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The Supine in Latin Grammar: What it is and What its Function is

This article has been reviewed in accordance with our editorial policy.

Among Latin’s many verb forms, the supine, caus­es stu­dents quite a lot of con­fu­sion. In this arti­cle, I will explain in detail what the supine is, its mean­ing and how and when it is used.

In Latin there are two types of supine, Supine I and Supine II. The first, end­ing in -um, is used with verbs of motion to express pur­pose, and with the pas­sive infini­tive of ire (iri) to form a pas­sive future infini­tive used in indi­rect speech. The sec­ond supine, end­ing in -u, is quite rare and is only formed from a hand­ful of verbs. It is used with adjec­tives in the neuter that denote ease, dif­fi­cul­ty, plea­sure, dis­plea­sure, moral judg­ments, and the words fas and nefas.

The supine is a very inter­est­ing verb form and there is much to learn about it.

Let’s start.

What are the forms of the Supine?

In Latin gram­mar the supine refers to two verb forms, called the first and the sec­ond supines (Supinum I and Supinum II). The supines look like the accusative and abla­tive sin­gu­lar forms of ver­bal nouns of the fourth declen­sion which end in um and u. Indeed, they are said to be forms of old ver­bal nouns.

  • Supine 1: dictum
  • Supine 2: dictu

The first supine, end­ing in -um, is com­mon­ly referred to as an accusative of the end of motion, and is often giv­en as the third prin­ci­pal part in Latin dic­tio­nar­ies (e.g. amo, amavi, ama­tum).

The sec­ond supine, end­ing in -u, is often con­sid­ered a dative of pur­pose or an abla­tive of respect. It isn’t always easy to say that a form in ‑u is actu­al­ly a sec­ond supine and not the abla­tive of a ver­bal noun of the fourth declension. 

The stem of both supines is the same as that of the per­fect par­tici­ple and it is some­times said that the per­fect par­tici­ple is derived from the supine but this is not accu­rate (Kuh­n­er-Stegmann, 706).

Why are they called supine?

The name supine (from Latin supi­nus) means lying on the back. It is called supine because the supine does not change its form accord­ing to the per­son per­form­ing the action, it is, in that sense, inac­tive, lying down on the ground (Kuhner–Stegmann, 655).

What is the function and use of the supine?

Supine I (-um)

The first supine is used in two ways:

  1. with verbs of motion to express purpose 
  2. with the pas­sive infini­tive of ire to sup­ply the future pas­sive infinitive.

Supine I: with verbs of motion

The first supine is con­sid­ered to be an old accusative of direc­tion and is used with verbs indi­cat­ing motion (going, send­ing) to indi­cate pur­pose. It is not used to express pur­pose with oth­er types of verbs. Some com­mon verbs used with the first supine are ire (“go”), redire (“return”), venire (“come”), and mit­tere (“send”). Cicero and Cae­sar use the supine most­ly with only a hand­ful of verbs: venire, ire, mit­tere, con­venire. The pur­pose of the motion (e.g. com­ing or return­ing) is expressed by plac­ing the sec­ond verb in the supine, e.g.

  • Cubi­tum ire (“to go to sleep”) 
  • Inquisi­tum ire (“to go to inves­ti­gate, search”)

Cubi­tum and inquisi­tum are the supine of the verbs cubare and inquirere. The supine also occurs with depo­nent verbs (verbs that have active mean­ing but pas­sive forms):

  • Ven­it fura­tum (“he/she comes to steal”)

Here the pur­pose of the com­ing is to steal, so the verb is placed in the supine fura­tum, from the verb furor, furari which is deponent.

The mean­ing of the first supine is always active, it can­not be pas­sive. A clas­sic exam­ple of this is from Ovid:

  • Spec­ta­tum veni­unt, specten­tur ut ipsae. (“They come to watch, and to be watched themselves”)

In some old­er gram­mars and styl­is­tic guides of Latin, it is said that the first supine can­not take an object. This is inac­cu­rate, and we find supines with objects both in ear­ly Latin and in Clas­si­cal Latin:

  • Nunc venis eti­am ultro irrisum dominum (“Now you’re even com­ing of your own accord to ridicule your mas­ter.” Pl. Am. 587)
  • Hae­dui legatos […] mit­tunt roga­tum aux­il­i­um. (“The Hae­dui send deputies to ask for aid.” Caes. B.G. I.11)

In the first instance, the per­son arrives (venire) in order to ridicule (irrisum), and the object of his ridicule is his mas­ter (dominum). In the sec­ond instance, The Hae­dui send (mit­tunt) deputies (legatos) to ask (roga­tum) for help (aux­il­i­um). The help is here the object of the ask­ing (roga­tum). 

The first supine does not only express pur­pose but can be used in quite a dif­fer­ent context.

Supine I: future passive infinitive

Latin has many verb forms but does not have a pas­sive future infini­tive. It has a present pas­sive infini­tive so we can say:

  • Cae­sar dic­it libros mit­ti (“Cae­sar says that the books are being sent.”)

But what if we were to refer to a pas­sive action in the future? How do we say Cae­sar says that the books will be sent

The present pas­sive infini­tive mit­ti can­not be used to refer from the past or present to the future. One way Latin works around this lack of a pas­sive future infini­tive is by using the first supine with the pas­sive present infini­tive of ire (“go”) which is iri.

Thus we get:

  • Cae­sar dic­it libros mis­sum iri.

Mis­sum is the first supine of mit­to (‘send’) and iri is the pas­sive present infini­tive of eo, ire.

Note that the pas­sive future infini­tive (Supine I + iri) is quite rare in the Latin of ancient Rome; if we exclude its occur­rences in Latin gram­mar­i­ans, it occurs only two hun­dred times in the lit­er­a­ture and is com­plete­ly absent in Augus­tan poet­ry. (Pinkster 2015: 532)

That’s it for the first supine. The sec­ond supine in ‑u is used quite differently.

Let’s have a look.

Supine II (-u)

The sec­ond supine, end­ing in ‑u is used with a num­ber of adjec­tives and can often be trans­lat­ed in Eng­lish as “with respect to” or sim­ply “to”. It defines in what respect some­thing is, e.g.

  • Hoc facile est intel­lec­tu. (“This is easy to understand”)
  • Dif­fi­cile dic­tu est (“It is dif­fi­cult to say”)

Here we read that some­thing is easy and dif­fi­cult respec­tive­ly, but in what respect? First, with respect to under­stand­ing, next with respect to saying.

While the first supine (-um) is formed from many verbs, the sec­ond supine (-u) is formed from a very small num­ber of verbs, the most com­mon being:

  • Aspec­tu
  • Audi­tu
  • Cog­ni­tu
  • Dic­tu
  • Fac­tu
  • Intel­lec­tu
  • Inve­tu
  • Respon­su
  • Visu

With which adjectives is the supine in ‑u used? 

In the lit­er­a­ture of ancient Rome we find the sec­ond supine with 

  • Adjec­tives in ‑ilis (facilis, dif­fi­cilis, incred­i­bilis, mirabilis)
  • Adjec­tives denot­ing plea­sure or dis­plea­sure (iucun­dus)
  • Adjec­tives denot­ing moral sen­ti­ments (foe­dus, crudelis)
  • With the indec­lin­able words fas, nefas

The adjec­tives are either in the neuter sin­gu­lar (more rarely the plur­al) or as an attribute to res, they are more rarely used to describe oth­er nouns.

Let’s look at some exam­ples to bet­ter under­stand how Latin authors use the sec­ond supine:

  • Quaerunt quid opti­mum fac­tu sit (“They as what the best course of action is.” Cic. In Verr. 2.1.68)
  • Quid est tam iucun­dum cog­ni­tu atque audi­tu quam sapi­en­tibus sen­ten­ti­is grav­isque ver­bis orna­ta ora­tio? (Cic. De orat. 1.31)
  • O rem non modo visu foedam sed eti­am audi­tu! (Cic. Phil. 2.63)
  • Nefas est dic­tu mis­er­am fuisse Fabi Max­i­mi senec­tutem (Cato 13)

Rare uses of the second supine

The great Roman his­to­ri­an Tac­i­tus is known for his eclec­tic and, often­times, obscure Latin. He did not hes­i­tate to bend the lan­guage to his will, employ­ing for instance, the imper­son­al verb pudet with the supine in the expres­sion pudet dic­tu (“It’s a shame­ful thing to say.”)

There are a few instances where the sec­ond supine in ‑u is used with verbs of motion. These are abla­tives of ver­bal nouns but are com­mon­ly viewed as supines. (Pin­sk­ter 2015: 817) These are used to indi­cate the motion from some­thing, e.g.   

  • Red­dit eccum tan­dem opsonatu meus adi­u­tor (“look, final­ly my helper’s return­ing from shop­ping Pl. Cas 719)
  • Primus cubitu sur­gat, postremus cubi­tum eat. (“He is the first to rise from sleep­ing, and the last to go to bed.” Cato Agr. 5);
  • Et tunc venatu red­i­tu­rum in lim­ine pri­mo / opperiens…(“Then wait­ing at the thresh­old for the same to return from the hunt…” Stat. Ach. 1.119–20);

Now you know all about the supines in Latin. Use this knowl­edge carefully.

References

Küh­n­er, Raphael & Stegmann, Carl (1955). Aus­führliche Gram­matik der lateinis­chen Sprache. [Bd 2], Sat­zlehre. 3. Aufl. Lev­erkusen: Gottschalksche Vlgsbuchh.

Pinkster, Harm (2015). The Oxford Latin syn­tax Vol­ume 1 The sim­ple clause. Oxford: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press

Daniel Pettersson

Daniel Pettersson

Teacher and author Daniel Pettersson, M.A., is co-founder of Latinitium and is currently teaching Latin at Stockholm University, where he is also working on his Ph.D. dissertation on Humanist Colloquia. Daniel believes in the importance of Latin literature in the modern world and that you can teach yourself Latin with the right motivation, method, and material.
Written by Daniel Pettersson

Written by Daniel Pettersson

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