[42]
now Latin
has two numbers, singular and plural, while Greek
possesses a third, namely the dual. There have
however been some who have given us a dual as
well in words such as scripsere and legere, in which
as a matter of fact the final syllable has been
softened to avoid harshness, just as in old writers
we find male merere for male mereris. Consequently
what they assert to be a dual is concerned solely
with this one class of termination, whereas in Greek
it is found throughout the whole structure of the
verb and in nouns as well, though even then it is
but rarely used.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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