出典:Wiktionary
出典:『Wiktionary』 (2026/03/03 23:18 UTC 版)
From Proto-Italic *gnātos (“born; son”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁tós (“produced, given birth”), from *ǵenh₁- (“to produce, give birth, beget”). When used as a verb form, it functions as the perfect active participle of the deponent verb nāscor (“to be born”). The form *gnātos must have previously also served as the perfect passive participle of the transitive verb gignō (“to bear; to beget; to engender”), whose attested perfect passive participle genitus is a relatively recent replacement built by analogy to the stem of the perfect genuī. Continued association with the latter verb, and with other related words where initial /g/ was regularly retained due to a following vowel, such as genus (“birth, origin, lineage, descent”), could be part of the reason a spelling with gn- was used for this word for some time after regular sound change had generally replaced initial /ɡn-/ in Latin with /n-/. Another influence on the spelling could have been the medial -gn- found in related prefixed words such prōgnātus, cognātus. Alternatively, Köhm 1905 suggests that the relatively frequent occurrence of the noun after a possessive pronoun could have caused /ɡn/ to be retained just as it was in word-internal position.
gnātus (feminine gnāta, neuter gnātum); first/second-declension participle
First/second-declension adjective.
| singular | plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | feminine | neuter | masculine | feminine | neuter | ||
| nominative | gnātus | gnāta | gnātum | gnātī | gnātae | gnāta | |
| genitive | gnātī | gnātae | gnātī | gnātōrum | gnātārum | gnātōrum | |
| dative | gnātō | gnātae | gnātō | gnātīs | |||
| accusative | gnātum | gnātam | gnātum | gnātōs | gnātās | gnāta | |
| ablative | gnātō | gnātā | gnātō | gnātīs | |||
| vocative | gnāte | gnāta | gnātum | gnātī | gnātae | gnāta | |
gnātus m (genitive gnātī, feminine gnāta); second declension
Second-declension noun.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | gnātus | gnātī |
| genitive | gnātī | gnātōrum |
| dative | gnātō | gnātīs |
| accusative | gnātum | gnātōs |
| ablative | gnātō | gnātīs |
| vocative | gnāte | gnātī |
The noun ("son") is fairly consistently spelled with gn- in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, whereas the verbal participle ("born") is already often spelled with n- in these authors. In later authors such as Virgil, the use of the spelling gn- is a definite archaism.