Just as the Conjunction
non (older
noenum) originated from
the Adverbial use of the Neuter Singular of
nĕ-unus (older
oenus), so
nullum is used for
non in the colloquial Latin of Plautus, e.g.
Cas.
795 “
qui amat, tamen hercle, si esurit, nullum esurit”; also
nihil for
non, e.g.
Mil. 625 “
nihil amas, umbra es amantis”,
Mil. 469 etc. “
nihil opust”,
and for
ne, e.g.
Mil. 1007 “
hercle hanc quidem nil tu amassis.”
Nullus (
nulla, etc.) is found in the same senses, e.g.
And this suggests an explanation of the Lucretian
noenŭ
as
noenus (like
nullus beside
nullum),
and to be printed
noenu' like
nullu' sequetur (for
non sequitur) Lucil. 507 (but Lucil. 987 “
si noenŭ
molestumst”).
Nullus (Adjective) is often used for
nemo (Pronoun) e.g.
Bacch. 190 “
A. qui scire possum? B. nullus plus”;
nullum appears
for
nihil in Livius Andronicus 22 B. “
namque nullum peius macerat
homonem quamde mare saevom” (cf. Pomponius 3), and
nullius
and
nullo came to supersede
neminis and
nemine, although Plautus
does not refuse the Genitive and Ablative of
nemo, e.g.
Capt. 764,
Mil. 1062.
Nullus is the equivalent of
nihili in
Cas. 305 “
si id factum est,
ecce me nullum senem!”, and
nullus esse of
perire in
Bacch. 193
“
si abest, nullus est”. Instead of
nemo (for
nĕ-homo) we often find
the redundant phrase
nemo homo (see above,
21), e.g.
Truc. 300
“
nemo homo hic solet perire apud nos.”
Nemo umquam is not unknown (e.g.
Amph. 566); but the
favourite expression is
numquam quisquam, e.g.
Stich. 77 (for full
statistics see J. Lange in
Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie, 1894, pp.
275 sqq.; Seyffert in Bursian's Jahresbericht, 1895, p. 312).
