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Why is Imperative used here in Alexander Lenard's translation of Winnie the Pooh?
It isn't imperative. It's the ablative singular of occiput, occipitis, 'the back of the head.' So occipite gradus pulsante is ablative absolute: 'the back of his head striking the stairs'
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Is "mihi audi!" incorrect?
Your match of mihi with "to" is correct, but that's the dative case, not the genitive. The genitive is mei.
Neither case is appropriate here, though. Audio more or less contains the idea of &...
- 1,051
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Ave for plural addressee?
Plautus' havo reflects the likely Punic plural *ḥawū, but that's in the mouth of Punic-speaking characters. If that plural made it into Latin proper, it doesn't seem to show up in the literary record.
...
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11
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Forming first-person plural imperatives
Unlike some other Indo-European languages, Latin has no first-person imperatives! And it only barely has third-person ones: it has third-person "second" (or "future") imperatives, but no third-person "...
- 65.1k
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"Audi nos" translation problem
Nos can be either "we" or "us." The nominative and accusative for it are the same.
It's not that different from the English "you", which can be the subject (vos auditis, &...
cmw♦
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10
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Imperatives of derivatives of facere, dicere and ducere
To supplement Tom Cotton's answer—
There's one other verb which similarly shortens its imperative: ferō, ferre, tulī, lātus, imperative fer, ferte. Compounds always use the shortened/apocopated form (...
- 65.1k
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Are there classical examples of the imperative patere?
I don't know of a good way to distinguish patere from patēre in a corpus search, so I think you have three choices:
Look through the results.
Come up with another search that captures what you are ...
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Are the present and future imperative used together?
In Allen & Greenough p.284; section 449 (Imperative Mood):
"Phyllida mitte mihi, meus est natalis, Iolla; cum faciam vitula pro frugibus, ipse venito" (Ecl. 3.76);
"Send Phyllis ...
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Irregular aorist imperative from ἔχω
There are a handful of verbs that take -ς in the 2sg. aorist imperative: the others are δίδωμι, τίθημι, ἵημι (δός, θές, ἕς). The origin of this -ς is a mystery.
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Negative Future Imperatives
Negative future imperatives do indeed exist.
A great many can be found in the laws of twelve tables.
Example:
Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito
Do not bury a dead person in the city
Judging ...
- 111k
9
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Future Imperative of Deponents: 3 or 4 existing forms?
You are right to note that a form is missing. It should be there, as there is no obvious reason why the passive voice (or, more importantly, deponent verbs) should not have it. But according the best ...
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8
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How to order someone to want something?
I have not been able to find any attested forms of an imperative for velle (see linked question) or cupio (cupi, cupite, cupito, cupitote).
Expanding to other synonyms, though, you quickly find ...
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What is the imperative of velle?
There is no imperative of velle in Latin.
It's possible that it used to be vel, but that would have been especially archaic. From Lewis and Short:
old imperative of volo properly, "will, choose, ...
cmw♦
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Latin translation of "don't get caught"
I'd suggest a very slightly less literal translation using the verb caveo "beware", with ne and subjunctive:
Cave ne capiaris!
Literally this means "watch out you don't get caught!&...
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Do imperative verbs usually go first or does it still follow the regular SOV order?
Generally, imperatives go first, even though verbs usually go last of all in sentences or clauses. It's correct either way, but the imperative is an important part of a sentence so it gets precedence.
...
- 1,401
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How would to Romans pray to the gods: imperative v. subjunctive
If you're looking for ancient curses, defixiones ("curse tablets") are a good source. For example, here's one from Britain:
The reconstructed text reads:
Domine Neptune, tibi dono hominem ...
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Imperatives of derivatives of facere, dicere and ducere
Generally, verbs of mixed 3rd/4th conjugation and their compounds (inf. -ere, 1st. pres. sing. in -io) all follow the same pattern, which includes compounds of facio, but not facio itself — which ...
- 18k
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Is there any connection between "ave" (as in Ave Cesar) and "aveo"?
The greeting (h)ave is not related to the verb aveō 'to desire', and any dictionary that puts it under aveō 'to fare well' is reconstructing an unattested and etymologically nonsensical lemma. It's a ...
- 8,780
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Ave for plural addressee?
As has been noted here: The Latin word “Have” rather than “Ave” as a translation of the Greek word Χαῖρε?
Plautus uses the plural havo three times in his Poenulus.
- 17.5k
7
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Translating “Claim Joy” as a Personal Motto
My mind immediately went to carpe 'seize, claim, enjoy, pluck' for the verb: as well as connotations of plucking something off a tree, which seems in line with what you want, it also echoes the well-...
- 1,261
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How to translate "Carpe That Diem" properly into Latin?
Welcome to the site! I can only think of an emphatic demonstrative pronoun:
Carpe hunce diem!
The emphasis expressed by the long form of the pronoun could be interpreted as enthouasism, although ...
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Are there other perfect imperatives than memento?
The perfect imperative is effectively extinct in Latin. I have never seen it with a perfect meaning, and in fact did not realize that mementō was based on a perfect stem until fdb pointed it out (...
- 65.1k
6
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Is memento(te) semantically a future imperative?
mementō is formed from the reduplicated perfect stem (IE *me-mn-), not from the present stem (IE *men-). Thus, morphologically it is a perfect imperative, not a future imperative; the latter is always ...
- 17.5k
6
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Imperatives of derivatives of facere, dicere and ducere
I don't have enough reputation to add a comment, but I wanted to point out that at least tābefac is attested, in the Vulgate no less:
da illis formidinem et tabefac audaciam virtutis eorum et ...
- 61
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Imperatives of derivatives of facere, dicere and ducere
As Weiss 2009/2011 mentions, word-final –e is “normally retained” (p. 147; emphasis mine – Alex B.). That being said, there are some few cases when word-final –e was lost (or apocopated).
In your ...
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The difference between coniunctivus and imperativus when expressing commands
Hmm. My understanding is that the bare subjunctive as a positive request/command is actually rather rare in classical Latin. Woodcock's New Latin Syntax, p. 97, after a discussion of noli, nolite + ...
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6
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Imperative of sum - es or esto?
Es and este are the present imperative, esto and estote are the future imperative.
As far as I know, the difference between present and future imperatives is the same for all verbs, and esse is not ...
- 111k
6
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Is "Noli illud dixisse!" good Latin for "You should not have said that!"?
Woodcock in Paragraph 112 uses the imperfect subjunctive to express these meanings. Tu ne faceres tale, "you should not have behaved so", quoting Plautus. [Argentum] non redderes, "you ...
- 4,448
6
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Use of passive imperative of transitive verbs
The active order fenestram aperi is perfectly valid.
The passive one fenestram aperire is ungrammatical and it is not clear what it should mean.
Therefore there is no point in trying to translate it; ...
- 111k
6
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"Audi nos" translation problem
The key concept here is that of grammatical case.
Latin has several cases, of which two are important here: the nominative and the accusative.
Let me illustrate this through English.
In the sentence &...
- 111k
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