Questions tagged [example-request]
For questions that ask for an example of usage of a particular word or construction, either artificial or from literature.
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"Receive blow in the face with hand"
In Seneca's Moral Letters 78:
Athletae quantum plagarum ore, quantum toto corpore excipiunt!
to receive blow in the face is plagam ore excipere: that is an ablative without preposition which would ...
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Another use of gratia as in exempli gratia
A web search tells us that e.g. stands for exempli gratia where gratia has the literal translation of “for the sake of”. Can anyone give another example from the literature where gratia has this ...
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Is any word attested in both vocative and locative?
Both the vocative and the locative are pretty rare cases, and not found in all kinds of words.
Is there any word that is attested in both cases in classical Latin?
I prefer the vocative to be distinct ...
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Ab Nobis - to leave us
A quick search can barely confirm that ablative plural ab nobis is found in collocation. This might literally translate German von uns, as in the euphemism
von uns gegangen sein
* from us ygone be
...
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What are classical examples where prepositional ad phrase is inside ad purpose clause
This question is triggered by another question about wheatear the "ad" is prepositional or purpose.
In theory, we should see examples where something like this happens:
Discipuli Marcum ad ...
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When have we last lost an ancient Latin text?
Alex B's answer to a recent question mentions that we have no extant texts from Ovid before the high middle ages.
As books are perishable on the timescale of centuries, having extant material today ...
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How to you convert a Latin word, such as voluntas, into a name, specifically a surname?
I've been wondering how to properly convert Latin words into names to signify the importance of certain concepts to a person, and met conflicting information online. My default assumption would be to ...
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Future participle that wasn't fulfilled
This is a follow-up question of this question on difference between future participle and simple future
Apparently from the very question and the answers it seems my previous understanding of future ...
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Are there minimal pairs between vowels and semivowels?
In Classical times, no distinction was made in writing between /u/ and /w/, or between /i/ and /j/. This distinction seems to have been phonemic, because we see names like Jūlius vs Iūlus.
But are ...
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Was deliberately bad grammar ever used for emphasis in Latin?
In English, we can sometimes use deliberately incorrect grammar for effect in speech. The first example that comes to mind is a more colloquial example:
I ain't never going to do...
When I hear this ...
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Did poets elide across consonants?
I have a definite recollection that Plautus, Ennius, or some other early poet had a tendency to elide across a word-final S, as in (made-up examples) domus et → dom'et and domus est → domu'st. If ...
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Where is φιλημι attested?
I've often heard it said that Aeolic Greek used -μι endings on contract verbs, like φιλημι in Sappho (for Attic φιλέω/φιλῶ).
However, I can't seem to find this supposed "φιλημι" anywhere. It ...
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Do any Greek words have stems ending in labiovelars?
I know that Ancient Greek lost its labiovelar consonants at some point before alphabetic writing caught on. We know of the labiovelars' previous existence mostly because of different reflexes in ...
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Are any phonemic distinctions not represented in Latin?
Latin orthography seems to have been relatively phonemic. In other words, if long vowels are marked somehow (macrons or apices), there seems to be a straightforward mapping between letters and ...
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Did Romulus and Remus have other names?
Throughout Classical times, Romans would often have several names: one person might be identified by praenomen, nomen gentilicum, cognomen, agnomen, signum, and patronymic, all together.
Were Roman ...
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Do neuter plural nouns ever take singular verbs in Latin?
In Greek, it's well-known that neuter plural subjects take singular verb forms. This seems to be an old Indo-European feature, as it shows up in e.g. Anatolian languages as well.
Does this feature ...
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An example sentence for Latin pronunciation
Latin pronunciation varies between times and locations, and to some extent individuals.
If I want learn a new kind of pronunciation, make sure I have properly switched to a new pronunciation, or want ...
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Is there a Latin equivalent to ἐπίκοινος?
The Ancient Greek grammatical tradition, going back to Dionysius Thrax (or maybe farther), distinguishes five types of nouns: masculine, feminine, neuter, common, and epicene (ἐπίκοινος). Four of ...
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Is 'volo' ever used with a future infinitive?
One can certainly use volo with an infinitive to express a wish:
Volo amari!
I want to be loved!
A future sense is often implied, as one would probably interpret that I'm not loved now if I wish ...
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How did the Romans refer to people of unknown gender?
Reference to other people's gender has become a delicate issue in today's world.
I expect that the Romans had no controversy over it, but they must have encountered situations where they have to write ...
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When were /k/ and /q/ first distinguished in the Greek or Latin alphabet?
Nowadays, in languages which make a distinction between velar and uvular stops, it's common to use K for the first and Q for the second. This is best-known nowadays from transcriptions of Arabic names,...
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Substantive adjectives "Latīna, Graeca" as language names
For example, I want to say: Latīna placet mihi magis quam Graeca, quamquam in Graecā multō plūra et doctiōra dē philosophiā scrīpta sunt.
I've seen people claiming that this use is incorrect and that ...
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An unambiguous example of 'īt'
The regular perfect them form for "he went" is iit.
In an answer to this question about two short versus one long vowel, TKR mentions that this form can be contracted to īt.
In a text without macrons ...
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Can 'in-' mean both 'in' and 'no'?
The prefix in- can mean "in" or "into" or similar, as in inire.
It can also mean "non-" or "un-", as in infelix.
Both meanings of the prefix are attested, but I am not familiar with any case where ...
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What evidence is there for volēre over volere?
In this answer, fdb mentions the Classical verb volō, velle transforming into *voleō, volēre in Vulgar Latin. The main evidence for this is a form volendi in Augustine and reflexes like voglio, volere ...
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Do non-deponent Latin verbs ever have a "middle voice"?
In Ancient Greek, verbs often take a "middle voice", neither active nor passive. The forms usually look identical to the passive on the surface, but can take direct objects and cannot take an agent (...
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Does Latin have any neuter words for humans?
In Ancient Greek, diminutives are almost always neuter, regardless of the original noun's gender. This leads to words like paidíon, "small child" (from país "child"), which are neuter even though they ...
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Do we have evidence of clipped words in Latin?
In English, it's common for words to be clipped down to their first couple syllables: "brother" becomes "bro", "university" becomes "uni", "doctor" becomes "doc", "veteran" becomes "vet", and so on. ...
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Did the Romans make bilingual puns?
I know that the Romans appreciated wordplay. But there's a rare and specific type of pun that I'm curious about now: a pun based on words sounding similar between languages.
For example:
Have you ...
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Can 'non' with gerundive mean both lack of obligation and negative obligation?
If a gerundive is used with non, can it mean both lack of obligation and negative obligation?
For example, can non loquendum est mean both "it is not necessary to speak" and "it is necessary not to ...
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Omission of a repeated verb in second part of a μέν ... δέ
This question is about the Greek equivalent of sentences like
I do not fear the Greeks, but I do fear the Romans.
Socrates didn't write dialogues, but Plato did.
These sentences use or imply the ...
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Can "ee" appear in Latin?
There are a few instances in Latin where words are spelled with two vowels next to each other, in hiatus: filii "sons", metuunt "they fear".
Now, the last words of the Emperor Julian II are normally ...
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Do we know how Greek dialects sounded?
To some extent, we know how sounds varied between ancient Greek dialects: the Aeolians lost rough breathings but preserved digamma, for example, while the Attics changed many of their long alphas into ...
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Are there any words in Latin that are "light"?
In Latin, every syllable is either "light" or "heavy". A "heavy" syllable is one that has a long vowel and/or a coda consonant, and a "light" syllable is anything else. This distinction is important ...
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Is *rīcus attested?
The word for "rich" in most Romance languages looks something like, well, "rich". It declines like a first/second declension adjective, and seems to go back to Germanic *rīkijaz (possibly through ...
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Can "libella maris" be "sea level"?
I came across the expression libella maris in a scientific text from 19th century.
There are many ways to parse it in the context, and one option that occurred to me is that maybe it stands for "sea ...
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"There is" in Latin
In English you use the phrasal verb there+[to be] to mean something different than just an object being placed somewhere visible or known to the speaker and/or listener (i.e., there).
According to ...
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Are the pronoun-looking forms of quire attested?
The verb quire is conjugated like ire, and there are some forms that look like an interrogative or relative pronoun.
Those forms are quīs and quī.
Are these attested in classical ...
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Is the nominative gerund attested?
I'd always heard that the gerund had no nominative, with the present active infinitive taking the place of the missing form: volāre difficile est, rather than *volāndum.
However, in the comments on ...
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Vocative Gerund
I am 99.9999% confident there is no purpose for a vocative gerund. Yet nothing seems to specifically disallow for such a construction. In theory something such as "odi te currendum" (in English, "I ...
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Irreal condition expressed by a prepositional phrase
In English one can say:
Without you I would not be here.
This is roughly the same thing as:
If you had not helped, I would not be here.
The exact wording depends on context.
In the second ...
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Garden path sentences in classical Latin
A garden path sentence is a sentence that leads the reader astray and forces them to reanalyze.
The obvious first interpretation when one starts reading is a red herring and it comes clear that the ...
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Comparison of participles
Participles behave much like adjectives.
Do they also have comparative and superlative forms?
They are easy enough to form: ferentior, dicturissimus.
More precisely, are any comparatives or ...
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Has any Latin literature survived through the Arabs?
Some pieces of Greek literature have survived only through the Arabs.
But is there any classical Latin literature that has survived the same way?
This could mean translations from Latin to Arabic and ...
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How has literature helped archaeology?
Is there a good example case where extant ancient literature has helped understand archaeological findings?
This could mean, for example, a Roman author mentioning a tool and its use, which has helped ...
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What was the classic term for "damnatio memoriae"?
The Wikipedia article on the subject notes that the term damnatio memoriae, referring to the relegation of a person's name to oblivion, as if they never existed, is a neo-Latin expression first ...
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Ancient plagiarism
I have no doubt that plagiarism existed in the Greek and Roman antiquity: some authors must have copied material more or less directly from others without attribution.
(The moral requirement to cite ...
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Politically (in)correct Latin
I am looking for an example of a pair of adjectives or nouns (broadly defined) in classical Latin which mean the same thing but one is considered rude and the other one polite.
I could list several ...
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Regular passive forms of "facere"
Have regular passive forms of the verb facere ever been used?
If so, what is the first occurrence?
In all of the Latin I have seen, the passive forms of facere are replaced by fieri.
Regular passive ...
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What is the earliest Latin crossword puzzle?
I think it is safe to assume that there have been crossword puzzles in Latin, and I think I have seen some in textbooks as well.
But what was the earliest Latin crossword puzzle?
I do not mean word ...
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