Questions tagged [grammar-choice]
When asking which choice (case, tense, mood etc.) is grammatical in a given situation, use this tag.
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Why does Latin show some adverbs as conjunctions?
Some words in Latin are shown as being adverbs, yet they have the meaning of conjunctions, at least I guess. The word "quapropter" can be an example. I don't know if I'm mistaken, but I find ...
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Chosing between the different ways to make an adverb
I was thinking of translating “That is not dead which can eternal lie” into Latin for fun, thinking it was not only applicable to Cthulhu, but to the Latin language itself :)
But I got stumped trying ...
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Why is regenerationis genitive in lavacro regenerationis?
Context: ...quae quidem translatio post Evangelium promulgatum sine lavacro regenerationis aut eius voto fieri non potest...
I understand that lavacro is in the ablative case because sine is paired ...
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Expansion of medical Latin abbreviation (ventric. later. dextr.)
I don't know enough Latin grammar to properly expand this abbreviation: ventric. later. dextr.
I am aware that it means the right lateral ventricle in the brain, the lateral ventricles as a whole ...
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"nemo aliquid facit nisi qui" + indicative or subjunctive
In another question, a reference was given to Varro:
De subus nemini ignotum, nisi qui apros non putat sues vocari.
which was translated as:
As to swine, everybody knows — except those who think ...
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How do you use a numeral as a genitive substantive?
In English, you can use a bare numeral as a substantive and refer to a group as something like "The Nine." You can then say something like, "The House of the Nine."
How would you ...
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Why is 'cum' followed by the dative in this sentence?
Look at the following sentence from Orberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata - Familia Romana (ch. 18).
Consonans per se syllabam non facit, sed semper cum vocali in eadem syllaba iungitur.
The word ...
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In "I saw the women crying" would femina be accusative?
If you translate "I saw the women crying" would it be feminas with the accusative? The women are both the object of the seeing and the subject of the crying which is confusing me. I am new ...
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3rd declension accusative plurals
I am being driven round the bend by people’s insistence on “playing Horace on original instruments” and I need some way out of the morass.
At school the 3rd declension accusative plural ending was -es ...
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Can we use the gerund passively?
In a recent question it was pointed out that there is no passive gerund, and cupido amandi can't mean the desire of being loved. But I'm not sure that this is the case. I tend to view the gerund as ...
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What is it about?
I believe "liber de bellō est" would mean "the book is about/concerning war". What question would elicet that as a response? I.e. how would I say "what is the book about/...
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Translation of "The ant labors for the good of the nest"
I'm looking to translate "The ant labors for the good of the nest", or to rephrase, "The ant works for the benefit of the nest/hive/colony".
So far I've come up with:
formica ...
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What numbers (e.g. 0, -1, or 1.0) are plurals in Latin?
The basic question is: With which numbers should I use a plural form of the noun?
Background: English
In English it seems to me that the only singular number is 1 (and maybe -1), but everything else ...
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General question about nouns and adjectives (can nouns be adjectives and how to decline)
I know that in Latin, adjectives can act as nouns (substantives) e.g.
Romani urbem petiverunt.
The Romans attacked the city.
However, can nouns act as adjectives?
For example, stone (lapis, m) and ...
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Why "absolute" instead of "absolutam"?
There's a famous piece of mathematics by János Bolyai, originally published in Latin, under the title Scientiam Spatii Absolute Veram Exhibens: A Veritate Aut Falsitate Axiomatis XI Euclidei, A Priori ...
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Analysis of sentence "hunc Dātamēs vīnctum ad rēgem dūcendum trādit Mithridātī"
I am confused by the grammar (or rather wikipedia's analysis) of the sentence
Hunc Dātamēs vīnctum ad rēgem dūcendum trādit Mithridātī. (Nepos)
It appears in a wikipedia article where its ...
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Signing your name: vocative or nominative?
When signing your name at the end of a letter, should you use the vocative case or the nominative case?
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Is Titus-Livy's "ab Urbe Condita" 26.1.9 an Example of Informal Indirect Speech?
Livy's "ab Urbe Condita" (26.1.9) is a complete sentence which includes three (numbered) relative "qui"-clauses:
"C. Sulpicio (i) cui Sicilia evenerat duae legiones (ii) quas ...
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Meaning and grammar of ‘ōrātiōnī aspergere salēs’
The phrase ‘ōrātiōnī aspergere salēs’ literally means ‘to sprinkle [grains of] salt on the oration’. The grammar in itself is simple enough:
ōrātiōnī: in the dative, presumably because of the verb ...
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Do we ever see the enclitic -ne multiple times in a clause?
My understanding of the -ne enclitic is that it's usually attached to whichever element is in question, or whichever element is most emphasized. For example, mē-ne amat is emphasizing the object (...
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Can we add the suffix ne to hortatory/jussive subjunctive?
The Hortatory Subjunctive in the first person is a polite way to urge/ask someone to do something: eamus: let's go!.
I wonder if it is possible to add -ne to this subjunctive creating even-weaker ...
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Present vs. perfect tense in potential conditions
Potential conditions, in the English speaking world also known under the name “future less vivid” (for a critique of that particular term, see here), are conditional sentences that talk about supposed ...
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Ablative of Description in Cicero
I am reading Cicero, Against Verres, II.4.95, and I want to translate:
Nemo Agrigenti neque aetate tam affecta neque viribus tam infirmis fuit qui ...
I am reading aetate tam affecta and viribus tam ...
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How is the number for a year read?
In many texts, years are written in Roman or Arabic numerals like MMIV for 2004.
Should I read them cardinally or ordinally? Is there any evidence for the way to read?
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When should nūllus be singular vs plural?
“Nūllus” indicates a quantity of zero, so it's not obvious if it should be plural or singular, and I have seen examples of both, but I am unsure what the choice should be based on.
The first pair of ...
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How to say a prayer in latin grammaticaly?
Magic, for practical all of history, was the invocation of a spirit. This is true of religion. In the old testament, there are implications that other divine beings exist (e.x. "you shall have no ...
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Are dative personal pronouns more commonly used than adjectives or genitive personal pronouns?
I'm currently reading through Latin Via Ovid, and the dative of personal pronouns was introduced with some common phrases:
Quid nomen tibi est?
What is the name to you / What is your name?
Nomen ...
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Can the gerund be plural
Using the Collatinus conjugator there isn't a form for plural gerund, but there is for the gerundive since the gerundive acts like an adjective. I therefore always assumed that gerunds are never ...
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Satis est: de quadam re aut cuiusdam rei?
"Satis est!" significare potest aliquid sufficere vel ob quandam causam saturatum esse ("Iam satis est! Tace!"), ut Anglice dicitur "enough!".
Si autem causa exponenda ...
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Don't pay the ferryman, until ... future perfect?
Recently I read that Charon was a portitor, i.e., a ferryman. This got me thinking about the phrase "Don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side" (Chris de Burgh, 1982) and ...
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How would you express 'drained of' in Latin?
I'm trying to translate the phrase 'drained of' in Latin, for example in the sentence 'I have been drained of all my energy'. All of the words for draining which I have found work more in the sense of ...
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Preposition preceding a verb [duplicate]
i came across this sentence in Orberg's book:
"Quid inest in saccis?"
Or
"Ecce iulius ad villam advenit."
My question is that why there are aditional prepositions, namely another &...
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Can two nouns be used together as a single unit in Latin?
In French, especially in philosophy and mathematics, it is quite common [1] to use two nouns with a hyphen for certain concepts in order to distinguish between several definitions of the same word.
...
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“Hic” or “hīc”?
The pronoun hic (this) is written with short i in many places, e.g. Oxford Latin Dictionary. But in Lewis & Short: Latin-English dictionary and Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar, it is ...
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If you do something long enough
In my answer to this recent question, I translated "when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you" as: si diu voraginem intuitus eris, etiam vorago te intuebitur. That is, ...
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What is the correct way to show the Passive Perfect Infinitive in a textbook?
I have come across the Passive Perfect Infinitive and my current textbook represents it as a nomative participle + esse (e.g. salutatus esse). However on the internet I mostly see it represented as an ...
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Why is the neuter perniciosius used in this sentence?
In Confessions (1.18.29), Augustine writes:
quasi vero quemlibet inimicum hominem perniciosius sentiat quam ipsum
odium quo in eum inritatur, aut vastet quisquam persequendo alium
gravius quam cor ...
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Short form for "collige, virgo, rosas"
I've never studied Latin, so probably I'm asking a trivial question.
I'm wondering if the phrase
"collige, virgo, rosas"
can be expressed correctly in the following short form
"collige ...
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It was by no means in vain that I came to Rome
I wanted to ask this some time ago, but assumed that it would be dismissed as "fatuous". To my gratification, Joonas has blazed the trail with his excellent Q: Did the Romans use 'animus&...
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Is it possible to have an imperative feel without using the imperative form of a verb?
In English, we can have a sentence that doesn't include a verb but is taken as a directive. Consider the following phrase from the HBO television show, Carnivale:
Every prophet in his house.
In the ...
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'Concepturus' and 'nasciturus' in legal terminology
When speaking of the rights of and refering to the one to be conceived in Law we use "concepturus"
Which is the future active participle.
If we wanted to correctly speak of and refer to the ...
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How are the objects of comparatives handled grammatically?
I am doing some Latin exercises and the sentences are given as the following (by Rosetta Stone):
Puer plus lactis habet quam vir.
Femina plures canes habet quam vir.
In the first case ("more ...
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Which preposition should be used with contrario and why?
Is it better to say argumentum a/ab contrario or e/ex contrario?
It seems that both are acceptable but in most Romance languages it is a contrario.
The movement out/from is not clear/explicit/graphic ...
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Caesar's use of 'ad equum'
Caesar uses 'ad equum' to mean 'turning them into horses'. This is a famous quote used in OLD itself. Is this an idiom? There is no reference to 'converso' or 'mutatum'... just 'ad' although habiturum ...
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How would you describe someone as being completely alone?
If I wanted a very succinct way to say some person or thing was completely alone, how would I say this in Classical Latin? For example, if someone was drifting far out in the void of space where they ...
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What is the Role of "hoc" in Cicero's de oratore 2.25.108?
In Q: Why Does Cicero use the Third-Person Singular Instead of the Plural Form?, the following extract from Cicero's de oratore 2.25.108 was studied:
"...in quibus hoc praecipit ratio et ...
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Plural of axis mundi
The phrase axis mundi is used frequently in archaeology and art history to describe certain places as a "world center" or "center of the universe" in Indigenous or ancient/...
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how to express "indefinite distributive numerals" ("several dollars each")? is aliquoteni classical?
In answer to the question Quotiens? (How many times), one can respond with aliquotiens (several times). But for the question Quoteni? (How many of each), can he come up with aliquoteni?
For I can't ...
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A Latin motto for SpaceX
Jeff Bezos company Blue Origin has a motto “Gradatim Ferociter” or Step by Step Ferociously, although they seem to take a very long time to do anything. Elon Musk also runs a rocket company (SpaceX). ...
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What is the closest translation of "commeruero" to English?
My working understanding is best expressed as "I will have fully earned", with "commeruero" being the first-person singular future perfect active indicative form of commereo. If I ...
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