23
votes
Accepted
Why do we say that an ablative absolute has a participle?
The ablative absolute does not require a participle. It can be a noun and an adjective, as you say, or two nouns (Caesare duce urbem cepimus), or even an adjective and an accusative with infinitive (...
- 19.8k
12
votes
Why is nominative instead of ablative absolute used in 'Ibi egressi Trojani'?
Egressi Trojani is in the nominative because it's the subject of agerent. The structure of the sentence is a bit unusual, but it's clearer when you move the cum to its vanilla position before the ...
- 8,514
10
votes
Accepted
Inveniturne participium futuri activi in ablativo absoluto?
Interesting post! See the following remark included in a related question: "as pointed out by Lavency (1985: 196) in his excellent descriptive grammar of Latin (VSVS. Grammaire latine. ...
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10
votes
Scope of negation with absolute constructions
What follows is not an answer but just some initial thoughts related to your question. My first impression/intuition is like the one you express at the end of your post. I'd be surprised to find ...
- 7,511
9
votes
Accepted
What forms are the verbs in "Omnibus rebus paratis, Caesar milites naves conscendere jussit"?
You were spot on with your parsing of iussit; it is, in fact, the third person singular perfect active indicative of iubeō, iubēre, iussī, iussum.
With regards to parātīs (the macrons should give a ...
- 2,541
9
votes
Accepted
How "sōlā fidē" means what it is supposed to mean
The word solus is a little ambiguous.
While it has been discussed before (here and here), the topic is certainly not exhausted.
I can think of several translations of sola fide:
By means of the ...
- 110k
8
votes
Accepted
Is "victa serpente" an ablative absolute?
It's possible, but unlikely. First, the closeness of the words suggests a connection between them, and the commas mean the editors agreed.
More importantly, though, superbus governs an ablative. See e....
cmw♦
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7
votes
Accepted
What is the literary effect of an Ablative Absolute?
As the beginning of an answer: I doubt that anything can be said about the general literary effect of an ablative absolute, prescinding from other contextual considerations. The ablative absolute is ...
- 38.5k
7
votes
Grammatical structure of "Obsidibus imperatis centum hos Haeduis custodiendos tradit"
Absolute means "syntactically unconnected to the rest of the sentence except as an adverbial adjunct to the praedicate". The real issue here is, I believe, not whether the ablative is ...
- 19.8k
7
votes
Accepted
Present Participles: can "respicienti" be part of an ablative absolute in this sentence?
As Sumelic says, both -i and -e can be used as the ablative ending of a participle. Even so, mixing them in the same sentence would probably be unusual.
Respicienti is really a dative here; the new a....
- 19.8k
7
votes
Accepted
Can the absolute ablative be used with a prepositional phrase?
Although we do not have native competence of Latin, my impression is that alleged Ablative Absolute constructions like "Caesare Romae" or "Caesare in Hispania" are NOT possible. Or at least, after ...
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6
votes
Can the absolute ablative be used with a prepositional phrase?
It is quite a usual thing in Latin to use the ablative case to indicate the circumstances under which the main clause's action (sc. that of the main verb) happens. In such a case, the rule is that the ...
- 18k
6
votes
Is "victa serpente" an ablative absolute?
It seems most natural to me to translate that as a causal ablative.
The Delian is arrogant due to the victory over the serpent.
Compare this for example with dono laetus, "happy due to the gift", and ...
- 110k
6
votes
Accepted
Declension usage for the King on a diploma
Congratulations on your graduation!
I would translate it along these lines:
Diarized document.
During the reign of the most venerable
Carl XVI Gustav
king of Swedes,
our merciful lord,
by the order ...
- 110k
5
votes
Grammatical structure of "Obsidibus imperatis centum hos Haeduis custodiendos tradit"
Does this sentence have an ablative absolute that connects grammatically to the rest of the sentence?
As Joonas has already pointed out, this question can be answered/interpreted in different ways. ...
- 7,511
5
votes
Why do we say that an ablative absolute has a participle?
It would be impossible for me to give as exhaustive an answer as the one @Cerberus gave, so I'll just say that I always see ablative absolutes as containing implied participles.
Legione dispersa ...
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5
votes
Can a "dative of agent" appear in an Ablative Absolute construction (and, more generally, in a non-verbal context)?
Is this an example?
Cicero: sibi enim bene gestae, mihi conservatae rei publicae dat testimonium.
Perhaps it can be argued that sibi and mihi are datives of reference, but "agent" seems most ...
- 6,219
4
votes
Accepted
Can Gerundives be predicates of Ablative Absolutes?
Yes, the predicate of an ablative absolute can be a gerundive.
But the matter is complicated by the question what a real ablative absolute is and what separates it from other constructions. You have ...
- 31.7k
4
votes
Is "victa serpente" an ablative absolute?
Victa serpente is not to be interpreted/analyzed here as an "Ablative Absolute" but rather as a dominant participle construction (see below for a definition) depending on an adjective superbus, which ...
- 7,511
4
votes
Accepted
The difference between ablative absolute and a participle coniunctum
The question in the title is a bit strange, because present participles often occur in ablative absolutes. In your example, you seem to be aiming for the difference between perfect and present ...
- 31.7k
4
votes
Grammatical structure of "Obsidibus imperatis centum hos Haeduis custodiendos tradit"
Does this sentence have an ablative absolute that connects grammatically to the rest of the sentence?
I think it depends on what you mean by connecting grammatically.
It is clear that hos means ...
- 110k
3
votes
The difference between ablative absolute and a participle coniunctum
Diagramming the sentences will make clear the difference between an ablative absolute and a participle.
Accipiens litteras, Caesar nuntium mittit.
Here is how the notation works. When A and B are ...
- 15.8k
2
votes
Accepted
Why does the substantive come second in 'mutatis mutandis'?
Latin word order is free, and the parts of the absolute ablative can be in either order.
One order might be more common than the other, but tendencies should not be taken as hard rules.
To me capta ...
- 110k
2
votes
Can the absolute ablative be used with a prepositional phrase?
It's an old Q, and completely answered by @TomCotton from the point of teaching/learning the Lating language, but I think it deserves a look from another angle, a purely linguistic rather than a ...
2
votes
Accepted
Quo mortuo nuntiato (Cicero) // Ab urbe condita nuntiata (?)
I don't think nesting is a good way of describing this phenomenon. This is simply what happens when a clause with a predicate noun or adjective is transformed into an ablative absolute.
Quo mortuo ...
- 6,219
2
votes
Quo mortuo nuntiato (Cicero) // Ab urbe condita nuntiata (?)
I also lack native competence in Latin, so I offer here an unauthoritative guess, mostly for comment from more-knowledgeable users.
Quid discrimen?
I'm thinking that to native speakers, grammatical ...
- 15.8k
2
votes
Quo mortuo nuntiato (Cicero) // Ab urbe condita nuntiata (?)
If an answer based solely on your own examples would be acceptable, may I suggest the 'well-formed' examples in the second group have indeclinable substantives contributing to the Ablative Absolute. /...
- 8,613
2
votes
Accepted
participium coniunctum vs. ablative absolute of transitive deponent verbs
I don't think such a constraint exists; your sentence 2 seems well-formed. Here are two similar examples I found by searching for secuto on PHI.
Suetonius, Vita Claudii 16.11:
Notauitque multos, et ...
- 30.6k
1
vote
On the alleged ambiguity of the Ablative Absolute "Mutatis mutandis"
"mutatis mutandis" when translated into my Croatian language (which is egually synthetic language like Latin) corresponds as - promijenivši ono što treba promijeniti - and when transformed ...
1
vote
Can a "dative of agent" appear in an Ablative Absolute construction (and, more generally, in a non-verbal context)?
To the extent that the (typical) "dative of agent" has a syntactic distribution that is similar/identical to the so-called "dative of possession" (aka "dative with sum"), ...
- 7,511
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