grammar (accusative sentence)

[caeruleus]

[face=Verdana]Forum:

I have a grammatical question relating to the three following sentences.

Note:
--The nominative is italicized.
--The accusative is bold.


Sentences:

1. Arachne est puella. Est puella perita in lana. Picturas pulchras in textili format.

2. Nymphae picturas puellae amant et puellam laudant. Deam quoque laudant et clamant, "Quis est magistra tibi?"

3. Iuppiter est deus. Deus Iuppiter in Olympo habitat. Olim terram Phoeniciam spectat. Puellam Europam spectat et amat. Deus puellam desiderat.


Question: I see the accusative 'carrying over' the reference to itself from the nominative. Is that the inherent, or common use of the accusative sentence?


Commentary: Because, so far, every instance I see a sentence starting with an accusative--it is a continuation from the declarations of the nominative.

Caeruleus[/face]

[Episcopus]

Well...do you mean that in the sentence a nominative usually holds something to which it does something directly (accusative)?

In sentences like "Deam quoque laudant" the nominative 3rd person plural pronoun is always understood (i.e you don't really need the ei/eae/ea etc. to be the subject like that for it's already obvious).

I hope...somehow that helped

[benissimus]

I don't know if that's the case, Caeruleus, but it could be. As you probably know, the most basic word order in a Latin sentence is Subject-Object-Verb, but if the subject is unnecessary and dropped, then you're just going to have Object-Verb and your object will start the sentence. I do see what you mean though, there seems to be a theme of pointing back to a sentence before: a pattern that Latin authors often employ (quite annoyingly) perhaps in order to make us remember what they were talking about a few lines up. On the other hand, these are fairly simple sentences so you can expect a lot of repetition as the course is drilling you with conjugations/declensions.