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[13]
Again, another source
of ambiguity arises from leaving it doubtful in a
written document whether a syllable is long or short.
Cato, for example, means one thing in the nominative when its second syllable is short, and another in
the dative or ablative when the same syllable is long.1
There are also a number of other forms of ambiguity
which it is unnecessary for me to describe at length.
1 sc. of the adjective catus, shrewd.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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