Talk:Supine

The accusative supine in Latin can only be used with verbs of movement. I'll change it if there are no objection. Vegfarandi 19:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

In Latin: first supine, two uses?
I don't pretend to be an expert, but as I've learned it, the fourth principle part of the verb is the participal, and only ends in -um in the neuter; also, it's used in constructing the perfect and pluperfect passive indicative, not just the future passive infinitive. Purplezart (talk) 23:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There are different definitions of which are the principle parts of Latin verbs and I'm not convinced that Wikipedia uses the most standard one. The way I got taught them at school used only three principal parts: the infinitive, the perfect and the perfect participle. (There is no reason to add a fourth principle part since for regular verbs, and in Latin that means almost all of them, the present can be derived from the infinitive.) These principal parts aren't the only forms of the verb of course, rather, these are the forms of the verb from which a speaker can derive all other verb forms. From this it follows that we have a great deal of freedom in choosing which parts we consider principal, although the present active indicative first person singular (which Wikipedia seems to consider the first) is actually a very bad choice.
 * These principal parts then are not necessarily etymological, and certainly not the full set of forms, as you know. If you for example choose the perfect participle (parātus) as your principle part, you can form the accusative supine by stripping the -us and adding -um, whereas if you choose the accusative supine (parātum), you can form, say, the singular feminine nominative perfect participle by stripping the -um and adding -a.
 * Now, in classical Latin the accusative supine looks exactly like the singular masculine and neuter accusative perfect participle, which also stands in for the neuter nominative, but the supine is an u-stem rather than an o-stem, which you can see from the fact that the dative and ablative supine end in -ū rather than in -ō like is the case for the perfect participle.
 * In Old Latin, the perfect forms discussed were -ō (dat.), -om (acc.) and -ōd (abl.) whereas the supine forms were -uī (dat., lost), -um (acc.) and -ūd/-ud (abl.). The difference in the accusative was lost because of a sound change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.82.82 (talk) 21:30, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

From dative?
Can anyone clarify what it means that the second supine is derived from the ablative "or the dative"?

Does this mean that (1) scholars are uncertain whether it came from the dative or the ablative, or (2) scholars believe it somehow came from both the ablative and the dative?

I can believe that proto-Latin really had a full fourth-declension verbal noun. (There are several fourth declension nouns that are of this form -- sensus, actus, etc.) And it makes sense that the ablative of these nouns would "become" the second supine.

But I've never heard of a variant supine mirabile dictui, and I don't see any reference to a dative supine in Bennett or any other source. So I will remove the "dative" mention unless someone can either explain it or give a source for it. &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 11:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * This is what my Latin Grammar by Kristinn Ármannsson states. According to him the ablative and dative merged in these nouns, that is, the Romans stopped using the dative form and started to only use the ablative form. (see the note on dativus finalis and ablativus respectivus). I don't know what else to tell you. Don't diz da Kristinn. Vegfarandi 20:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


 * W. M. Lindsay's |Syntax of Plautus mentions other forms of the "verbal noun ending in -tus" being used in some of his comedies, giving as examples spectatum eo, spectatu redeo, pulcher spectatui and facile factu, etc. --Wtrmute (talk) 18:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 11:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

"This also applies to Norwegian where the form supine is called perfektum"
Is this true? Isn't it the total compound form, like har spist (has eaten), that is called perfektum, while just spist is a form of the perfect participle which is called perfektum partisipp? Is there any Norwegian verb for which the form used with ha (have) is not a form of the perfect (past) participle, but a unique form? (In Swedish this is the case for strong verbs). 85.228.97.169 (talk) 08:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

"Adfuerunt"
I don't know if there are other forms, but to the best of my knowledge adfuerunt is the 3rd plural aorist/perfect of adesse, which means to be present, not to come. The proper word would be venerunt, other wise the sentence means "the gladiators were present to fight". Grammatically correct, but awkward, and improperly translated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.235.165.192 (talk) 03:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

In Czech, the contemporary infinitive ending -t originates from the supine.[dubious – discuss]
There is a 'dubious' mark and no discussion section about it.

I believe one can find a reference saying that most probably this is true (i.e. that -t originates from the supine). Expected ending from the Common Slavic infinitive form is -ť (palatalized t) or -ti. Expected ending from the CS supine is -t. Indeed, in Czech there is an archaic form -ti in use with the same sense as -t. Linguiloce (talk) 17:43, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * This is certainly not true. In Czech, consonants were never palatalised in front of *ь, unlike its neighbour Slovak, for example. Thus, Czech pět against Slovak päť, host against hosť, mol against moľ etc. etc. Guldrelokk (talk) 21:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Lithuanian
"More archaic forms are pirktun and pirktum." These forms are reconstructed (unattested), it isn't correctly just to say they are more archaic.--Ed1974LT (talk) 13:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Slovak
§ Infinitive and supine says
 * The supine is formed by dropping the last -i of the infinitive. It is used after verbs that designate motion. For example, the supine would be used in the following sentences, (the supine has been put in bold):
 * V novi svet so odšli iskat bogastvo. (They went to the New World to seek fortune.)
 * Pojdi se solit. (Literally, Go salt yourself. This idiomatic statement is used to express annoyance or refusal)
 * Stekli smo pogasit ogenj. (We ran to put out the fire.)

But what does it mean? The first and third examples illustrate purpose, the reason for going; the second might also, but since it's an idiom the original literal meaning of the supine cannot be unambiguously determined.

--Thnidu (talk) 14:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)