41
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Accusative equals nominative for neuter words – how universal is this and why?
I believe there are no exceptions to this rule. That's what I have always read, and I have never encountered any, neither in Greek nor in Latin, nor even in German.
There is an hypothesis about the ...
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20
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How do we know that Italian words come from accusatives, not ablatives?
Professor Martin Maiden (Professor of the Romance Languages, Fellow of Trinity College) writes that
"The overwhelming majority of modern nouns and adjectives [in Italian - Alex B.] appear to ...
- 11.6k
19
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Why is an accusative mode needed?
Languages are full of redundancy. So I think the premise of this question—that the accusative case is "needed"—is problematic. For example, there isn't a need for English speakers to use the plural in ...
- 27.3k
15
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How do we know that Italian words come from accusatives, not ablatives?
Italian noun and adjective forms are not derived exclusively from Classical Latin accusative forms:
Sometimes an Italian form comes from the Classical Latin nominative, as in the singular form of the ...
- 27.3k
14
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Accusative equals nominative for neuter words – how universal is this and why?
To answer your second question, this rule is completely exceptionless, not only in Latin but in all Indo-European languages (that is, those that have a neuter gender at all).
neuter gender always ...
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14
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Can a verbum deponens go along with an accusativus?
Yes, a deponent verb can have an accusative object just like non-deponent verbs do.
If I threaten someone with something in Latin, then alicui aliquid minor.
The person (or other entity) being ...
- 111k
13
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Is "servos" accusative plural in Plautus's "is est servos ipse" and, if that's the case, why does "esse" takes accusative case there?
To expand a little on Joonas's answer, the nominative singular ending in Latin was originally /os/ for all masculine nouns of the second declension, which developed to /us/ as part of a more general ...
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13
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Why is *dōna* the plural acc. Instead of *donos* like the rest of the 2nd declensions?
Dōnum is neuter; amīcus, fīlius, and ager are masculine. Neuter nouns are always the same in both the nominative and accusative case, in both singular and plural. See this question for more about how ...
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13
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Why is "O felicem virum, beatum Ioseph" in the accusative case here?
The vocative is used when addressing someone. The fact that it isn't used in the first part of this prayer makes me think that that portion is not meant to be addressed to Joseph (unlike the "Ora ...
- 27.3k
12
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Is "servos" accusative plural in Plautus's "is est servos ipse" and, if that's the case, why does "esse" takes accusative case there?
It is servŏs in both instances, not servōs.
The old form of the nominative has the ending -os instead of the later -us.
What you see is indeed the singular nominative, but not in the form ...
- 111k
12
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Confusion regarding 'esse' + accusative
It's not that esse takes the accusative—it's that cupiō takes the accusative, and esse links two things in the same case. In other words, regem is accusative because mē is accusative, and mē is ...
- 65.1k
11
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Why is the accusative not used in Judges 5:23?
Since the word comes from male dico, it traditionally took the dative for the same reason that dico takes it. The dative expresses to whom something is spoken or for whom the speech is beneficial (or, ...
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11
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Why does "Hominem unius libri timeo" use comparativus unius instead of positivus unum?
It looks like a comparative (cf. facilius, melius, and many others) but it is in fact a genitive.
Thus unius libri is "of one book".
The word unus has an unusual declension:
nom: unus, una, ...
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11
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Why is accusative pronoun "te" used in this construction?
These two sentences involve different analyses, which can be shown by using the following test: replacement of the infinitive (clause) by the neuter pronoun hoc. In the first example the infinitival ...
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10
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Audire, with accusative or dative?
Actually, your quote from the Vulgate isn't an example of audire + dative! Though auditis is spelled the same as the present 2nd person plural ("You [pl.] hear"), it is actually an ablative perfect ...
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10
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What is the difference between "in umerīs" and "in umerōs"?
In + ablative means "in/on something" while doing the verb.
In + accusative means "into/onto something", i.e. the verb involves moving/transferring something else into/onto the ...
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10
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Should these "vellus" be "vellerum"?
Vellus is a neuter noun, and neuter nouns have the same form in both the nominative and accusative cases.
The proper accusative singular of vellus is vellus. Vellerum, meanwhile, is the genitive ...
cmw♦
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9
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Difference between Vocative and Accusative usage
The vocative is the case used for addressing someone. If you said to your friend Mike, "Hey, Mike, I think your sister is swell," "Mike" would be in the vocative case. Or if you found someone in your ...
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9
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Accusativus 'Graecus' pertinetne ullo modo ad accusativum temporis?
Tibi Anglige respondeo, quo facilior responsus meus sit lectu ceteris.
Latin has an ablativus respectus construction.
An example is given my Latin sentence above: there 'lectu' means "from the point ...
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9
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Why did Medieval Latin use "ad" with the accusative instead of just using the dative?
I'm not sure there is a "why", but it probably happened under the influence of contemporary vernacular languages and/or Vulgar Latin, since French, Italian, and Spanish also use more prepositions than ...
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9
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Why nominative instead of accusative with verb "sum"?
In all Indo-European languages that I know, copulae are intransitive and normally take the nominative. So everything below will apply to other Indo-European languages, too.
It is important to ...
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9
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Unsure why the accusative relative pronoun is used? [Tacitus Annals 2.24]
I think corpora equorum must be the subject of the clause, with quos its object, and the verb tolerare being used with the following sense per Lewis and Short:
Transf., to support a person or thing, ...
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8
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When to use the Greek accusative?
Among Bennett (§180), Allen & Greenough (§397b), and Gildersleeve & Lodge (§338), the last provides the most detail on this construction.
Two varieties are identified:
Definite: The ...
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8
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Accusative equals nominative for neuter words – how universal is this and why?
For the sake of completeness, it seems worth noting that there's one odd exception.
The gerund is a noun derived from a verb, representing an action (for example, volāndum "flying"). For the most ...
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8
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Happy Birthday and the accusative of exclamation
I think the accusative of exclamation is the best choice here.
Its use can often be viewed as an elliptic sentence.
When I write a birthday card in Latin, I often write iucundum diem natalem tibi ...
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8
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Why does ‘lūdīs’ end in a short syllable in Ov. Ep. Sapph. 16?
It is a second-person singular verb form lūdis, “you play” (lūdō, lūdere).
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8
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Verb + esse + predicate nominative
This is called a nominativus cum infinitivo, which is possible with intellegitur because the finite verb is passive. Debeo normally has a mere infinitive with it, so there is no indirect statement ...
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8
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Why is *dōna* the plural acc. Instead of *donos* like the rest of the 2nd declensions?
This is because of the gender of the noun. Donum is neuter, wheras filius, amicus, etc, are masculine. The plural accusative for 2nd declension neuter nouns is -a.
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Are the following "prep. + accusative"'s used for location?
The idea that accusative means motion toward, ablative means location or motion away from, can be a good rule of thumb. There are some prepositions, like in and sub, which can take either case; in ...
- 65.1k
7
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Happy Birthday and the accusative of exclamation
Traupman drives me crazy, because some of the stuff in that book is well attested, and some of it I believe he just made up, and he doesn't tell you which is which. ARGH. (That said, he also presents ...
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