W. M. Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus

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The peculiar treatment of the Relative Clause in Plautus is probably rather a feature of Early Latin than of colloquial Latin. To the carelessness of every-day speech we may refer irregularities of construction like the following: Change of Subject, e.g.

• Capt. 266 “nunc senex est in tostrina, nunc iam cultros attinet”,
• Stich. 5 “de nostris factis noscimus, quarum viri hinc absunt, quorumque nos negotiis absentum … sollicitae … sumus semper”,
• Amph. 566 “Tune id dicere audes, quod nemo umquam homo antehac vidit nec potest fieri, tempore uno homo idem duobus locis ut simul sit?”,
• 587 “nunc venis etiam ultro inrisum dominum: quae neque fieri possunt neque fando umquam accepit quisquam profers, carnifex”,
• Rud. 291 “Omnibus modis qui pauperes sunt homines miseri vivont, praesertim quibus nec quaestus est, nec didicere artem ullam: necessitate quidquid est domi id sat est habendum.”

and other changes of construction, e.g.

• Pseud. 421 “atque id iam pridem sensi et subolebat mihi”,
• Pseud. 1183 “quin tu mulierem mi emittis aut redde argentum”
• (cf. Asin. 254 “quin tu abs te socordiam omnem reice et segnitiem amove, atque ad ingenium vetus vorsutum te recipis tuum?”).

So violent a change as to be quite ungrammatical is seen in Men. prol. 64 “ingressus fluvium rapidum ab urbe haud longule, rapidus raptori pueri subduxit pedes”, Poen. 659 “tu, si te di amant, agere tuam rem occasiost” (cf. Epid. 77 “te cupio perire mecum benevolens cum benevolente”), and the use of ut opinor with the construction of opinor in Ter. Adelph. 648 “ut opinor eas non nosse te” (cf. Cic. Rep. 1, 58 and ὡς οἶμαι, etc., in Greek) and ut aibat with the construction of aibat in Ter. Phorm. 480 “ut aibat de eius consilio sese velle facere”. Besides Anacoluthon, we find naturally Aposiopesis in the Dramatists' imitation of talk, e.g. Truc. 504 (for other examples see Niemeyer ‘Plautinische Studien’ p. 3).

These may serve for the present as samples of Plautus' colloquialisms. Others, e.g. the use of the Ablative Absolute of the Subject of the Sentence (II. 59), Parataxis (V. 28), suus sibi for suus ipsius (IV. 2), will be mentioned at their proper place.