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I learned from this previous question about the semantics of memento(te) that memento(te) is not morphologically a future imperative. It turned to be a perfect imperative (semantically present), as it was formed from the perfect stem. I had previously thought of -to as a future imperative ending exclusively. I would like to know how unique memento(te) is in Latin.

Are there other examples of perfect imperatives than memento(te)? Or are there any other examples if imperatives ending in -to(te) than the usual future imperatives, perfect or not?

Such forms are not found in conjugation tables — or they have magically evaded my sight — but there might be some rare occurrences.

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Joonas Ilmavirta
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1 Answers1

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The perfect imperative is effectively extinct in Latin. I have never seen it with a perfect meaning, and in fact did not realize that mementō was based on a perfect stem until fdb pointed it out (though in retrospect the reduplication and perfect endings are a pretty good clue).

The best place to look for evidence would be defective verbs, which might not have a present imperative available to replace the perfect.

There are three Latin verb roots which use perfect forms with a present meaning: meminī, ōdī, and coepī. Of these, only meminī seems to be attested in the imperative; forms *coeptō(te) and *ōsō(te) might be expected, but aren't mentioned in L&S. A corpus search is confounded by the past participles and substantives coeptus and ōsus, which meminī lacks; all instances I have found are from these rather than the imperative.

Other defective verbs are similarly unenlightening. Āiō and inquam for instance have regular present imperatives, and no attested perfect stems to work from.

Draconis
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    Another place to look might be the perfect system of nosco, with its present sense "know"; but here too searching for noto turns up lots of false positives. – TKR Jan 08 '17 at 23:38