, prepares us for a statement of what they used to do.  The act may indeed be conceived as occurring only as a result of  a certain expressed condition, e. g. Plautus, Men. 484 mulier  quidquid dixerat,   1 Some of the grammars recognize ' could' as a translation, e. g., A. & G.   § 277 g-   8 E. g. turn, tunc, olim &c. with the imperfect, and nunc &c. with the con-  trasted present.    Idem ego dicebam = my words would be uttered only as a  result of hers. 1   There are 462 cases of the customary past usage of which 218  occur in independent sentences, 244 in dependent. This large  total, more than one-third of all the cases, is due to the character  of Varro's De lingua latina from which 289 cases come. This is  veritably a ' customary past ' treatise, for it is for the most part a  discussion of the customs of the old Romans in matters pertaining  to speech. Accordingly nearly all the imperfects fall under this  head. Plautus and Terence furnish 112. The remaining 61 are  pretty well scattered.   As illustrations of this usage I will cite (arranging the cases  according to the classes of verbs) :   I. 1. Plautus, Pseud. 1180, Noctu in vigiliam quando ibat  miles, quom tu Has simul,  Conveniebatne in vaginam tuam machaera militis ?  Terence, Hec. 157, Ph. Quid ? interea ibatne ad Bacchidem ?   Pa. Cottidie.  Varro, L. L. 5. 180, qui iudicio vicerat, suum sacramentum e   sacro auferebat, victi ad aerarium redibat.  I. 2. Plautus, Bacch. 429, Saliendo sese exercebant magis   quam scorto aut saviis. (cf. the whole passage).  Hist, fragg., p. 83. 27, Cn., inquit, Flavius, patre libertino natus,  scriptum faciebat (occupation) isque in eo tempore aedili  curuli apparebat, . . .  I. 3. Terence, Eun. 398, Vel rex semper maxumas   Mihi agebal quidquid feceram :  Varro, L. L., 5. 121, Mensa vinaria rotunda nominabalur Cili-  bantum ut etiam nunc in castris. Cf. L. L. 7. 36, appellabant,  5. 118, 5. 167 &c.   1 This usage seemed to me formerly sufficiently distinct to deserve a special  class and the name 'occasional', since it is occasioned by another act. It is  at best, however, only a sub-class of the customary past usage and in the  present paper I have not distinguished it in the tables. It is noteworthy that  the act is here at its minimum as regards repetition and that it may occur in  the immediate past, cf. Rud. 1226, whereas the customary past usage in its  pure form is never used of the immediate past. The usages may be approxi-  mately distinguished in English by 'used to', 'were in the habit of &c. (pure  customary past), and 'would' (occasional), although 'would' is often a good  rendering of the pure customary past. Good cases of the occasional usage  are : Plautus, Merc. 216, 217 ; Poen. 478 S ; Terence, Hec. 804 ; Hist, fragg.  p. 202. 9 (5 cases), ibid. p. 66. 128 (4 cases). Plautus, Bacch. 421, Eadem ne erat haec disciplina tibi,   quom tu adulescens eras ?  C. I. L. I. 1011.17 Ille meo officio adsiduo florebat ad omnis.   II. 1. Auctor ad Herenn. 4. 16. 23, Maiores nostri si quam  unius peccati mulierem damnabant, simplici iudicio multorum  rnaleficiorum convictam putabant. quo pacto ? quam inpudicam  iudicarant, ea venefici quoque damnata existutnabatur.   Cato, De ag., 1, amplissime laudari existimabatur qui ita lau-  dabatur.   II. 2. Plautus, Epid. 135, Illam amabam olim: nunc tarn alia  cura impendet pectori.   Varro, R. R. III. 17.8, etenim hac incuria laborare aiebat M.  Lucullum ac piscinas eius despiciebat quod aestivaria idonea  non haberent.   III. 3. Plautus, As. 212, quod nolebant ac votueram, de   industria  Fugiebatis neque conari id facere audebatis prius. Cf. the  whole passage.  Varro, L. L. 5. 162, ubi quid conditum esse volebant, a celando   Cellam appellarunt.  III. Terence, Phorm. 1 90, Tonstrina erat quaedam : hie sole-   bamusfere  Plerumque earn opperiri, . . .  Varro, L. L. 6. 8, Solstitium quod sol eo die sistere videbatur . . .  The influence of particles 2 and phrases in these cases is very  marked. I count about 1 10 cases, more than I of the total, with  which one or more particles appear. Those expressions which  emphasize the contrast are most common, e. g. turn, olim, me  puero with the imperfect, and nunc, iam &c. with the contrasted  present.   This class also affords excellent illustrations of the reciprocal  influence of verb-meaning' and tense-function. In Varro there  are 50 cases, out of 289, of verbs of naming, calling, &c, which  are by nature evidently adapted to the expression of the customary  past. Such are appellabam, nominabam, vocabam, vocitabam,  &c. But the most striking illustration is found in verbs of  customary action, e. g. soleo, adsuesco, consuesco, which by their   1 Cf. Trans. Am. Philolog. Ass. XXX, p. 19.   s Note as illustrations the italicized particles in the citations, pp. 175-6.   3 Cf. Morris, Syntax, p. 47, and p., with note.  meaning possess already the function supplied to other verbs by  the tense and context. When a verb of this class occurs in the  imperfect of customary past the function is enhanced. Naturally,  however, these verbs occur but rarely in the imperfect, for in any  tense they express the customary past function.   It is interesting to note the struggle for existence between  various expressions of the same thought. A Roman could  express the customary past idea in several ways, of which the  most noticeable are the imperfect tense, soleo or the like with an  infinitive, or various periphrases such as mos erat. Of these  possibilities all are rare save the first, the imperfect tense. There  are but 12 cases of soleo, consuesco, &c, occurring in the imperfect  indicative in early Latin. These are all cases of solebam, and 9  of them are imperfects of customary past action. 1 One would  expect to find in common use the perfect of these verbs with an  infinitive, but, although I have no exact statistics on this point,  a pretty careful lookout has convinced me that such expressions  are by no means common. 2 Periphrases with mos, consuetudo,  &c, are also rare. Comparing these facts with the large number  of cases in which the customary past function is expressed by the  imperfect, we must conclude that this was the favorite mode of  expression already firmly established in the earliest literature. 8   I C. The Frequentative Imperfect.   In the proper context 4 the imperfect may denote repeated or  insistent action in the past. Although resembling the imperfect  of customary past action, in which the act is also conceived as   1 Terence, Phorm. go; Varro, R.R. 1.2. 1, and II. 7. I, L. L. 5. 126; Auctor  ad Herenn. 4. 54. 67 ; Lucilius, IV. 2, &c.   s A collection of perfects covering 18 plays of Plautus shows but 15 cases of  solitus est, consuevit, &c. My suspicion, based on Plautus and Terence, that  these periphrases would prove common has thus been proven groundless.   8 The variation between imperfect and perfect is well illustrated by Varro,  L. L. 5. 162, ubi cenabant, cenaculum vocitabant, and id. R. R. I. 17. 2, iique  quos obaeratos nostri vocitarunt, where the frequentative verb expresses even  in the perfect the customary past function.   For the variation between the customary past imperfect and the perfect of  statement cf. Varro's L. L. almost anywhere, e. g. 5. 121, mensa . . . rotunda  nominabatur Clibantum. 5. 36, ab usu salvo saltus nominarunt. So compare  5. 124 (appellarunt) with R. R. I. 2. 9 (appellabant). Cf. also L. L. 5. 35 qua  ibant . . . iter appellarunt ; qua id auguste, semita.ut semiter dictum.   4 Cf. Herbig, Aktionsart und Zeitstufe (I. F. 1896, § 59). repeated, the frequentative usage differs in that there is no idea  of habit or custom, and the act is depicted as repeated at intervals  close together and without any conditioning circumstances or  contrast with the present. I find only 13 cases of this usage,  7 of which are syntactically independent, 6 dependent. All occur  in the first three classes of verbs. The cases are :   Plautus, Pers. 20, miquidem tu iam eras mortuos, quia non   visitabam.  Ibid. 432, id tibi suscensui,  Quia te negabas credere argentum mihi.  Rud. 540, Tibi auscultavi : tu promittebas mihi   Mi esse quaestum maxumum meretricibus :  Capt. 917, Aulas . . . omnis confregit nisi quae modiales   erant :  Cocum percontabatur, possentne seriae fervescere :  As. 938, Dicebam, pater, tibi ne matri consuleres male. Cf.   Mil. Gl. 1410 (dicebaf).  True. 506, Quin ubi natust machaeram et clupeum   poscebat sibi ?  Epid. 59, Quia cottidie ipse ad me ab legione epistulas   Mittebat: cf. ibid. 132 (missiculabas).  Merc. 631, Promittebas te os sublinere meo patri : ego me[t]   credidi  Homini docto rem mandar<e>, . . .  Ennius, Ann. 43, haec ecfatu' pater, germana, repente recessit.  Nee sese dedit in conspectum corde cupitus,  quamquam multa manus ad caeli caerula templa  iendebam lacrumans et blanda voce vocabam.  Hist, fragg., p. 138. 11 (Q. Claudius Quadrigarius), Ita per  sexennium vagati Apuliam atque agrum quod his per militem  licebat expoliabaniur.  This class is so small and many of the cases are so close to  the simple progressive and the imperfect of situation that it is  tempting to force the cases into those classes. 1 A careful con-   1 How close the frequentative notion may be to the imperfect of the  immediate past is well illustrated by As. 938 (cited above). In this case we  have virtually an imperfect of the immediate past in which, however, the  frequentative coloring predominates : dicebam means not ' I've been telling ',  but 'I've kept telling', &c. Cf. also Pseud. 422 (dissimulabam) for another  case of the imperfect of the immediate past which is close to the frequentative.  In its pure form, however, the frequentative imperfect does not hold in view  the present. sideration of each case has, however, convinced me that the  frequentative function is here clearly predominant. In Plautus,  Pers. 20, E pid. 131, Capt. 917, it is impossible to say how much  of the frequentative force is due to the tense and how much to  the form of the verbs themselves ; both are factors in the effect.  Verbs like mitto,promitio, voco, and even dico, are also obviously  adapted to the expression of the frequentative function.   It is noteworthy that in this usage a certain emphasis is laid on  the tense. In eight of the cases the verb occupies a very em-  phatic position, in verse often the first position in the line, cf. the  definition on p. 177.   I D. The Conative Imperfect.   The imperfect may indicate action as attempted in the past.  There must be something in the context, usually the immediate  context, to show that the action of the verb is fruitless. There  are no certain cases of this usage in early Latin. I cite the only  instances, four in number, which may be interpreted as possibly  conative :   Plautus, As. 931, Arg. Ego dissuadebam, mater. Art. Bellum   filium.   Id. Epid. 215, Turn meretricum numerus tantus quantum in   urbe omni fuit   Obviam ornatae occurrebant suis quaeque | amatoribus :  Eos captabant.   Auctor ad Herenn., 4. 55. 68, . . . cum pluribus aliis ire celerius   coepit. illi praeco faciebat audientiam; hie subsellium, quod   erat in foro, cake premens dextera pedem defringit et . . .   Hist, fragg., p. 143. 46, Fabius de nocte coepit hostibus castra   simulare oppugnare, eum hostem delectare, dum collega id   caperet quod capiabat.   But in the second and fourth cases the verb capto itself means  to 'strive to take', 'to catch at' &c, and none of the conative  force can with certainty be ascribed to the tense. In the first  case, again, the verb dissuadebam means 'to advise against', not  'to succeed in advising against' (dissuade). Argyrippus says :  ' I've been advising against his course, mother', not ' I've been  trying, or I tried, to dissuade him'. The imperfect is, therefore,  of the common immediate past variety. 1   1 Cf. a few lines below (938) dicebam.     In Auct. ad Herenn., 4. 55. 68, the imperfect is part of the very  vivid description of the scene attending the death of Tiberius  Gracchus. Indeed the whole passage is an illustration of demon-  stratio or vivid description which the author has just defined.  The acts of Gracchus and his followers are balanced against  those of the fanatical optimates under Scipio Nasica: 'While  the herald was silencing 1 the murmurs in the contio, Scipio was  arming himself &c. Though it may be true that the act indi-  cated by faciebat audientiam was not accomplished, this seems  a remote inference and one that cannot be proved from the  context.   If my interpretation of these cases is correct, there are no  certain 1 instances of the conative imperfect in early Latin.   There is but one case of conabar (Terence, Phorm. 52) and  one of temptabam (Plautus, Mil. gl. 1336). Both of these belong  to the immediate past class, the conative idea being wholly in the  verb.   II. The Aoristic Imperfect.   The imperfect of certain verbs may indicate an act or state  as merely past without any idea of progression. In this usage  the kind of action reaches a vanishing point and only the temporal  element of the tense remains. The imperfect becomes a mere  preterite, cf. the Greek aorist and the Latin aoristic perfect. The  verbs to which this use of the imperfect is restricted are, in early  Latin, two verbs of saying, aio and dico, and the verb sum with  its compounds.   There are 56 cases of the aoristic imperfect in early Latin (see  Table II), 48 of which occur in syntactically independent sen-  tences. Some citations follow:   Plautus, Bacch. 268, Quotque innocenti ei dixit contumelias.   Adulterare eum aibat rebus ceteris.  Id. Most. 1027, Te velle uxorem aiebat tuo gnato dare :  Ideo aedificare hoc velle aiebat in tuis.  Th. Hie aedificare volui? Si. Sic dixit mihi.  Id. Poen. 900, Et ille qui eas vendebat dixit se furtivas vendere:  Ingenuas Carthagine aibat esse.   1 Faciebat audientiam seems a technical expression, cf. lexicon.   2 The case cited by Gildersleeve- Lodge, § 233, from Auct. ad Herenn., 2. I.  2, ostendebatur seems to me a simple imperfect and there is nothing in the  context to prove a conative force, cf. 3. 15. 26 demonstrabatur. In these cases note the parallel cases of dixit, cf. id. Trin. 1140,  Men. 1 141 &c, &c.   I note but three cases of dicebam:  Terence, Eun. 701, Ph. Unde [igitur] fratrem meum esse  scibas ? Do. Parmeno  Dicebat eum esse. Cf. Plautus, Epid. 598 for a perfect used  like this.  Varro, R. R. II. 4. 11, In Hispania ulteriore in Lusitania  [ulteriore] sus cum esset occisus, Atilius Hispaniensis minime  mendax et multarum rerum peritus in doctrina, dicebat  L. Volumnio senatori missam esse offulam cum duabus  costis . . .  Ibid. III. 17. 4, pisces . . . quos sacrificanti tibi, Varro, ad  tibicinem [graecum] gregatim venisse dicebas ad extremum  litus atque aram, quod eos capere auderet nemo, . . .  In these cases the verb dico becomes as vague as is aio in the  preceding citations.  Plautus, Poen. 1069, Nam mihi sobrina Ampsigura tua mater   fuit,  Pater tuos is erat frater patruelis meus,  Et is me heredem fecit, Id. Mil. gl. 1430, Nam illic qui | ob oculum habebat lanam   nauta non erat.  Py. Quis erat igitur? Sc. Philocomasio amator.  Id. Amph. 1009, Naucratem quem convenire volui in navi   non erat,  Neque domi neque in urbe invenio quemquam qui ilium   viderit. 1  Id. Merc. 45, Leno inportunus, dominus eius mulieris,   Vi sum<m>a[t] quicque utpoterat rapiebat domum.  In such cases as the last the imperfect has become formulaic,  cf. quam maxime poter at, &c.   1 Rodenbusch, pp. 8-10, after asserting that the imperfect of verbs of saying  and the like is used in narratio like the perfect (aorist), cites a number of  illustrations in which (he adds) the imperfect force may still be felt ! But a  case in which the imperfect force may still be felt does not illustrate the  imperfect in simple past statements, if that is what is meant by narratio.  Only four of R.'s citations are preterital (aoristic), and these are all cases of  aibam (Plautus, Amph. 807, As. 208, 442, Most. 1002). The same may be said  of the citations on p. g, of which only Eun. 701 is aoristic. J. Schneider  (De temporum apud priscos latinos usu quaestiones selectae, program, Glatr,  1888) recognizes the aoristic use of aibat, but his statement that the comic  poets used perfect and imperfect indiscriminately as aorists cannot be accepted. The Shifted Imperfect.   In a few cases the imperfect appears shifted from its function  as a tense of the past, and is equivalent to (i) a mere present; or  (2) an imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive.   The cases equivalent to a present 1 are all in Varro, L. L., and  are restricted to verbs of obligation {oportebat, debebaf) : L. L.  8. 74, neque oportebat consuetudinem notare alios dicere Bourn  greges, alios Boverum, et signa alios Iovum, alios Ioverum.  Ibid. 8. 47, Nempe esse oportebat vocis formas ternas ut in hoc  Humanus, Humana, Humanum, sed habent quaedam binas . . .  ibid. 9. 85, si esset denarii in recto casu atque infinitam multi-  tudinem significaret, tunc in patrico denariorum dici oportebat.  Ibid. 8. 65, Sic Graeci nostra senis casibus [quinis non] dicere  debebant, quod cum non faciunt, non est analogia.*   The cases equivalent to the subjunctive are confined to  sat &c. + erat (6 cases), poteram (3 cases), decebat (1 case), and  sequebatur (1 case). As illustrations may be cited :   Plautus, Mil. gl. 755, Insanivisti hercle : nam idem hoc homini-   bus sat [a] era\ti\t decern.  Auct. ad Herenn. 2. 22. 34, nam hie satis erat dicere, si id modo  quod esset satis, curarent poetae. = ' would have been,'  cf. ibid. 4. 16. 23 (iniquom erat),  Plautus, Mil. gl. 911, Bonus vates poieras esse : = ' might be '   or ' might have been '.  Id. Merc. 983 b, Vacuum esse istac ted aetate his decebat noxiis.  Eu. Itidem ut tempus anni, aetate<m> aliam aliud factum  condecet.  Varro, L. L. 9. 23, si enim usquequaque non esset analogia,  turn sequebatur ut in verbis quoque non esset, non, cum  esset usquequaque, ut est, non esse in verbis . . . This is a  very odd case and I can find no parallel for it.*   1 Varro uses the perfect also of these verbs as equivalent to the present of  general statements. Cf. L. L. 8, §§ 72-74, where debuit occurs 4 times as  equivalent to debet, § 48 (debuerunt twice), § 50 (pportuit = oportet). The perfect  infinitive is equivalent to the present, e. g. in 8, §61 and §66 (debuisse . . .  dici). The tenses are of very little importance in such verbs.   8 Note the presents expressed in the second and fourth citations.   3 The remaining cases are: Plautus, True. 511 (poterai), id. Rud. 269  (aequittserat), Lucilius, Sat. 5. 47 M. (sat erat), Auctor ad Herenn. 4. 16. 23  (iniquom erat), ibid. 4. 41. 53 (quae separatim dictae infimae erant).  Total. Imperfect. Aoristic. Shifted. Progressive. Cust.Past. Frequent. Terence Dramatists Historians Auctor ad Her. Inscriptions The fragments of Cato's historical work are included in the historians.  'Including the epic fragments of Ennius and Naevius.  Verbs and Functions. Cases. Imperfect. Classes of Verbs. Progressive. Cust. Past. Frequent. Aoristic. Shifted. Ind.Dep. Ind. Dep. Ind.  Dep.  Ind. Dep.  Ind.  Dep .I. Physical. Verbal commun. Rest, state, &c.   (tram 220)   Psychical.  Will  Auxiliaries.   american journal of philology.  Historical and Theoretical.   The original function of the imperfect seems to have been to  indicate action as progressing in the past, the simple progressive  imperfect. This is made probable, in the first place, by the fact  that this usage is more common than all others combined,  including, as it does, 680 out of a total of 1226 cases. This  proportion is reduced, as we should remember, by the peculiar  character of the literature under examination, which contains  relatively so little narrative, and especially by the nature of  Varro's De lingua latina in which the cases are chiefly of the  customary past variety. 1 Moreover, the customary past usage  itself, and also the frequentative and the conative, are to be  regarded as offshoots of the progressive usage of which they  still retain abundant traces, so that if we include in our figures  all the classes in which a trace of the progressive function  remains we shall find that 11 55 of 1226 cases are true imperfects  (see table II).   Another support for the view that the progressive function is  original may be drawn from the probable derivation of the tense.  Stolz 2 (after Thurneysen) derives the imperfect from the infinitive  in -e and an old aoristof the root *bhu. The idea of progression  was thus originally inherent in the ending -bam.   Let us now establish as far as possible the relations subsisting  between the various uses of the true imperfect (IA, B, C, D),  turning our attention first to the simple progressive (IA) and its  variations.   The relation between the progressive imperfect in its pure  form and the usage which has been named the imperfect of the  immediate past is not far to seek. The progressive function  remains essentially unchanged. The only difference lies in the  extension of the time up to the immediate past (or present) in  the case of the immediate past usage. The transition between:   ibat exulatutn'' = ' he was going into exile ' (when   l See p. 175.   2 In I. Muller's Handb. d. kl. Alt. II., 2 § 113, p. 376. Lindsay, Latin Lang.,  pp. 489-490, emphasizes the nominal character of the first element in the  compound, and suggests a possible I. E. *-bhwam, -as, &c, as antecedent of  Latin -bam, -ids, -bat. He also compares very interestingly the formation of  the imperfect in Slavonic, which is exactly analogous to this inferred Latin  formation, except that the ending comes from a different root.   3 Cf. Plautus, Merc.  I saw him at a more or less definite   point in the past)  and ibat exulatum = ' he was going (has been going)   into exile' (but we have just met him)  is plain enough. The difference is one of context. In this  imperfect of the immediate past the Romans possessed a sub-  stitute for our English compound perfect tense, 'have been  doing ', &C 1   In the imperfect of situation also the function of the tense  is not altered. The tense is merely applied in a different way, its  progressive function adapted to vivid description, and we have  found it already in the earliest 2 literature put to this use. In its  extreme form it occurs in passages which would seem to require  nothing more graphic than a perfect. Indeed, we must guard  against the view that the imperfect is a stronger tense than the  perfect; it is as strong, but in a different way, and while the  earlier writers preferred in general the perfect, 8 the imperfect  grew gradually in favor until in the period marked by the  highest development of style the highest art consisted in a  happy combination * of the two.   The imperfect of customary past action is, as we have seen,  already well established in the earliest literature. A glance at  Table I would seem to show that it grew to sudden prominence  in Varro, but the peculiar nature of Varro's work has already  been pointed out, so that the apparent discrepancy between the  proportion of cases in Varro and in Plautus and Terence, for  instance, means little. It should be remembered also that this  discrepancy is still further increased by the nature of the drama,  whose action lies chiefly in the present. While, therefore, in  Plautus and Terence the proportion of customary pasts is i,   1 Latin also exhibits some similar compounds, cf. Plautus, Capt. 925, te  carens dum hie fui, Poen., ut tu sis sciens, and Terence, Andr., ut sis  sciens. Cf. Schmalz in I. Mttller's Handb.    s In the Greek literature, which begins not only absolutely but relatively  much earlier than the Latin, the imperfect was used to narrate and describe,  and Brugmann, indeed, considers this a use which goes back to Indo-  European times. Later the imperfect was crowded out to a great extent by  the aorist, as in Latin by the (aoristic) perfect. Cf. Brugmann in I. Mailer's  Handb.   i The power of the perfect lies in its simplicity, but when too much used  this degenerates into monotony and baldness. and in Varro f , the historians with J probably present a juster  average.   The relation of this usage to the simple progressive imperfect  has already been pointed out, 1 but must be repeated here for the  sake of completeness. If we inject into a sentence containing a  simple progressive imperfect a strong temporal contrast, e. g.,  if facit, sed non faciebat becomes nunc facit, olim autem non  faciebat, it is at once evident how the customary past usage has  developed. It has been grafted on the tense by the use of such  particles and phrases, expressions which were in early Latin still  so necessary that they were expressed in more than one-quarter  of the cases ; or, in other words, it is the outgrowth of certain  oft-recurring contexts, and is still largely dependent on the  context for its full effect. Transitional cases in which the  temporal contrast is to be found, but no customary past coloring,  may be cited from Plautus, Rud., Dudum dimidiam  petebas partum. Tr. Immo etiam nunc peto. Here the action  expressed by petebas is too recent to acquire the customary past  notion. 2 The progressive function caused the imperfect to lend  itself more naturally than other tenses 3 to the expression of  this idea. 4   Although the customary past usage was well established in  the language at the period of the earliest literature, and we  cannot actually trace its inception and development, I am con-  vinced that it was a relatively late use of the tense by the mere  fact that the language possesses such verbs as soleo, consuesco,  &c, and that even as late as the period of early Latin the function  seemed to need definition, cf. the frequent use of particles, &c.   The small number of cases (13) which may be termed frequenta-  tive indicates that this function is at once rare and in its infancy  in the period of early Latin. The frequentative function is so  closely related 5 to the progressive that it is but a slight step from   1 Trans. Am. Philolog. Ass., Cf. Men. 729.   s How strong the effect of particles on other tenses may be is to be seen in  such cases as Turpilius, p. 113. I (Ribbeck), Quem olim oderat, sectabat ultro  ac detinet.   4 The process was therefore analogous to that which can be actually traced  in cases of the frequentative and conative uses.   5 Terence, Adel. 332-3, affords a good transitional case : iurabat . . . dicebat  — (almost) ' kept swearing ' ... 'kept saying' &c, cf. p. 47 n. 1. It should  the latter to the former. Latin 1 seems, however, to have been  unwilling to take that step. The vast number of frequentative, 2  desiderative and other secondary endings also prove that the  tense was not the favorite means for the expression of the  frequentative idea. Nevertheless since the progressive and fre-  quentative notions are so closely related and since frequentative  verbs must again and again have been used in the imperfect  subject to the influence of the progressive function of particles  such as saepe, etiam atgue etiam, and since finally a simple verb  must often have appeared in similar situations, e. g. poscebat for  poscitabat, the tense inevitably acquired at times the frequentative  function. We have here, therefore, an excellent illustration of the  process by which a secondary function may be grafted on a tense  and the frequentative function is dependent to a greater degree  than the customary past upon the influence and aid of the context.  That it is of later origin is proved by its far greater rarity (see  Table II).   If the frequentative imperfect in early Latin is still in its infancy,  the conative usage is merely foreshadowed. The fact that there  are no certain instances proves that relatively too much im-  portance, at least for early Latin, has been assigned to the conative  imperfect by the grammars. Statistics would probably prove it  rare at all periods, periphrases with conor &c, having sufficed for  the expression of the conative function.   The most powerful influence in moulding tense functions is  context. 3 In the case of the conative function this becomes all  powerful for we must be able to infer from the context that the  act indicated by the tense has not been accomplished. The   also be pointed out that the frequentative imperfect is very closely related to  the imperfect of situation. To conceive an act as frequentative necessarily  implies a vivid picture of it. (Cf. next note). It is possible, therefore, to  interpret as vivid imperfects of situation such cases as Ennius, Ann. 43-4;  Plautus, True. 506, Capt. 917, but a careful study of these has convinced me  that the frequentative idea predominates.   1 In Greek, however, the imperfect was commonly used with an idea of  repetition in the proper context. This use is correctly attributed by Brugmann  (I. Milller's Handb. &c.) to the similarity between the progressive  and frequentative ideas as well as to the fondness for description of a re-  peated act.   5 Ace. to Herbig, § 62 (after Garland?) there were probably no iterative  formations in Indo-European.   8 Cf. Morris, Syntax, pp. 46, 82, &c. 1function thus rests upon inference from the context- The presence  in the language of the verbs conor, tempto, &c, proves that the  conative function, like the frequentative, was a secondary growth  grafted on the tense in similar fashion, but at a later period, for  we have no certain instances in early Latin. This function of  the imperfect certainly originates within the period of the written  language.   The fact that the preponderance of the aoristic cases occurs  in Plautus and Terence (see Table I) indicates that this usage  was rather colloquial. This is further supported by the fact that  the majority of the cases are instances of aibam, a colloquial verb,  and of eram which in popular language would naturally be con-  fused with/i«. In this usage, therefore, we have an instance  of the colloquial weakening of a function through excessive  use in certain situations, a phenomenon which is common in  secondary formations, e. g. diminutives. The aoristic function  is not original, but originated in the progressive usage and in that  application of the progressive usage which is called the imperfect  of situation. Chosen originally for graphic effect the tense was  used in similar contexts so often that it lost all of this force. All  the cases of aibam, for instance, are accompanied by an indirect  discourse either expressed (38 cases) or understood (2 cases).  The statement contained in the indirect discourse is the important  thing and aibam became a colorless introductory (or inserted)  formula losing all tense force. 1 If this was the case with the verb  which, in colloquial Latin at least, was preeminently the mark  of the indirect discourse it is natural that by analogy dicebam,  when similarly employed, should have followed suit. 2   With eram the development was similar. The loss of true  imperfect force, always weak in such a verb, was undoubtedly due   1 Cf. Greek iXeys, tjv <5' iyi> &c. and English (vulgar) ' sez I ' &c„ (graphic  present). Brugmann (I. Muller's Handb. &c. II, 2 p. 183) denies that the Greek  imperfect ever in itself denotes completion, but he cites no cases of verbs  of saying. Although one might say that the tense does not denote completion,  yet if there was so little difference between imperfect and aorist that in  Homer metrical considerations (always a doubtful explanation) decided  between them (cf. Brugmann, ibid.), Brugmann seems to go too far in dis-  covering any imperfect force in his examples. The two tenses were, in such  cases, practical equivalents and both were colorless pasts.   8 Rodenbusch, p. 8, assigns as a cause for the frequency of aibat in this use  the impossibility of telling whether ait was present or perfect. This seems  improbable.   to the vague meaning of the verb itself. Indeed it seems probable  that eram is thus but repeating a process through which the lost  imperfect of the root *fu} must have passed. This lost imperfect  was doubtless crowded out " by the (originally) more vivid eram  which in turn has in some instances lost its force.   If the aoristic usage is not original, but the product of a collo-  quial weakening, we should be able to point out some transitional  cases and I believe that I can cite several of this character:   Plautus, Merc. 190, Eho . . . quin cavisti ne earn videret . . .?  Quin,sceleste,<eam>afo/7'«dfe&w,ne earn conspiceret pater?   Id. Epid. 597, Quid, ob earn rem | hanc emisti, quia tuam  gnatam es ratus ?   Quibus de signis agnoscebas? Pe. Nullis. Phi. Quarefiliam   Credidisti nostram ?*   In these cases the tense is apparently used for vivid effect (im-  perfect of situation), but it is evident that the progressive function  is strained and that if these same verbs were used constantly in  such connections, all real imperfect force would in time be lost.  This is exactly what has occurred with aibam, dicebam, and eram.  The progressive function if employed in this violent fashion  simply to give color to a statement, when the verbs themselves  {aibam, dicebam) do not contain the statement or are vague  (eram), must eventually become worn out just as the diminutive  meaning has been worn out of many diminutive endings.   In the shifted cases also the tense is wrenched from its proper  sphere. But whereas the aoristic usage displays the tense  stripped of its main characteristic, the progressive function,  though still in possession of its temporal element as a tense of  the past, in the shifted cases both progressive function and past  time (in some instances) are taken from the tense. In those  cases where the temporal element is not absolutely taken away  it becomes very unimportant. This phenomenon is apparently  due in the first place to the contrary-to-fact idea which is present  in the context of each case, and secondly to the meaning of some  of the verbs involved. In many of the cases these two reasons   1 There was no present of this root ace. to Morris, Syntax, p. 56, but cf.  Lindsay, Lat. Lang., p. 490.   'Also if *bhwam <.-bam was derived from *bhu </«- in fui &c., then the  fact that it was assuming a new function in composition would help to drive  it out of use as an independent form, eram (originally *isom) taking its place.   3 Cf. Terence, Phorm.; Adel. 809, Eun. 700. Ennius, Fab. 339.    are merged into one, for the verbs themselves imply a contrary-  to-fact notion, e. g. debebat, oportebat, poterat (the last when  representing the English might, could, &c). In Varro, L. L. the phrase sic Graeci . . . dicere debebant implies that the  Greeks do not really so speak; so Plautus, Mil. gl., 911 Bonus  vaies poteras esse implies that the person addressed is not a  bonus vales. In these peculiar verbs, which in recognition of  their chief function I have classified as auxiliary verbs, 1 verb-  meaning coincides very closely with mode, just as in soleo, conor,  &c, verb-meaning coincides closely with tense. The modal idea  is all important, all other elements sink into insignificance, and  the force of the tense naturally becomes elusive. 2   Let us summarize the probable history of the imperfect in  early Latin. The simple, progressive imperfect represents the  earliest, probably the original, usage. Of the variations of this  simple usage the imperfect of the immediate past and the im-  perfect of situation are most closely related to the parent use.  Both of these are early variants, the latter probably Indo-  European, 3 and both may be termed rather applications of the  progressive function than distinct uses, since the essence of the  tense remains unchanged, the immediate past usage arising from  a widening of the temporal element, the imperfect of situation  from a wider application of the progressive quality. Later than  these two variants, but perhaps still pre-literary, arose the custom-  ary past usage, the first of the wider variations from the simple  progressive. This was due to the application of the tense to  customary past actions, aided by the contrast between past and  present. Later still and practically within the period of the  earliest literature was developed the frequentative usage, due  chiefly to the close resemblance between the progressive and  frequentative ideas and the consequent transfer of the frequentative  function to the tense. Finally appears the conative use, only  foreshadowed in early Latin, its real growth falling, so far as  the remains of the language permit us to infer, well within the   1 Cf. Whitney, German Grammar, § 342. 1.   8 The same power of verb-meaning has shifted, e. g., the English ought from  a past to a present. Cf. idei, &c. If I understand Tobler, Uebergang  zwischen Tempus und Modus (Z. f. V51kerpsych., &c.), he also con-  siders the imperfect in such verbs as due to the peculiar meaning of the verbs  themselves. Cf. Blase, Gesch. des Plusquamperfekts, § 3.   »Cf. note.   Ciceronian period. In all these uses the progressive function is  more or less clearly felt, and all alike require the influence of  context to bring out clearly the additional notion connected with  the tense.   The first real alteration in the essence of the tense appears in  the aoristic usage in which the tense lost its progressive function  and became a simple preterite. This usage, due to colloquial  weakening, is confined in early Latin to three verbs, aidant,  dicebam, and eram (with compounds). It is very early, pre-  literary in fact, but later than the imperfect of situation, from  which it seems to have arisen. A still greater loss of the  essential features of the tense is to be seen in the shifted cases  in which the temporal element, as well as the progressive, has  become insignificant. This complete wrenching of the tense  from its proper sphere is confined to a limited number of verbs  and some phrases with eram, and is due to the influence of the  pervading contrary-to-fact coloring often in combination with the  meaning of the verb involved. In his Studien und Kritiken zur lateinischen Syntax, I. Teil,  Mainz, 1904, Dr. Heinrich Blase has devoted considerable space to  my article, "The Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin" (American  Journal of Philology). Since Blase  professes to present the substance of my article, except to the  'relatively few' German scholars who have access to the American  periodical, and since he makes a number of errors in mere citation  and statement, it becomes necessary for me in self-defense to make  some corrections. 1 But apart from these errors of detail, which  will be pointed out at the proper places, Blase disagrees with some  of the more important conclusions of my paper and it is with the  purpose of elucidating these views in the light of his criticism and  contributing something more, if possible, to a better understanding  of the problem that I offer the present discussion.   The functions of the imperfect indicative in early Latin may  be summarized as follows:   I. The Progressive 2 or True Imperfect, comprising several  types or varieties:   A. Simple Progressive.   1. dicebat = il he was saying."   1 That such corrections are justifiable is proved by the fact that K. Wimmerer, who  knows my article only through Blase's presentation, reproduces several of Blase's in-  correct statements. I regret the unavoidable delay in the publication of this paper  the less because it has enabled me to use Wimmerer's article, "Zum Indikativ im  Hauptsatze irrealenBedingungsperioden," Wiener Studien. The first four pages of his article are devoted to a general discussion  of Blase's critique of my views.   2 In this paper technical terms will be used as follows : progressive = German vor  sich gehendes (less exactly fortechreitendes) ; continuative or durative = wiaftrendes;  nature or kind of action=^Lfc<ionsarf; shifted = verschobenes ; descA\)tive= schilderndes;  reminiscent = erz&hlendes (see p. 365) ; relation (relative, etc.)= Beziehung, etc. Other  terms are, it is hoped, intelligible or will be defined as they occur. Classical Philology. The nature of the action may be either progressive 1 or con-  tinuative (durative). The time is past, but the period covered by  the action of the tense may vary with the circumstances described  from an instantaneous point to any required length. The time  is contemporaneous with, usually more extensive than, the time  of some other act or state expressed or implied. When the tense-  action is continuative and extends into the immediate past or,  by inference, the present of the speaker, I would distinguish a  sub-class :   a) The Imperfect of the Immediate Past:  dicebat—"he was saying" or "he's been saying."  The action may or may not be interrupted by something in the  context. If interrupted, it ends sharply and we may term the  tense the "interrupted" type of this immediate past.   2. The Descriptive Imperfect (better, the imperfect used in  description) .   dicebat="he was saying" (in English often rendered by  "said").   This is in its purest form a simple progressive imperfect  employed in the vivid presentation of past actions or states.   3. The Reminiscent Imperfect (better, the imperfect used in  reminiscence).   dicebat=^ u he was saying" (as I remember, or as you will  remember).   In this usage the imperfect is a simple progressive implying  an appeal to the recollection of the speaker or hearer.   B. Customary Past Type.   dicebat="he used to say, would say, was in the habit of  saying, etc."   The nature of the action is the same as in A except that with  the aid of the context there is an implication that the act or state  recurred on more than one (usually many) occasions. These  recurrences are usually at some considerable distance in the past  and contrasted with the present, but cases of the immediate past  usage (Ala)) with customary coloring occur.   i Hoffmann Zeitpartikeln 2 , p. 185, characterizes excellently this feature of the im-  perfect : " die actio infecta, pendens, die Handlung in der Phase ihres Vollzuges, ein  Geschehenes im Verlaufe seines Geschehens, ein Vergangenes Sein noch wahrend  seines Bestehens." Impebfect Indicative in Eably Latin 359   C. The Frequentative or Iterative Type.   dicebat = "he kept saying" (at intervals very close together).  This type is like B, except that it has no customary element and  the repetitions refer to one situation within comparatively narrow  limits of time.   The link connecting all these varieties with one another is the  progressive function. 1   II. The Aoristic Imperfect.   aibat = "he said" (equivalent to dixit, aoristic perfect).  The time is still past, but the progressive force is lost.   III. The Shifted Imperfect.  debebat = "he ought" (now).   The time is shifted to the present and the progressive force is  very much weakened, in some cases wholly lost, because of the  auxiliary character of the verbs involved.   For a more detailed treatment of the foregoing classes (except  the imperfect in reminiscence) I must refer to Am. Jour. Phil. In what follows I shall select certain points  for discussion by way of elucidation and supplement to what was  said there.   the impebfect of the immediate past   The simplest progressive usage is well enough understood,  but the usage termed by me the imperfect of the immediate past  or interrupted imperfect 2 calls for some remarks. As a type of  this imperfect in its interrupted form cf. Plautus Cas. 178: nam  ego ibam ad te. — et hercle ego istuc ad te. Here the action is con-  ceived as continuing until interrupted by the meeting of the speak-  ers. The fact of the interruption does not, of course, inhere in the  tense but is inferred from the context. Indeed, the interruption  may not occur at all, as will be seen by comparing the second type,  e. g., Stick. 328 f. : ego quid me velles visebam. nam mequidem  harum miserebat. Here visebam is interrupted like ibam above,   1 The nature of the action seems to me the most distinctive feature of the tenses.  In this I differ radically from Cauer, who considers contemporaneousness the essential  feature of the imperfect, cf. Grammatical militans, against Methner,  whose Untersuchungen zur lat. Tempus- und Moduslehre, Berlin, 1901, 1 have not seen.   2 B. Wimmerer Wien. Stud., Anm. 2, calls attention to the fact that  this imperfect of the immediate past in its interrupted form is still common in Italian.     360 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   but the action of miserebat is conceived as continuing not only up  to the immediate past, but into and in the present of the speaker.  But again this continuance in the present is not inherent in the  tense; it is inferred from the context. The nature of the action  is in both these types still progressive, or more exactly, continua-  tive, but temporally stress is laid on that period of time immediately  preceding or even extending into the present. 1   In this usage the Romans possessed a somewhat inexact sub-  stitute for the English progressive perfect definite, e. g., mequidem  . . . . harumnusere6a/ = (practically) "I've been pitying,"a form  which, like the Latin, may be used in the proper context to indi-  cate that the pity still continues in the present. 2 On the other  hand, the English "I was pitying," superficially a more exact  rendering, does not so clearly indicate this continuance in the  present, though "I was going to your house, etc." is an exact  rendering of Cas. 178.   Blase himself has collected some exactly similar cases, 3 of which  he says:   Das Imperf. wird gelegentlich auch von Zustanden gebraucht die  zwar in der Gegenwart des Redenden noch fortdauern aber nur mit Bezie-  hung auf die Vergangenheit genannt worden: Plaut. As. 392 quid quae-  ritas? Demaenetum volebam. Das Wollen dauert fort, aber hier ist  es nur in Beziehung auf die in Gedanken vorschwebende vorausgehende  Zeit bis zur Ankunft vor dem Hause gebraucht.   'Blase {Kritik, p. 6) misrepresents my statement concerning this usage. He cites  from my paper Stich. 328, apparently as given by me in illustration of both the pro-  gressive use in its simplest form and of this immediate past usage, although it was used  as an illustration of the immediate past usage only. Again he quotes me as believing  that in the immediate past usage the action takes place within exactly defined limits  ("genau bestimmten Granzen"). Here is atwofold error. My statement (Am. Jour.  Phil.) is "fairly definite limits" and refers to the simple progressive  usage, not to the immediate past usage. Blase's critique confuses the two usages.   2 There are traces of a tendency on the part of the Romans to express these shades  of thought with greater exactness, e. g., by the combination of a present participle  with the copula, Plautus Capt. 925 : quae adhuc te carens dum hie fui sustentabam.  Here carens .... fui is exactly equivalent to the English "I've been lacking,"  whereas sustentabam is inexactly equivalent to "I've been supporting." But Latin  did not develop such expressions as carens .... fui into real tenses, and remained  content with the less exact imperfect, cf . also iam diu, etc., with the present. See Am.  Jour. Phil. XXIV, p. 185, and Blase Hist. Syntax, p. 256. A complete collection of  such cases would be interesting. I would add here Amph. 132 : cupiens est, Rud. 943 :  sum indigens, and cf. the verse-close ut tu sis sciens (Poen. 1038), etc.   "Hist. Syntax III, 1903, Tempora und Modi, p. 148, Aran. This book had not  reached me when my article in Am. Jour. Phil. XXIV was written. Imperfect Indicative in Eably Latin 361   With the first part of this statement I fully agree, but is it true  that in As. 395 the imperfect is used "nur mit Beziehung auf die  Vergangenheit, etc." ? If, as Blase says, "das Wollen dauert fort,"  then we are forced to say that the imperfect is used not merely  with reference to the past, but with reference to the present. The  speaker really has in mind both past and present, and uses the  imperfect to express this double temporal sense, the action continuing from the past into the present, because at the moment of  speaking the past is somewhat more prominent. The tense is,  therefore, as explained above, only an approximate expression of  the thought. Had the present been more prominent, other elements being equal, some expression like iam diu volo would have  been employed. Blase asserts (Kritik, p. 6) that my statement that the speaker  has in mind both beginning and end of the action is not capable  of proof. It is true, I think, that the speaker has usually no  definite point in mind at which the action began. He simply  indicates the action as beginning somewhere in the past and con-  tinuing in the present. But in the very numerous "interrupted"  cases he has in mind a sharply defined end of the action. Blase's  criticism seems justified, then, only with reference to those cases  of which Stich. 328, .... harum miserebat is a type. But Blase classifies cases of this usage under no less than three  different heads in his Tempora und Modi. In addition to the  case cited above, As. 392 volebam, which he interprets, as I have  tried to show, almost correctly, he cites Trim. 400: sed   'Of. also the use of nunc, etc., with some of the cases: Plautus Merc. 884; quo  nunc ibas? , Ter. Andr. 657 f. : iam censebam.   2 B. Wimmerer Wien. Stud., says: "Sohalteich .... die Konsta-  tierung eines," imperfect of the immediate past or the interrupted imperfect, "fiir  einen glucklichen Gedanken," though he would not make a special type of this use. It  seems to me so common (about 200 cases) as to deserve the degree of special notice  which I have given it (Am. Jour. Phil He adds in a note: "Hier  tut Blase m. E. Wheeler einigermassen unrecht, wenn er dessen Behauptung, dass der  Sprecher in diesen Fallen Anfang und Ende der Handlung tiberschaue, unerweislich  nennt. Wheeler kann dies mit Becht behaupten, wenn es sich um einen Gedanken  handelt, der einen beherrschte bis zu dem Augenblick, wo man ihn konstatiert,"  pointing out also that Blase would be justified only in criticizing the form of my ex-  pression so far as I wished to apply it to the cursive " Aktionsart" (i. e., those cases  where there is no interruption?).     362 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   aperiuntur aedes, quo ibam 1 as "erzahlendes" (p. 148), Merc. 885:  quo nunc ibas as "sogenannt. Oonatus." The function of the  tense is essentially the same in all these cases, the only variant  being the presence or absence of interruption which is inferred in  all cases from the context.   Since Blase classifies so many of these cases under the head of  the conative imperfect, a consideration of that usage seems here  in place.   A "conative" imperfect ought to mean an imperfect which  expresses attempted action, but since there is no trace, at least in  early Latin (cf. Am. Jour. Phil. XXIV, pp. 179, 180), of such  a function, the term is a bad one. 2 Why then retain it, as Blase  does, for those imperfects which express "den wahrenden, aber  nicht zu Ende, geftihrten Handlung?" These imperfects are  chiefly of the type which I have termed "interrupted," where the  context implies it, or imperfects of the "immediate past," where  there is no interruption. 3 In neither case is there anything more  than a simple variation of the progressive (here more exactly  continuative) imperfect.   But most of Blase's cases are not even of this idiomatic inter-  rupted or immediate past variety. They are simple progressives  in contexts which imply that the action was interrupted 4 or not   liftam occurs often in this use : True. 921, Cas. 178, 594, Merc. 885, Tri. 400, etc. ;  cf . Am. Jour. Phil. XXIV, pp. 168-70.   2 Blase Syntax, p. 148, recognizes the inexactness of the term by his expression,  "sogenannten Oonatus." In Greek its unfitness is well expressed by Mutzbauer  (cited by Blase Kritik, p. 10, and Delbriick, Vergl. Syntax II, p. 306): "Ungenau  werden solche Imperf ekta conatus bezeichnet, von einem Versuch liegt in der Form  nichts" (Grundlagender griech. Tempuslehre, p. 45) ; cf. now Wimmerer Wien. Stud.,  1905, p. 264 : " In der Form liegt allerdings von einem Versuche nichts."   ^Wimmerer Wien. Stud., 1905, pp. 263, 264, remarks that he does not see why Blase  appears to think that there is a difference between his conception of the imperfect  de conatu and mine. Blase says (Kritik, p. 11), after defining these imperfects as  above : " Die hier vertretene Anschauung scheint mehr auf die Imperf ekta zu passen,  die Wheeler," the interrupted imperfect " nennt." This is the case, so far as Blase  confines his citations to instances of the interrupted type. There is, then, no essential  difference in our interpretation of the function of the tense in these cases. Blase  clings, apparently against his will, to the old terminology to which everybody seems  to object, whereas I would group these cases under a new term which seems to me  more exact. But Blase does not, as it seems to me, group together all the cases that  belong together.   4 1 use interrupted here not of what has been termed the "interrupted" usage,  whose distinctive feature lies in the fact that the time is in the immediate past, but as     Impeepect Indicative in Early Latin 363   completed: Men. 564 pallam ad phrygionem deferebat (Peniculus  simply depicts Menaechmus as he had last seen him; cf. 469:  pallam ad phrygionem fert) ; Cic. Sulla 49 consulatus vobis  pariebatur (just like all the other imperfects in the passage —  progressive of the descriptive variety); id.Milo 9: interfectus  ab eo est, cui vim afferebat (simple progressive, the interruption  being expressed by interfectus est) ; id. Ligar. 24: veniebatis in  Africam (progressive, the interruption being implied in prohibiti 1  five lines below) ; Caesar B. G. v. 9. 6 : ipsi ex silvis rari propug-  nabant nostrosque intra munitiones ingredi prohibebant (but  prohibebant is exactly like propugnabant — both were interrupted  by the act expressed by ceperunt in the next sentence, and note  the verb-meaning); Sallust Jug. 27. 1: atrocitatem facti lenie-  bant. at ni, etc. ( progressive = they were in the act of mitigating,  but, etc.); ibid. 29. 3 redimebat (progressive); Livy:  mittebatur (progressive); Florus 1. 10. 1: nam Porsenna ....  aderat et Tarquinios manu reducebat. hunc reppulit (progressive  in description — that the act did not succeed is shown by reppulit) ;  Curtius vi. 7. 11: alias .... effeminatum et muliebrieter timi-  dum appellans, nunc ingentia promittens .... versabat animo  tanto facinore procul abhorrentem (again graphic description:  there is here nothing in the immediate context to show that an  effect was or was not produced. In fact versare animum does  not mean necessarily to succeed in turning one's mind, but merely  to work on one's mind; cf. Livy i. 58. 3 : Tarquinius .... ver-  sare muliebrem animum in omnes partes, where versare sums up  the preceding infinitives, but no effect is produced. So in Cur-  tius, loc. cit. , versabat has the same kind of action as is indicated  by the participles appellans .... promittens, which are summed  up in versabat); Ammianus xvi. 12. 29: his et similibus notos  pariter et ignotos ad faciendum f ortiter accendebat ( again graphic  description, cf. ibid. xvi. 32: his exhortationibus adiuvabat).   referring to interruptions in the more distant past. Where the interruption belongs  to the immediate past I have so indicated in the following criticism.   1 Surely the hearer in such a case as this would not have connected even the idea  of " nicht zu Ende gefiihrten Handlung " with veniebatis until he heard prohibiti, i. e.,  the interruption belongs purely to the context and not the immediate context at that.  This is true of many other so-called conative imperfects.     364 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   Vergil Aen. i. 31: arcebat longe Latio, cf. errabant (graphic  description = what Juno "was doing" at the time, and only the  outcome of the story proves that she did not succeed). : hoc equidem occasum Troiae tristisque ruinas solabar, fatis  contraria fata rependens; nunc eadem fortuna viros .... inse-  quitur (immediate past with customary coloring, cf. contrast in  nwnc = I have been in the habit of comforting .... but now,  etc. This is one of the transitional cases between the pure custo-  mary part and the pure immediate past; cf. Am. Jour. Phil.  XXIV, p. 186, where Plautus, Mud. 1123: dudum dimidiam  petebas partem, immo nunc peto; Men. 729: at mihi negabas  dudum surripuisse te, nunc ea<V>dem ante oculos, attines, are  cited. In both of these passages, though there is no customary  coloring, there is the same contrast between continuance in the  past and the present as in Vergil loc. cit. Blase would probably  term both of the Plautus passages "erzahlende"). Tacitus Ann.  i. 6. 3 trudebantur in paludem ni Caesar, etc. (a very common  form of graphic description in Tacitus = the soldiers were being  crowded into .... but (ni) . . . . i. e., the effect was partly  produced, but was prevented, cf. Sallust Jug. 27. 1 above).   In all these cases, then, I can see no essential alteration in the  function of the tense. The idea "der nicht zu Ende geftihrten  Handlung" is derived in each case wholly from the context and  there is no reason for making a special category of imperfects  which happen to occur in contexts of this kind. Moreover, the  meaning of the verb has often been overlooked, e. g., prohibebant  (Caesar B. G. loc. cit.) may easily, with but slight aid from the  context, express "die nicht zu Ende gefuhrte Handlung;" cf.  redimebat, mittebatur, versabat, etc.   Whether the idea of real attempted action ever became con-  nected functionally with the imperfect remains to be investigated.  Certainly this did not occur in early Latin, and I doubt whether  it ever occurred. Among the cases cited by Blase are two which  more closely approximate this idea than any others. These are  Sallust Jug. 29. 3 : sed Jugurtha primo tantummodo belli moram  redimebat, existumans sese aliquid interim Romae pretio aut gratia  effecturum; postea vero quam, etc.; cf. Florus i. 10. 1: reducebat.     Impebfect Indicative in Early Latin 365   It is hard for us to feel the progressive force as the more promi-  nent in such cases. We regard as more important the attempt  which is implied in the context, but the Romans preferred to rep-  resent the act graphically as in progress, leaving the idea that it  was not successful to be inferred. When a Roman wished clearly  to express attempt (real conatus), he chose a clear conative  expression, 1 e. g., conari with infinitive. In strict accuracy we ought not to speak of a "descriptive"  imperfect, but of the progressive imperfect in description. The  term "descriptive" imperfect would be justified only in case we  could distinguish from the simple progressives those cases in which  the tense is used purely for graphic presentation of actions which  might more naturally have been indicated by the perfect. Such  a distinction may often be drawn, especially after the development  of a consciously artistic style, but the separation would be worth  little since the progressive function is equally characteristic of  both. The tense was chosen for graphic purposes because its pro-  gressive function made it the most vivid of the past tenses.   The chief difference between Blase's treatment here and my  own will become evident from a consideration of his definition  (Hist. Syntax) :   Aber seiner Hauptverwendung nach ist das Imperf. im latein. ein  Tempus der Schilderung geworden welches einmal im Nebensatz seine  Stelle hat zur Bezeichnung von Zustanden und Handlungen, die wahrend  anderer genannter Zustanden und Handlungen dauerten, und dann im  Hauptsatz bei Schilderungen von Zustanden, Sitten, Gebrauchen, welche  in Beziehung stehen zu irgead einer vorher oder nachher genannten  praeteritalen Handlung.   ! This whole question needs investigation. All the forms of expression of real  conatus should be collected and compared with the tenses as has been done for "cus-  tom" by Miss E. M. Perkins The Expression of Customary Past Action or State in  Early Latin, Bryn Mawr dissertation, 1904.   2 " Reminiscence, reminiscent" are here proposed as equivalents for the German  "Erz&hlung, erz&hlendes, etc.," since the English "narrative," whether noun or  adjective, does not, as may the German "Erz&hlung," etc., imply an appeal to the  memory or recollection. Blase points out (Kritik, p. 12) that I misunderstood the  Latin equivalents narratio, etc., as employed by Rodenbusch (De temporum usu  Plautino, Strassburg, 1888) who thus translates this peculiar German "Erzahlung"  into Latin. My error may seem pardonable under the circumstances.     366 Abthub Leslie Wheeler   This elevates the descriptive power of the imperfect to a higher  position than seems to me justified, unless one defines all cases  having the progressive function as descriptive which Blase evi-  dently does not do, for he makes separate categories of the  "erzahlendes" (reminiscent) function and, as has been seen, of  the conative, 1 in all of which he recognizes the nature of the action  as progressive.   Again it is to be noted that he speaks of the 'description of  customs,' etc., i. e., he does not regard the use of the imperfect to  indicate customary action as important enough even for a sub-  class, although he makes at least varieties of the reminiscent and  conative uses. I shall take up this point more fully below, 2 merely  remarking here that the cases usually termed customary are fully  as peculiar as those termed by Blase conative and far more  numerous, at least in early Latin.   1 would, then, understand as an imperfect used in description  one which is used in a descriptive passage to present any act or  state vividly to the hearer or reader. What Blase's conception is,  I can not discover. He appears to make a distinction (Kritik,  p. 7) between "Erzahlung" 3 (= here "narrative"?) and"Schilde-  rung" ( — description), e.g., in Plautus Bacch. 258-307, Capt.  497-515, Terence Andr. 48ff., 74-102 — passages which I had  cited as descriptive, 4 he sees "reine Erzahlung, keine Schilde-  rung." On the other hand, in Terence Phorm. 60-135, which I  had also cited, he sees "eine Erzahlung mit einzelnen Situations-  malereien." Without quibbling over our characterization of the   i "Conative" is used in this passage merely as representing Blase's classification.   2 With regard to Blase's peculiar distinction between imperfects in dependent and  independent clauses I would remark that in the study of probably two or three thousand  cases of the tense I have never been able to see any essential difference in function due  to the presence of a case in a dependent clause, cf . Am. Jour. Phil. And certainly customs, etc. ("Sitten, Gebrauchen") maybe described in a subordinate  clause as well as in an independent clause.   sif " Erzahlung " is here used by Blase in its technical sense as explained on p. 365,  note, my objections are strengthened, for there is certainly no special "appeal to  recollection" in the imperfects of these passages. One might as well say that the  descriptive presents and infinitives (so-called historical) in the Bacchides passage,  etc., are different from the same usages in, say, Livy, because here the speaker is  supposed to be telling of personal experiences, which is chronologically impossible in  Livy's case.   4 Some of the imperfects are primarily customary.     Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin 367   passages in question let us consider the main point, so far as it  can be discerned in Blase's discussion: that there is to him some  difference between the imperfects in the first group of passages  and those in the Phorm. 60-135. With his characterization of  the latter passage I agree, and I had classified the imperfects in  it as imperfects used in description ("Situationsmalereien"). 1  But what is the difference in the effect of imperfects in this pas-  sage and those in the Bacchides or those, to take a typical passage  from Blase's Tempora und Modi, in Caesar Bell. civ. i. 62. 3 ?  I give the essential parts of the three passages:   Phorm. 80 if. : hie Phaedria continuo quandam nactus est puellulam  .... hanc amare coepit . . . . ea serviebat lenoni .... neque quod  daretur quicquam .... restabat aliud nil nisi oculos pascere, .... nos  otiosi operant dabamus 2 .... in quo discebat ludo exadvorsum ilico  tonstrina erat quaedam, etc.   Bacch.flf . : dum circumspecto, atque ego lembun conspicor ....  is erat communis cum hospite et praedonibus .... is ... . nostrae  navi insidias dabat. occepi ego opservare .... interea nostra navis  solvitur .... homines remigio sequi, navem extemplo statuimus ....   Caesar Bell. civ. i. 62. 3 (in which Blase expressly characterizes nun-  tiabatur, etc., reperiebat as " schildernde," cf . Syntax III, p. 147): Caesar  .... hue iam reduxerat rem, ut equites, etsi difficultate, .... fiebat,  possent tamen .... flumen transire, pedites vero ad transeundum  impediuntur. sed tamen eodem fere tempore pons in Hibero prope  effectus nuntiabatur, etc.   To me there is no difference between the imperfects in the  passages of the Phormio and Bellum civile, on the one hand, and  those of the Bacchides, Captivi, and Andria on the other. All  seem to me to be progressive imperfects in description, some are  also customary (see the collection) and have been classified  under that head as the more important element. Is it not better  to separate such cases as Phorm. 87 operant dabamus, 90 solebamus from the progressive-descriptive types than to group all  together, 3 as is done by Blase?*   1 This term refers to the imperfects, I suppose, though Blase does not specify  exactly what he means.   2 Primarily customary.   3 Blase apparently takes a similar view of the frequentative imperfect; cf. Kritik,  p. 7 and see below.   4 In his Kritik, p. 7 Blase attempts to refute my assertion that the words of Quad-  rigarius are not exactly given by Gellius ix. 11 by pointing to the words of Gellius : ea res     368 Arthur Leslie Wheelek   The usage termed by Blase "erzahlendes," for which I have  proposed in English the term "reminiscent," seems to me to be  closely related to the so-called descriptive imperfect. Blase not  only considers this an important variety {Syn. Ill),  but is inclined to regard it as perhaps an original function. 1  According to his definition {Syn., loc. cit. after Delbriick) the  imperfect is thus used "wenn der Sprechende etwas aus seiner  personlichen Erinnerung mitteilt oder an die personliche Erinne-  rung des Angeredeten appelliert." Both the descriptive and  reminiscent uses, therefore, result from the use of the progressive  function to represent a past act vividly. The reminiscent effect  is due to the fact that in this usage the past acts are restricted to  those which concern the personal experience of the speaker or  hearer; it is a more intimate usage. As clear cases I cite from  Blase's list: Cicero Rep. iii. 43; ergo ubi tyrannus est, ibi non  vitiosam, ut heri dicebam, sed ut nunc ratio cogit, dicendum est  plane nullam esse rem publicam. Here Cicero clearly indicates  that he is repeating the substance of his own words of the day  before = " as I was saying yesterday, let me remind you." 2 So  Catullus 30. 7: eheu quid faciant, die, homines, cuive habeant  fidem ? certo tute iubebas animam tradere, inique, me ....  idem nunc retrains te, etc., where the poet reminds his friend (?)  of the latter's advice. In both cases the progressive force is  clear, and, as Blase says, the tenses stand in no clear temporal  relation to any preterite in their context. Now since the peculiar   .... sicpro/ecfoest in libris annalibus memorata. But profecto refers to the content,  not to the exact, words of the passage in the libri annates. And when Gellius gives a  word-for-word citation, he introduces it by more definite language, cf . ix. 13. 6 verba  Q. Olaudii .... adseripsi. In ix. 11 he is almost certainly paraphrasing, cf. haut  quisquam est. nobilium scriptorum, and in libris annalibus. This is the opinion of  Hertz, who prints this passage in ordinary type. The name of Quadrigarius is not  given, but Gellius was probably taking the substance of the account from him. I  have excluded this passage from the certain remains of early Latin.   iKritik, p. 15: "War die vorliterarische Periode des Lateinischen ahnlich der des  Alt-Indischen (vgl. Delbruck, p. 272) und des Alt-Griechischen (Brugmann Gr. Or. s ,  § 539. 2), so haben wir in den Resten des erzahlenden Gebrauchs ebenfalls eine uralte  Verwendung zu sehen;" cf. pp. 49 f.   2 The English imperfect is employed in the same way, e. g., " The facts are as fol-  lows, as I was saying yesterday," or in vulgar expressions like " Warn't I tellin' ye?"  Usually the time is denned by some adverb as by heri in Cicero. Notice, too, the  contrast between past and present as expressed in both passages by nunc.     Impebfect Indicative in Early Latin 369   appeal to recollection is the distinguishing feature of this remi-  niscent imperfect, it would seem proper to confine the usage to  those cases in which such an appeal is clear. Without discussing  doubtful cases I content myself with indicating those found in  Blase's lists which seem to me clearly not reminiscent. Plautus  Tri. 400: sed aperiuntur aedes quo ibam 1 (an immediate past of  the interrupted type). In the same category I would place  Cicero Att. i. 10. 2: quod ego etsi mea sponte ante faciebam, eo  nunc tamen et agam studiosius et contendam — -except that here  the action of faciebam is not interrupted, but is continued in the  present, cf. agam et contendam. Other immediate pasts are Ovid  Fasti i. 50: qui iam fastus erit, mane nefastus erat; ibid. 718:  si qua parum Komam terra timebat, amet; ibid. ii. 79: quern  modo caelatum stellis Delphina videbas, is fugiet visus nocte  sequente tuos (notice modo) ; ibid. 147: en etiam si quis Borean  horrere solebat, gaudeat; a zephyris mollior aura venit. Varro  R. r. iii. 2. 14: libertus eius, qui apparuit Varroni et me absente  patrono accipiebat, in annos singulos plus quinquagena milia e  villa capere dicebat. Here accipiebat seems simply progressive  and (also against Blase) contemporaneous with vidi just above.  dicebat is difficult and may, as Blase says, be reminiscent ; cf . the  exact details given by the speaker ; or did the phrase in annos  singulos influence the choice of the tense ? So in Cic. Off. i.  108 : erat in L. Crasso, .... multus lepos; 109 : sunt his  alii multi multum dispares .... qui nihil ex occulto, nihil de  insidiis agendum putant ut Sullam et M. Crassum vide-  bamus, the imperfect seems to be progressive used in description.  In Ovid Fast. viii. 331: et pecus antiquus dicebat 'Agonio'  sermo, the imperfect seems to be customary; cf. antiquus and  Paulus s. v. Agonium: Agonium dies appellabatur quo rex  hostiam immolabat; hostiam enim antiqui agoniam vocabant.   But however much the interpretation of single cases may vary,  this is clear: the progressive force is discernible in all these cases.  It would be better, therefore, to content ourselves with this and  not to discover an additional appeal to recollection, unless such  force is perfectly clear, since the real imperfect function is not  altered whether the reminiscent force be present or absent.   lOf. p. 359.    One more remark needs to be made concerning the remini-  scent imperfect. This category has served as a convenient catch-  all for many cases of the imperfect which are difficult to classify  and especially for those in which it is difficult or impossible to  discern any progressive force, many of which I have classified as  aoristic. To classify these last cases as reminiscent is doubly  wrong ; first, because it usually involves a petitio principii, i. e. ,  an effort to discover imperfect function because the form is  imperfect; secondly, because the reminiscent coloring is con-  nected only with instances in which the imperfect (progressive)  function is clear. The shadowy appeal to memory does not exist  as a separate function It has already been pointed out that Blase would not elevate  this variety of the progressive imperfect to the dignity of a sub-  class. The tense, however, occurs so often in the expression of  custom, habit, method, etc., that it seems to me worthy of sepa-  ration from other varieties of the progressive. In early Latin  I have counted about 450 instances in which the customary  coloring seems tome the most prominent element (see the table).   Blase (Kritik, p. 9) has objected to my statement ( Am. Jour.  Phil.) that verbs whose meaning implies repe-  tition (vocito) or even custom (soleo) are especially well adapted  to the expression of the customary past function. He gives no  reason with regard to the first group, vocito, etc., where the mean-  ing is connected with the form. With regard to soleo, etc., he  says only that the reciprocal influence of verb-meaning and tense-  function appears "nicht nachweisbar, da doch der Verfasser  selbst ihr seltenes Vorkommen im Imperfekt natiirlich findet,  weil sie in jedem Tempus der Vergangenheit 'the customary  past function' ausdrucken." There appears here to be some mis-  understanding on Blase 's part and perhaps my statement was too  brief. I did not mean by reciprocal influence of verb-meaning  and tense-function that the tense borrows anything, as Blase  seems to understand me, from the meaning of the verb, but that  when a verb whose meaning implies repetition or custom occurs   i See p. 378 for further remarks.     Imperfect Indicative in Eaely Latin  in the imperfect tense, the expression of custom becomes especially  clear. The meaning of the verb and the function of the tense  are mutually helpful to the expression of the thought. 1 Verbs  like appello, voco, vocito, dico (="name") imply not merely a  single act of naming, but usually many acts at intervals. 2 There  are numerous instances of such verbs in the imperfect (see the  collection) and nothing seems to me to be clearer than that these  verbs are especially well adapted to the expression of custom — •  past, present, or future. If we compare Varro, M. r. i. 17. 2:  iique quos obaeratos nostri vocitarunt with id. L. L. v. 162: ubi  cenabant, cenaculum voeitabant, etc., we see that in the first case  the tense merely states, while the verb-meaning, together with  the context, gives the idea of custom or habit; in the second  (voeitabant) the verb- meaning is reinforced by the imperfect  tense — both aid in the expression of custom. This does not mean  that a Roman more often used the imperfect tense of such verbs  when he wished to express custom, but that when the imperfect  was used, a clearer expression of customary past action resulted. 3  As to soleo, consuesco, etc., the same principle holds, for cus-  tom and repetition are inseparably connected; but since these  verbs imply by their meaning the very function (custom) in  question, it is clear that the imperfect tense would occur more  rarely. When, however, the imperfect was used, there was, just  as in vocito, etc., a more emphatic expression of the customary  idea; cf. Phorm. 90: Tonstrina erat quaedam: hie solebamus  fere plerumque earn opperiri .... Here tense, verb, and particles  all lend their aid to the expression of the idea of custom or habit.  The same idea would have been expressed less clearly by hie fere  plerumque opperiebamur, or by hie fere plerumque soliti sumus  opperiri, or by hie opperiebamur. In the last form only does the   i Cf . Trans. Am. Philolog. Ass., where I first expressed this  view. That verbs like soleo "dominate the tense" I no longer believe; they  aid the tense, but it is impossible to say whether the tense or the verb-meaning is  more influential in the total effect. Cf. also Morris, Principles and Methods in  Syntax, 1901, p. 72.   2 If the intervals are very close together without the implication of custom, I  would classify as frequentative ; see below.   3 Am. Jour. Phil., and the dissertation of Miss Perkins cited  above.    tense-form become entirely dissevered from the influence of verb-  meaning and accompanying particles, and even here context is  operative. The progressive function inherent in all true imperfects renders  the tense well fitted to express repetition in the past. The repeated  acts may naturally occur at wider or narrower intervals, as the case  may require. All expressions of custom, for example, involve an  idea of repetition, but it is only to cases of the imperfect which indi-  cate an act as repeated insistently, usually at intervals very close  together, that I would give the title "frequentative" or "iterative,"  i. e., imperfects in which this element of repetition becomes more  prominent than any other. It seems to me that the existence of  a few such cases in early Latin is not fanciful. In Plautus'  Captivi: aulas .... omnis confregit nisi quae modiales  erant: cocum percontabatur, possentne seriae fervescere, 2 a single  situation is described wherein the parasite repeatedly and insist-  ently asked, kept asking, whether, etc. There is something more  than mere progressive force, on the one hand, and there is no  idea of habit or custom, on the other. The primary element of  the tense is here repetition. When, therefore, Blase sees in As.  207 ff. repetition, he is right, for repetition in a general way is  present in all cases of the customary imperfect; but he is wrong  in viewing repetition as the more important element. The more  important element seems to me custom and in accordance with  this we ought to classify these cases as customary. 3   iln a review of Miss Perkins' dissertation Woch.f. kl. Phil., 1904, cols. 1277-80,  Blase has since admitted the truth of my assertion with regard to the influence of  verb-meaning: "Die Verbalbedeutung ist massgebend z. B.bei alien Verben, die  'nennen,' 'benennen,' bezeichnen, wie appellare dicere vocare, denn der Name  entsteht durch ein gewohnheitsmassiges Nennen. Damit ist der Grand gegeben (by  Miss Perkins) fur eine Behauptung, die ich .... bei Wheeler bezweifelt habe."   2 Blase (Kritik) misses among my cases Rud. 540, which was nevertheless  cited, but escaped him because by a misprint the imperfect was not italicized. On the  same page he cites ten passages and says that I "hier uberall gewohnheitsmftssige  Handlungen erkenne." This is very inaccurate, unless "hier" refers to the last two  passages, As. 207 ff., Bacch. 424 — the only two of the list which I have classified as  customary. My classification of the other eight passages may be seen by referring to  the collection at the end of this paper.   3 Blase (Kritik) seems to imply that I have said that the frequentative  imperfect is commoner in later Latin. I have nowhere said this and my statement,     Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin 373   the aoristic imperfect  Excessive deference to the principle that a difference of form  implies a difference of meaning and the well-known tendency of  investigators to abhor an exception are chiefly responsible for the  unwillingness of some scholars to admit that the imperfect occurs  in Latin with no progressive force, i. e., as an aorist. While I  can not pretend to criticize this method as applied to Sanskrit and  Greek by Delbruck, 1 it seems to me that there are reasons against  its application, in the same degree at least, to Latin. The situa-  tion in early Latin differs essentially from that in Sanskrit and in  Greek. In the first place there is no 'great mass' 2 of cases of the  imperfect in which real progressive force is not discernible, and  the cases (about sixty) are restricted almost entirely to two verbs,  aibam and eram. This seems to indicate that the phenomenon  arose on Latin ground alone and has its explanation in some  peculiarity of the few verbs concerned. Again the greater wealth  of tenses in Sanskrit and Greek would lead us a priori to expect   Am. Jour. Phil, "Latin seems .... to have been unwilling to  take that step," implies the opposite belief. When I added (ibid., p. 187), " If the fre-  quentative imperfect in early Latin is still in its infancy, etc.," it was naturally not  implied that it ever passed out of its infancy ! The facts in later Latin are not known  because they are not collected. Wimmerer naturally repeats from Blase's Kritik both  these errors ( Wien. Stud., 1905, p. 263). He, too, is of the opinion that it is of no ad-  vantage to separate so-called iterative imperfects from those of customary nature:  " wenn doch in jedem Falle erst auf Grund des gewahlten Tempus aus dem Zusam-  menhange erkannt wird, dass es sich um eine Gewohnheit handelt." To this it must  be answered, first, that it is by no means always, and often not at all, on the basis of  the tense that we recognize the presence of customary action. Such action may be  expressed in many ways, the tense being but one element ; and, secondly, if the cases  interpreted by me as frequentative are really essentially different from any other  variety of the progressive, then they should be classified separately, at least until it can  be proved that they belong elsewhere.   1 It will suffice to quote two of Delbruck's statements. He says of the Greek tenses :  "Man muss sich eben mit der Erwagung begnugen, dass es einem Schriftsteller bald  gut schien, zu konstatieren, bald zu erzahlen, ohne dass wir uns seine Motive immer  klar machen konnten" (Vergl. Syn. II, p. 304, cf. pp. 302, 303). A saner. method is  evinced ibid.: " Den Unterschied zwischen Perfekt und Imperfekt (of Sanskrit)  in den einzelnen Stellen nachzuweisen, sind wir nicht mehr im Stande." This is at least  safe agnosticism, biding its time until the lost distinctions shall be found. Blase is  in entire agreement even as regards Latin with the first statement of Delbrflck, cf .  Kritik, p. 12.   2 Delbruck (ibid., p. 304, of Greek) : "Aber .... bleibt doch auch eine grosse  Menge von Stellen ubrig, bei denen wir einen Grund fur die Wahl des Tempus nicht  ausfindig machen konnen."     374 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   in those languages a larger number of instances in which it is  hard to differentiate similar tenses, whereas the much narrower  tense-system of Latin exhibits a tendency to merge the functions  of similar tenses, cf. the perfect in -v- with the reduplicated per-  fect and the formally aoristic perfect in -s-. In accordance with  this preliterary development we should expect indications of the  same tendency in the literary period. The aoristic imperfect is,  I believe, an illustration of this tendency, resulting from the  merging of the functions of imperfect and preterite (aorist) in  certain verbs. The restricted range of the phenomenon and its  probable explanation (see below) would make it unlikely that we  are here dealing with a survival of an Indo-European confusion.   As illustrations of the aoristic usage I will cite : Plautus Poen.  1069 : nam mihi sobrina Ampsigura tua mater fuit (cf. fecit),  pater tuos is erat frater patruelis meus. Here there seems to be  no difference between erat and fuit. Ibid. 900: et ille qui eas  vendebat dixit se furtivas vendere: ingenuos Carthagine aibat  esse, where aibat and dixit seem to be equivalent. For other cases  see the collection.   It is quite possible that others may be able to detect true im-  perfect force in some of the cases which I have classified as aoristic.  Blase, though not quite certain of his own classification, has con-  vinced me that I may have been wrong with regard to Varro H. r.  ii. 4. 11: in Hispania ulteriore in Lusitania .... sus cum esset  occisus, Atilius Hispaniensis minime mendax .... dicebat ....  L. Volumnio senatori missam esse offulam cum duobus costis,  etc. There are so many exact details here that we suspect  Scrofa of reminiscing. So possibly Varro ibid. iii. 17. 4 dice-  bat. 1 But though perhaps a dozen 2 cases might be taken from the  total of those which seem to me aoristic, enough remain to establish  this category on a firm basis.   The exact process by which the progressive function became  lost can not, of course, be proved. I have suggested (Am. Jour.  Phil.) that it is a weakening due to the constant   'Blase is quite right (Kritik, p. 11) in classifying As. 208 aibas as customary. I  neglected to exclude this from four cases cited from Rodenbusch. It was classified on  my own slips as customary.   2 1 have indicated in the collection those which seem to me questionable.     Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin 375   use of certain verbs in ever-recurring similar contexts, until  in the case of aibam the originally graphic ' force was used out of  the form and aibam became a mere tag to indicate an indirect  discourse. 2 With eram the vagueness of the verb-meaning and  the frequency of its occurrence side by side with fui were the  chief influences. In contexts where there are many other imper-  fects all of a definite time, these usually colorless verbs naturally  take the prevailing color 3 of the context; cf. As. 208 aibas.   In his "Tempora und Modi" (Syn. Ill, p. 145) Blase expresses  his belief that an aoristic imperfect as accepted by Luebbert and  J. Schneider has been proven not to exist by E. Hoffmann (Zeit-  partikeln 2 , pp. 181 ff . ) . But neither Luebbert nor Schneider seems  absolutely to have believed in an aoristic usage. 4 Luebbert says  (Quom, pp. 156 ff.) that in Men. 1145 and 1136 ff. we find aoris-  tic perfect and the imperfect, etc. "promiscue gebraucht da der  Unterschied zwischen beiden gering war." "Grering" indicates  that there was to him some difference, even though it was slight.  Schneider's statements are not consistent. In his De temporum  apud priscos scriptores latinos usu quaestiones selectae, Glatz, he says correctly that in many cases no difference  can be seen between aibat and dixit, and that "aibat aoristi  munere fungi," but he adds that the imperfect represents an act  as "infectam ideoque aliter intellegendam acsi perfectam." Hoff-  mann's supposed refutation is very weak. In the first place he   1 If originally reminiscent, the explanation is the same ; for the reminiscent usage  is due to the speaker's effort to represent a past act graphically.   2 Cf. Am. Jour. Phil., where it is stated that the indirect discourse is  always present or implied (rarely) with aibam. Occasionally the object is represented  by a pronoun. Bacch. 982: quid ait?, Capt. 676: ira vosmet aiebatis itaque, etc.   8 Cf. Blase (Kritik, p. 11): "wo aibam mitten zwischen Imperfekta der wieder-  holten oder gewohnheitsmassigen Handlung steht und unmdglich anders gef asst werden  kann."   4 But cf. O. Seyffert in Bursian's Jahresb.: " Das Imperf. findet sich.  bekanntlich bei den Scenikern mehrfach in einem so geringen Bedeutungsunterschiede  vom Perf . und bisweilen unmittelbar neben demselben, dass man ohne wesentliche  Anderung des Sinnes und oft auch unbeschadet des Metrums (Rud. 543, Capt. 717) das  eine Tempus f iir das andere einsetzen kann. Es zeigt sich dies besonders bei den verba  dicendi; das Imperf. von aio vertritt ja geradezu das fehlende Perfect;" cf. ibid.  LjXXX, p. 336, where Seyffert repeats the statement that aibat, e. g., Ps. 1083, represents  the lost perfect of aio. In Am. Jour. Phil.  I had overlooked this remarkable  anticipation of my own conclusions. confuses different uses of the tense, asserting, for example, that in  Plautus Tri. 400: aedes quo ibam, etc., the imperfect is wholly  analogous to that in Tacitus Ann. ii. 34: simul curiam relinquebat.  commotus est Tiberius, etc. ; cf. iv. 43 sequebatur Vibius Crispus,  donee, etc., and that in the last two cases the imperfect jars on us  because such an action is not usually presented "in der Phase ihres  Vollzugs." Such an application of the tense may seem strange to  a German, but to one who speaks English, it is entirely natural  and could not for a moment be mistaken for anything but a  simple progressive imperfect. To refute such a usage as a supposed  aorist is to knock down a man of straw. The supposed analogy of  these cases to Tri. 400 does not bear on the point, but it may be  remarked that ibam is analogous only in the fact that its action is  progressive and interrupted, but it belongs to the immediate past  type. 1 Hoffmann then cites ten cases of aibat, six of which may  be taken aoristically, and asserts that the tense is in all used  "in voller Gesetzmassigkeit." This assertion rests on entirely  inadequate foundation. 2   the shifted imperfect  Blase seems right in restricting the 'shifted' imperfect to one  class (Kritik) = an imperfect subjunctive with present  meaning; for, as he says, there is no real shifting if the  preterital sense remains. But when he adds 3 that "ein sicherer  derartiger Fall ist weder bei Plautus und Terenz, noch sonst im  Altlatein vorhanden," I can not agree. He accepts as cases  of shifting Varro, L. L. viii. 65: sic Graeci nostra senis casibus  .... dicere debebant, quod cum non faciunt, non est analogia,  and ix. 85: si esset denarii in recto casu .... tunc in patrico  denariorum dici oportebat, and ix. 23: si enim usquequaque esset  analogia, turn sequebatur, ut in his verbis quoque non esset, non,    2 J. Ley Vergilianar. quaestion. specimen prius de temporum usu, Saarbriicken,  1877, apparently believes that eram and fui in Vergil are so nearly equivalent that  metrical convenience often decided between them ; cf . Blase Syn. Ill, p. 164 Anm. I  have not seen this dissertation, but the explanation is, on its face, insufficient.   S0f. his Syntax: " Der Indikativ des Imperfekts hat erst seit Beginn der  klassischen Zeit eine allmahliche Verschiebung aus der Sphfire der Vergangenheit in  die der Gegenwart erfahren."     Imperfect Indicative in Eably Latin 377   cum esset usquequaque, ut est, non esse in verbis. If these are  real cases of shifting, how do the following differ ? Plautus Merc.  983 e : temperare istac aetate istis decet ted artibus ....  vacnom esse istac ted aetate his decebat noxiis. itidem at tem-  pus anni, aetate alia aliud factum convenit; Mil. 755: insanivisti  hercle (perf. def.): nam idem hoc hominibus sa/[a] era[n]t  decern; ibid. 911: bonus vatis poteras esse: nam quae sunt  futura dicis. 1 If the passages from Varro move in the present  (Blase Kritik, pp. 13, 14), the same is true here; cf. Auct. ad  Herenn. ii. 22. 34: satis eratjiv. 41. 53 infimae (infirmae?) erant. 2  That Varro L. L. viii. 74 oportebat stands "zwischen zwei Per-  fekten" (Blase) is accidental. 3   This peculiar shifting was explained by me Am. Jour. Phil. as due to the unreal (contrary-to-fact) idea  present in the context or in the meaning of the verb (oportebat,  etc.) or in both ; cf. Blase (Syn. Ill, p. 149) who also calls attention  to the auxiliary character 4 of the verbs involved and thinks that  the shifting began with verbs of possibility and necessity which  seems a probable view.   In conclusion a few words are necessary with regard to some  general aspects of the subject and its method of treatment. The  original function or functions 5 of the imperfect can not, of course,  be certainly inferred from a syntactical investigation of material  which is relatively so late even with the aid of etymology and  comparative philology. My statement (loc. cit., p. 184) that the  progressive function was probably original was therefore intended   i Cf. Rud. 269 aequius erat, True. 511 poterat, Aul. 424. For the other eases  see collection.   2 But not iv. 16. 23, which I now see is not shifted.   8 And both are cases of debuerunt! In his Kritik, p. 13, Blase denies my assertion  (loc. cit., p. 181, n. 1), that the perfect indie, and the perfect infin. of these verbs are  shifted in Varro, cf . L. L. viii. 72-74 ; viii. 48 ; viii. 50 ; viii. 61, 66. I am glad to find my  view supported by Wimmerer Wien. Stud., 1905, p. 264 : " Denn da der Grund der Ver-  schiebung hier vor allem in der Bedeutung der Verba liegt, so kann konsequenterweise  ebenso gut ein debuit wie ein debebat verschoben werden."   «Cf. Am. Jour. Phil. XXIV, p. 190.   6 It is uncertain whether the original meaning of the tense was vague, admitting  several uses which gradually became narrowed to one (the progressive), or whether  there was one original meaning which split into several related uses. The facts seem  to point to the second alternative.     378 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   only as a probability based upon the existence of this force in  nearly all the cases and upon the generally accepted etymology of  the imperfect form. But nothing like proof was claimed for this  theory. Blase is inclined, following Delbrtick and Brugmann, to  regard the reminiscent usage also as an original one (cf. p. 26,  n. 2), but he rightly says that no statistics can prove which of  these two is earlier. If my view that the reminiscent usage is  rather an application of the progressive than itself a separate  function is correct, then the progressive is older. The existence  of the reminiscent imperfect in Sanskrit and Greek certainly  makes it very probable, as Blase says, that it existed in preliterary  Latin also. If this is so, I am inclined to refer it to the same  general origin as the so-called descriptive imperfect — to the effort  to present a past act (here a personal experience) vividly. 1   But the search for original meanings must ever remain within  the realm of theory; nor can we hope even theoretically to reach  any considerable degree of probability in the establishment of  such meanings without the most careful collection and classifica-  tion of the facts within the period of written speech. And this  should precede the appeal to etymology and comparative phi-  lology. What is actually found in any given language, not what  according to comparative philology ought to be found, should be  our first aim. Although I would not minimize the importance in  syntactical study of the comparative method, it seems to me prop-  erly applied only as a supplement, not as the controlling factor  to which all else is subordinated. Indeed, a premature appeal to  comparative philology may result in premature conclusions,  for an investigator whose head is filled with preconceived notions  drawn from Sanskrit and Greek is all too apt to imagine peculi-  arities in Latin phenomena which he would not have perceived  at all, had he approached by a Latin route alone; and such  peculiarities have little value unless they can be recognized as  Latin without foreign assistance. Once recognized they may,  and often do, receive much additional light from comparative  philology. While it is true, then, that scholars will differ with   •Cf. Am. Jour. Phil., where it was surmised that the descrip-  tive application of the tense was Indo-European.     Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin 379   regard to a few cases' in any given syntactical phenomenon and  the ultimate classification must not neglect the aid of comparative  philology, yet the chief basis of investigation is agreement among  scholars with regard to the great majority of such cases viewed  as purely Latin phenomena. If this agreement is lacking,  comparative philology can rarely bring reliability to the results. The statistical table shows that this investigation is based upon  a collection of 1,223 imperfects. It has been my aim to exclude  from consideration (and from the table) all passages of dubious  authorship, corrupt text, or insufficient context. About 170 cases  have thus been excluded, a seemingly large proportion, but it  must be remembered that much of the literature of the third and  second centuries before Christ is fragmentary and very often  there is not enough context to render classification at all certain.  In so large a body of text it is probable that some cases have  escaped my notice, but most of the ground has been examined at  least twice and such omissions can hardly be numerous or alter  essentially the results. I have subjected the material to a careful  revision and the table differs slightly from that published in  Am. Jour. Phil.  It would seem unnecessary nowadays for any syntactical  scholar to state that he lays no stress on statistics as such, but  when a reviewer 2 attributes to me the conviction that I have  proved this and that by just so many exact figures, it seems  proper for me to disclaim any such conviction. The fact that  exact figures do not in themselves mean anything does not,  however, excuse one from being as exact as possible.   iCf. Wimmerer Wien. Stud.: "die syntaktischen Einzeltatsachen sind  viel zu sehr umstritten als dass auf sie allein eine brauchbare Klassiflkation  und Erkl&rung der Arten eines einigermassen verzweigten syntaktischen Gebrauches  gesttizt werden kdnnte." With this I agree, except possibly as to what is a "brauch-  bare Klassiflkation," but when he says (p. 61), with reference to my inference that the  progressive function is original: "Den Begriff aber hat die vergleichende Sprach-  wissenschaft langst festgestellt," I would suggest that such a conclusion could not be  regarded as 'firmly established' except with several investigations like mine as chief  ies.   2 In Archiv.f. lat. Lex. und Gk. XIV, p. 289.     380 Abthuk Leslie Wheelee   The method of citation adopted in the collection will doubtless  seem to many inadequate. It is especially true, however, of the  classification of tense functions, that very often a large body of  context must be taken into consideration. For this reason very  many of the citations even in Blase's "Tempora und Modi" are  quite useless and misleading because of their brevity. It seemed  best, therefore, to cite as fully as possible in the body of the  article, but in the collection to cite only each form and the place  of its occurrence. Those who are interested in examining a given  usage in detail will in any case revert to the complete context, as  I know by experience. I. Progressive Imperfect  A. Simple Types, including imperfects in description, reminiscence,  and the "immediate" past variety.  Plautus, ed. Goetz and Schoell, ed. minor, Lipsiae, 1892-96.  Amph. prol. 22 scibat; 199 pugnabant .... fugiebam; 251 com-   plectabantur;  aiebas; 385 sci[e]bam; 429erat; 597 credebam;   603 stabam; 711 solebas; 1027 censebas; 1067 confulgebant;   1095 rebamur; 1096 confulgebant. 14   As. 300 scibam; 315 mirabar; 385 censebam; 392 volebam; 395   volebas; 452 volebam; 486 volebas; 888 suppilabat; 889 suspi-   cabar .... eruciabam; 927 ingerebas .... eram; 931 dissua-   debam. 13   Aul. 178 praesagibat .... exibam; 179 abibam;  poterat; 376   erat; 424 aequom .... erat; 427 erat; 550 meditabar; 625   radebat .... croccibat; 667 censebam expectabam ....   abstrudebat; 754 scibas; 827 apparabas. 15   Bacch. 18 (frag, x) erat; 189 volebam; 282 erat dabat; 297   dabant; 342 censebam; 563 erat; 675 sumebas; 676 nescibas;   683 suspicabar; 788 orabat restabant; 983 auscultabat   .... loquebar. 14   Capt. 273 erat; 491 obambulabant; 504 eminebam; 561 aibat;   654 assimulabat; 407 audebas; 913 frendebat. 7   Cas. 178 ibam; 279 aiebat; 356 rebar; 432 trepidabant .... fes-   tinabat; 433 subsultabat; 532 erat; 578 praestolabar; 594 ibam;   674 volebam; 702 volebam; 882 erant erat .... erat   .... erat.  Cist. 153 poteram; 187 exponebat; 566 perducebam; 569 adiura-   bat; 607 ai[e]bas properabas; 721 rogabat; 723 quaeritabas;   759 quaeritabam. 9   Cure. 390 quaerebam; 541 credebam. 2     Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin 381   Epid. 48 amabat; 98 solebas; 138 desipiebam ; .... mittebam; 214  occurrebant; 215 captabant; 216 habebant; 218 ibant; 221 prae-  stolabatur; 238 dissimulabam ; 239 exaudibam .... fallebar;  241 ibat; 409 apparabat; 420 adsimulabam; 421 me faciebam.  482 deperibat; 587 vocabas; 603 dicebant; 612 aderat. 20   Men. 29 erant; 59 erat; 63 ibant; 195 amabas .... oportebat;  420 advorsabar; .... metuebam; 493 eram; 564 ferebat; 605  censebas; 633 negabas; 634 negabas .... ai[e]bas; 636 cense-  bas; 729 negabas; 773, 774 suspicabar; 936aiebat; 1042ai[e]bat;  1046 aiebant; 1052 ferebant; 1053 clamabas; 1072 censebam;  1116 cadebant; 1120 eramus; 1135 erat .... vocabat; 1136  censebat; 1145 vocabat. 28   Merc. 43 abibat; 45 rapiebat; 175 quaerebas; 190 abstrudebas;  191 eramus; 197 censebam; 212 credebat; 247 cruciabar; 360  habebam; 754 obsonabas; 815 censebam; 845 erat .... quae-  ritabam; 884 ibas; 981 ibat. 15   Miles 54 erant; 100 amabant; 111 amabat; 181 exibam ....  erat; 320 ai[e]bas; 463 dissimulabat; 507 osculabatur; 835 cale-  bat .... amburebat; 853 erat; 854 erat; 1135 exoptabam; 1323  eram .... eram; 1336 temptabam; 1140 erat; 1430 habebat. 18   Most. 210 quaerebas; 221 su<b>blandiebar; 257 erat; 787 erat;  806 aiebat; 961 faciebat. 6   Persa 59 poterat; 171 censebam; 257 somniabam .... opinabar;  .... censebam; 262 erant; 301 cupiebam; 415 censebam; 477  credebam; 493 occultabam; 626 pavebam; 686 metuebas. 12   Poen. 391 dicebas; 458 sat erat; 485 accidebant; 509 scibam; 525  properabas; 748 dicebant; 899 vendebat; 1178 aderat; 1179  complebat; 1180 erat; 1231 volebam; 1391 expectabam. 12   Pseud. 286 amabas; 421 subolebat; 422 dissimulabam; 492 nole-  bam; 499 scibam; 500 scibas; 501 mussitabas .... scibam;  502 aderat .... aberat; 503 erat .... era<n>t; 677 habebam;  698 arbitrabare; 718 ferebat; 719 accersebat; 799 conducebas  .... erat; 800 sedebas .... eras; 912 circumspectabam ....  metuebam; 957 censebam; 1314 negabas. 24   Kud. 49 erat; 52 erant; 58 erat; 222 oblectabam; 307 exibat; 324  suspicabar; 378 scibatis; 379 amabat; 452 censebam; 519 age-  bam; 542 aiebas; 543 postulabas; 600 quibat; 841 erat; 846  sedebant; 956a faciebat; 9566 fiebat; 1080 aiebas; 1123 pete-  bas; 1186 credebam; 1251 monstrabant; 1252 ibant; 1253 erat;  1308 erat. 24   Stich. 130placebat; 244praedicabas; 328 visebam; 329 miserebat;  365 superabat; 390 negabam; 540 erant; 542 erant; 543 erat; 545  erant; 559 postulabat. 11     382 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   Trin. 195 volebam; 212 aiebant;.400 ibam; 657 scibam ....  quibam; 901 erat .... gerebat; 910 vorsabatur; 927 latitabat;  976 eras; 1092 agebat; 1100 effodiebam. 12   True. 164 vivebas; 186 cupiebat; 198 lavabat; 201 celebat metue-  batque; 332 dicebam; 333 revocabas; 648 debebat; 719 eras;  733 dabas; 748 volebas; 757 aibas; 813 erat .... valebat ....  petebat; 921 ibat. 16   Vid. 71 miserebat; 98 piscabar. 2   Fragmenta fabb. cert. 86 sororiabant; 87 fraterculabant. 2   Plautus, IA, Total 291  Terence, ed. Dziatzko, 1884.   Ad. 78 agebam; 91 amabat; 151 taedebat; 152 sperabam; 153  gaudebam; 234 eras; 274 pudebat; 307 instabat; 332 iurabat;  333 dicebat; 461 quaerebam; 561 aibas; 567 audebam; 642  mirabar; 693 credebas; 809 tollebas; 810 putabas; 821 ibam;  901 eras. 19   And. 54 prohibebant; 59 studebat; 60 gaudebam; 62 erat; 63  erat; 74 agebat; 80 amabant; 86 erat; 88 amabant; 90 gaude-  bam; 92 putabam; 96 placebat; 107 amabant .... aderat; 108  curabat; 110 cogitabam; 113 putabam; 118 aderant; 122 erat;  175 mirabar; 176 verebar; 435 expectabam; 490 imperabat;  533 quaerebam; 534 aibant; 545 dabam; 580 ibam; 656 adpar-  abantur; 657 postulabat; 792 poterat; exit, suppositic. I expec-  tabam. 31   Eun. 86 eras; 87 stabas .... ibas; 97 erat; 112 dicebat; 113  scibat .... erat; 114 addebat; 118 credebant; 119 habebam;  122 eras; 155 nescibam; 310 congerebam; 323 stomachabar; 338  volebam; 345 erat; 372 dicebas; 378 iocabar; 423 erat; 432 ade-  rant; 433'metuebant; 514 erat; 533 orabant; 569 erat; 574 cupi-  ebam; 584 inerat; 587 gaudebat; 606 simulabar; 620 faciebat  .... cupiebat; 621 erat; 681 erat; 727 adcubabam; 736 erat  .... nescibam; 743 expectabam; 841 erant; 928 amabant; 1000  quaerebat; 1004 scibam; 1013paenitebat; 1065 quaerebam; 1089  ignorabat. 43   Heaut. 127 faciebant; 200 erat; 201 erat; 256 volebam; 260 can ta-  bat; 293 nebat; 294 erat .... texebat; 308 scibam; 366 tracta-  bat; 445 erat .... erant; 536 oportebat; 629 erat; 758 opta-  bam; 781 dicebam; 785credebam; 844 quaerebam; 907 videbat;  924 aiebas; 960 aiebas; 966 erat. 22   Hec. pro. II. 16 scibam; 91 eram; 94 licebat; 115 amabat; 162  erat; 172 redibat; 178 conveniebat; 230 erant; 283 eram; 322  poteram; 340 eras; 374 dabat; 375 monebat .... poterat; 422  expectabam; 455 agebam; 498 orabam; 538 negabas; 561 aderam;  581 rebar; 651 optabamus; 713 credebam; 806 pudebat. 23     Imperfect Indicative in Eaely Latin 383   Phorm. 36 erat; 51 conabar; 69 erat .... supererat; 83 servi-   ebat; 85 restabat; 88 discebat; 89 erat; 97 erat? 99aderat; 105   aderat; 109 amabat; 118 cupiebat .... metuebat; 298 duce   bat; 299 deerat; 355 agebam; 365 habebat; 468 erant; 472 quae-   rebam; 480 aibat; 490 mirabar; 529 scibat; 570 manebat; 573   commorabare; 582 scibam; 595gaudebat .... laudabat ....   quaerebat; 596 gratias agebat; 614 agebam; 642 insanibat; 652   ven<i>bat; 654 opus erat; 759 volebam .... volebam; 760daba-   mus operam; 797 sat erat; 858 aderas .... aderam; 900 iba-   mus; 902 ibatis; 929 dabat; 945 eras; 1012 erant; 1013 erat;   1023 erat. 47   Terence, I A, Total 185  Cato ed. Jordan, Lipsiae, 1860.   p. 36. 2 sedebant .... lacessebamur. Total 2   Dramatic and epic fragments.  Naevius. Bell, pun., ed. Mueller, 1884.   5 immolabat; 7 exibant; 12 exibant; 65 inerant.   tabular, fragmenta, ed. Ribbeck 3 , 1897-98.   I p. 16 IV habebat .... erat; p. 322 II proveniebant.   II p. 30 VII faciebant .... tintinnabant. 9  Ennius, ed. Vahlen 2 , 1903.   Annal. 28 premebat; 41 videbar; 43 stabilibat; 82 certabant;  87 expectabat; 87 tenebat; 138 mandebat; 139 condebat; 147  volabat; 190 sonabat; 202 solebat; 216 erat; 307 vivebant; 307  agitabant; 309 explebant .... replebant; 343 aspectabat; 408  sollicitabant; 459 parabant; 497 fremebat; 555 cernebant. 21  Scenica. 15 eiciebantur; 123 erat; 127 inibat; 251 petebant; 324  scibas.   Saturar. 65 adstabat.   Varia. 45 videbar; 64 ibant. 8   Pacuvius, ed. Ribbeck 3 1, p. 65 XVI conabar. 1   Accius, ed. Ribbeck 3 , p. 162 V ostentabat; p. 162 VII scibam;   p. 165 VI expectabat; p. 205 X erat; p. 210 XII commiserebam   .... miserebar; p. 213 XX educabant; p. 251 XIII mollibat. 8   Incert. p. 273 V ecsacrificabat; p. 282 XXXII hortabar; p. 285   XLV scibam; p. 304 CI expetebant. 4   Turpilius, ed. Ribbeck 3 II, p. 101 II nescibam; p. 107 V sperebam;   p. 120 X videbar. 3   Titinius, ed. Ribbeck 3 II, p. 168 II aibat. 1   Afranius, ed. Ribbeck 3 II, p. 215 VI hortabatur; p. 217 XII sup-   ponebas. 2   Pomponius, ed. Ribbeck 3 II, p. 303 II cubabat. 1   Incert., ed. Ribbeck 3 II, p. 137 XXIV ferebat simulabat. 2   Dramatic and Epic Fragments, IA, Total 60     384 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   Historicorum fragm., ed. Peter, 1883.   p. 70. 9 nesciebant; 72. 23 erant; 72. 27 cymbalissabat; 72. 27 can-  tabat; 73. 37 mirabantur .... reddebat; 83. 27 apparebat ....  habebat .... sedebant; 94. 13 erat; 110. 7 habebat; 136. 5  erant; 137. 8 concedebat; 137. 8 praecellebat; 137. 10 b antista-  bat; 138. 10 audebat; 138. 11 licebat; 141. 29 erant; 142. 37 erant;  143. 46 captabat; 145. 57 erat .... erat .... sciebant ....  apparebat; 149. 81 mirabantur; 150. 85 sauciabantur .... opus  erat .... defendebant; 178. 8 erat .... tegebat; 178. 9 pot-  erat; 179. 23 indigebat; 184. 79 sciebat; 184. 86 erat.   I A, Total 34  Orator, fragm., ed Meyer, Turici, 1842.  p. 192 narrabat .... poteram; p. 231 existimabam .... arbitra-  bar .... stabant .... erant; 236 ferebantur .... lavabantur.   I A, Total 8  Lucilius, ed. Marx, 1904.  393 stabat; 394 obiciebat; 479 erat; 531 serebat; 534 ibat; 1108  gemebat; 1142 ibat (not in Mueller's ed.); 1174 volebat; 1175  ducebant; 1187 haerebat; 1207 premebat.   I A, Total 11  Auctor ad Herennium, ed. C. L. Kayser, 1854. G. Friederich's text in  C. F. W. Mueller's Cicero, Vol. I, has been compared throughout.  1. 1. 1 intelligebamus .... attinebant .... videbantur; 1. 10.  16 postulabat; 1.12. 21 erat; 1. 13. 23 defendebant .... erant;  2. 1. 2 existimabamus .... ostendebatur; 2. 2. 2 videbatur; 2.  5. 8 faciebat; 2. 19. 28 volebat .... metuebat .... videbat  .... sperabat .... verebatur .... hortabatur .... remove-  bat; 2. 21. 33 erant .... habebat; 3. 1. 1 pertinebant ....  erant .... videbantur; 3. 15. 26 demonstrabatur; 4. 9. 13 pote-  rant .... videbant; 4. 12. 18 inpendebant; 4. 13. 19 ingenio-  sus erat, doctus erat, .... amicus erat; 4. 14. 20 erat; 4. 15. 22  removebas .... abalienabas; 4. 16. 23 damnabant .... ini-  quom erat; 4. 18. 25 erant .... poterant; 4. 19. 26 proderas  .... laedebas .... proderas .... laedebas .... consule-  bas; 4. 20. 27 oppetebat .... comparabat; 4. 24. 33 putabas;  4. 24. 34 habebamus .... habebam .... erat .... obside-  bamur .... videbar; 4. 33. 44 adsequebatur .... profluebat  .... erat; 4. 33. 45 pulsabat .... ducebat; 4. 34. 46 videban-  tur; 4. 37. 49 erat .... oppugnabat; 4. 41. 53 veniebat ....  occidebatur; 4. 49. 62 inibat; 4. 55. 68 faciebat.   I A, Total 62  Corpus Inscr. Lat., Vol. I.  201. 6 animum .... indoucebamus .... scibamus .... arbi-  trabamur.   I A, Total 3     Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin 385   Varro, De lingua Lat., ed. Spengel, 1885.   5. 9 videbatur; 5. lOOerat; 5. 128erat; 5. 147 pertinebat; 7. 39erat;  7. 73 erant; 8. 20 erant; 8. 59 erant. 8   De re rust., ed Keil, 1889,   1. 2. 25 ignorabat .... despiciebat; 1. 13. 6 habebat; 2. 11. 12  ibam; 3.2. lstudebamus; 3. 2. 2sedebat; 3. 13. 2erat .... dice-  bat .... erat .... cenabamus; 3. 5. 18 dicebatur; 3. 16. 3 erat;  3. 17. 1 sciebamus; 3. 17. 9 ardebat. 14   Sat. Menipp., ed. Kiese, 1865, p. 198, 1. 1 regnabat; p. 223, 1. 9  findebat. 2   I A, Total 24   Grand Total, I A, 680   B. Imperfect of Customary Action.   Plautus   As. 142 habebas; 143 oblectabas; 207 arridebant .... veniebam;   208 ai[e]bas; 210 eratis .... erant; 211 adhaerebatis; 212 faci-   ebatis .... nolebam; 213 fugiebatis .... audebatis; 341 sub-   vectabant. 13   Aul. 114 salutabant; 499 erant. 2   Bacch. 421 erat .... eras; 424 accersebatur; 425perhibebantur;   429 exercebant ; 430 extendebant ; 438 capiebat ; 439 desinebat. 8   Capt. 244 imperitabam; 474 erat; 482 solebam. 3   Cist. 19 dabat .... infuscabat; 162 habitabat. 3   Epid. 135 amabam. 1   Men. 20 dabat; 484 dicebam; 715praedicabant; 716 faciebat; 717   ingerebat; 1118 eratis; 1119 eratis; 1122 eratis .... erat; 1123   vocabant; 1131 erat. 11   Merc. 217 credebat. 1   Miles 15 erat; 61 rogitabant; 99 erat; 848 erat; 849 imperabat   .... promebam; 850 sisteba<h>t; 852cassaba<n>t; 855 a com -   plebatur; 856 bacc<h>abatur .... cassabant. 11   Most. 150 erat; 153 victitabam; 154 eram; 155 expetebant; 731   erat. 5   Persa 649 amabant; 824 faciebat; 826 faciebat. 3   Poen. 478 praesternebant; 481 indebant; 486 necabam. 3   Pseud. eram; 1180 ibat .... ibat; 1181 conveniebatur. 4   Rud. 389 habebat .... habebat; 745 erant; 1226 memorabam.  Stich. 185 utebantur. 1   Triu. 503 erat; 504 dicebat. 2   True. 81 memorabat; 162 habebam; 217 habebat; 381 sordeba-   mus; 393 habebat; 596 erat. 6   Pragmenta fabb. cert. 24 erat; 26 monebat .... erat. 3   I B, Total 84     386 Arthur Leslie Wheeler   Terence   Adel. 345 erat. 1   And. 38 servibas; 83 observabam; 84 rogitabam; 87 dicebant; 90   quaerebam .... comperiebam; 107 habitabat; 109 conla-   crumabat. 8   Eun. 398 agebat sc. gratias; 405 volebat; 407 abducebat. 3   Heaut. 102 accusabam; 110 operam dabam; 988 indulgebant   .... dabant. 4   Hec. 60 iurabat; 157 ibat; 294 habebam; 426 impellebant; 804   accedebam; 805 negabant. 6   Phorm.  operam dabamus; 90 solebamus; 363 erat; 364 con   tinebat; 366 narrabat; 790 capiebant. 6   I B, Total 28   Cato, De agr., ed. Keil, 1895, and fragmenta, ed. Jordan, 1860.  1. 2 laudabant .... laudabant; 1. 3 existimabatur ....  laudabatur.   Jordan, p. 37. 20 capiebam; p. 39. 8veniebant .... deverte-  bantur; 64. 2 dabant; 82. 10putabant(?); 82. habebatur ....  laudabatur; 83.1 mos erat .... erat; 83. 2emebant; 83. 3 erat  .... studebat .... adplicabat; 83. 4 vocabatur.   I B, Total 18   Dramatic and epic.  Ennius, Ann. 214 canebant; 371 ponebat.   Scenica 355 suppetebat. 3   Incert. Ribbeck 3 1, p. 287 I aspectabant .... obvertebant. 2   Turpilius, Ribbeck 3 II, p. 101 V flabat .... erat. 2   I B, Total 7   Historicor. fragg.  p. 64, 114 unguitabant' .... unctitabant; 1 66. 128 temptabam  .... spectabam .... donabam .... laudabam; 83. 27 faci-  ebat; 109. 1 demonstrabant; 110. 6 proficiscebatur .... seque-  bantur; 123. 13 utebatur; 141. 31 vocabantur; 202. 9 claudebant  .... educebant .... continebant .... cogebant ....  insuebant.   I B, Total 16   I B, Total 2   I B, Total 1     Orators, ed. Meyer, p. 222 vocabant; 355 solebas.  Lucilius, ed. Marx 1236 solebat.     1 Perhaps different versions of the same passage ; cf . Peter. I count them as one  case.     Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin 387   Auctor ad Herenn., ed. Kayser.   4. 6. 9 videbat .... poterat; 4. 7. lOerant .... poterant; 4. 16.  23 putabant .... existimabatur .... putabant .... opserva-  bant; 4. 22. 31 concedebant; 4. 53. 66 erat; 4. 54. 67 solebat.   I B, Total 11  CIL. I. 1011. 17 florebat.   I B, Total 1  Varro, De ling. Lat., ed. Spengel.   5. 3 dicebant .... dicebant .... significabant; 5. 24 dicebant;  5. 25 obruebantur .... putescebant; 5. 33 progrediebantur; 5.  34 agebant .... agebat .... poterat; 5. 35 agebant ....  vehebant .... ibant; 5. 36 coalescebant .... capiebant ....  colebant .... possidebant; 5. 37 videbatur; 5. 43 erat ....  advehebantur .... escendebant; 5. 55 dicebat; 5. 66 dicebat  .... putabat; 5. 68 dicebant; 5. 79 dicebant; 5. 81 mittebantur;  5. 82 dicebatur; 5. 83 dicebat; 5. 84 erant .... habebant; 5. 86  praeerant .... fiebat .... mittebantur; 5. 89 fiebat ....  mittebant .... pugnabant .... deponebantur .... subside-  bant; 5. 90 praesidebant; 5. 91 fiebant .... adoptabant; 5. 95  perpascebant .... consistebat; 5. 96 dicebant .... parabantur;  5. 98 dicebant; 5. 101 dicebat; 5. 105 faciebant .... servabant  condebant; 5. 106 coquebatur .... fundebant; 5. 107 faciebant  .... vocabant; 5. 108 edebant .... ferebat .... decoque-  bant; 5. 116 faciebant .... habebant .... opponebatur; 5. 117  fiebant; 5. 118 appellabant .... erat .... ponebant; 5. 119  infundebant .... figebantur; 5. 120 ponebant .... ponebant;  5. 121 nominabatur; 5. 122 erant; 5. habebat  dabant  sumebant erat vocabatur ponebatur erat vocabatur habebant solebat apponebatur .bibebant coquebant arcebantur ministrabat vellebant utebantur iaciebant corruebant muniebant exaggerabant  portabatur sepiebant relinquebant condebant circumagebant faciebant vocabant fiebat erat erat aiebat coibant vehebantur adibant relinquebatur dicebatur  impluebat compluebat volebant cubabant cenabant vocitabant cenabant exigebant legebant ponebant dicebant involvebant erant dicebant calcabant insternebant appellabant operibantur Scandebant dicebatur erat valebant volebant erat dicebant petebat inficiabatur Wheeler deponebant auferebat redibat exigebatur; dicebant erant ponebant stipabant componebant pendebant accedebat dicebant inspiciebantur dicebant dicebat videbatur dicebantur putabant persolvebantur erat fiebant dicebat circumibant conveniebant dicebant consumebatur vitabant ponebant legebantur spondebatur appellabatur dicebant promittebat consuetude erat dicebant dicebant acciebat videbatur intererat fiebant dicebant appellabant putabant relucebant legebantur poterant dicebantur fiebat erant habebant conducebantur ascribebantur habebant committebant dicebat animadvertebantur arabant dicebant dicebant erat vocabatur erat erant erat dicebantur erat notabant erant utebantur dicebatur pendebat dicebant valebat dicebatur constabat dicebatur dicebant. De re rust., ed. Keil, Lipsiae solebant dicebat poterat .... effodiebat appellabant faciebant vocabant pendebat dicebantur faciebant erant laudabatur providebant dabant dicebant inserebantur vocabant praeponebant putabant appellabant reiciebant hibernabant .... aestivabant vocabat solebat dicebant dicebant habitabant sciebant alebantur redigebant; credebant habebant serebant pascebant habebat ostendebas accipiebat .... dicebat dicebat dicebant erat pascebantur erat erat  habebant erat laudabant aiebat dicebant vocabant dicebantur iubebat putabat appellabant appellabant dabat consumebat habebat adgerebant coiciebat erat laborabat  aiebat .... despiciebat Sat. Menipp., ed. Eiese P. erat radebat vehebantur sol vebat loquebantur solebat; suscitabat habebant habitabant. Total  Imperfect Indicative in Early Latin Imperfect of Frequentative Action.   Plautus, Asin. dicebam; Capt.  percontabatur; Epid. mittebat; missiculabas; Merc. promittebas; Miles dicebat; Persa visitabam negabas; Kud.  promittebas;  True. poscebat Ennius, Ann. tendebam vocabam. Historicor. fragg. expoliabantur Total  Aoristio Imperfect   Plautus, Amph. aibas erat; As. aibat Bacch. aibat;  Capt. aiebatis(?); Cist. ai[e]bat  ai[e]bat; Cure. Aiebat aiebat; Epid. Aiebat agnoscebas; Men. aiebas aiebat; Merc. poterat ai[e]bant aiebat 8aiebant aiebat aiebat aiebant; Miles ai[e]bant aiebat erat erat; Most. aiebant aiebat aiebat;  Poen. aibat aibat erat; Ps. Aiebat aibat aibat; Eud. Aibat erat aiebas(?); Stich. aibat; Tri. aibas aibat aibant aibat aiebas aibat. Terence, Adel. erat erat aibat; Andr. aiebat aibat; Eun. Scibas dicebat; Heaut. erat; Hec. aibant; Phorm. Aibant sat erat. Historicor. fragg. poterat Varro, Der. dicebat dicebas Auctor ad Herenn.poterat erat 2 Total Shifted Imperfect   Plautus, Merc. 6decebat; Miles sat era[n]t; 911poteras; Rud. aequius erat; True.poterat Terence, Heaut. poterat Lucilius (Marx) sat erat. Varro, De 1. L. oportebat debebant oportebat sequebatur oportebat. Auctor ad Herenn satis erat infimae erant. Arthur Leslie Wheeler I.PEOOBESSIVE (TeUB) ImPEKFECT Total II. Aobistic III. Shifted A. Simple B, Cast. G. Fre- Prog. Past quent. Plautus Terence Cato Dramatic and Epic Orators Lucilius Auctor ad Herenn. Varro Except historical works the citations from which are included among the  historians. Laberius and later writers not included.  3 Nepos and later historians not included.   4 Hortensius and later fragments not included. Grice: “Ceccato developed a theory very similar to mine – Like myself, he is an unusual philosopher!” -- Silvio Ceccato. Ceccato. Keywords: il perfetto filosofo, logonia – logonico, tabella di Ceccatieff, Adamo II, lingua adamica, operativismo, Teocono, ingegneria della felicita, il genitore come ingegnero, tutee di Dingler, tutee di Bridgman, influenza di Gentile, modelo cibernetico della communicazione, adattazione, soprevivenza, organo ipotetico – organo e funzione – codice conversazionale, modello mentale, psicologia filosofica, adamo II, lingua adamica, -- --  l’aspetto perfettivo, non-perfettivo, imperfettivo della conjugazione Latina -- Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Ceccato” – The Swimming-Pool Library. Ceccato.