出典:Wiktionary
From statua (“statue”) + -unculum (diminutive suffix). The formation is somewhat irregular: the ending -unculus was rarely used as a suffix, more often appearing when the diminutive suffix -culus is added to a stem ending in /n/, and the gender of a Latin diminutive usually is the same as that of the base word, but in this case is changed from feminine to neuter.
statunculum n (genitive statunculī); second declension
Second-declension noun (neuter).
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | statunculum | statuncula |
| Genitive | statunculī | statunculōrum |
| Dative | statunculō | statunculīs |
| Accusative | statunculum | statuncula |
| Ablative | statunculō | statunculīs |
| Vocative | statunculum | statuncula |
As Petronius places this word (in the plural) in the mouth of Trimalchio, a freedman, the form possibly did not belong to literary Latin. Adams (2013) suggests the neuter plural form in -a (also found unexpectedly on catīlla from catīllus) could represent in this context a "collective" use "possibly designating weakly differentiated entities".[1] Pliny uses the neuter plural staticula with the same sense.