The Latin Fifth Declension

Abstract

Abstract The history of the L fifth declension is obscure, and has long been a topic of much discussion. There is nothing similar in the other IE languages. Lith. ie-stems (zeme ‘land’ gen.sg. zemes), which look somewhat similar, have been shown to be largely, if not wholly, rya-stems in origin. Elsewhere there are a few isolated nouns in -e which are probably verb stems used substantively, proper to compounds of the type seen in Ved. fraddh!i- ‘faith’ (a compound of root dha- ‘put’, PIE “dheHr) which inflects as an ordinary a-stem. G XP ‘necessity’ and a.1r6xp’YJ ‘sufficiency; enough’ are 3sg. verb-forms which underwent reinterpretation in such expressions as a.1r6xp’YJ n11i ‘is sufficient for someone’ > ‘enough [for someone]’. In reality, the ‘fifth declension’ is a historical accident-a collection of nouns of heterogeneous ancestry which converged (in a none too orderly fashion) on a type. This explains the difficulty of finding analogues in other languages, including, most particularly, the other Italic languages; and also the variability in morphological detail from noun to noun and from period to period.