accusative or not? [split]

Nero
Re: accusative or not? [split]

Postby Nero » 2008-07-29, 3:35

Once again: Latin often omits pronouns when they're not necessary to disambiguate.


Ah, can they now? So your example of "iudicem me esse ... volo" would just omit the pronoun and go to "iudicem esse volo"? :twisted:

We already established that this wasn't the case with "Beati esse volumus"

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Re: accusative or not? [split]

Postby KingHarvest » 2008-07-29, 4:06

Again, someone provide an example where the subordinate verb isn't a copula. And after poring over example after example, I'm beginning to doubt whether it was even grammatical for Jalethon to leave out a me.
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Re: accusative or not? [split]

Postby HerrFraeulein » 2008-07-29, 5:58

Maybe you should try to answer Nero's question: "iudicem esse volo"? Seems rather awkward to me. :hmm:

As for your teacher's answer: I'll admit that with "sperare" the use of an infinitive instead of an AcI is poetical, thus actually uncommon (checked my dictionary, states the same). It lists as one such poetic construction: "Sperat visura Ulixen ('se visuram)". Bracketed part comes from the dictionary itself. Thing is, like I've tried to make clear a number of times: if you choose to use just an infinitive (and that such is not ungrammatical, even if a Graecism, seems fair to assume, since Rome's greatest poets may be said to have been able to write correct Latin), somewhat exotic with 'sperare' but totally normal with "velle/etc.", it is false to assume that agreement must be in the accusative. Either you put the entire construction in the AcI, or you merely use the infinitive with nominative agreement.

So indeed, you'd either had to have argued Jalethon's sentence had to be in the AcI as such -said that earlier- and was thus wrong on account of not being so, or you have to accept that the nominative -even if poetical/Greekish- is licit. And again, if "sperare" is replaced by "velle" here, a word meaning almost the same, the bare infinitive construction would by no means be a Graecism. :)
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Re: accusative or not? [split]

Postby KingHarvest » 2008-07-29, 7:35

I will admit that "volo iudex esse" is correct alongside "volo me esse iudicem" after having found examples to corroborate this, but still all with copulative verbs. Keep in mind, however, that the number of examples I've found of the type "iudicem" dwarves by far the number I've found of "iudex" (only 1 or 2). It seems to me that an acc + esse is the preferred construction.

and that such is not ungrammatical, even if a Graecism, seems fair to assume, since Rome's greatest poets may be said to have been able to write correct Latin


This is a terrible assumption. Poetry bends rules in any language, for example, I flipped to a random poem in English, John Wilmot's "A Satyr against Reason and Mankind," and we have at l. 33: "His wisdom did his happiness destroy." Now, if we were to apply your logic to this sentence, we should assume that this is perfectly natural English and normal people would go about saying this. But, obviously, this isn't the case. It is highly stilted English that you would never find outside of highly literary poetry. Now, this situation is exacerbated by the situation in the ancient Roman world even more so because of its society's situation. Authors wrote for less than 5% of the population, all of whom learned and spoke Greek and read Greek literature from the time that they were about 5. The authors knew that they could get away with non-normal Latin based on Greek grammar because of this peculiar situation they lived in. And whenever you hear "in poetry," it should be a sign that you're dealing with something that is highly abnormal and potentially difficult to understand even for native speakers. The very fact that we don't find this construction in prose, where there are no restrictions on how an author can express himself, but only in poetry, where stilted grammar needs to be employed to fit meters, is a dead giveaway of this as well (especially in Latin since Greek meters didn't necessarily fit Latin all that well all the time).

somewhat exotic with 'sperare' but totally normal with "velle/etc.",


You'd better check your dictionary, both OLD and Lewis & Short disagree with you. And you've yet to demonstrate that you can just line up complimentary infinitives in complex sentences in Latin, which I find highly skeptical. Your only examples are simple sentences with copulative verbs as the verb directly subordinate to the verb of wishing, which is not very convincing. So, please, quote something with a transitive subordinate verb and with another verb subordinate to it that is not poetry.
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Re: accusative or not? [split]

Postby HerrFraeulein » 2008-07-29, 11:27

No, I'm not that committed to showing I'm right by spending time actually searching the Latin corpus for an example. The way I see it, it's purely a matter of reasoning. If "volo iudex esse" is correct and "possum iudex esse" as well, I fail to see why "volo iudex esse posse" would be incorrect, or even highly uncommon. Whether the copula depends from a finite verb or from an infinite verb seems irrelevant to me, as long as the subject to the infinite verb from which the copula depends is not itself in the accusative. I.e.: if it's possible for "volo" to govern an infinitive "esse" of which the predicate is nominative, not accusative, such that, if anything, "posse"'s implicit subject depending from "volo" is implicitly nominative, bearing in mind that "esse" depending from "possum" is similarly taking a nominative complement, then "volo iudex esse posse" must also be correct. :yep: Ask your teacher! :yiihi:
You will die, mortal! ~Shao Kahn, MKII


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