Textkit Greek and Latin Forums

Salvete!

I have a question about the following sentence:

Primum enim diem a Sole appellaverunt, qui princeps est omnium stellarum ut idem dies est prae omnibus diebus aliis.

My question specifically is about the use of qui. My translation would be:

The first day, for example, is called after the Sun, which is the first among all the stars, in order that this day be before all the other days.

My problem is that in my translation, which refers to the Sun, which in a Sole is in the ablative. So doesn't that mean that the ablative relative pronoun quo should have been used?

Valete,

--Rob

Autophile,

The relative has its own case from the words around it. If you have trouble, just isolate it from the rest of the sentence: <b>qui princeps est omnium stellarum</b>. That is "who prince is of all stars" (not "whom prince is of all stars")

Be careful with your verbs. <b>appellaverunt</b> is actually a plural "they (have) called/named".<pre></pre>

Hi,

autophile wrote:My problem is that in my translation, which refers to the Sun, which in a Sole is in the ablative. So doesn't that mean that the ablative relative pronoun quo should have been used?

Remember that the relative pronoun takes its gender and number from the noun it refers back to but its case is determined by its function in its own clause, so here it's nominative because it's the subject of est.

I also noticed a couple things about your translation: appellaverunt is in the active voice, so "they called the first day..." Also, ut is followed by an indicative verb so it means "as" here, rather than "so that."

All,

Thanks for all your corrections and explanations! Just so you know I'm not totally hopeless, my notebook did actually have "they called" instead of "is called", but the other mistakes are firmly mine

Thanks again!

--Rob