Third declension adjectives > adverbs in "-ē"?

Serenus

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Rather more to the instant theme, though, I have been able to discern that adverbs have been formed in Latin from masculine and feminine in both the nominative (Latin satis, versus) and the accusative (Latin perperam, prōmiscam), as well as from the ablative singular (Latin ), in addition to the "petrified" neuter accusative which was the subject hereof.
Michael Weiss in his Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin notes that the adverbial suffix -ē (which is not an abl. sg. in Latin synchronically, as Bitmap said) has an unclear etymology. It is either an ablaut variant of the masculine/neuter abl. sg. -ōd (with the classic -ē-/-ō- alternation), or the Proto-Indo-European instrumental case ending -eh1 (after receiving an analogical -d as influence from the ablative, the -d is relevant because in Old Latin it is attested as <-ED>).

It may also interest you to hear that bonus and malus (Archaic Latin duenos/malos) are believed to have originally derived the adverbs *duenē and *malē, which then underwent the final-vowel shortening characteristic of two-syllable words with a short vowel in the stem ("iambic shortening" is the technical term), becoming Classical Latin bene and male (with short -e).

The question about this which occurs to me, is: adverbs have been formed in Latin out of such "petrified" nominatives, accusatives, and ablatives. Is there any rationale for which petrified case form is and has been properly used for the production of the various types of adverb: adverbs of manner, adverbs of time, adverbs of place, adverbs of frequency, and adverbs of degree?
I think only adverbs of manner and frequency can be productively formed, with -ē/-ius/-(i)ter (manner) and -iē(n)s (frequency: five times, ten times... note the -ter in quater). Latin exhibits morphological comparative adverbs formed with manner endings. So for these, your question should rather be the origin of these very few specific suffixes.

The rest of adverbs are basically very lexical and should be probably studied one by one, and I don't think there is any pattern to be identified in the cases they descend from.

For example, multō and multum 'very' even appears in two different cases with hardly any difference in use. In terms of adverbs of time, herī 'yesterday' descends from a Proto-Indo-European locative *dʰǵʰyés-i (> Proto-Italic *xes-i > the Classical Latin variant here) with the more common locative ending -ī attached (cf. hum-ī 'on the ground', dom-ī 'at home'), but crās 'tomorrow' probably descends from an Indo-European genitive (PIE *kreh2-es), and hodiē 'today' is pretty transparently 'this day' in a locative use of the Latin ablative (cf. hōc diē 'on this day', the noun part -diē of hodiē likely continues an ablative cf. Faliscan foied, but note the ho- part may possibly descend from a Proto-Italic locative, rather than ablative *hōd).

It may interest you to read about the regular syntactic uses of the accusative, ablative and dative cases to make adverbial phrases of time/space/degree out of noun phrases. But this is syntax, not adverb derivations. For this, consult the various sections on the uses of cases in Allen and Greenough's grammar, including §425.b on the accusative to express extent of space (which you might miss). It may interest you to read on the ablative of specification (which is a little bit weird from the point of view of general linguistics, or at least it's not a syntax role linguists often talk about: compare the first example Virtūte praecēdunt 'They excel in courage' with the use of syntactic topics for the same thing in topic-prominent languages like Mandarin Chinese: 勇氣他們是最好的 yǒngqǐ tāmen shi zuì-hǎo de, fairly literally "courage, they be best").
 
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Pacifica

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multō and multum 'very' even appears in two different cases with hardly any difference in use.
Multo tends to be used as an ablative of degree of difference with comparatives, and multum in other contexts. E.g. I would say hic cibus multo est melior, "this food is much better" but multum te amo, "I love you very much". It would be rarer the other way around.
 
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Issacus Divus

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I've read that multo isn't usually comparable.
 

Pacifica

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What do you mean by not comparable? That it can't be turned into a comparative? If so, that's right. It would theoretically be plure, I guess, but that just isn't used.
 

Serenus

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Multo tends to be used as an ablative of degree of difference with comparatives, and multum in other contexts. E.g. I would say hic cibus multo est melior, "this food is much better" but multum te amo, "I love you very much". It would be rarer the other way around.
Oh, that's great! I hadn't noticed the entry in Lewis & Short says this too.

I was a bit curious about Late Latin and checked what the Vulgate has (I have it in an easily searchable form), and I see the same thing. Multō with comparatives, and multum in other uses. E.g. multo plures crediderunt 'many more people believed' (John:4), ut probatum vestrae fidei multo pretiosius sit auro (1Peter:1), lots of multo magis). And on the other hand, omni autem, cui multum datum est, multum quaeretur ab eo (Luke:12), noli esse iustus multum neque plus sapias quam necesse est (Ecclesiastes:7), and what I guess is your favourite psalm (120, or 119 in the Septuagint/Vulgate count):

5 Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus est! Habitavi cum habitantibus Cedar; 6 multum incola fuit anima mea. 7 Cum his, qui oderunt pacem, eram pacificus; cum loquebar illis, impugnabant me gratis.

Or as the KJV puts it, in a bit of a nicer way:
5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! 6 My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. 7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.
 

Pacifica

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cui multum datum est, multum quaeretur ab eo
I would argue that multum is a substantive there, rather than an adverb.
iustus multum
That use of multum with an adjective is found mostly in late Latin, in my experience (classical Latin rather using valde or perquam), though I think I did find a couple of classical or more or less classical examples at some point (but I'd need to check that again).
 

Pacifica

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though I think I did find a couple of classical or more or less classical examples at some point (but I'd need to check that again).
Indeed, the OLD gives examples from Plautus, Horace, Ovid, Pliny, Gellius and even two from Cicero. Maybe it's not so rare as I thought, though I still believe it's rare-ish compared to valde and perquam.
 

Issacus Divus

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I didn't think of the instrumental -eh₁, that fits quite well.
 

Pacifica

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By the way, the OLD also gives a few examples of multum instead of multo with comparatives: one in Plautus, one in Silius, one in Quintilian. Also a couple of examples of it with ante and post, where you also usually find multo.
 

Serenus

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I would argue that multum is a substantive there, rather than an adverb.
Yeah, I thought of that, but I went for an adverb interpretation, although more so for the multum next to quaeretur. I find it hard to tell in a lot of cases whether it's an accusative neuter or an adverb, e.g. utere quasi homo frugi quae tibi adponuntur, et non, cum manducas multum, odio habearis (Sirach:31). This is kind of a funny one in light of English "to eat" being the most common example in linguistics of a verb that is often intransitive and transitive (I'm eating, I'm eating tuna).
 

Pacifica

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I find it hard to tell in a lot of cases whether it's an accusative neuter or an adverb
In the case of cui multum datum est, multum quaeretur ab eo, it would be nominative.
manducas multum
I'd tend to take it as a direct object there, I think, but yeah, I guess it's ambiguous (more so than in the other verse, in my opinion).
 

Pacifica

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Anyway, the adverb multum always is an accusative neuter — what's sometimes hard to tell is whether that accusative neuter is indeed used as an adverb or as a direct object.
 

Serenus

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I'd tend to take it as a direct object there, I think, but yeah, I guess it's ambiguous (more so than in the other verse, in my opinion).
Hmm, you seem to like direct object interpretations... How about: cum stulto non multum loquaris, et cum insensato ne abieris (Sirach:22)?

EDIT:
I think I'm changing my mind. Maybe. Well, I just don't know. It's indeed ambiguous.
Oh, okay.
 

Pacifica

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I think I'm changing my mind. Maybe. Well, I just don't know. It's indeed ambiguous.
It would be the same in English. In "to eat a lot", is "a lot" substantive or adverbial? If you're talking about someone eating a lot at a certain implied meal, as in "You ate a lot last night", I'd tend to take it as substantive (= "You ate a lot (a large quantity) of what was on the table last night"). On the other hand if you say "You eat a lot" in general, I'd tend to take it as adverbial (= "Eating is something that you do a lot"). But it's very debatable...
Hmm, you seem to like direct object interpretations... How about: cum stulto non multum loquaris, et cum insensato ne abieris (Sirach:22)?
I'd lean towards an adverb here, mostly because of the verb used, I think, which is often (though not always) intransitive.
 
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Bitmap

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I find it hard to tell in a lot of cases whether it's an accusative neuter or an adverb
what's sometimes hard to tell is whether that accusative neuter is indeed used as an adverb or as a direct object.
It should be mentioned to our Helvetic American friend that this is more or less the process by which the neuter accusative came to be used as an adverb: It started off as an actual direct object ("multum manducavi = I ate a lot") and became so common in that use that it was expanded to places where it technically or originally does not make sense ("multum te amo") and was reinterpreted as an adverb there. This mainly happened with adjectives that were used rather frequently (like multum, tantum, facile) and that's what I meant by "grammaticalisation".
 

Michael Zwingli

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Michael Weiss in his Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin notes that the adverbial suffix -ē (which is not an abl. sg. in Latin synchronically, as Bitmap said) has an unclear etymology. It is either an ablaut variant of the masculine/neuter abl. sg. -ōd (with the classic -ē-/-ō- alternation), or the Proto-Indo-European instrumental case ending -eh1 (after receiving an analogical -d as influence from the ablative, the -d is relevant because in Old Latin it is attested as <-ED>).
Hmmm... I recently read Weiss' excellent paper on reflexes of IE h₂óyu-gʷih₃, find here: http://conf.ling.cornell.edu/weiss/Weiss_1994_Life_everlasting.pdf.
It should be mentioned to our Helvetic American friend that this is more or less the process by which the neuter accusative came to be used as an adverb: It started off as an actual direct object ("multum manducavi = I ate a lot") and became so common in that use that it was expanded to places where it technically or originally does not make sense ("multum te amo") and was reinterpreted as an adverb there. This mainly happened with adjectives that were used rather frequently (like multum, tantum, facile) and that's what I meant by "grammaticalisation".
Hahahaha!!! That's the first time in my life that the adjective "Helvetic" has been applied to me, even though growing up I was the only kid on my block who was not Irish or Italian. You have cut to the chase though, Bitmap, with respect to the adverbial accusative!
 
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