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Possessive pronouns in Plautus 77
tuus and suus have a slight preference for positions 3 and 4 compared with
noster and voster; thatis,meus, tuus and suus have a slight preference for
following the head nouns rather than preceding them, even though only
in the case of suus is this preference so marked that positions 3 and 4 taken
together make up marginally more than half the tokens. This brings me
to my second observation. In the case of suus position 4 (post-modifier
hyperbaton) is even more frequent than in the case of meus or tuus.
These divergences seem to have metrical reasons. All adjectival forms
of noster and voster are disyllabic, 10 although the second syllable need not
count metrically if there is elision in a form like nostra, and they all have
heavy first syllables. Forms like meus, tuus and suus can count as disyllabic
with a light first syllable or, if there is synizesis, as monosyllabic. In addition,
forms like mea can elide the final syllable or undergo complete elision of
both vowels. Forms of meus, tuus and suus, with the exception of the very
rare genitive plural forms, 11 are thus metrically much more versatile than
forms of noster and voster.
With regard to my first observation above, one question comes to mind
immediately. Meus, tuus and suus prefer positions 3 and 4 when compared
with noster and voster; is this the result of displacing meus, tuus and suus from
their natural positions, or of displacing noster and voster? I tend towards
the first interpretation because there are certain phrases, most notably with
causa ‘for x’s sake’, where possessives normally precede in prose, but where
they can follow in Plautus for metrical reasons. In Plautus causa is only
attested with possessive pronouns in the singular. He uses the type mea
causa twelve times 12 and the type mea...causawith hyperbaton ten times.
Both types are common in prose as well. However, Plautus also has the type
causa mea thirteen times. This type is only used for metrical convenience,
as it is practically restricted to iambic line endings; the only exception is
Cur. 150, wherecausa mea occurs in the middle of a cretic tetrameter, a
metre which does not allow for much freedom in word order. In addition,
the unnatural order causa currendo tua ‘for your sake by running’ occurs in
Mer. 151 in a trochaic septenarius; the natural order tua causa is metrically
impossible at line end and the most common alternative order causa tua is
impossible because in that case currendo would immediately precede and
thereby break Meyer’s law. 13 The use of an unnatural word order at line
10 In Plautus nostrorum and vostrorum are attested, but not as adjectives; the forms are genitives of the
personal pronouns nos and vos.
11 There are eighteen adjectival tokens, all of them with synizesis before -rum (including the one in
Cist. 28 if this is an iambic septenarius (thus the scansion in Questa 1995: 181) and not a trochaic
octonarius, as Lindsay would have it in his edition).
12 I include tuan causa in Capt. 845,whereonly-ne intervenes.
13 For Meyer’s law and its raison d’être see Questa 2007: 393–413.