two questions

[Kasper]

I have two grammatical questions, both sort of related. According to my grammar book after a verb of saying or thinking you get the infinitive.
It gives the example:

Dicit Romanos arma adversariis tradere.

Very nice indeed.

But how would you translate a sentence like

"he says the romans are willing to surrender their arms to the enemy"

and what about an imperative

""come in" she said."

[whiteoctave]

"he says the romans are willing to surrender their arms to the enemy"

lit. Romanos arma hostibus tradere velle dicit

but in this specific instance an adverbial phrase would be better, e.g.

Romanos arma hostibus libenter tradere dicit.

As regards the sentence, ""come in" she said", that contains direct speech itself, so would simply be

"ingredere" inquit.

If you wished to put this indirectly, you would have to introduce a verb of ordering, i.e.

eum ingredi iussit or ei imperavit ut ingredetur.

~dave

[phil]

I have two grammatical questions, both sort of related. According to my grammar book after a verb of saying or thinking you get the infinitive.
It gives the example:

Dicit Romanos arma adversariis tradere.

Very nice indeed.

But how would you translate a sentence like

"he says the romans are willing to surrender their arms to the enemy"

That's nearly the same sentence except that they wish to surrender?
I would use volo, velle, to wish/be willing -
'dicit Romanos arma adversariis velle tradere'
He says the Romans, their arms to the enemy, to wish to surrender.

Your book should tell you that the infinitive is used for reporting indirect speech.
There are two types of speech here, direct and indirect speech.
'The boy likes the girl' is direct speech.
'He said that the boy likes the girl' is indirect, or reported speech.

In English the difference isn't usually all that great, we just stick 'he said/they thought' or whatever at the beginning, then the word 'that', and then tack the quote on the end. Though for indirect speech, we occasionally use the infinitive in English too - 'I think him to be a coward'.

But in Latin they are quite different. Direct speech is handled similarly to English:
'Puer puallam amat' - The boy likes the girl.

But indirect speech is handled, as your book says, by using the infinitive: 'dicit puerum puallam amare' - he says the boy, the girl to like. I always get a picture of Yoda in my head when I read indirect speech in Latin....
See that both nouns are now in the accusative. The first acc is what is doing the action of the verb, (in this case the boy is liking) the second acc is the object of the verb (the girl is being liked). This is one time when Latin word order IS important - 'dicit puerum puallam amare' does not mean the same as 'dicit puellam puerum amare'.

and what about an imperative
""come in" she said."

I'd use the verb intro, intrare, to enter/to come in.
But 'Come In' is an order, so you must use the..ah... imperative!
"intra" inquit --- how many Romans? oh plural, plural.
"intrate" inquit.

[Kasper]

That's great! vos gratias ago!

My main concern was the double infinitive in indirect speech. If there were three or even four verbs in the indirect speech, would they still all be in the infinitive? are there exceptions?

as for the "come in" she said, i should have realised it to be direct speech, again, thanks a lot!

[benissimus]

Do you mean something like: "The girl said that the boy had heard that their father was coming"?

As far as I know, there is no difference in how you would say it... perhaps Puella dixit puerum audisse patrem venire, but as you can see, it is a bit cumbersome and we would rarely say something like that in English even.

Mihi aufer ista!

[Episcopus]

If you're having trouble with this, Kasper old son, refer to the pages on which Dr. B.L.D goes through these constructions very nicely.

[Kasper]

Thanks guys!


Episcopus, I will have a look at your hero's work.

[Episcopus]

Good man you seriously shall not regret it.


Whiteoctave you had to use ingredere didn't you We loves deponents.