aliquis

ali- +‎ quis (interrogative pronoun)

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈa.lɪ.kʷɪs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈaː.li.kʷis]

aliquis or aliquī (feminine aliqua, neuter aliquid); indeclinable portion with a relative/interrogative pronoun

1. (pronoun) someone, somebody, anyone, something, anything; sometimes to be followed by the word else

   ad calculōs aliquem vocō ― to invite someone to do some calculation^[1]

   petere aliquem hastā ― to attack someone with a spear

   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.181–182:

     [...] Anthea sī quem
     iactātum ventō videat Phrygiāsque birēmīs [...]

     if perhaps he could see anything of Antheus, storm-tossed by wind, and the double-banked Phrygian [galleys]
     (See usage note below: Read “aliquem” for “quem” after “si.”)

   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 2.75:

     aliquis tollēns ad sīdera voltum

     someone lifting his face to the stars

2. (determiner) some, any

• After sī, nisi, num, and nē, ali- falls away; see quis.
• Normatively, aliquī is a determiner (used adjectivally) and aliquis is a pronoun (used substantively), but the opposite usages can be found, even among the best Classical writers:^[2]
  • Pūblius Vergilius Marō, Aenēis, liber II. In: Virgil with an English translation by H. Rushton Fairclough, vol. I of two volumes, 1916, p. 296f.:

    Aut hōc inclūsī lignō occultantur Achīvī,
    aut haec in nostrōs fabricāta est māchina mūrōs,
    īnspectūra domōs ventūraque dēsuper urbī,
    aut aliquis latet error; equō nē crēdite, Teucrī.

    Either enclosed in this frame there lurk Achaeans, or this has been built as an engine of war against our walls, to spy into our homes and come down upon the city from above; or some trickery lurks therein. Trust not the horse, ye Trojans.

• The feminine singular is rarely used as a pronoun, but is common as an adjective; see aliquī.

Indeclinable portion with a relative/interrogative pronoun.

¹In Republican Latin or earlier, alternative spellings could be found for the following forms of quī/quis and its compounds: the masculine nominative singular or plural quī (old spelling quei), the genitive singular cuius (old spelling quoius), the dative singular cui (old spelling quoi or quoiei), the dative/ablative plural quīs (old spelling queis).

• There is an old ablative singular form aliquī, found in Plautus.

• matellam praestō alicui

• Sardinian:
  • alikis (medieval)^[3]
• Vulgar Latin:
  • *alicūnus (see there for further descendants)

• aliquid
• aliquī
• ecquis

• “aliquis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “aliquis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “aliquis”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002), “alĭquis”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 24: Refonte A–Aorte, page 322
• https://logeion.uchicago.edu/aliquis