W. M. Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus

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Is is pleonastically used (as with the Relative qui; cf. 3 above) with the Subject (or Object) of the Sentence (cf. Homeric ὅ), e.g.

• Poen. 1069 “pater tuus, is erat frater patruelis meus”,
• Poen. 302 “aurum, id fortuna invenitur, natura ingenium bonum”,
• Bacch. 387 “homini amico … ei”,
• Men. 678 “immo edepol pallam illam, amabo te, quam tibi dudum dedi, mihi eam redde”,
Ter. Adelph. 452 (see Seyffert in Bursian's Jahresbericht, 1895, p. 301).

Similarly the Neuter Singular of various Pronouns may stand in anticipatory apposition to a whole sentence (see Redslob in Literarisches Centralblatt, 1895, p. 1761), e.g.

• Men. 107 “id quoque iam, cari qui instruuntur deserunt”,
• Men. 536 “istuc, ubi illae armillae sunt quas una dedi?”,
• Pseud. 391 “ergo utrumque, tibi nunc dilectum para ex multis [atque] exquire ex illis unum qui certus siet.”

It is not far removed from a mere Particle in lines like

• Poen. 840 “nam id quidem, illi, ut meditatur, verba facit emortuo”,
• Capt. 267 “ne id quidem, involucre inicere voluit”,
• Asin. 149 “at scelesta viden ut ne id quidem, me dignum esse existumat quem adeat”.

From a similar use of the Neuter of uter has arisen the Disjunctive Interrogative utrum (see below, VIII. 2). Illud quidem ‘I mean to say’ is common, e.g. Stich. 589 “A. hunc hercle ad cenam ut vocem, te non vocem. B. advorsum te fabulare. A. illud quidem, ambos ut vocem.” The fuller phrase illud volui dicere has been already mentioned (13).

The loose colloquial use of the Neuter Accusative as Object of the Verb has been discussed in II. 35 e.g.

• Mil. 1158 “id （‘on that account’） nos ad te, siquid velles, vēnimus”,
• Trin. 35 “quam id quod （‘wherein’） prosint pluribus.”