Hello all!
I`m 14 and this is my second year of learning Latin,and I have a high interest in that language.
I`m posting here because I have a problem,when translating Tacitus or Cicero or similar authors I often find myself confused with all the mixed words that I get,I asked my teacher to tell me how to divide periodical sentences,he said that I should translate from coma to coma,and that helped a bit but not a lot.I asked him again and he said some complex explanation that I couldn`t memorise so I gave up asking him.So could someone please explain me how to divide periodical sentences to get the translation job easier.
Thanks in forward
Periodical sentences
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Generally when I have to translate long sentences I try to look for the finite verbs. With those in place, I can mark off ablative absolutes, participle phrases and the like, and see what is a relative clause, what is a result clause, what is a purpose clause etc. This seems to me to be the best way to get complicated Latin sentences divided up into manageable portions.I asked my teacher to tell me how to divide periodical sentences,he said that I should translate from coma to coma,and that helped a bit but not a lot
Your grammatical terminology seems to differ a great deal from the kind we're used to in Anglo-Saxon countries. I've not heard of periodical sentences, but I assume they are those of the enormously complicated kind found in the authors you mention. I don't know what mixed words are either.
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Well,I couldn`t remember how to say relative clauses so I invented the word periodicalTurpissimus wrote:Your grammatical terminology seems to differ a great deal from the kind we're used to in Anglo-Saxon countries. I've not heard of periodical sentences, but I assume they are those of the enormously complicated kind found in the authors you mention. I don't know what mixed words are either.
And for mixed words I thought of the situation when I mix all those clauses and get nothing.
English is not my mother tounge
Thanks for a very fast respond! Could you please tell me what are finite verbs,and I think that I will be finally able to understand how to divide a sentence?
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This is common enough in Latin authors - the sentence structure is a fair bit more complicated than English.And for mixed words I thought of the situation when I mix all those clauses and get nothing.
I think it might be easier to show you. Finite verbs are those that provide the necessary verbal element in a clause. If I were going to use words like to write, writing, having written, about to write - all these, I would say, are non-finite verbs.Could you please tell me what are finite verbs,and I think that I will be finally able to understand how to divide a sentence?
Finite:
Imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, present, future, future perfect, (and their related subjunctives, active and passive), imperatives
Non-finite:
gerunds, gerundives, participles, infinitives.
The first lot, as you can see, are the real bedrock of any clause. The second lot need one of the first lot to operate.
After you have noticed all the finite verbs, you will know how many clauses there are and with your knowledge of those little latin linking words (ut, qui, utrum) and your knowledge of latin syntax, you can see how they interrelate