# famēs



## half monty

How come the genitive plural of famēs is "famum" and not "famium"? By the way, is the nominative singular "famēs" or "fames"?


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## Agró

*Fames *is a consonant stem, just like *homo *(*hominum*) or *nomen *(*nominum*).
Both the nominative singular and plural is *famēs.*


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## half monty

But the nominative singular ends in ēs and is parisyllabic, i.e. has the same number of syllables in the genitive. How come the genitive plural isn't famium, just like the genitive plural of nūbēs is nubium?


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## Agró

The more I look at this, the more puzzled I am.
Here they say the usual form is _*famium*_, but there exists also _*famum*_
Paradigm of fames (noun, LEM, famēs) - Numen - The Latin Lexicon - An Online Latin Dictionary

Here, though, only _*famium*_
DicoLatin

I can't find any quotations for either _*famum *_or _*famium*_, but there's no reason for the -i- being missing.


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## Agró

Eureka! (and you were right).
*Dynamics of Morphological Productivity: The Evolution of Noun ...*


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## half monty

Thanks. However, I cannot access the last link you posted. What does it say? That the genitive of "fames" is only "famium"?


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## Xavier61

half monty said:


> But the nominative singular ends in ēs and is parisyllabic, i.e. has the same number of syllables in the genitive. How come the genitive plural isn't famium, just like the genitive plural of nūbēs is nubium?


Fames is uncountable, so, in principle, it does not have plural forms. But it is -i stem, so we would expect "famium". Do we have any example of it in plural in a text?


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## Agró

half monty said:


> Thanks. However, I cannot access the last link you posted. What does it say? That the genitive of "fames" is only "famium"?


*Dynamics of Morphological Productivity: The Evolution of Noun ...*
isbn:9004244654 - Buscar con Google - Traducir esta página
Francesco Gardani - 2013 - ‎Language Arts & Disciplines
... microclass ovis ovis: post-classical latin cumme (abl.sg) _plinius_ cummis -is (f) ... Appendix Probi.* the only gen.pl attested in tll (s.v. agnus) is famium at Plinius.*


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## half monty

Thank you.


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