[OT] sentances with two meanings

[Steven Taschuk]

Quoth Mel Wilson:
  [Latin verbs for 'to know']
>    Me too, but it's in Bantam's _The New College Latin &
> English Dictionary_.  'Cognovisse' seems to be some
> modification of cognoscere.  [...]

It is, in fact, the perfect infinitive of <cognoscere>.

According to Wheelock, <cognoscere> means "to learn" (etc.), and
*in perfect tenses*  means "to know".  Note that you know
something (present tense) iff you have learned it (perfect tense).

So if Bantam lists <cognovisse> as a translation of "to know", I
see no reason to object.  It would be surprising if they list it
as a head word, as if it were the infinitive of a (purely
notional) verb
    cognovi, cognovisse, cognoveram, cognitus eram
(which are analogues of the usual principal parts under the
mapping present -> perfect).

-- 
Steven Taschuk     staschuk at telusplanet.net
"Please don't damage the horticulturalist."
         -- _Little Shop of Horrors_ (1960)