modus.irrealis wrote:L: dico me videre te (present infinitive)
I: dico di vederti / dico di vedere te (present infinitive)
Are you really saying that
dire in Italian can take an infinitive construction with
di to mean "say that"? And it's not just like French
dire with
de plus infinitive, meaning "tell (someone) to"
KingHarvest wrote:When you show something, call it by the right name. You would like to show the Latin INFINITIVE CLAUSES and their relation with the Italian language, namely the consecutio temporum of the infinitive clauses (while I showed the much more complex and refined consecutio temporum of the subjunctive mood in the subordinate clauses as regards Latin and Italian).
Oh, le sigh. I was talking about indirect discourse/statement, which is, in fact, what you will find this information listed under in English grammars of Latin since that is what we call it in English. We tend to prefer not to use the native Latin names for particular clauses.
But the infinitive is even more used. So, the right example is:
To claim that the infinitive construction is more commonly used is omitting one important fact (and I should’ve used “I say that he sees you,” etc. in order to prevent you from misrepresenting facts): such an infinitive clause can only be used when the subject of the main and the subordinate clause are the same. Of course, “dico di vederti” is also not actually a continuation of Latinate grammar but coincidence.
Of course "dico di vederti" and generally the Italian infinitive clauses are clearly a continuation of Latinate grammar in the language that more directly than the other Romance languages derives from Latin. It is a nonsense to state the opposite.
By the way I had also forgotten to underline that besides the infinitive subordinate clause with “di + infinitive” that is used when the subject of the subordinate clause is the same of the one of the main clause, in Italian, epistemic verbs and verbs of saying (verbs that introduce the Latin infinitive clause) can introduce subordinate infinitive clauses also when the subject of the subordinate clause differs from the subject of the main clause. In this case there is not any preposition (i.g. “di”) introducing the infinitive tense. The subject of the infinitive clause appears in the main clause if the infinitive clause is a subordinate clause depending on an other subordinate one (.i.g. a relative clause), otherwise it appears in the infinitive clause itself.
_Ritengo
dover tuo fratello tornare a casa, “
I believe to-have your brother to come back home”
_Le persone che suppongo
non essere state messe al corrente delle vostre decisioni sono molte; “
The persons that
I suppose not to have been acquaited with your decisions are many”
_La donna che Mario affermava
non volerlo sposare era mia sorella, “
The woman that
Mario stated not to want to marry him was my sister”
_Quante di queste persone possiamo ritenere
aver sempre
fatto il loro dovere?, “How many of these
persons can
we believe to have always done their duties?”
_Questa commissione ritiene
aver loro sempre
ottemperato agli obblighi previsti dalla legge, “This
commission believes to-have they/them always
fulfilled the legal duties”
_La sola persona che Gianni afferma
aver sempre
fatto il suo dovere è Mario, “
The only person that
Gianni asserts to have always
done his duty is Mario”.
_Ritengo
aver lui dichiarato alla stampa estera che la situazione è in rapido peggioramento, “
I believe to-have he declared to the foreign press that the situation is rapidly getting worse
_La stampa estera, alla quale ritengo
aver lui dichiarato che la situazione è in rapido peggioramento dà segni di inquietudine, “The foreign press to whom
I believe to-have he stated the the situation is rapidely getting worse manifests preoccupation”.
The same with impersonal verbs:
_ Sembra
piovere: It seems it rains.
Chiusa la parentesi e chiarita una questione altrimenti inconclusa, senza sperderci in ulteriori rivoli, possiamo tornare sull'ultimo argomento considerato, vale dire la varietà sintattica nelle diverse lingue romanze, con riferimento particolare alla comparazione fra Italiano e Spagnolo.