Participle questions, ch. 23

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Deudeditus
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Participle questions, ch. 23

Post by Deudeditus »

Just a few questions... :wink:

#1 P&R (they all are from P&R, as I want to read nostos' '10 page participle thingy' before I really go on.)
Aliquid numquam ante auditum cerno... Is "I never percieve anything before it's (been) heard" right? I realize it states pretty much the same thing as Don B.'s answer sheet. But wouldn't 'I determine nothing...' be closer to nihil cerno...?

#7 ... omnes viros magnae probitatis ... could probity also be translated as virtue. Though I finally looked up 'probity' and it seems like a better fit.

#9 ( I couldn't find the explaination, but does it have something to do with the genitive construction with aliquid?) similar to "satis + genit."?

#11 'We gave many things to nations lacking hope. I wrote Multa gentibus spe carentibus dedimus. Could the sentence use the relative pronoun to get the same point across? ... Multa gentibus dedimus quae spem carent? (though I realize the point of this excersize is to practice with participles... :) )

#12 can iterum be placed as ... iterum magno cum studio venient..? What about advenient?

#13 does ex vicini casa place too much stress on the fact that it was the neighbor's house?

and #14 I seem to have messed this one up. 'He himself was overpowered by uncertain fear because he desired neither truth nor liberty. I wrote Is ipse metu incerta opprimitur quod (quoniam) nec veritatem nec libertatem desideravit.
Is ipse=ipse... opprimitur is in the wrong tense. I should have used opprimebatur or oppressus est. (est is necessary, right? or else oppressus is just an adjective?) also, are both superare and opprimere suitable for this sentence?... quod is more suitable than quoniam, right?... was I wrong to use desideravit?

on the whole, though, I'm actually surprised that I got the rest right... :)

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Post by nostos »

1) benissimus' answer sheet has 'I determine nothing' is because cernere can also mean 'to determine'. I remember this one confused me too, but it makes sense now (after the wondeful passage of time). benissimus noster a lingua latina in Anglam libere converterat (or something to that effect anyway)

9) at vita illius modi aequi aliquid iucundi atque felicis continet: but the life of those level-mannered men contains something of jocundity and also of luckiness.

The reason iucundi and felicis are in genitive: yes, you're right, it had been so long since I've seen it that I forgot entirely about this construction. vide:

• When a second declension neuter adjective is used, you can convert the second declension neuter adjective into a second declension neuter singular noun, if you put it in the partitive genitive case (G&L p. 235 §369 r.1):

• ‘aliquid bonum’: ‘Something good’
• ‘aliquid bonī’: ‘Something (of the) good’
• ‘aliquid bonī atque memorābilis’: ‘Something (of the) good and (of the) memorable’
• ‘aliquid bonum et memorābile’: ‘Something good and memorable’ (this is better because of the combination of declensions):

NB: G&L p. 235 §369 r.1 says ‘Neuter adjectives of the Second Declension can be treated as substantives in the [partitive] Gen.; not so adjectives of the Third, except in combination with adjectives of the Second, but here usually the Second Declension adjective is attracted’. The ‘attracted’ means: the second declension adjective is brought out of the partitive genitive, and ‘attracted’ to the case of the third declension adjective, which is in the accusative in the above example; so the second declension adjective gets put into the accusative case if there’s also third declension adjective. Of course this is usual, not always.

Hope that didn't confuse you more!!

11) Yes, although you want 'spe' instead of 'spem' (remember carere takes the ablative), and keeping with the sense of the original, you probably want carebant.

12) I don't see why not, but you want to keep your adverbs closer to the verbs their modifying. Still in this case it's an ablative of manner (=adverb), so I really don't see why not.

advenient just means 'arrive' rather than 'come', so again, sure. But there's no context (that's my big gripe with Wheelock, none of that other stuff that everyone else is always complaining about - just the lack of context with the P&Rs, SAs, and Self-Tutorials).

13) In general I think it's better to keep your genitives after what their meant to modify. Poets don't though I hear, so why should we? :P I don't know the answer to this one, but I'd think that yup, puts too much stress on the neighbour, not enough on his house (context dependent though)

14) est is definately necessary for the perfect tense (otherwise people'd think you were using oppressus as just an adjective rather than a verb - A&G says that verbs in the perfect passive system aren't considered periphrastics, even though that's what they technically are since it's 2 words performing the function of one).

I wonder if the poets remove their ests from their perfect passives? I guess I'll have to wait a couple of years (till my latin's done and gone good) to find out.

You'll have to wait for someone else to respond too with better suggestions. It looks to me like yer alright. I had very much trouble at first with participles being in the same case as their nouns, but now it seems very obvious.

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Re: Participle questions, ch. 23

Post by benissimus »

Deudeditus wrote:#1 P&R (they all are from P&R, as I want to read nostos' '10 page participle thingy' before I really go on.)
Aliquid numquam ante auditum cerno... Is "I never percieve anything before it's (been) heard" right? I realize it states pretty much the same thing as Don B.'s answer sheet. But wouldn't 'I determine nothing...' be closer to nihil cerno...?
anything never = nothing ever (reversed negatives). I've changed the answer in my copy to be more literal anyways.
#7 ... omnes viros magnae probitatis ... could probity also be translated as virtue. Though I finally looked up 'probity' and it seems like a better fit.
probity is more like integrity than virtue, in my mind at least. The ability to stand up to probatio, someone "probare-ing" you.
#9 ( I couldn't find the explaination, but does it have something to do with the genitive construction with aliquid?) similar to "satis + genit."?
the article that it is supposed to link to is this:
viewtopic.php?p=8277
#12 can iterum be placed as ... iterum magno cum studio venient..? What about advenient?
By moving the adverb out of its normal location (near the verb), you give it special emphasis: (yet) again(!)
#13 does ex vicini casa place too much stress on the fact that it was the neighbor's house?
nostos has given remarkably thorough and accurate responses, but in this case I differ. The genitive regularly precedes the noun modified in all styles of Latin. I do not remember the ratio of genitives preceding versus following, but it is surprising.
and #14 I seem to have messed this one up. 'He himself was overpowered by uncertain fear because he desired neither truth nor liberty. I wrote Is ipse metu incerta opprimitur quod (quoniam) nec veritatem nec libertatem desideravit.
Is ipse=ipse... opprimitur is in the wrong tense. I should have used opprimebatur or oppressus est. (est is necessary, right? or else oppressus is just an adjective?) also, are both superare and opprimere suitable for this sentence?... quod is more suitable than quoniam, right?... was I wrong to use desideravit?
like almost all 4th declension nouns, metus is masculine, so metu incerta shows a disagreement between noun and adjective. As for nostos' ponderings, poets do indeed remove forms of esse from perfect constructions, and esse is the most commonly omitted verb even when it might seem crucial to the meaning of the sentence.
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

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Post by Deudeditus »

vobis gratias. (would one use propter to say 'Thanks for the help'? vobis gratias propter auxilium (ago), or is there some other construction?)
I think, clare scribentis causa(?), I will not leave out esse in perfect constructions from now on.
errorum metus magnus me non diu tenet. :)

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