The Latin Supine and the Sanskrit Infinitive; Priscian

Abstract

The detailed treatment of the Latin supine has been neglected both in scholarly literature and in language teaching, even though it is a very ancient form that has survived in an interesting way and was used even in late Latin. The fact that the Latin supine has a parallel in Sanskrit deserves attention. In this study I demonstrate that Priscian projected the Latin usage of his own time back to classical Latin, which fact was nevertheless not detrimental to his credibility.