Quid vs cur

[cinefactus]

Quid illic secum solus loquitur

Plautus & Terence often seem to use quid, where I might have expected cur. Is this an early usage? Is it something which should be imitated?

 

[Dantius]

I don't think it's that uncommon in classical Latin either (at least with certain verbs) as some sort of adverbial accusative.
Here, it could be interpreted as "what" as well, I suppose ("what is he saying...")

 

[cinefactus]

It wasn't the best example was it

Do you know what the rules are for using it in this fashion?

 

[Pacifica]

I don't know of any specific rules. Personally, I would avoid using it when it would be too ambiguous, but I'm not a Roman author.

 

[Pacifica]

I don't know of any specific rules.

Well, I know of one idiom where "why" will always be quid and never cur, as far as I know (you never know that an exception won't be found somewhere, but it would only be an exception): Quid plura? meaning "Why more words?", "Let's make it short." I've never seen cur or quare plura?

 

[cinefactus]

Here is a better example:
Quid nunc igitur stamus

 

[AoM]

On Aen. 1.407-8 (quid natum totiens, crudelis tu quoque, falsis / ludis imaginibus?), Austin's note:

"originally a usage of familiar speech (e.g. Ter. Eun. 304 'quid tu es tristis? quidve es alacris?'); it is frequent in both direct and indirect questions."

 

[Matthaeus]

This brings to mind quid taces? Convincam si negas from ... well, you guys know

On a side note, qui is also often used in Cicero to mean "how", e.g. qui scis? for quomodo.

 

[Dantius]

On a side note, qui is also often used in Cicero to mean "how", e.g. qui scis? for quomodo.

It comes from an old ablative form of qui. I remember that really confusing me the first time I saw it (in Livy book 2). But sometimes it's used in a proper relative clause, like in tanta paupertate decessit, ut, qui efferretur, vix reliquerit. There's a bunch of uses of it in Plautus as just an ablative form of qui, quae, quod.

 

[Matthaeus]

Cool, interesting, didn't know that. But how is that an ablative form? Wouldn't the ablative be quo?

 

[Dantius]

I don't know. I guess it's an old third decl. form, just like quem and quibus and ques (another archaism). But I'm not sure.

 

[rothbard]

Quid tends to be used more often in rhetorical questions. See here, or OLD p. 1560.