Latina lingua - Psi-Lord

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Latina lingua - Psi-Lord

Postby Psi-Lord » 2007-12-24, 22:48

Although I started studying Latin almost ten years ago, and then had it for one year at university, I’ve never really gone too far with it, and always ended up dropping it for one reason or another. This time, however, I made up my mind about starting from scratch and sticking to it, and so I’ve been studying Latin again since around the beginning of the month. I’m studying it on my own, and, although I’ve got a couple of very good support materials (both in paper and online, and both in English and Portuguese), I’m mostly following Napoleão Mendes de Almeida’s Gramática Latina, which is both a grammar book and a course. I’ve been able to go through it quite well so far, but it seems I’ve finally got stuck on a couple of points and can’t help reaching out for some guidance.

The lessons are usually set with throughout explanations about the topic they’re on, then general questions on the points presented, and finally translation exercises (both from Latin to Portuguese and vice-versa). Right now I’m in lesson 54, ‘Compounds of Sum’. The following are the sentences I got stuck on, and I’d really appreciate it if someone could give me some hints about the problems I’m having with them.

First, the translations from Latin (which I’ve then translated from my Portuguese versions into English for the sake of exposing my doubts more clearly, of course, even though I’m sure I can lose something in the process):

Prudentia abest a malitia distatque plurimum.

Although this one wasn’t particularly difficult, I thought it sounded a bit awkward in Portuguese, so I’m not sure my translation is correct: ‘Prudence is distinct from wickedness and stands apart from it.’

Inter meam domum et tuam interest flumen et pons.

When I first looked at it, it posed no mystery, until I paid attention to the verb itself. My initial translation was just ‘There are a river and a bridge between my house and yours’, but since flumen et pons is the subject, I’d have expected intersunt, so I’m puzzled – am I missing something obvious or do I just lack knowledge on some special agreement issue going on here? I see in Charles E. Bennett’s A Latin Grammar (§ 255, 2) that the verb may agree with just the nearest subject when it comes before it, but I can’t tell whether that’s the case here because I haven’t been taught anything about that in Almeida’s course yet.

Quid hoc mihi profuit? Immo obfuit.

This is a typical case of a sentence the sense of which I’m quite sure of, but which I can’t put together grammatically. Almeida is kind enough to point out that hoc is the subject and quid the direct object, and I’m positive that translates along the lines of ‘How was this useful for me? On the contrary, it was prejudicial.’ I’m probably confused because of prosum governing the dative and then quid being accusative, and also possibly because I’m not being able to translate quid itself properly (as I can’t make it fit as ‘what?’, ‘which?’ in this exact context).

Then, two sentences I’ve just remembered from an earlier lesson (lesson 52, ‘3rd and 4th Regular Active Conjugations’). These were to be translated into Latin. I’ll give the original Portuguese sentences below, then my own English translations of them, and then the Latin translations I came up with, and finally mention the exact point I’m curious about.

‣ O inimigo se aproxima para devastar os campos.
‘The enemy approaches in order to devastate the fields.’

Almeida explicitly pointed that para devastar (‘in order to devastate’) was to be translated with the Future Participle, so I came up with:

Hostis agros vastaturus appropinquat.

So far, so good (sorta). Then, however, the next sentence of the exercises was:

‣ Vou para ver os jogos.
‘I’m going (in order) to see the games.’

My rendering of it:

Eo ludos spectatum.

In this case, as Almeida didn’t indicate anything special about it, I used the Supine, since ‘(in order) to see’ comes after a verb of motion and expresses a purpose. No problems with this concept. The question I’ve got in mind, however, then is – if appropinquo, from the sentence before this one, is also a verb of motion, and devastating the fields is the enemy’s purpose, why was I asked to use the Future Participle instead of the Supine there?
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Postby Jalethon » 2007-12-24, 23:17

‣ Prudentia abest a malitia distatque plurimum.

Although this one wasn’t particularly difficult, I thought it sounded a bit awkward in Portuguese, so I’m not sure my translation is correct: ‘Prudence is distinct from wickedness and stands apart from it.’


I reckon the sentence translates to: "Prudence is free from wickedness and distincts from great many a thing." I'm guessing 'distat' is aiming at 'plurimum.'


‣ Inter meam domum et tuam interest flumen et pons.

When I first looked at it, it posed no mystery, until I paid attention to the verb itself. My initial translation was just ‘There are a river and a bridge between my house and yours’, but since flumen et pons is the subject, I’d have expected intersunt, so I’m puzzled – am I missing something obvious or do I just lack knowledge on some special agreement issue going on here? I see in Charles E. Bennett’s A Latin Grammar (§ 255, 2) that the verb may agree with just the nearest subject when it comes before it, but I can’t tell whether that’s the case here because I haven’t been taught anything about that in Almeida’s course yet.


Sounds about right, although I'm not sure about the rules pertaining to this matter.


Hostis agros vastaturus appropinquat.

So far [...] The question I’ve got in mind, however, then is – if appropinquo, from the sentence before this one, is also a verb of motion, and devastating the fields is the enemy’s purpose, why was I asked to use the Future Participle instead of the Supine there?


From what I see, the meaning is not "The enemy approaches in order to devastate the fields." whereas vastaturus is an adjective, which renders the sentence "The enemy [who is] about to devastate, approaches the fields." Seeing there's no other object stated as to what the enemy is about to destroy, I think we can safely assume he'll destroy the fields.

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Postby Psi-Lord » 2007-12-25, 0:54

Jalethon wrote:
‣ Prudentia abest a malitia distatque plurimum.

Although this one wasn’t particularly difficult, I thought it sounded a bit awkward in Portuguese, so I’m not sure my translation is correct: ‘Prudence is distinct from wickedness and stands apart from it.’

I reckon the sentence translates to: "Prudence is free from wickedness and distincts from great many a thing." I'm guessing 'distat' is aiming at 'plurimum.'

First, good thing you reminded me of plurimum, because I forgot about it when giving my English version. :oops: As for it being the object from which prudence is different, though, I think this wouldn’t be the case here because the author of my book gives plurimum in the vocabulary list for this specific exercise as being an adverb in the sentence, not a noun, so that, from the start, I couldn’t see it as being anything but along the lines of ‘and [prudence] is very distinct from it [= wickedness]’. Wasn’t it for his pointing that out, though, I guess I’d have gone your way as well.

Jalethon wrote:
Psi-Lord wrote:Hostis agros vastaturus appropinquat.

So far [...] The question I’ve got in mind, however, then is – if appropinquo, from the sentence before this one, is also a verb of motion, and devastating the fields is the enemy’s purpose, why was I asked to use the Future Participle instead of the Supine there?

From what I see, the meaning is not "The enemy approaches in order to devastate the fields." whereas vastaturus is an adjective, which renders the sentence "The enemy [who is] about to devastate, approaches the fields." Seeing there's no other object stated as to what the enemy is about to destroy, I think we can safely assume he'll destroy the fields.

I can see what you mean (although only now that I depart directly from the Latin version, and not from the original Portuguese sentence I translated from), and I suppose it makes a lot of sense (though I then wish the author would’ve made life easier by rephrasing his Portuguese sentence, which did incline me towards thinking of the devastation of the fields as the enemy’s purpose for approaching instead of a consequence of it, if you know what I mean).

A follow-up reasoning, though – instead of ‘The enemy who is about to devastate approaches the fields’, I guess it makes even better sense to tweak it slightly as ‘The enemy who will devastate the fields approaches’, doesn’t it? I mean, keeping agros as the object of vastaturus instead of of appropinquat, since, in order to have it in this second situation, one should have ad agros appropinquat, right?
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Postby Jalethon » 2007-12-25, 1:20

First, good thing you reminded me of plurimum, because I forgot about it when giving my English version. As for it being the object from which prudence is different, though, I think this wouldn’t be the case here because the author of my book gives plurimum in the vocabulary list for this specific exercise as being an adverb in the sentence, not a noun, so that, from the start, I couldn’t see it as being anything but along the lines of ‘and [prudence] is very distinct from it [= wickedness]’. Wasn’t it for his pointing that out, though, I guess I’d have gone your way as well.


Yes I considered that. Works like that as well.


A follow-up reasoning, though – instead of ‘The enemy who is about to devastate approaches the fields’, I guess it makes even better sense to tweak it slightly as ‘The enemy who will devastate the fields approaches’, doesn’t it? I mean, keeping agros as the object of vastaturus instead of of appropinquat, since, in order to have it in this second situation, one should have ad agros appropinquat, right?


Not necessarily. The accusative case shows motion already. So saying 'agros appropinquat' already shows the direction of the movement. Adding 'ad' would make something like: 'He approaches towards the fields.' In other words, a bit redundant.

"‘The enemy who will devastate the fields approaches.’" Is a partially yes and partially not a viable paraphrase: You see, the sentence will be: "The enemy who will devastate the fields approaches" in which "...will devastate the fields, approaches." is a subordinate clause.

'Vastaturus' is like in English 'the walking man,' using a participle to describe (effectively making it an adjective) a noun. However, in English there's only a present tense. One can say "the walking man," but in order to convey the event is past, one would have to say "the man, who walked." As you can see, 'who walked' is no longer an adjective but a subordinate clause because English lacks such an adjective. Latin does not:

Compare these sentences:

Vir ambulans - A walking man
Vir ambulatus - A having-walked man
Vir ambulaturus - A going-to-walk man

All these forms are participles. So it's important to realise the forms are adjectives and by no means anything else, be it a subordinate clause or whatever.

So being an adjective, 'vastaturus' doesn't require a target; one must infer the target of 'vastaturus' equals the target of the verb. Otherwise the sentence would've been formed differently, e.g with the supine as you stated or "Hostis appropiquans agros vastabit," meaning "The approaching enemy shall destroy the fields." (presuming 'hostis' is singular, of course)


PS: Clauses indicating purpose and result are probably explained later on in that course, they involve the conjunction 'ut,' which means 'in order to' and the subjunctive. But that's for another time.

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Postby Psi-Lord » 2007-12-25, 3:53

One thing it seems to be impossible to avoid when dealing with Latin – most bits one touches feel like opening Pandora’s box. :lol: But then, given my very basic level, that is probably likely, as I’m sure tons and tons of exceptions and whatnot still await.

Jalethon wrote:The accusative case shows motion already. So saying 'agros appropinquat' already shows the direction of the movement. Adding 'ad' would make something like: 'He approaches towards the fields.' In other words, a bit redundant.

This is the first of such bits, because so far I’ve only learnt that movement verbs with a destination take the accusative with in (when entering) or ad (when approaching).

Except for those most basic examples, as names of cities (Roma legati Carthaginem venerunt), domus (reditio domum), rus (rus ex urbe evolare), etc. – the sentences themselves are from my other grammar book.

The only other situation I’d found was when searching for examples of appropinquo usage in the dictionary, because, besides appropinquo ad aquam, I only found appropinquo muro (that is, dative), from which I supposed the only other option for ad agros appropinquo would be agris appropinquo.

Jalethon wrote:All these forms are participles. So it's important to realise the forms are adjectives and by no means anything else, be it a subordinate clause or whatever.

This bit will definitely have to be kept on hold until I reach much further in the course indeed, because the impression I’d got so far was exactly the opposite – that no matter how these verbal forms acted (nouns, adjectives, etc.), they still retained their basic verbal features, such as governing other nouns and the like (which is why I didn’t think of any options where agros wasn’t the object of vastaturus). I guess one of the examples I saw when participles were first introduced was e.g. homines amantes rem publicam, which I kind of took as a parallel for hostis vastaturus agros.

Still a long road ahead of me, but quite an interesting one nevertheless. :)

P.S.: I’ve just happened to find a curious note in Charles E. Bennett’s New Latin Grammar (§337, note 4), where he says that:

The Future Active Participle (except futūrus) is regularly confined to its use in the Periphrastic Conjugation, but in poets and later writers it is used independently, especially to denote purpose; as,—

vēnērunt castra oppugnātūrī, they came to assault the camp.

Does it sound like a possible explanation for my own sentence the way I was given it as well? A movement verb with a purpose verb governing its own noun, and yet no Supine either after all.
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Postby Jalethon » 2007-12-26, 14:10

Yes that seems about right. It denotes the same thing I stated above, but a bit more complicated. Logically, it's only natural the 'assaulting enemies' aren't going to assault a camp when approaching fields.

This is the first of such bits, because so far I’ve only learnt that movement verbs with a destination take the accusative with in (when entering) or ad (when approaching).


I just read this:

Code: Select all

appropinqu.are       V      1 1 PRES ACTIVE  INF 0 X   
appropinqu.are       V      1 1 PRES PASSIVE IND 2 S      Early   
appropinqu.are       V      1 1 PRES PASSIVE IMP 2 S   
appropinquo, appropinquare, appropinquavi, appropinquatus  V (1st) INTRANS   [XXXBO] 
approach (w/DAT or ad+ACC); come near to, draw near/nigh (space/time); be close


Seemingly, 'appropinquare' has to be used in conjunction with 'ad' in order to convey 'to approach,' excuse my ignorance. So it may mean 'to be near to' without 'ad.'

Other verbs of movement may not require such a preposition, for example:

Code: Select all

invad.o              V      3 1 PRES ACTIVE  IND 1 S   
invado, invadere, invasi, invasus  V (3rd)   [XXXBX] 
enter, attempt; invade; take possession of; attack (with in +acc.);


So "Hostis agros invadit," would work. I reckon 'ad' is only used when you'd use 'to' or 'towards' in English. But realise my Latin is not very advanced.

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Re: Latina lingua - Psi-Lord

Postby Babelfish » 2007-12-28, 19:36

Psi-Lord wrote:Quid hoc mihi profuit? Immo obfuit.

This is a typical case of a sentence the sense of which I’m quite sure of, but which I can’t put together grammatically. Almeida is kind enough to point out that hoc is the subject and quid the direct object, and I’m positive that translates along the lines of ‘How was this useful for me? On the contrary, it was prejudicial.’ I’m probably confused because of prosum governing the dative and then quid being accusative, and also possibly because I’m not being able to translate quid itself properly (as I can’t make it fit as ‘what?’, ‘which?’ in this exact context).

Did you two forget about this sentence? :P I too can't really see how 'quid' would fit as a direct object, since the meaning of 'prosum' doesn't seem to require one at all. Apparently 'quid' sometimes means 'why', which would fit better. Does this sentence have any context, Psi-Lord?

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Re: Latina lingua - Psi-Lord

Postby Psi-Lord » 2007-12-28, 22:35

Babelfish wrote:Did you two forget about this sentence? :P

I hadn’t, but I hadn’t come up with any other solutions either, so I kept it aside. However, I’d actually just written a long post here when I found Quid hoc mihi prodest?, by Cicero (in, apparently Epistulae ad Brutum), translated into English as ‘What good is that to me?’. Although I’m still back at analysing the sentence grammatically¹, I at least know things are put together properly.

Oh, and no, the sentence had no context – it was just one of the many lose sentences that show up in the translation exercises.

-----

¹ Try to do that with your wife discussing the details about the clothes you and she are wearing at friends’ wedding tomorrow and you’ll see how I just cannot do it right now, hehe.
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Re: Latina lingua - Psi-Lord

Postby cweb255 » 2007-12-29, 6:14

Babelfish wrote:
Psi-Lord wrote:Quid hoc mihi profuit? Immo obfuit.

This is a typical case of a sentence the sense of which I’m quite sure of, but which I can’t put together grammatically. Almeida is kind enough to point out that hoc is the subject and quid the direct object, and I’m positive that translates along the lines of ‘How was this useful for me? On the contrary, it was prejudicial.’ I’m probably confused because of prosum governing the dative and then quid being accusative, and also possibly because I’m not being able to translate quid itself properly (as I can’t make it fit as ‘what?’, ‘which?’ in this exact context).

Did you two forget about this sentence? :P I too can't really see how 'quid' would fit as a direct object, since the meaning of 'prosum' doesn't seem to require one at all. Apparently 'quid' sometimes means 'why', which would fit better. Does this sentence have any context, Psi-Lord?


Quid can also mean "how". I thought the usage was chiefly poetical, but I could be wrong. But in this instance, think Psi-Lord is right - Quid hoc is nominative neuter "What thing benefits me?" Perhaps along the lines of "What is this thing that is benefiting me?"

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Postby Ioannes » 2007-12-29, 14:27

Welcome to the Latin board ;)

I see your questions have already been answered (at least I hope so). Don't use the same learning method as Luís (in case you use the same book).
LINGVAE BARBARIORVM STVDEO

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Postby Psi-Lord » 2007-12-29, 14:38

Ioannes wrote:Welcome to the Latin board ;)

Thank you. :)

Ioannes wrote:I see your questions have already been answered (at least I hope so).

Though I’m still struggling to analyse the construction with prosum taking a subject, a direct object and a dative complement all at the same time, I guess I could get to solve the rest with the discussions that followed, indeed. :)

Curiously, although I’m sure how to translate it now, I’m also struggling even with the syntactic analysis of the Portuguese version. :lol:

Ioannes wrote:Don't use the same learning method as Luís (in case you use the same book).

Curiously, unless he’s changed his materials half way, his books (Gradus Primus and Gradus Secundus, by Paulo Rónai) are indeed the same ones I started learning Latin with some 10 years ago. They were basically written with the author having eleven/twelve-year-olds in mind, back when Latin was still taught in Brazilian schools, so I guess they do take it on the ‘soft’ side in a few points. I’m using other books now, though, plus some sources downloaded from Textkit.
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Postby Babelfish » 2007-12-30, 12:44

Psi-Lord wrote:Though I’m still struggling to analyse the construction with prosum taking a subject, a direct object and a dative complement all at the same time, I guess I could get to solve the rest with the discussions that followed, indeed. :)

That "direct object" drove me nuts... there's no mention of prosum in the dictionary taking one, that's why I thought in the direction of translating quid into "why" or "how". But now that I think of it, perhaps the direct object could be the [abstract] thing that the subject gives to the indirect object (dative)... :silly: OK confusing, let's replace prosum with dare, we get "quid hoc mihi dedit?" In this case the accusative meaning is clear - "what (acc.) did that give me?" Maybe it could work the same with prosum.


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