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nullam pacem or nihil pacis?

Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:58 am
by phil
I was doing an English -> Latin exercise and the phrase '.. we were able to have no peace' popped up. The answer on the Wheelock forum says nullam pacem. But is nihil pacis also correct?

Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 3:10 am
by klewlis
as the object of "have", it should naturally be accusative. I don't know any reason why it would be nominative...

?

Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 4:12 am
by benissimus
Different nuances there... and there is no nominative there, klewlis ;) "nihil" is going to be accusative (or nominative) and "pacis" is a genitive.

Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 5:12 am
by klewlis
oops, pax, pacis...

:oops:

(this is why phil is so far ahead of me now... )

Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 6:33 pm
by phil
benissimus wrote:Different nuances there
So, both are correct?

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2004 12:25 am
by MickeyV
Both seem correct, yes.

Compare:

1. Pater ei non pecuniam dedit. (His father didn't give him money. [denying, neutrally and dispassionately, the truth of the opposite: His father gave him money. So, strictly, this leaves open the possibility that "father", for instance, paid him money, or that "father" gave him something else, or that "mother" gave money, etc])

2. Pater ei nullam (= non ullam) pecuniam dedit. (His father didn't give him any money. [in this case, there is not, in the first place, a denial (although "non" is, as said, implicated in "nullam"), but a statement, a positive assertion. So, in the case of 1., it is said: "it is not true, that father gave him money", whereas in 2. it is said: "it is true, that father gave him no money". Indeed a nuance, for in 1. the process of giving something is, as such, denied, while in 2. it is asserted, although the object of giving is nothing ])

3. Pater ei nihil pecuniae dedit. (His father gave him nothing in the way of money. [what was stated under 2. is m. m. applicable here as well]).