Latin perfects

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

Leo wrote:

>> Trouble is, Latin doesn't have a perfect active
>>participle, or any other participle that looks like this.

Wilmer replied:
>
>*Classical* Latin doesn't have a perfect active participle; nevertheless
>this doesn't mean that Latin never had it, and it shouldn't be much
>different from *amavos or perhaps *amaus (I read somewhere that the
>preposition 'apud' is a perfect active participle, neuter gender... can
>anyone  confirm?). Ancient latin also had present passive participles,
>which sometimes survived in fossil forms like alumnus from alo.

Unless these forms are *attested*, *in Latin*, *as participles*, we cannot say
that any kind of Latin actually *had* them.  This is not to say that one Latin
form or another did not derive from a participle, or to deny that these
participles were still functional in Italic or in Pre-Latin.  Certainly the
mediopassive participles in -men- are reflected in Latin -- but did Latin still
*have* them?  Do we have any attestations?

Sorry to be picky, but that's what I do.
Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at latte.memphis.edu              University of Memphis