The syncopated forms of perfect in the Ciceronian corpus

Abstract

Scholars agree that, generally speaking, perfect short forms prevail in classical Latin. However, as Lease demonstrated for Quintilian and Livy, there could be an important difference according to the tense and mood of the perfect.

This paper studies in detail the facts in an author so relevant as Cicero, as well as, again, in Quintilian and his disciple Pliny the Younger. The data from Cicero´s writings demonstrate that things are more complex than we thought and that these forms should be studied author by author.