Questions tagged [verbs]
Questions concerning verbs: words describing action.
223
questions
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How to analyze and translate "non se luxu neque inertiae corrumpendum dedit" (Sal. Jug. 6)?
By taking a look at various translations of the sentence in bold below, which is excerpted from a famous portrait of Jugurtha by Sallust, one could infer that the datives luxu (cf. luxui) and inertiae ...
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2
answers
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Use of passive verb in "Echō iuvenem sēcrētō sequitur"
In chapter XIII of Latin Via Ovid, the authors have the following sentences (bolding is mine):
Ōlim Narcissus cum cēteris iuvenibus animālia fera in silvīs et montibus sequitur. Forte sōlus errat, et ...
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Where in ‘quibus vidēmus optābilīs mortēs fuisse’ is the act of choosing expressed?
Towards the end of Cicero’s Tusculan disputations book 1, he says:
Ita sunt multī, quibus vidēmus optābilīs mortēs fuisse cum glōriā.
Cic. Tusc. 1.116
My translation of this is presently ‘So many ...
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1
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What is the relationship between cubō and cumbō?
Various prefixed verbs, such as recumbō "lie back" and succumbō "collapse", seem to point at a basic form *cumbō (-ere), meaning something like "lie down".
However, as ...
6
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1
answer
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"Odoratus est" in Genesis 8:21
Genesis 8:21 says "Odōrātusque est Dominus odōrem suāvitātis". What is "odoratus est"? It looks like the perfect passive participle of "odoro", but that doesn't make ...
4
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0
answers
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Is "dante" a participle in Ps 103:28
What parts of the verb are dante and aperiente in Ps 103:28 (Vulgate)?
dante te illis colligent aperiente te manum tuam omnia implebuntur bonitate.
My guess is the ablative of the present participle (...
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To think of someone
I have been trying to translate this English phrase into Latin properly, and I started to check it in some resources.
In this text it goes: "..., cum de tuis cogitas,...". And I have no idea ...
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0
answers
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What is the best Latin counterpart for 'reach' or 'contact'?
In English you can use the verbs "reach" or "contact" to mean being in contact with someone without specifying the method.
When you don't want to specify whether you are writing a ...
4
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2
answers
84
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Omitting a verb when it is the same for both parts of the sentence
The grammar book I'm studying translates the following sentence like this:
English: The death is certain, uncertain is the day of death.
Latin: Mors certa, dies mortis incerta est.
However, I'd ...
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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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Difference between vito and caveo
I was reading De Imitatione Christi to get more familiar with the structure of a text in Latin and I notice that the author usually uses the verb caveo whenever referring to 'avoid' or 'beware' (such ...
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Could you review my translation? [duplicate]
The original song lyrics I'm translating can be found here:https://genius.com/Avicii-city-lights-lyrics
This is how I translated it. Could you help me improve it, please?
Lūcēs urbis, tollite mē.
Iam ...
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1
answer
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Creating place names from Latin verbs?
Latin words like crematorium and vomitorium seem to be made from verb + -torium
Is there a pattern to this I can follow for arbitrary verbs?
Furor + -torium = furotorium
Or
Farcio + -torium = ...
6
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1
answer
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Subject-verb agreement
In Hans Oerberg's book Familia Romana you can find this sentence: īnfrā pulmōnēs est iecur et venter (Ch. XI; lines 20-21) - shouldn't it say "sunt iecur et venter". We have two subjects in ...
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1
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What does the word "habe" (habere) mean?
I'm translating the phrase "bonum animum habe". The website that I'm using,
https://latin.cactus2000.de/showverb.en.php?verb=habere&form=habe
says that it’s an imperative present verb. ...
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3
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Dictionaries always list the Neuter Participle in principal forms, why?
I noticed that the principal forms of verbs always only include the neuter participle form, e.g.
vocare - voco, vocavi, vocatum
Is there a reason I've never seen the following?
vocare - voco, ...
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1
answer
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Are these reasonable guesses for unattested verb forms? ἤρισσαν, θεωπρόπεεν
I'm making recordings of grammar drill exercises for the Homeric dialect (example). For verbs, there is a hassle because most verbs are not actually attested in very many forms. Typically I can look ...
3
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0
answers
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Homeric verbs that never take the augment
I've been making some recordings of grammar drills for Homeric Greek (1, 2), and have been wrestling with the question of how to deal with cases where the user is supposed to produce some Greek, but ...
2
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1
answer
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How does Homer conjugate φημί in the present?
This would seem like an extremely basic question that one would just look up the answer to. However, there are literally dozens of forms of φημί in the present active indicative, and grammars don't ...
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1
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What's going on with ablaut in forms like ἔβην, βῆναι, φανῆναι?
Verb forms like ἔβην, βῆν, βῆναι, and φανῆναι seem to have some ablaut going on. My understanding of the phonological rules of ablaut in ancient Greek is from Pharr, 4th ed., p. 277, along with the ...
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"To hold a grudge" in Latin?
How does one say "to hold a grudge against someone" in Latin? A grudge is "a feeling of deep-seated resentment or ill will".
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Why κιχείη rather than κιχάνοι?
Book 1 of the Iliad has the optative form κιχείη. Wikipedia says that ordinarily we expect to see the -η- infix in singular optative forms when the verb is athematic or a contract verb. Neither seems ...
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Why do edo (eat) and edo (generate) have different forms?
Why do edo (eat) and edo (generate) have different forms?
So, for example, both are edit in the 3rd person singular. But in the 2nd person perfect, one is edisti and the other is edidisti.
They are ...
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1
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Why does the contraction rule ε+εν -> ειν apply to the formation of λύειν?
In their discussions of the formation of the infinitive, both Pharr and White remark on the contraction of -εεν to -ειν, but I don't understand why this would apply to most of the examples that come ...
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1
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Resource request: formation of the Greek infinitive, including Homeric Greek
As suggested by cmw, I'm spinning off this resource request from an earlier question that was long and unwieldy.
Can anyone suggest resources that do a good job of giving a complete presentation of ...
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0
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Is the Greek infinitive regular?
My general understanding of Greek verbs is that if you know the six principal parts, you should be able to infer all forms of the verb (although there may be complications such as contractions, the ...
2
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1
answer
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Why τράφεν rather than ἐτράφησαν?
For the verb τρέφω, to nurture, Pharr lists the principal parts for the Homeric dialect as τρέφω, θρέψω, ἔθρεψα/ἔτραφον, τέτροφα, τέθραμμαι, ἐτράφην. (Wiktionary also lists ἐθρέφθην as a possible ...
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What are the verb conjugation names called in Latin?
What are the terms in Latin for the Latin verb conjugations? I would like to also know the Latin for the mixed conjugation (or if preferred that known as the io sub conjugation) and any term for verbs ...
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Why does conscio not have four principal parts?
I have been using working through some latin translations and stumbled across conscio, -ire, -ivi in my latin dictionary, which it lists as a transitive verb meaning "to have on one's conscience.&...
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Omicron sometimes becoming omega in conjugation of ἀπόλλυμι
Homer has, for example:
Τυδέα δ’ οὐ μέμνημαι, ἐπεί μ’ ἔτι τυτθὸν ἐόντα
κάλλιφ’, ὅτ’ ἐν Θήβῃσιν ἀπώλετο λαὸς Ἀχαιῶν. (Iliad 6.222)
But Tydeus I remember not, for he left me whilst I was yet young, ...
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What would be a proper reaction to the question: "Can you come over?" or how do you say "Coming" in Latin?
In a comment to this question, JoonasIlmavirta suggests a spin-off question.
I have had this question simmering for quite some time, but this is a nice incentive.
Consider the following cross-language ...
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Do imperative verbs usually go first or does it still follow the regular SOV order?
In this example, what would make more sense:
MITTE MIHI PICTURAM PRODUCTI
or
PICTURAM PRODUCTI MIHI MITTE
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How to express singing a song rather than singing about something
If I'm understanding correctly, άείδω is used with the accusative, and it means to sing about something. In English the object of the verb would be the song, not the thing being sung about. In Greek ...
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The verb 'utor' in gerundive constructions
I was wondering about the logic of the usage of the verb utor in gerundive constructions. The following relevant quote is from Woodcock's (1959: 164) A New Latin Syntax: "one can say ad hanc rem ...
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Double accusative in abdico (abdicare cibum aliquem)
In several dictionaries I encountered under abdico (1st conj.):
Abdicare cibum aliquem (Plin.) to prohibit the use of any meat as not good (Thomas Thomasius dictionary)
Abdicare cibum aliqem (Plin. ...
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How does "send to" mean "allow to enter"?
Ayto doesn't expound the shift from "send to" toward "allow to enter"? I don't understand the "hence".
admit [15]
This is one of a host of words, from
mission to ...
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Why is the first person singular the citation form?
In both Latin and Greek, the most common citation form for a verb is the first person singular present indicative active. In other words, dictionaries will generally be indexed by amō and λύω rather ...
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1
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Why the π in ἀπιεῖ?
I wanted to pick a -μι verb to use as a paradigm to memorize for Homeric and koine, so I thought I would use ἀφίημι. I looked up the present-tense conjugation on U Chicago's morpho utility, and then ...
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0
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On the (necessary or typical?) relationship between double accusative and causation
I was wondering if there is a syntactic/semantic generalization that can account for the so-called "double accusative" predicative frame in Latin (verbs with person & thing (docere ...
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What form is 'numerārī'?
In chapter X of Orberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata there is this sentence: Piscēs numerārī nōn possunt.
From the context I would translate this as an infinitive. But the infinitive should be ...
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0
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What would the perfect stem of 'apparere' be?
Lewis and Short only give present stem forms of the verb appărĕre, appărio.
They say, quite rightly so, that it comes from ad+părĕre, and one would therefore expect the conjugation to be as that ...
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Can a finite verb modify another verb as if it were a gerund? (De manibus delapsa arma ceciderunt)
How should we interpret the connection between delapsa and ceciderunt in the following:
de manibus audacissimorum civium delapsa arma ipsa ceciderunt (Cic. De Officiis)
Naturally I could not see ...
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How do I say "Remember death, but do not forget to live" in Latin?
it's been a few years since I was in a Latin class, but I've been wanting to get a tattoo in the language for a while now, and "Remember death, but do not forget to live" is the phrase I've ...
2
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2
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127
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How to say, "I escape" in Latin?
Would it be "ego evado?"
If I put "evado" in Google translate for some reason it says it means "gain."
I want to be able to say things like,
I escape in my Corolla.
and
...
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2
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Is there a dictionary that actually shows the verb patterns?
Is there a Latin dictionary that actually show the verb patterns?
Patterns like
Adiuvare + accusative somebody
Ire + dative location
Otherwise I only see the examples and it is not possible to ...
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Why do some sources give the principal parts in a different order, or include an extra, fifth principal part?
Many online sources state categorically that ordinary (non-deponent, non-defective) Latin verbs have four principal parts. It is often also implied that they have a fixed order (1st pers. sgl. ...
6
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1
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What was the use and frequency of use of Latin "mactāre"?
In What are the key differences between the main Latin verbs meaning "to kill"? we saw a lot of verbs meaning "to kill" and the differences between them. The fun part of it is that ...
3
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Impersonal Verbs: Are Active Transitives Possible?
Latin utilizes some verbs that pretty much only occur impersonally, like oportet. One can also regularly form impersonal actives from intransitive verbs like placeo and impersonal passives from ...
3
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2
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6 types of person in verb or 3?
People always say that there 6 types of person in the conjugation of a verb:
I
he, she, it
you (single)
we
you (plural)
they
Somehow there is another group of people say that there are only 3 ...
3
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2
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Active verb with future passive and perfect participle?
How does the active verb "veniunt" work with the word "consideranda"? Almost like a periphrastic? As I have translated below:
"Ac initio quidem duo principalia decreta ante omnia consideranda ...