indirect questions

[elduce]

If I'm right, indirect questions are the question side of indirect statements, though they use subjunctive verbs and not the Accusative + Infinitive construction. My question is this:

Vident quid faciat. = They see what he is doing.

But vident is a complete thought in itself, so why does Latin not say:

Vident quod faciat.

Also, if I want to say, 'We know who she is,' is this correct:

Nescimus quis sit.

Te gratias.

[Dingbats]

Vident quid faciat. = They see what he is doing.
But vident is a complete thought in itself, so why does Latin not say:
Vident quod faciat.

Well, this is not a very good explanation, but anyway: If that sentence were a question, it would be Quid facit?, right? So when making it indirect, you just use the same construction, but putting the verb into the subjunctive.

Also, if I want to say, 'We know who she is,' is this correct:
Nescimus quis sit.

Correct, except that nescimus means "we don't know".

Te gratias.

Tibi.

[elduce]

Oops. I meant "scimus." Anyway, thanks Benissimus. Your explanation does help.

[FiliusLunae]

While on the subject of indirect questions, I have a few doubts about them myself.

So you guys say that it should be:
Vident quid faciat.

I don't disagree with that, but what about this construction for "They see what he is doing":
Vident id quod facit.

Is this last one correct? If so, the two sentences, at least to me, have the same meaning.

What is to be put as "indirect questions" and what not? For instance:

I see what you have. » Video quid habeas.
I see that what you have is good. » Video id quod habes bonum esse.

The first statement has an indirect question, but the second one has an indirect stament. Are they correct?
Could both indirect questions and statements appear in the same sentence (for instance, combining both examples above, thus "Video quid habeas bonum esse"???)?

Thank you.

[cweb255]

You're not doing indirect questions, you're doing relative clauses.

Relative clause: Vident quod facit. (They see what he does).
Indirect question: Rogavi quod faceret. (I asked what he does.)

[Turpissimus]

Indirect question: Rogavi quod faceret. (I asked what he does.)

"Quid", surely?

The way to remember the difference is to ask yourself if there was an original question. "What are you doing?" becomes "I asked what you were doing.". Similarly, "Quid facis?" becomes "Rogavi quid faceres".

[FiliusLunae]

Thanks for your response, Turpissimus.

How about this:
I asked whether what you did was good. » Rogavi an quid faceres bonum esset.

But, I'm sure about the last verb. I take it there are two indirect questions introduced by "an" and "quid", respectively.
And I guess my question truly lies in the fact that this could be analized as:
I asked whether that that you did was good. » Rogavi an id quod fecisti bonum esset.

Which one is correct? Then, which one would be used under what circumstances?

Thank you all for your attention.

[cweb255]

You're right, Turp. It was quid, my mind wasn't here while I was pointing out that his examples were relative clauses not indirect questions.

Rogavi (I asked) an (whether) quid faceres (what you did) bonum esse (was good). You have to use the infinitive for indirect statement. (or is this an example of if, then clauses, in which they use both subjunctives, in that case I would favor si instead of an...)

[Turpissimus]

I asked whether what you did was good. » Rogavi an quid faceres bonum esset.

But, I'm sure about the last verb. I take it there are two indirect questions introduced by "an" and "quid", respectively.
And I guess my question truly lies in the fact that this could be analized as:
I asked whether that that you did was good. » Rogavi an id quod fecisti bonum esset.

I asked whether it was good > Rogavi num id bonum esset.

"What you did" is a noun clause, isn't it? Definitely not an indirect question. "What you did was good" would be "Quod fecisti bonum erat."

So...

Rogavi num (or an, as you seem to prefer) quod faceres bonum esset.

I think that's correct.

Rogavi (I asked) an (whether) quid faceres (what you did) bonum esse (was good). You have to use the infinitive for indirect statement. (or is this an example of if, then clauses, in which they use both subjunctives, in that case I would favor si instead of an...) Confused

The infinitive is used for indirect statement, true. But this is a clear example of indirect question. It's even got a "whether"! Indirect question, command and exclamation take noun clauses (ut, num, cur, quam etc) followed by the subjunctive, which is more or less the reverse of what we have in English (where commands take infinitives and indirect statement takes a noun clause).

If you can imagine an original question (was it raining?), you should probably use indirect question, even if the verb is not one of asking (I wondered whether it was raining.)

[cweb255]

By indirect statement I was referring to the latter part of his sentence, not the an quid faceres, but the bonum esset (esse?) which is where I raised the question at.

[Turpissimus]

By indirect statement I was referring to the latter part of his sentence, not the an quid faceres, but the bonum esset (esse?) which is where I raised the question at.

If I were going to divide up the sentence, I would do it like this:

Rogavi (main verb)
an/num bonum esset (indirect question)
quod faceres (noun clause forming subject of ind. q.)

Indirect questions take the subjunctive.

As the poster above says, we can replace quod with id quod, if that will make it any clearer (I believe the id in id quod is omitted since it is in the same case as the relative pronoun). It is still a noun clause serving as the subject of the indirect question.

[cweb255]

Ah, I see, sorry, the order boggled me for a minute. I see, so it should have been written Rogavi an quod facit bonum esset (and the order still stinks).

[fluff]

Indirect question: Rogavi quod faceret. (I asked what he does.)

"Quid", surely?

The way to remember the difference is to ask yourself if there was an original question. "What are you doing?" becomes "I asked what you were doing.". Similarly, "Quid facis?" becomes "Rogavi quid faceres".

So what would be the difference between:

Non habeo quid scribam

and

Non habeo quod scribam

[elduce]

Re: Turpissimus

Non habeo quid scribam. = I don't have(consider) what I write.

Non habeo quod scribam. = I don't have that (which) I will write. (?)

[benissimus]

Non habeo quid scribam. = I don't have(consider) what I write.

Non habeo quod scribam. = I don't have that (which) I will write. (?)

The first one does not make sense (it would be a stretch to use the secondary meaning of habere "to regard"). Hence there is no justification for using quid. To break it up into constructions.... non habeo quid scribam means "I do not have: what am I writing?". It makes sense to say "I do not know: what am I writing?" or "I ask: what am I writing?", so (ne)scire or rogare could certainly introduce an indirect question.

non habeo quod scribam is good. It is actually "that" which is omitted and "which" that is preserved, elduce. I recommend for everyone not to omit the antecedent until they are familiar with relative clauses, i.e. non habeo id quod scribam. This is not an indirect question but a simple relative clause with future indicative or relative clause of characteristic with present subjunctive, since as I explained it does not make sense for habere to introduce an indirect question.

[FiliusLunae]

Thank you all for your answers. It's definitely clearer now.
I think I have mastered indirect questions and stataments up to the point I have studied them (I'm on Wheelock's chapter 35). I saw in the index that "num" and its uses are not introduced until chapter 40, the last chapter. So probably my original question has to do with the fact that I haven't studied that particular use of the subjunctive yet. Hehe. And I don't like to jump around the lessons, so when I get to chapter 40, if I have any more doubts about it, I will come back to this thread.

Thanks again.

[fluff]

Non habeo quid scribam. = I don't have(consider) what I write.

Non habeo quod scribam. = I don't have that (which) I will write. (?)

The first one does not make sense (it would be a stretch to use the secondary meaning of habere "to regard"). Hence there is no justification for using quid. To break it up into constructions.... non habeo quid scribam means "I do not have: what am I writing?". It makes sense to say "I do not know: what am I writing?" or "I ask: what am I writing?", so (ne)scire or rogare could certainly introduce an indirect question.

non habeo quod scribam is good. It is actually "that" which is omitted and "which" that is preserved, elduce. I recommend for everyone not to omit the antecedent until they are familiar with relative clauses, i.e. non habeo id quod scribam. This is not an indirect question but a simple relative clause with future indicative or relative clause of characteristic with present subjunctive, since as I explained it does not make sense for habere to introduce an indirect question.

Well the second sentence (with quod) should as you point out be understood as "I don't have that which I will write" or "I don't have anything to write".

The first sentence simply means "I don't know what to write" (Cicero ad Atticum 15.5). Perhaps not the most common use of habere but not that unusual.

Well the reason for me to write the first post (apart from making me look like a messerschmitt) was to show the difference one word (or in this case one letter) can make, especially if you leave out the correlate (or is the grammatical term "antecedent" in English?).

[benissimus]

All right, I understand. I thought you were saying that non habeo quid scribam was an example of an indirect question (and I was rash to say that quid did not make sense because it can sometimes be an indefinite pronoun).