translation problem

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spqr
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translation problem

Post by spqr »

In Italia urbem desideratam habebitis. I think desideratam is a perfect participle and the way I translate this sentence is 'you will have longed for a city in Italy'. But this sounds like the future perfect tense which is covered later in the book. This one has me stumped.

Qimmik
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Re: translation problem

Post by Qimmik »

Unlike English and other European languages, Latin habeo doesn't function as an auxiliary in forming perfect tenses. Here habebitis, which is future, means simply "you will have," and doesn't combine with desideratam to mean "you will have longed for/desired." Instead, desideratam is a perfect participle functioning as an adjective. A correct translation would be "In Italy you will have the desired city."

Hope this helps.

spqr
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Re: translation problem

Post by spqr »

Thank you Qimmik, I understand the concept perfectly. I don't know why I didn't think of it that way myself.

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