inquam

Forms

inquam (perfect active inquiī); irregular conjugation, highly defective, no infinitive, no gerund^[1] It is defective: the present inquam, inquis, inquit, inquimus, inquiunt, the imperfect inquiēbat, a future and a few other forms are found.^[2][1] A first person inquiō occurs in late writers.^[3]

Etymology

According to de Vaan it is inherited from Proto-Italic *en-skʷ-, built on an aorist stem Proto-Indo-European *skʷ-e/o- of *sekʷ- (“to follow”), and belongs with the old imperative īnsece (“tell!”); the meaning would have passed from “follow” to “repeat, relate”.^[4] ⟨inquam⟩ would continue ⟨*en-skʷ-ā-⟩, originally a subjunctive “I will say”, and ⟨inquit⟩ an aorist ⟨*en-skʷ-e-t⟩; the loss of the ⟨*s⟩ is hard to explain but has to be accepted.^[4] The OLD also takes the form to be subjunctive in origin.^[2] Wiktionary calls the origin not entirely clear.^[1]

Cognate with Old Irish insce (“speech”), Ancient Greek ἐννέπω (ennépō, “to tell”), dialectal sèkti (“to tell”) and Old Norse segja (“to say”).^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates inquam from Plautus and the imperative īnsece from Livius Andronicus.^[4] Plautus has ‘hīcine Achillēs est?’ inquit mihi, “‘is this Achilles?’ he says to me”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Inquam introduces or interrupts direct speech, “to say”, and is usually placed inside or after the quotation.^[2][3][1] It presents an objection, real or imagined (Cicero: at nōn, inquiet adversārius, “‘but no’, my opponent will say”), and quotes a law or a book (inquit lēx, “says the law”).^[2] In the first person it is used in parenthesis to stress a word, to resume after a digression, or to explain a phrase: “I say”.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it as the defective verb “I say”.^[5]

Timeline

• 280/260–before 200 BC – Livius Andronicus has the imperative īnsece.^[4][6]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: ‘hīcine Achillēs est?’ inquit mihi.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero: at nōn, inquiet adversārius.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To say (with direct speech, usually inside or after the quotation).^[2][3][1][5]
2. To say (presenting an objection).^[2]
3. To say (of a law, book or document).^[2]
4. inquam (in parenthesis): I say;^[2] I repeat;^[2] I mean.^[2]

Related words

• īnsece
• sequor

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de