Nominative or Ablative?

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Cartusiensis
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Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

Dear members,

Though mine might be an easy question for you, it has troubled long enough to make me register here in search of help.

"As persons of integrity we do not obey our wrath."

An exercise provides all the Latin words needed to translate the sentence above, but without the proper endings. And we are not supposed to add anything else. What should we do with the expression "as persons of integrity"? Put another way, which of the answers below is correct?

Personae integrae [nominative] non obtemperamus nostrae irae.

Personis integris [ablative] non obtemperamus nostrae irae.

Thanks

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thesaurus
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by thesaurus »

I believe it should be ablative. This is known as the ablative of "physical description or quality."

Compare with these examples from Latin for Beginners, by Benjamin L. D’Ooge:

Vir magnā virtūte.
A man with greath courage.

Silva altīs arboribus.
A forest with tall trees.
Horae quidem cedunt et dies et menses et anni, nec praeteritum tempus umquam revertitur nec quid sequatur sciri potest. Quod cuique temporis ad vivendum datur, eo debet esse contentus. --Cicero, De Senectute

Cartusiensis
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

Thank you very much for your reply.

Yes, I have seen those examples, and what made me pose the question is that, while magnā virtūte and altīs arboribus are ablatives indeed, vir and silva are both nominatives.

You see, the one solution that occurred to me, perhaps asking for the nominative, is to read the English sentence thus:

We persons of integrity do not obey our wrath.
Personae integrae non obtemperamus nostrae irae.

Does it make sense at all?

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thesaurus
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by thesaurus »

Yeah, the more I think about it the less confident I am in the ablative. An appositive of "personae integrae" may make more sense. I'm trying to make up other similar sentences, like "Viri fortes, hostum arma non timemus"? I'd go with the appositive for now.
Horae quidem cedunt et dies et menses et anni, nec praeteritum tempus umquam revertitur nec quid sequatur sciri potest. Quod cuique temporis ad vivendum datur, eo debet esse contentus. --Cicero, De Senectute

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Lucus Eques
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Lucus Eques »

It should be nominative. The ablative would suggest agency.

It is, however, ablative when the subject and the "person acting as whatever" are different:

Aenea duce Troiani prospere fugerunt.
L. Amādeus Rāniērius · Λ. Θεόφιλος Ῥᾱνιήριος 🦂

SCORPIO·MARTIANVS

Cartusiensis
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

Thank you all very much!

Swth\r
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Swth\r »

I think we could say:

Personae intergritatis (in genitive) ...

or...

Personae integritate (in ablative) ...

Could it fit as an answer to your exercise?
Dives qui sapiens est...

Cartusiensis
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

I'm afraid that wouldn't.

That is indeed a possibility, closely resembling the English phrasing, but since the adjective has been turned into a noun, it cannot be a possible answer to the exercise in question.

Thank you very much.

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Swth\r »

I see...

But what about "as"? May we suppose that some kind of predicate is involed of implied? Or perhaps an abverb like "quasi" (= like...)? Your attempt shows that you want to use an apposition to the (not present in the sentence) subject "nos".
Dives qui sapiens est...

Cartusiensis
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

Now you have reached the reason why I posted my question here in the first place. I had asked myself exactly the same.

From the members' replies to my post as well as from the author's instruction that we are not supposed to anything else to the sentence, I have been working on the assumption that the Latin nominative (persōnae integrae) is sufficient to convey the same English idea (as persons of integrity) and that this is precisely the lesson to learn.

The sentence below, though different from the one in question, is quoted from another exercise just for you to see why I had thought of the ablative:

Antīquīs ligna terrae magnō servitiō erant.
The timber of the land was of good service to the ancient.

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

Or:

For the ancients, the timber of the land was of good service.

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by timeodanaos »

Cartusiensis wrote:The sentence below, though different from the one in question, is quoted from another exercise just for you to see why I had thought of the ablative:

Antīquīs ligna terrae magnō servitiō erant.
The timber of the land was of good service to the ancient.
There is no ablative in the above sentence.

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

Is it simply the dative?

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

For many years war lasted (was) for the Americans against the timber of the land.
Per multōs annōs bellum erat Americanīs contrā ligna terrae.

The same here?

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Swth\r »

Cartusiensis wrote:Antīquīs ligna terrae magnō servitiō erant.
The timber of the land was of good service to the ancient.
I understand antiquis as dative of interest (possessive) and servitio as (predicatve) dative of purpose... And I hope I have used correctly the terminology :oops: Or, of course, antiquis may be read as a supplement in dative to servitio... :roll:
Dives qui sapiens est...

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

I see, I didn't know about that.

Thank you very much.

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Swth\r »

Cartusiensis wrote:For many years war lasted (was) for the Americans against the timber of the land.
Per multōs annōs bellum erat Americanīs contrā ligna terrae.

The same here?


1) contra + accusative=> contra lignam
2) Here also Americanis is DATIVE. The meaning:

Unfortunatelly for the Americans, the war was for many years against... (dative of dissadvantage)
Americans had for many years war against... (dative of possession, non literally speaking of course...)

Cheers!
Dives qui sapiens est...

Cartusiensis
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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Cartusiensis »

Swth\r wrote:1) contra + accusative=> contra lignam
Because I had reason to believe, from the book, that "timber" was used as meaning "woods," I chose the accusative plural.
Swth\r wrote:2) Here also Americanis is DATIVE.
Thank you very much. I was unaware of such dative usages.

Now, have you thought further about the first sentence in this thread?

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Trimalchio »

I thought Dative of Posession was only with a passive verb?

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by timeodanaos »

Trimalchio wrote:I thought Dative of Posession was only with a passive verb?
Dative of possesion is mostly found with forms of esse; 'patrifamilias erant duae filiae'.
Dative of interest can appear with almost any verb, but especially with 'videor' and synonyms- eg. 'ille mi par esse deos videtur'. Or am I confusing uses? I never really read Latin syntax in English or American books.

I have never heard of merging those two classes of dative, but thinking about it, they are quite related, but aren't all datives?

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Re: Nominative or Ablative?

Post by Swth\r »

Cartusiensis wrote:
Swth\r wrote:1) contra + accusative=> contra lignam
Because I had reason to believe, from the book, that "timber" was used as meaning "woods," I chose the accusative plural.
Mea culpa! Falsus eram... I did not remember correctly the gender, so I thought it is feminine singular :oops:
Cartusiensis wrote:
Swth\r wrote:2) Here also Americanis is DATIVE.
Thank you very much. I was unaware of such dative usages.

Now, have you thought further about the first sentence in this thread?
I believe you need the NOMINATIVE, but I am not quite certain about it... :?
Dives qui sapiens est...

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