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 ...
- 19.8k
28
votes
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Do *Mundi* and *Mundum* mean different things?
These are the exact same word, and yes both mean "world" but no you cannot substitute them for each other. Latin is a fully inflexional language, which means that the words have endings which change ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
28
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Meaning of "dies illa" from Dies Irae
This means "illa" definitely doesn't refer to "dies".
But it does!
The word dies can be feminine, and it is here.
The feminine gender is rarer but it is the typical choice for a special day like an ...
- 111k
23
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When is "diēs" masculine, when is it feminine, and why can this word take different genders?
I believe there's no straightforward answer as to „why different usage contexts correlate to different grammatical gender“, but the etymological origin gives some insights to the gender.
Diēs comes ...
- 651
20
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What is the vocative of Gnaeus?
I searched for the vocative form Gnaee in several corpora but did not find any results. A general web search seems to reveal only automatically generated vocatives, which I would not lend much ...
- 39.5k
19
votes
Why is suus in the accusative feminine singular in this sentence?
This is a really common stumbling block for those approaching Latin from the background of a language like English, so it merits a careful step-by-step explanation. I'll break my response into two ...
- 39.5k
19
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What is the significance of the different declensions and conjugations?
It's pretty much arbitrary.
There are some standard patterns: first-declension nouns tend to be feminine, second-declension masculine/neuter, third-declension abstract concepts, fourth-declension ...
- 65.1k
19
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What are the relative frequencies of cases in Latin?
From the Perseus Database, the frequency of the cases is as follows:
Nouns (19630):
accusative 31.6%
ablative 25.8%
nominative 22.6%
genitive 13.6%
dative 4.6%
vocative 1.2%
locative 0.2%
unknown 0....
- 10.7k
19
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Is "victurus" a future participle of "vivo" and "vinco"?
Sebastian Koppehel said the important bits but I want to provide some background for people who like that sort of thing (me). Don't let this confuse you if you don't find it helpful—it can be a lot ...
- 8,779
16
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Same ending of "Mediolanensis" in "Archiepiscopus Mediolanensis" and "Archidioecesis Mediolanensis"
There are two (main) classes of adjectives in Latin:
Some adjectives use the first declension for feminines (e.g. Romana, "Roman") and the second declension for masculines and neuters (e.g. Romanus ...
- 111k
16
votes
What is the difference between Iesus and Jesu?
The phrase you quote has words in the vocative case.
Domine Fili unigenite Jesu Christe
The vocative case is used for address. That is,
O Lord, only begotten son, Jesus Christ
The particle O ...
- 12k
16
votes
What declension is the name, Aeneas?
It is of the first declension, but not of the most typical kind.
I would divide the first declension into four classes:
Case
(Feminine) A-type
Masculine A-type
Feminine E-type
Masculine E-type
...
- 111k
16
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Is "victurus" a future participle of "vivo" and "vinco"?
If you look up vivo and vinco in a dictionary, you will see that both have the same supine stem: victum. Thus they share not only the future participle, but also the two supines and the perfect ...
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14
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Why is Jesus inflected in such a way?
'Why' isn't usually a good question for these types of things, because the answer is often "just because." The Greek isn't typical, but it does have a parallel with o-contracted words like νοῦς, ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
14
votes
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Did grammarians consider the adverbial -e a case ending?
In a recent paper (included in The Latin of the Grammarians), I have made the point that Latin grammarians, unlike their Greek predecessors, did not expressly stress the uninflectional nature of ...
- 266
14
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When is "diēs" masculine, when is it feminine, and why can this word take different genders?
I can only partially answer your question. In medieval documents dies is sometimes feminine where based on classical usage we would expect it to be masculine. Examples:
Liber Pontificalis1 (~10th ...
- 1,223
14
votes
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 ...
- 30.9k
14
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Remnants of the dual number
The -ī of vīgintī "20" is originally a dual ending, the same one as in frēnī (PIE *-ih₁). This is why the ending of vīgintī is different from that of the other tens (trīgintā etc.)
- 30.9k
14
votes
Do *Mundi* and *Mundum* mean different things?
The Latin word used for "world" here is mundus.
This word has several forms (singular/plural):
nominative: mundus/mundi
accusative: mundum/mundos
genitive: mundi/mundorum
dative: mundo/mundis
...
- 111k
14
votes
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Which Latin declension is most common?
According to this study, the distribution is as follows:
1st declension 21.6%
2nd declension 23.7%
3rd declension 52.6%
4th declension 1.4%
5th declension 0.7%
("Development of Gender ...
- 10.7k
14
votes
Is "Io" accusative case in "Iuppiter, rex deorum, pulchram Io amabat"?
A number of Greek names ending in -ō have both Latin and Greek style declensions.
For example:
Greek
Latin
nom.
Dīdō
Dīdō
acc.
Dīdō
Dīdōnem
gen.
Dīdūs
Dīdōnis
dat.
Dīdō
Dīdōnī
abl.
Dīdō
Dīdōne
...
- 111k
14
votes
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Are the cases in Latin always six?
Generally, most nouns and adjectives have six cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative). However, this isn't always the case.
Some words are defective, where they appear ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
14
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Is any word attested in both vocative and locative?
Corinthus
City names regularly have locative forms (identical to the genitive singular), and it is not too rare for them to be addressed with a vocative, which takes the regular ending -e if the name ...
- 27.3k
13
votes
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Why does Latin not have an instrumental case?
I'm not sure there is more of a "why" to it than the fact that, in Latin, the ablative mostly absorbed the Proto-Indo-European instrumental's functions as the latter disappeared, just as the Greek ...
- 19.8k
13
votes
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What gender would "this" or "that" be in if there is no subject to describe?
To complete your example, it would be,
Quid est hoc? What is this?
Because "what" is neuter, whereas "who" could be masculine or feminine.
The demonstratives (hic, ille, iste, ...
- 12k
13
votes
What is the difference between Iesus and Jesu?
Ancient Latin had no separate letter for the the vowel I and the consonant Y (J in German). They were both written as I. In Medieval Latin, though, a development took place that differentiated between ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
13
votes
Meaning of "dies illa" from Dies Irae
It is the feminine nominative and refers to dies. It means “that day.”
You do not say why you think you can definitely rule it out, but I guess you think dies is masculine, which is indeed the case. ...
- 33.1k
13
votes
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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 ...
- 15.9k
13
votes
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Alternative methods of ordering declensions
It is not an ordering, but it is common in the context of historical linguistics or comparative Indo-European linguistics to categorize nouns by the ending element of the stem:
first declension is ā-...
- 27.3k
13
votes
Is "Io" accusative case in "Iuppiter, rex deorum, pulchram Io amabat"?
For unfamiliar words, it never hurts to check the dictionary. Here is what Lewis and Short have:
Īō, Iūs, and Īōn , Iōnis, f., = Ἰώ, I.a daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, beloved by Jupiter, and ...
cmw♦
- 52.2k
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