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On the Syntax of usus est
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The discussion of the construction with usus est is conventionally bound up with that of opus est, and comparatively little attention has been given to the problem presented by the use of the ablative case with the former phrase.
The tendency to pass lightly over this matter is due doubtless to the manifest etymological connexion between usus and utor, which leads to the assumption that the verbal noun would naturally follow the syntax of the verb.
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References
page 74 note 1 II. 356 sqq.
page 74 note 2 P. 436.
page 74 note 3 Including two listed by him, ibid. 205.
page 74 note 4 See ibid. 358 sqq.
page 74 note 5 Incidentally it is noted that this view of the matter is taken in the Lewis and Short Dictionary, s. v. usus.
page 75 note 1 The University of California Publications in Classical Philology, X. 1 sqqGoogle Scholar.
page 75 note 2 Cf. Plautus, , Merc. 832Google Scholar. So the synonymous usura, Plautus, , Amph. 108, 1135Google Scholar; Accius, 507.
page 76 note 1 It is true that the situation here is not fully parallel to that of the ablative with careo, for which Bennett cites thirteen examples in Early Latin. But the construction with opus est is near enough to fall under the same rubric; indeed Cicero, (Tusc. Disp. I. 87 sqq.)Google Scholar, in a lecture on the scope of careo, mentions desidero as among the partial synonyms of this verb.
page 77 note 1 Cf. the relation of ‘I don't like you,’ to ‘I like you.’
page 77 note 2 Note the elusiveness of the meaning of usus in Ovid, Fasti II 500Google Scholar: Lunaque surgebat, nec facis usus erat.