Disputatio:Civitas

E Vicipaedia

sed Civitas non est "State" , town est urbs?

Ita. Haec definitio est puerilis et ieiuna. Anglice, civitas recte est: (1) citizenship; (2) citizens united in a body politic [e.g., a city]; (3) a state or commonwealth. IacobusAmor 18:13, 20 Octobris 2006 (UTC)

[recensere] gen. pl.

I've just changed several genitive plural forms in various articles (but not this one) to civitatum, in the belief, partly from Wiktionary, that this is the correct spelling. But now I think I'm more or less wrong, and should probably revert my changes. Would anyone like to comment on this grammatical point? Montivagus 22:41, 20 Iulii 2007 (UTC)

Allen and Greenough paragraph 71 on "mixed -i stems" includes "4. Nouns in -tas, -tatis (genitive plural usually -um): as, civitas". So I guess my heavy-handed changes were basically unjustified, though not altogether incorrect. Maybe I should do the research first next time... Montivagus 22:51, 20 Iulii 2007 (UTC)
The Romans must have tolerated both forms, as some of the most highly regarded authors—Cicero, Julius Caesar, Sallust, Livy, Suetonius, and others listed in Lewis & Short—used civitatium: "I. gen. plur. civitatium, Cic. Rep. 1, 34, 51; id. Leg. 2, 4, 9; Caes. B. G. 4, 3; 5, 22; Sall. C. 40, 2; Liv. 1, 17, 4; 2, 6, 5; 33, 20, 11 Drak.; 42, 30, 6; 42, 44, 1; 45, 34, 1; Vell. 2, 42, 2; Quint. 2, 16, 4 N. cr.; Suet. Tit. 8 Oud.; Cornut. ap. Charis. p. 100 P.; cf. Varr. L. L. 8, § 66; Prisc. p. 771 P.; Neue, Formenl. 1, 268), f. [civis]." So I wouldn't worry about it. IacobusAmor 00:03, 21 Iulii 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Iacobus. There appears to have been no fixed norm regarding the correctness of civitatum / civitatium. The mixed declension was really in a long-term process of finding a state of equilibrium (which was never found, because the time kind of run out). Various authors probably had their personal preferences based on individual aesthetic feelings of euphony and sentential rhythm. Neue (adduced by Iacobus) discusses the variation, from a philological point of view, in 1, 408-409. So, don't worry about which one is the correct form. They're both correct enough. --Neander 02:18, 21 Iulii 2007 (UTC)

Very good. Thanks for your sensible observations. Montivagus 02:39, 21 Iulii 2007 (UTC)

Like Montivagus, I had previously thought that civitatium was simply wrong. I've just checked the PHI CD-ROM. It contains 27 civitatium (of which a majority were caught by Lewis & Short, see above) and 111 civitatum. According to Varro, De lingua Latina 8.66, both forms were sanctioned by usage. Andrew Dalby 09:25, 21 Iulii 2007 (UTC)
According to Packard's concordance, there are 3 occurrences of civitatum, more than 60 occurrences of civitatium in Livy. It's my impression that because there was no fixed norm (which is typical of change in progress), everybody had their personal preferences. --Neander 20:45, 21 Iulii 2007 (UTC)