Of: "tentus" and "tensus", which was more commonly used?

[Michael Zwingli]

Hello to everybody! It has been quite a long time since I have posted, or even been on this website. I hope that I currently find all of you well.

I have a question about the two forms of perfect passive participle of the verb tendo/tendere: tentus and tensus, which, perhaps, might only be answered by someone who reads Latin fluently, and has read widely and repeatedly in the language. My question is: which of the two aforementioned forms of the participle was more commonly used by the classical Latin writers? I note that the form tensus seems to have been more productive within Latin itself, yeilding both tensio and tensura, as well as in English, with tense, tension, and tensor all having been derived from it. I hope that someone might be able to answer this question, as I am trying to develop a single word term for "grace period" in connection with a little contract that I am composing. My decision for that will be between: "gratitenture" and "gratitensure", both meaning a period of time marked by the stretching of a lender's grace/favor/goodwill/benevolence, in other words: a grace period. Which of the two seems more natural or more etymologically valid to all of you? I hope that I will obtain some feedback on this.

Take care,
Mike

 

[cinefactus]

I looked for tensus, tensa, tensum & tenso on PHI.
I would say roughly equal.

 

[Michael Zwingli]

Hey, Cinefactus, that is a good tool. Thanks for the link! I am thinking that, since tensus seems to have been the more productive form, I will probably go with that for purposes of this instance of word-creation. I will first wait to hear what other input I might get, though.

 

[Michael Zwingli]

I have thought of using "charichrony" to name this, using all Ancient Greek lexemes, as: χάρις ("kharis", from whence Latin charitas, as opposed to caritas, as well as our English "charity") + χρόνος ("chronos", from whence our "chronology") + -ῐ́ᾱ (cognate with the Latin nominalizing suffix -ia), to mean "grace period". I feel that I do not like the sound of it, though, nor the slight ambiguity of pronunciation of the initial "ch", given our "charity".

 

[Godmy]

Hey, Cinefactus, that is a good tool. Thanks for the link! I am thinking that, since tensus seems to have been the more productive form, I will probably go with that for purposes of this instance of word-creation. I will first wait to hear what other input I might get, though.

It's the other way around, Michael. The verb alone "tendo, ere" is virtually never (almost) never used in Caesar or Cicero, they use its derivates: attendō, intendō, contendō... and there the past participle used by them* is always with T! "T" was much more productive in that regard!


*but even other authors would rarely to never use the "s" form (in the derivates).

 

[Michael Zwingli]

Thanks, Godmy. In so saying, you basically have answered my initial question. I guess "usage" and "productivity" are two separate and individual phenomena. What I meant by "productive" was the number of words derived from tentus and tensus. It appears that tensus comes ahead in that regard, especially as terms therefrom derived have come into English, which might seem to be the key concern here.