Questions tagged [pronouns]
For questions about pronouns.
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How can you best teach possessive pronouns to English-speaking students?
Background
Latin and Germanic languages such as German, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and probably several more, have a specific word to denote possession: As Latin says suus, sua, suum, I as a ...
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First Declension Singular, Gen or Dat?
I'm learning the first declension and I am confused on how the word "terrae" is used as a genitive but can be used as a dative. How do I translate if I am given just the word "terrae?&...
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What is the difference for these words for "which"?
There are three main choices for expressing the idea of "which" in Latin:
qui
quinam
quisnam
How do you choose which one to use in which situation? So, I am asking both for interrogatives ...
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Oblique cases and 'si quis'
It is convenient to formulate conditions with si quis, for example:
Si quis me audiet canentem, non gaudebit.
If anyone hears me singing, they will not enjoy it.
Here the same unnamed person is the ...
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Usage of quidquid: "dominetur piscibus aquatilibus ... et quidquid in terra movetur"
In Gen. 1:26 by Sebastian Castellio:
ita fatur: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram, nostri similem, qui dominetur piscibus aquatilibus, volucribus aereis, pecudibus, denique toti terrae, et ...
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What is the relation and history of 'si' and 'sic'?
Lewis and Short tell me that sic comes from si by adding the particle -ce.
I can understand sice wearing down to sic, but I do not quite understand how I am supposed to understand the meanings of the ...
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Does the indefinite pronoun/determiner "quă" only exist as an enclitic?
I recently learned that there is an indefinite determiner and pronoun quă used in the feminine nominative singular and neuter nominative/accusative plural with the sense "any(one)" (...
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What is the etymology of 'cuius' and is it different from 'quis'?
'cuius' (and 'cui') is an interesting word in that it stands out as different from the other terms in the declension of 'quis'.
It seems to be pronounced differently. 'quis' is /kwis/ but 'cuius' is /...
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Interrogative pronouns about animals (Quis aut quid)
If I want to ask the question about the dog, whose name is Cerberus should I ask
Quis est Cerberus?
or
Quid est Cerberus?
Do we use quis or quae (according to gender) about animals or quid?
What ...
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When is quis used instead of aliquis?
I definitely remember that one usually says: si quis veniret … and not: si aliquis veniret. But the recent question about quo quisque est sollertior and similar forms brought the following rule from ...
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The function of "quo" in "Quō quisque est sollertior, hōc docet īrācundius"
In A&G on indefinite pronouns there are two sentences of a similar structure:
Bonus liber melior est quisque quō mâior. (The larger a good book is, the better.)
Quō quisque est sollertior, hōc ...
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Can 'quod' refer to the previous speaker?
It is quite common to start a Latin sentence with quod, referring to the matter discussed in the previous sentence.
In a dialogue, can one use it to refer to the previous thing even if it was uttered ...
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Meaning of "dies illa" from Dies Irae
The first verse from "Dies Irae" goes like
Dies irae, dies illa
I'm trying to understand what "illa" is referring to.
According to the declension table for pronouns, "illa" corresponds either to ...
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Difference between αὐτός and οὗτος
In the sentence οὗτος λέγει ὅτι αὕτη τὸ βιβλίον γράφει translated by "He says that she is writing the book." would the meaning change if οὗτος was substituted by αὐτός thus forming the sentence αὐτός ...
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Confused about the use of "quae" as an interrogative word
Sometimes, I read that "quae" could be used, not only as a relative word, but also as an interrogative word.
Sometimes I read that it's not like that in the correct usage.
Quote, from a fellow Latin ...
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The Plural Forms of "Uterque"
Following on from "Uter vs Uterque"; it is clear that "'uterque' can be translated as 'both [of two]' but it might be better to think of it as 'each [of two]'. The reason is that 'uterque', like 'each'...
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Do imperatives trigger reflexive pronouns in Latin?
In English, imperative verbs have "invisible subjects": syntactically, they act like there's an invisible pronoun in the subject position. This is why we see look closely at yourself instead of *look ...
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On the interpretation of "ipse" in anticausative constructions
After having answered a question on "ipse" from a very different perspective (a philosophical one: [Does 'ipse' truly mean change? ), I return to linguistics: now I was wondering if ipse must ...
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Is ipsum/ipsa/ipse a third person pronoun, or can it serve other functions?
This question was inspired by a comment to an answer on this question:
How would you say “same thing” in Latin?
In which an answerer translated "Utinam idem sentires ac ipsa/ipse sentio!" as "If ...
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Was the old ablative pronoun "med" or "mēd"?
In Classical times, the first singular ablative pronoun ("from me") was mē, with a long ē. However, the older form seems to have been med, with a final -d.
Do we know whether this earlier form was ...
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How to express "the best myself" in latin?
I am currently trying to translate
"May I forge the best me"
"May I forge" seems easily translated as the present subjunctive first person "excudam". However, I can't find how to express the rest. I ...
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How do you address someone in a case other than the vocative?
Suppose I'm talking to someone directly, and use a pronoun to refer to someone. I would use tu or vōs with an appropriate case based on its role in the sentence: for example, sciō tē adesse, "I know ...
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What do I do when a pronoun refers to both a male and a female?
I'm trying to refer to a couple (man and woman), with a pronoun. Specifically what I'm trying to write is:
Consider a couple that comes to Rome. They may have pride for Rome.
What I have now is:
...
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Mors mea or mors meī?
If I wanted to talk about "the death of Caesar", I wouldn't think twice about using the genitive (mors Caesaris). But if you asked me what sort of genitive this is—possessive, partitive, or objective—...
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Quispiam, quisquam, quivis, quidam, quilibet?
Including the variations with qualis, quantus and quotus, is there a specific rule to when to use each these undefined pronouns?
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"Felix est rex is quem omnes cives amant". Is the pronoun "is" necessary?
Considering the original phrase:
The king who all citizens love is happy.
(Portuguese: Feliz é o rei a quem todos os cidadãos amam.)
Here is a proposed Latin translation:
Felix est rex is quem ...
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Is 'hoc' ever pronounced short?
I have learned that the neuter nominative and accusative hoc is actually pronounced as if it were hocc.
But was it exclusively hocc?
Was it ever pronounced as the hoc that it looks like in the ...
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Pairs like quot/tot and quantum/tantum
There seem to be a lot of pairs of words in Latin where a "question" starts with qu- and the corresponding "answer" by t-.
For example: quot/tot, quantum/tantum, qualis/talis, quotiens/totiens.
The ...
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Why do some pronoun nominatives look like vocatives?
The forms ipse, ille, and iste look like vocatives instead of nominatives, and one would expect to see ipsus, illus, and istus instead.
In fact, ipsus is attested but far rarer than ipse, but the ...
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Why ĭdem instead of iddem or īdem in neuter?
The pronoun idem/eadem/idem appears to be the combination of is/ea/id and -dem.
I can understand why isdem > īdem in the masculine, but why do we have iddem > ĭdem?
Shouldn't the vowel be ...
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Can aliquis function as an adjective?
Aliquis is typically a pronoun, but can it also function as an adjective like aliqui? For example, aliqui homo currit versus aliquis homo currit.
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What is the difference between "ubi" and "in quo" as relative adverbs?
Let's start with some example sentences:
This is the house where I was born.
Ecce domus ubi natus sum.
This is the house in which I was born.
Ecce domus in qua natus sum.
Both sentences ...
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Does Latin have a mechanism to disambiguate possessive pronouns of the same gender referring to distinct persons?
Question: does Latin have a grammatical mechanism to disambiguate the ambiguous use of `his' in the third of the three following English sentences?
Person A wrote a book.
Then person B wrote a ...
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What does the -met ending mean in "vosmet" or "temet"
I don't understand where vosmet and temet came from. I know vos and te as pronouns, but what is the -met ending? Is that from some other language? Is it used anywhere else? It seems irregular. Why ...
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How can "everyone" be singular or plural?
I don't understand how quisque and quique are different. How can a pronoun referring to all people be singular or plural? In which situations would one use either of these?
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Why is -d used instead of -m for most neuter pronouns
There is a notable set of pronouns that use -d for the neuter nominative and accusative:
iste > istud
ille > illud
quis > quid
is > id
Other pronouns do not:
hic > hoc
ipse > ipsum (though L&S ...
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Do adverbs derived from iste have a pejorative tone?
I would call the pronoun iste a "second person demonstrative pronoun"1, meaning roughly "that thing near you".
It can also have a pejorative tone, implying that the speaker does not approve of the ...
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Is a relative pronoun commonly used as a third person pronoun? (Metamorphoses I.583-587)
In this short passage by Ovid, the pronoun "quam" seems to be used as a third person pronoun.
Inachus unus abest imoque reconditus antro
fletibus auget aquas natamque miserrimus Io
luget ut ...
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Is there a difference between -vis and -libet?
The pronouns quivis and quilibet both mean "anyone", and utervis and uterlibet both mean "either one".
The suffixes -vis and -libet seem to have a pretty similar effect.
(I am not sure if there are ...
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Unnecessary genitive being used with 'suum'
I am not sure how to translate
Augustus affirmāvit genūs suum ab Iove ortum esse.
One can logically conclude that this much of the sentence is correct...
Augustus affirmed that ... ...
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A question regarding the agreement of possessive pronouns
So I have the following to translate:
Coronas pulchras filia mea parva portat.
And the book answer is:
My little daughter carries beautiful wreaths.
But what I initially thought:
The ...
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Expressing the relationship "his" in latin
So I have the following sentence which I have to translate into Latin:
The farmer gives his daughter water.
The parts which I found easy: Agricola ... aquam dat.
I don't know how to express "his" ...
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Reference with hic, is and ille
Consider this example:
Ecce Marcus et Gaius. Hic canit, ille auscultat.
Here are Marcus and Gaius. The latter sings, the former listens.
When there are two or more things one could refer to, hic ...
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How to indicate gender of ambiguous pronoun antecedent
Consider the following sentence (a little contrived, but you can imagine a better example...):
Do you like their friends? -I only like her friends.
The obvious word-for-word translation does not ...
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Why is suus in the accusative feminine singular in this sentence?
I'm a very new Latin learner - I'm using Lingua Latina as my primary text to become fluent in reading (with the 'college' supplement and other texts for additional clarification).
I'm on chapter 6 (...
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"Us versus them" - opposite of "noster"?
Noster can mean "one of us" in a symbolic way; L&S mentions that noster eris "you will be one of us" was a set expression for welcoming a deserter into the army, for instance.
The English ...
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Libera te tutemet ex inferis vs. Libera temet [ipsum] ab inferis?
In a movie (Event Horizon, spoilers ahead), you have this Latin phrase they think they heard and what it ends up being :
Liberate me... Libera te tutemet (ex inferis).
There's always the ...
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What does the clause "quae suae salvationis causa exstitit" mean?
I'm having difficulty parsing the following sentence from Alfonsi's Dialogi contra Iudaeos, particularly the clause in bold:
Dies Dominica, dies, viz. resurrectionis, quae suae salvationis causa ...
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Can I combine a possessive pronoun and the genitive of a noun?
Today in chat we spoke briefly about an earlier discussion I had had with Cerberus in Latin.
(In case you did not know, we have a chatroom for this site.)
I realized that I do not know how to put both ...
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When did nouns and adjectives derived from pronouns appear?
Latin has some nouns and adjectives derived from pronouns:
unicus, identitas, qualitas, neutralis…
I have the impression that such derivations are mainly later than classical, but I do not ...
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