Questions tagged [syntax]
Syntax are the rules for how sentences and phrases are constructed in a language, including word order and how words change based on their relations to other words (snl.no/syntaks).
313 questions
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LLPSI FR: Ch. 23, Ln. 34, 'colōrem mūtāuit, pallidus et tremēns...'
In LLPSI FR in Chapter 23 at line 34 is the following excerpt.
Interim Mārcus, cuius uultus ad nōmen magistrī colōrem mūtāuit, pallidus et tremēns patrem legentem spectat.
Does the phrase &...
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Indirect Discourse - Tacitus Annals 16.2
Question about the following, the last two sentences of the above: "ac forte quinquennale ludicrum secundo lustro celebrabatur, ab oratoribusque praecipua materia in laudem principis adsumpta est....
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ut....ita and subjunctive in Tacitus Annals
“ergo ut in privatis necessitudinibus proxima pignora praevalerent, ita [in re publica] populum Romanum vim plurimam habere parendumque retinenti.” Tac. Annal 15.36. As this is a direct quotation, I ...
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ut ... ita comparison
Acknowledging that the saying in all likelihood is not authentically Ciceronian, I quite like the sentiment understood to be expressed by the sentence:
ut conclāve sine librīs, ita corpus sine animā (...
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Is Adj N Adj possible?
We know that in Latin two adjectives usually cannot be juxtaposed to qualify a noun (Adj Adj N, or N Adj Adj) - see Can a noun be qualified by two juxtaposed adjectives?
But can two adjectives ...
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Can an "ablativus qualitatis" be a subject?
I was (re)reading Pinkster's (1982) interesting paper "The use of the so-called ablativus qualitatis in the function Praedicativum", a pdf version of which is directly downloadable at this ...
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Subjunctive usage, commas, and position
Could someone elaborate on why the subjunctive is used, why iis is among commas, and why the clauses are ordered as they are in the following sentence?
Officium est ejus qui praeest, iis, quibus ...
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Indirect question - future passive
I can't seem to find this in any text books or previous questions on the internet. I've learnt the sequence of tenses for indirect questions. For the future active we take the future participle and &...
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"I regret nothing"
Would I regret nothing best translate as nihil paeniteō? Many thanks for any and all insights!
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Latin Punctuation During Lists
To my knowledge, the Romans didn't use commas or colons. So, if they were listing anything, what would this originally look like? Would they continually just combine the nouns with "et" or &...
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How is the satyrical phrase "Vae me, puto concacavi me!" by Seneca the Younger grammatical? Shouldn't it be "Vae mihi, puto me concacavisse!"?
Seneca the Younger had a satyrical phrase: "Vae me, puto concacavi me." (Oh dear, I think I have shitted myself.). But it appears to be rather ungrammatical. "Vae" goes with dative,...
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Can I mix noun and verb objects with 'velle'?
As far as I know, the following two are grammatically valid:
Panem et aquam volo.
I want bread and water.
Edere et bibere volo.
I want to eat and drink.
In the first sentence the objects of velle are ...
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Can Noun Phrases qualify Latin adjectives
In LLPSI FR in Chapter 19 at line 90 is the following excerpt.
“[...] Decem annī longum est tempus, sed amor meus tempore nōn minuitur. [...]”
My inference for translation is:
Ten years is a long ...
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How does the phrase "a longe" meaning "from far away" make sense syntactically? Shouldn't it be "a longo"?
Erant autem ibi mulieres multæ a longe, quæ secutæ erant Jesum a Galilæa, ministrantes ei...
Matthæus 27:55
Most of the translations, as far as I can tell, translate "a longe" as "from ...
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What is the Sense and Syntax of this Sentence in Petrarch's De Ignorantia?
In his De Sui Ipsius et Multorum Ignorantia, Petrarch complains that some friends who came to visit him subsequently told other people that he was unlearned (indoctus, illiteratus, etc.).
He argues ...
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Relative pronouns that don't start the dependent clause
In the following text, the dative relative pronoun (or whatever it could be) does not start the clause:
Hic templum Iunoni ingens Sidonia Dido
condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae
aerea cui ...
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Weird lines in the Aeneid (Book I, lines 444-445)
I am quite confused about how I can translate the two following lines:
[Iuno] monstrarat, caput acris equi; sic nam fore bello
egregiam et facilem victu per saecula gentem.
The real difficulty comes ...
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Seeking Confirmation on Latin Phrase Translation
I am reaching out to seek confirmation on a specific Latin phrase. I have come across the sentence "UNUS PERCENT MELIUS COTIDIE," which is intended to mean "one percent better every day,...
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Examples of the most subordinate infinitive clauses combined in one sentence
Personally, I think it to be interesting when I find multiple infinitive clauses in a sentence.
Based of this structure: Cogitavi virum putavisse eum ambulavisse,” (I thought that the man thought than ...
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meaning of ἂν in Phaedo I.57b
I read in Phaedo (I.57b) :
(Ἐχεκράτης)
Αὐτός, ὦ Φαίδων, παρεγένου Σωκράτει ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ τὸ φάρμακον ἔπιεν ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ, ἢ ἄλλου του ἤκουσας;
(Φαίδων)
Αὐτός, ὦ Ἐχέκρατες.
(Ἐχεκράτης)
Τί οὖν ...
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In Late Latin (the time of Jerome), was "quia" more often used in the sense "because" or in the sense "that" (as a substitution for AcI and NcI)?
On another forum, we were discussing whether "quia" was, in Late Latin (Jerome...), more commonly used to mean "because" or to mean "that" (instead of Accusative with ...
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Is "necesse est tibi esse placidus" valid classical Latin?
Say we want to say: "you should be calm", could we use "necesse est tibi esse placidus" -- at first it sounded little odd, but on a second consideration perhaps that's fine? I was ...
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Bellum Gallicum I Specific Translation
"Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur."
In the first part of the sentence "...
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How is Petrarch using an ... an in this passage?
In Invectiva contra quendam magni status hominem, Petrarch complains that his former friend, who used to be very complimentary of him, has recently been calling him ignorant. Petrarch asked what has ...
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Exercitia Latina, Ch. 16: "...nāuigantī..."
My question stems from a task of comprehension from the exercises for Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata Familia Romana.
What is the grammatical class of "nāuigantī" in the following excerpt ...
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If a Latin sentence cannot end in a preposition, how would you say "I have never seen that before." in Latin?
If a Latin sentence cannot end in a preposition, how would you say "I have never seen that before." in Latin?
Would you say something along the lines of "Numquam illud vidi ante hoc ...
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Sentence without a verb
After finishing Haury's Latin translation of The Little Prince, namely Regulus, I found another Latin version by Alexander Winkler. In Chapter 1, I noticed this sentence (in boldface):
Semper vero ...
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What is the correct analysis of the personal dative in the so-called "double dative constructions"?
The so-called “double dative construction” contains a "dative of purpose" (e.g. maxumo terrori in ex. (1) below) and a personal dative (e.g. Numantinis in (1)) that turns out to be affected ...
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On the (alleged) ambiguity of "Fabricius a subsellis demisso capite discesserat" (Cic. Clu. 58)
Some Latinist scholars (e.g. Lavency (1986) and Longrée (2014), i.a.; see the full references at the bottom of this post) have noted that the following example from Cicero could in principle be ...
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What is μέγεθος referring to in Jewish War 3.4
In the Jewish War chapter 3.4, it says:
μόνον [οὖν] εὑρίσκει Οὐεσπασιανὸν ταῖς χρείαις ἀναλογοῦντα καὶ τηλικούτου πολέμου μέγεθος ἀναδέξασθαι δυνάμενον
"He found only Vespasian a match for the ...
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Do these Latin phrases make sense?
So I am working on a phrase I want to put on a piece of apparel I am making. The phrase in English has two lines. In English, the lines are as follows:
"The Church must always be reformed" ...
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"Qui meus tuus apud te locus, qui tuus velim ut meus"
In Letter XI of the apocryphal correspondence between Seneca and Saint Paul, the following passage is found
Haut itaque te indignum prima facie epistolarum nominandum censeas, ne
temptare me quam ...
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"Ut optimus quisque unum pro multis donatum est caput"
In this passage taken from the apocryphal correspondence between Seneca and Saint Paul (Letter XII):
Grassator iste, quisquis est, cui voluptas carnificina est et mendacium velamentum, tempori suo ...
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If blood speaks, DNA is its voice
I'm trying to come up with a motto that pays homage to my forensic background. I'm considering sanguis ipso loquitor. Before I carve it into wood, I want to make sure I've not blundered grammatically.
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Why ablative "natu" is used in these expressions?
In the novella Filia regis et monstrum horribile, by Andrew Olimpi, I have read (emphasis mine):
Fīlia prīma nātū est puella pulchra. Sed fīlia secunda nātū pulchrior est quam soror sua. [...] Fīlia
...
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What does Martin Waldseemüller mean by "asie partis" in his map Carta Marina?
This webpage from Spanish BBC talks about the second main map by Martin Waldseemüller, the first mapper to name the continent America, called Carta Marina. There, we see the southern portion of ...
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Usage of ablative in a sentence by Curtius
This text comes from Quintus Curtius Rufus Historiae Alexandri Magni, book 3, chapter 5 (emphasis mine):
Mediam Cydnus amnis, de quo paulo ante dictum est, interfluit. Et tunc aestas erat, cuius ...
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Why ablative "corporibus" and "funeribus" are used in this excerpt from Tacitus "Annals" XVI?
In Tacitus Annals XVI, 13, one can read (emphasis mine on the words that cause me difficulty):
Vastata Campania turbine ventorum, qui villas arbusta fruges passim disiecit pertulitque violentiam ad ...
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Do my Latin phrases make sense?
I'm attempting to create a Latin motto or saying to be used in a short story that I'm writing and want to ensure that it makes grammatical sense. I've attempted to figure this out by myself, but just ...
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LLPSI: Ch. 14, Ln. 38, "et oculōs aperiēns..."
My question stems from a passage of Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata Familia Romana in chapter 14 on page 104 beginning at line 38 as follows.
Question
Does "aperiēns" modify oculōs even ...
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About the nominative on "dimitte nobis debita nostra"
The phrase
dimitte nobis debita nostra
belongs to the famous prayer Our Father in Latin.
I can understand that dimitte is in the active imperative singular form and nobis is on dative of "us&...
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LLPSI: Ch. 13, Ln. 120, 'Hōc annī tempore...'
My question stems from a passage of Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata Familia Romana in chapter 13 on page 99 beginning at line 120 as follows.
Question
What is the role of “Hōc annī tempore” in the ...
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Haec verba tandem mercātōrem perturbātum aliquid cōnsōlāri videntur
In page 236 line 12–126 of lingua latina per se illustrata there is the following sentence
Haec verba tandem mercātōrem perturbātum aliquid
cōnsōlāri videntur.
I gets to me that it is trying to say ...
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Syntax of sentences with the verb "pudet"
In Lewis and Short, I have seen that the verb pudeo is chiefly used as an impersonal verb. In fact, I have found some examples of such usage in chapter XXIII of Lingua latina per se illustrata. ...
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Position of reflexive pronouns
In Allen and Greenough all the examples of reflexive pronouns have them come before the verb, but Pliny the Younger in e.g. letter 6.20.11 has 'non moratus ultra proripit se effusoque cursu...' and ...
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Translation of "Fluctuat nec mergitur"
Hello fellow native speakers,
For a tattoo with my sisters I wanted to translate the Latin motto “Fluctuat nec mergitur”, used by the city of Paris, into English.
Searching for the correct translation ...
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How would you understand this sentence from Karlstadt's commentary on Augustine's de Spiritu et littera?
In his Augustinkommentar, Karlstadt attacks the opinions of many Catholic "scholastic" theologians. In this passage, he seems to attack both the Thomists and Gabriel Biel, but I lose the ...
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What's the role of the word "scribam" in this Cicero's sentence?
This sentence comes from a letter by Cicero to Atticus written when the former is in exile. It can be found in Epistulae ad Atticum 3, 5:
Ad te quid scribam nescio.
I understand that "nescio&...
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How would you say "I can't help but wonder whether..." in Latin?
I am trying to translate the lyrics of the Eric Bogle's song "The Green Fields of France" to Latin. The first two verses of the last stanza of the song are:
And I can't help but wonder, oh ...
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ut sibi complaceam in Stabat Mater
Verse 10 of the Stabat Mater reads:
Fac ut ardeat cor meum/
in amando Christum Deum/
ut sibi complaceam.
I am stumped by "sibi" in line 3. Most translations give "that I may please him&...
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