The adverb "iugiter" as "immediately" or "instantly"?

[Michael Zwingli]

Hello, folks.
I would like a bit of help in finding examples within the Latin corpus, of the adverb iūgiter rendering a particular sense. Can any of you think of, or find an instance in which iūgiter may be translated as "immediately", or "instantly"? That sense has been advanced here: https://www.dizionario-latino.com/dizionario-latino-italiano.php?parola=iūgĭtĕr and elsewhere, but seems vaguely suspect to me. I have searched, but cannot find an instance of such a usage. If you can think of any, please provide me with a reference for that. Thanks.

 

[Pacifica]

L&S also gives "immediately, instantly" as possible translations for iugiter. However, only one of the referenced passages seems, to me, to contain an instance of iugiter that could be interpreted that way. I'm not even sure it would be the right interpretation, though. It's from Ausonius:

Cōndĭdĕrāt iām Sōlĭs ĕquōs Tārtēsĭă Cālpē
strīdēbātquĕ frĕtō Tītānĭŭs īgnĭs Hĭbērō:
iām sūccēdēntēs quătĭēbāt Lūnă iŭvēncās,
vīncĕrĕt ūt tĕnĕbrās rădĭīs vĕlŭt aēmŭlă frātrīs:
iām vŏlŭcrēs hŏmĭnūmquĕ gĕnūs sŭpĕrābĭlĕ cūrīs
mūlcēbānt plăcĭdī trānquīlla ōblīvĭă sōmnī;
trānsĭĕrānt Īdūs, mĕdĭūs sūprēmă Dĕcēmbēr
tēmpŏră vēntūrō prŏpĕrābāt iūngĕrĕ Iānō;
ēt nōnās dĕcĭmās āb sē nōx lōngă Kălēndās
iūgĭtĕr āccīrī cĕlĕbrānda ād fēstă iŭbēbāt.

Ausonii-Epistulae

www.poesialatina.it

All in all, it seems suspect to me too, though I guess it could be that unambiguous examples are to be found in medieval Latin or so.

 

[Bitmap]

Cōndĭdĕrāt iām Sōlĭs ĕquōs Tārtēsĭă Cālpē
strīdēbātquĕ frĕtō Tītānĭŭs īgnĭs Hĭbērō:
iām sūccēdēntēs quătĭēbāt Lūnă iŭvēncās,
vīncĕrĕt ūt tĕnĕbrās rădĭīs vĕlŭt aēmŭlă frātrīs:
iām vŏlŭcrēs hŏmĭnūmquĕ gĕnūs sŭpĕrābĭlĕ cūrīs
mūlcēbānt plăcĭdī trānquīlla ōblīvĭă sōmnī;
trānsĭĕrānt Īdūs, mĕdĭūs sūprēmă Dĕcēmbēr
tēmpŏră vēntūrō prŏpĕrābāt iūngĕrĕ Iānō;
ēt nōnās dĕcĭmās āb sē nōx lōngă Kălēndās
iūgĭtĕr āccīrī cĕlĕbrānda ād fēstă iŭbēbāt.

My eyes!

 

[Pacifica]

Yeah, lol.

 

[Michael Zwingli]

Yeah...with all the diacritics, especially!

L&S also gives "immediately, instantly" as possible translations for iugiter...from Ausonius: Cōndĭdĕrāt iām...Lūnă iŭvēncās...prŏpĕrābāt iūngĕrĕ Iānō; ēt nōnās dĕcĭmās āb sē nōx lōngă Kălēndās iūgĭtĕr āccīrī cĕlĕbrānda ād fēstă iŭbēbāt.

Haha, perhaps Ausonius was stretching the semantics in order to achieve the alliterative effect!

All in all, it seems suspect to me too, though I guess it could be that unambiguous examples are to be found in medieval Latin or so.

That's kind of what I was thinking. It seems like the sort of 'semantic drift' which would arise in the medieval period. Still searching...

 

[Pacifica]

The same semantic shift happened with continuo in the classical period — or even probably earlier; I haven't checked.

 

[Pacifica]

The earliest examples cited by the OLD all mean "immediately", so maybe it was actually the other way round, dunno. Now perhaps it originally (in unrecorded times) happened from "continuously" to "immedietaly", since continuus does mean "continuous" and the like.

 

[Deleted member 13757]

shift happens...

 

[Michael Zwingli]

The earliest examples cited by the OLD all mean "immediately", so maybe it was actually the other way round, dunno. Now perhaps it originally (in unrecorded times) happened from "continuously" to "immediately", since continuus does mean "continuous" and the like.

Hmmmm... Since the adjective iūgis is generally believed by linguists to derive from the IE collocation h₂yu-gʷih₃ (“to live long/for a lifetime”), the semantics wouldn't seem to favor an initial meaning in Latin of "immediately". Rather, that the meaning "continuous/perpetual/unceasing/everflowing (in the specialized sense of the term)" leading later to "instantly/immediately" would seem, perhaps, more rational. Maybe the initial Proto-Italic sense was "continuous", etc. Pacifica, would you be so kind as to share a couple of the references from the Oxford, with the meaning of "immediately"? I do not own a copy of that.

 

[Pacifica]

I was talking about continuo, not iugiter.

 

[Issacus Divus]

Alike to the shift of awful. Pretty interesting.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

The shift, no matter which way it goes, is very understandable, specially if the speaker construes the word with the exact homophone iugis < iungo.

But can we take a moment to appreciate the vomit-inducing Gothic cognate ajukduþs?

 

[Issacus Divus]

Related to Old Norse Eiríkr, Yiddish eybik, the Cimbrian éevig, and the English eche!?

 

[Pacifica]

The shift, no matter which way it goes, is very understandable

Yes. "Continuously" means "without interruption" and "immediately" means "without interruption from one instant to the next".

 

[Michael Zwingli]

Hey, there!

...But can we take a moment to appreciate the vomit-inducing Gothic cognate ajukduþs?

I know what you mean, that's quite the same as I thought about that lemma when I first encountered it in a paper by Michael Weiss (dealing,in fact, with iugis and other reflexes of a certain IE collocation). I think I said to myself: "Holy cannoli! What the heck is that??" No wonder those Goths could have so easily overrun the Roman Celtic provinces...who could understand what they were saying?

The shift, no matter which way it goes, is very understandable...

Yes. "Continuously" means "without interruption" and "immediately" means "without interruption from one instant to the next".

Yeah, that's very true: "immediacy" does describe a type of continuity, one which I had not considered. "Instant" and "instantly", however, do not. As I told another fellow about that, I guess my issue with this occurs with the jump from h₂yu-gʷih₃ "to live for a long time" or more particularly "to live for a full lifespan" (the aforementioned IE collocation, the first element of which, h₂eyu- with oblique form h₂yéw-/h₂yu-, took roughly the same meanings as its descendants, Proto-Italic aiwom and Latin aetās and aevum), which expresses a temporally long, longevous/durative aspect, to iugiter "instantly", which expresses a temporally short (approaching temporally non-existent in a "limit"-like fashion), momentary aspect. I suppose that is an example of the long and twisted roads that languages take in their development, though.
In any case, I am still left with a desire to verify the "immediate" sense of iugiter, though. If anybody comes across anything in future, please think to relate that here.