Active and passive case

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spikebitalbert
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Active and passive case

Post by spikebitalbert »

Hello good scholars. This is spikebitalbert and i have some questions for all of the Latin scholars. I am reading Lingva Latina, (Chapter 6 to be correct :D) and i have no clue at all what the passive and the active case at all. (Well I do know a little bit.) I think it's the case when you are active and when you are lazy passive. Please any bit of help would help.

Thank you all scholars

Borakovelover
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Borakovelover »

Albert, I'd like to know the cases too.

Rhodopeius
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Rhodopeius »

I think you mean the active voice. Voice is a principle of verbs. It lets us know whether the subject is the actor or the recipient of the action.

Caesar kills. Active voice.
Caesar is killed. Passive voice.

In Latin, the passive voice is expressed not by using the auxiliary verb "is" as we do in English, but by conjugating the verb differently.

Caesar interficit. Active.
Caesar interficitur. Passive.
Scott Sumrall. http://classicsexercises.blogspot.com

"Qui sis, non unde natus sis reputa."

spikebitalbert
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by spikebitalbert »

Thank you Rhodelius or however you spell that. i am very grateful for your information but I do believe that it is the passive and active, I am sure of it.

Superavi
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Superavi »

Rhodopeius wrote:I think you mean the active voice. Voice is a principle of verbs. It lets us know whether the subject is the actor or the recipient of the action.

Caesar kills. Active voice.
Caesar is killed. Passive voice.

In Latin, the passive voice is expressed not by using the auxiliary verb "is" as we do in English, but by conjugating the verb differently.

Caesar interficit. Active.
Caesar interficitur. Passive.
Rhodopeius is right.

There are six cases in Latin, and they are nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative. Case applies to nouns and adjectives modifying the nouns. They tell the listener/reader what function of the noun in the sentence is. The adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number so they mimic the case.

Voice is specific to verbs. As Rhodopeius already explained, it tells the listener/reader if the subject is performing the action "John hits a ball." or is receiving the action "John is hit by the ball." In the first example the subject ‘John’ is performing the action by ‘hitting’ the direct object ‘the ball’. In the second example the subject John is receiving the action by having the ball hit him. When the subject is performing the action it is the active voice. When the subject is receiving the action it is the passive voice.

If you are certain that we are wrong, please leave examples for us.

Borakovelover
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Borakovelover »

Owned, lol.....anyway, all you peeps, I know spikebit in rl so he knows 8) :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: them now :o

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Perbonum nuntium, Borakovelovere! Benè factum est, spikebitalberte! // Very good news, Borakovelover! Well done, spikebitalbert!
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by jamesbath »

Rhodopeius wrote: Caesar interficit. Active.
Caesar interficitur. Passive.
Ah...! So this might actually clear up a small confusion in my own mind. The passive voice does not change the nominative of a sentence into an accusative or a dative?

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Damoetas »

james bath wrote:
Ah...! So this might actually clear up a small confusion in my own mind. The passive voice does not change the nominative of a sentence into an accusative or a dative?
If the same sentence is changed from active to passive, then the cases do change:

Active: Brutus et Cassius Caesarem interfecerunt. "Brutus and Cassius killed Caesar.

Passive: Caesar a Bruto et Cassio interfectus est. "Caesar was killed by Brutus and Cassius."

The (nominative) subject of the active sentence is put in a prepositional phrase (a/ab + the ablative). The (accusative) object of the active sentence becomes the (nominative) subject of the passive sentence.

Often the agent (the former subject of the active sentence) is not expressed in a passive sentence:

Caesar interfectus est. "Caesar was killed."

Or there will be an instrument expressed in the ablative case (i.e., the thing by means of which the action was done):

Caesar non sagittis Gallorum sed sicis et gladiis civium interfectus est. "Caesar was killed not by the arrows of the Gauls, but by the daggers and swords of citizens."
Dic mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus' anne Latinum?

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by jamesbath »

Damoetas wrote:
If the same sentence is changed from active to passive, then the cases do change:

Active: Brutus et Cassius Caesarem interfecerunt. "Brutus and Cassius killed Caesar.

Passive: Caesar a Bruto et Cassio interfectus est. "Caesar was killed by Brutus and Cassius."

The (nominative) subject of the active sentence is put in a prepositional phrase (a/ab + the ablative). The (accusative) object of the active sentence becomes the (nominative) subject of the passive sentence.

Often the agent (the former subject of the active sentence) is not expressed in a passive sentence:

Caesar interfectus est. "Caesar was killed."

Or there will be an instrument expressed in the ablative case (i.e., the thing by means of which the action was done):

Caesar non sagittis Gallorum sed sicis et gladiis civium interfectus est. "Caesar was killed not by the arrows of the Gauls, but by the daggers and swords of citizens."
Damoetas, thanks for all the detail. You put it in good perspective for me and cleared a lot of confusion away. You must have crawled into my head and saw how messy things were in there, because you sure straightened the clutter up pretty good with what you wrote.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

In Ælfric's Grammar he uses the terms deedly for "active" and throingly for "passive" which are clearer terms for an English speaker.

Amo ic lufige...doceo ic tæce...Ðas and ðylíce synd ACTIVA, ðæt synd dædlíce gehatene, forðanðe hi geswuteliaþ dæda
Do ænne r to ðissum wordum, þonne beoð hi PASSIVA, ðæt synd ðrowiendlice


"Amo "I love"...doceo "I teach"... These and the like are ACTIVE, that are called deedly, because they declare deeds. Add an r to these words, then they are PASSIVE, that are throingly [as in "throe", suffering/enduring the deeds]"

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Essorant wrote:...the terms deedly for "active" and throingly for "passive" which are clearer terms for an English speaker.
Clearer, Errorant, to someone from the North, for whom daily existence is a struggle with the weather. Less clear for an English speaker who lives nearer the Equator. Grounds for a theory there! Take the passive "to be seen". For a Canadian to be seen, leaving the house is often more of an ordeal.
Clariora haec vocabula, Essorant, cuiquam septentrionali cuius superstes quotidiana in tempestate requiescit. Minùs clara cuiquam meridionali seu aequinoctiali et anglicè loquenti. En, theoria crescit! Quoad "ut videatur" clausulam, verbum voce passivâ habe. Ut videatur, oportet Canadianum foràs ire, quod saepiùs examinis genus est.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

The weather is not that bad here, Adriane. You should live here a while so you may unlearn some of those stereotypes.

About using English words for grammar though, I do think it is a bit dull that people accept a latinish word such as feminine that literally means "womanly" for "feminine" gender but if we use the actual English word womanly itself it is treated as unacceptable and ridiculous. Why is it acceptable to use another language's word for "womanly" but it is treated as not acceptable or inferior if we use our own English word womanly itself?
nearer the Equator
That should be "near the equator". Near is the comparative of nigh or neigh (as in neigh-bour).

adrianus
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Salve Essorant

I didn't mean to offend you or insult Canada. I have been to Canada and I throw my own country and Aelfric's into the same Northern stereotype of struggling with the weather.

I'm with you a 100%, by the way, on using less dull language when it doesn't confuse, but I myself wouldn't insist on archaic usages. Without explanation, that will confuse.

As for "Less clear for an English speaker who lives nearer the Equator" being incorrect English...
Certainly, "[It is] Less clear for an English speaker who lives near the Equator" is fine, but to say "nearer" is fine, too, because it carries an extra comparative sense of "compared to someone else".
I can say "He who lives longer [than another] eats more [than another]" or "He who lives long eats more [than he would have had he died sooner]".
However, you seem to be suggesting that the very word "nearer" is incorrect English, because "near" is itself a comparative. Are you sure you want to say that, if indeed that is what you are saying?

Ego te offendere nolui, vel patriam derogare. Jam fui in Canadâ, et patriam meam unâ cum illâ Aelfrici in eundem fascem astringo, quoad certamen in regionalibus septentrionalibus contra tempestatem.

Obiter, tecum adusquè concurro prae usu vocabulorum minùs frigidorum cùm non confundit; ego ipse autem vocabula antiqua in sermone commune non quaero. Confundet si sine explicatione id facies.

Prae verbis anglicè "near" et "nearer", "nearer" adjectivum comparativum integrum habeo. Estne benè quod dicis, usum "nearer" adjectivi illîc soloecismum esse?
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Salve,
I'm with you a 100%, by the way, on using less dull language when it doesn't confuse, but I myself wouldn't insist on archaic usages. Without explanation, that will confuse.
Indeed, when a word is uncouth to people an explanation is needful. But I would argue against trying to shun unnew things in a language that is over 1500 years old. The English language itself is archaic. If you wish to shun thou or deedly because they are archaic by the same principle you ought to shun love, hate, man, word, deed, hand, and generally every other native word of the language for they are just as archaic. All of those words are as old as the English language itself.

What people actually mean is that such words are uncommon. But then they do accept thousands of other words that are from other languages and are just as uncommon. Do we actually use discombobulation, tintinnabulation, and obstreperous more than thou and deedly? I doubt it. But they are easily accepted in our dictionaries today, while a word such as swink, a native word of the English language, is forsaken and treated as if it is a word from another planet.
However, you seem to be suggesting that the very word "nearer" is incorrect English, because "near" is itself a comparative. Are you sure you want to say that, if indeed that is what you are saying?
It is incorrect English because you treated near as a positive and added -er to make it comparative, when it was already a comparative. It is the likeness of saying "morer" instead more or "betterer" instead of better. :)
Last edited by Essorant on Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:23 pm, edited 3 times in total.

adrianus
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Oxford English Dictionary wrote:near, adv.1 (and prep.1)
I. In purely adverbial use. Freq. with noun or noun phrase as complement (in dative in Old English). (When used with complement near can be analysed as a preposition.)
1. a. With a verb of motion: nearer or closer (to a place, point, or person)...
b. near and near: nearer and nearer. Also fig...
2. a. At a nearer distance, with a smaller interval, in space or time...
b. far and near [see comparative forms s.v. FAR adv.]: further (off) and nearer (at hand). Cf. FAR adv. 1b...
c. fig. More closely; more strictly...
II. In predicative use, usually after the verb to be. Freq. with noun or noun phrase as complement (in dative in Old English) or to.
3. Nearer in space or time; nearer at hand. Also in proverbial phrases...
4. Nearer in kinship or relationship...
5. Nearer to one's end or purpose. Only in negative and interrogative clauses, esp. never the near. (Very common in the late 16th and early 17th cent.) In later use only Eng. regional.
a. With personal subject.
For a possible earlier isolated example of this use, not in the negative, cf. quot. eOE.
near, adj. (and n.) 7 occurrences of "nearer" in the entry
near, adv.1 (and prep.) 11 occurrences of "nearer" in the entry
near, adv.2 (and prep.) 35 occurrences of "nearer" in the entry

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nearer
Nearer, My God, to Thee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearer,_My_God,_to_Thee
Last edited by adrianus on Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Adriane

The dictionary accepts quite a few other incorrect things as well.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Essorant wrote:The dictionary accepts quite a few other incorrect things as well.
I see. You will not accept it's correctness in contemporary usage (over the last 400 years). OK. No problem. That's even more extreme than introducing archaisms. But I understand. Everything is relative and, from your perspective, I teased you and you are teasing me. Nice!
Nunc video. Usum quotidianum (his quattuor saeculis) legitimum esse negas. Licet. Ut velis. In extremis tua notio! Ultra fines est illae ipsae assuetudinis per quam archaismis seu dictis antiquis loquaris. Te autem intellego. Omnia secundum proportiones inter se exstant et, de conspectu tuo, tu me taxas qui te taxavi. Bellum!
Last edited by adrianus on Fri Jun 12, 2009 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Essorant wrote:while a word such as swink, a native word of the English language, is forsaken and treated as if it is a word from another planet.
I am discombobulated by thy lak of swink. Thou art dansing to the obstreperous tintinnabulations of thine own woyce. For "swink" is of very deed in OED. I propose a deedly ende to suich floccinaucinihilipilification!

Tua inopia laboris me commovet. Sonitui verborum tuorum tintinnantum saltas. "Swink" enim in OED est. Censeo talem floccinaucinihilipilificationem esse delendam!
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

You will not accept it's correctness in contemporary usage (over the last 400 years).
I wouldn't say that. I accept it so far as I accept that people make a mistake. But I don't accept calling it correct just because people
keep making the mistake. :)
Everything is relative...
If we were in the philosophy forum I would make muchel ado with that.

I am discombobulated by thy lak of swink. Thou art dansing to the obstreperous tintinnabulations of thine own woyce. For "swink" is of very deed in OED. I propose a deedly ende to suich floccinaucinihilipilification!
Soothly one dictionary is better than none, but nis many nor most. And frith, swelt, thester, douth, dwine, tharf, soothfast, behote, forlet, frover, blin, yare, yark, tungle, nesh, swike, kithe, fere, sibsome, arist, swench, lichhame, queam, frood, shalk, swime, thind, tharms, swie, etc. and thousands of others too feal and too unfew to say anon are seldom to see on anymore, for that the dictionaries do away with them to give room to more foreign words, of which many are as eath to say and as behovely as floccinaucinihilipilification!

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Damoetas »

Help, Essorant!

I went to a bar last night and tried talking to some girls, using only correct English words like you suggest. But they seemed uncomfortable and wouldn't give me their phone numbers, and the bartender called a cab for me when I wasn't even ready to leave yet.... I thought, "No worries, they're just the ignorant masses," so today I decided to go hear a visiting lecturer at my university. But when I asked a question in the Q&A time, he snickered and answered my question in a patronizing tone; I think he thought I was a bum who had wandered in off the street.... And when everyone was mingling over wine and cheese afterwards, no one would talk to me!

So I'm starting to think that language might have a social dimension. I was so persuaded by your arguments about the correct meaning of words... But I'm afraid that the opinions of the 500 million English speakers who are alive today might make more of an impact than the opinions of people who lived before the Norman conquest.... What should I do? :)
Dic mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus' anne Latinum?

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Si haec invenire vis, OED eme. // Buy the OED for: frith, swelt, thester, douth, dwine, tharf, soothfast, behote, forlet, frover, blin, yare, yark, nesh, swike, kithe, fere, arist, swench, shalk, swime, tharms, swie.

Ibi autem haec non invenies. // You won't, however, find these in it: tungle sibsome lichhame queam frood thind.

As for foreign words, English itself must qualify as a foreign language unless you spring from West Germanic stock, if you imagine linguistic purity exists somewhere.
Quoad barbarismos, si linguam puram ubicumquè exstare imaginaris, Anglicum ipsum pro omnibus non stirpis Germanicae Occidentalis lingua aliena vocandum est.

Salve Damoetas,
Triste nuntium, quod tu nec in cauponâ nec alibi vicisti. Obdura! Saltem unus vel una ê quingentis millionibus te demùm intelleget // Sad news about the bar and elsewhere. Keep trying! One at least of the 500 million will understand you eventually.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Damoetas wrote:Help, Essorant!

I went to a bar last night and tried talking to some girls, using only correct English words like you suggest. But they seemed uncomfortable and wouldn't give me their phone numbers, and the bartender called a cab for me when I wasn't even ready to leave yet.... I thought, "No worries, they're just the ignorant masses," so today I decided to go hear a visiting lecturer at my university. But when I asked a question in the Q&A time, he snickered and answered my question in a patronizing tone; I think he thought I was a bum who had wandered in off the street.... And when everyone was mingling over wine and cheese afterwards, no one would talk to me!

So I'm starting to think that language might have a social dimension. I was so persuaded by your arguments about the correct meaning of words... But I'm afraid that the opinions of the 500 million English speakers who are alive today might make more of an impact than the opinions of people who lived before the Norman conquest.... What should I do? :)
Use correct English. It is not disrespectful to people. What is disrespectful is they treating you that way for doing so or not conforming to their usage. If you need to conform to their language in order to be respected, it is they that are being disrespectful and extreme in their expectations. Using and encouraging correct English isn't at all on the same level as mistreating people because they don't conform to an erroneous usage that is among the majority .

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Adriane


My main point was more about dictionaries in general. But I am imprest to hear those words are found in the OED.
I hope to take a closer look at that dictionary.


As for foreign words, English itself must qualify as a foreign language unless you spring from West Germanic stock, if you imagine linguistic purity exists somewhere
English is not foreign to English. The distinction is words of the dialect itself, such as father and soul, distinct from words that are not dialectically English, such as Latin pater and Greek psyche. Yea, English-speakers may use the Greek word psyche sometimes, but that doesn't make it natively and dialectically English.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Essorant wrote:"Everything is relative..." If we were in the philosophy forum I would make muchel ado with that.
We are already talking about that here.

No one will be disrespectful to you for saying "muchel", I think. Showing off and unfair criticism, however, can invite a lack of respect, if that's what is communicated in a follow-up triggered by incomprehension. I'm over-educated in some regards but I love and respect all my friends, no less those who say of themselves that they are under-educated. They are equally intelligent, if not more so than I, in many ways. They often imagine that university degrees are a badge of superior intelligence. In that regard at least, I definitely know better. You are disparaging a majority opinion that says "nearer" is good English by judging English today against a standard of Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, despite understanding the word "nearer" and the reasons why people use it.

As for foreign words, you write like there is one dialect in English. There are many dialects in English today and there were in the past, and a good dictionary such as OED attempts to acknowledge them rather than promote only one.

You write as if antiquity and pedigree gives authority to words. I disagree. Usage gives authority, and usage is always relative to groups (Damoetas's social dimension). Groups change and the authority changes in time. Believe that some Anglo Saxons were moaning about the introduction into their language of certain "foreign" words that we imagine today are "pure" Anglo Saxon because the historical record is imperfect. Linguistic purity and meaning are all relative—to groups that change in time and place, and groups within groups! New words are introduced into a language by and large because they are useful. When that happens, they are no longer foreign. They have linguistic citizenship!! Are you less Canadian if your distant ancestors weren't born in Canada?

Nor is meaning even fixed within the group as regards vague matters, because individuals may interpret in their own way things by definition vague. And so very many things are indeed vague. Only an extreme, positivist academic would dare to teach that nothing is vague, and uncertainty itself a treatable pathology.

Adopt a relativist perspective when it's time to evaluate where an absolute one has taken you.

Sic nos hîc jam perpendere intellege.

Vanitatis autem et reprehensionis iniquae indicia, quae confusionem sequentia se ostendunt, deprimenda sunt. Effusionem quarumdam doctrinarum habeo, sed omnes amicos amo honoroque, etiamsi sunt in numero qui dicunt se malè educatos esse. Pluribus modibus, isti aequi intellegentes quàm ego sunt, immò intellegentiores pluriés. Saepè credunt litteras graduum academicorum signa intellegentiae superioris esse. De hâc re, pro certo meliùs sapio. In anglico horum dierum contra consuetudines Anglo-Saxonum probando, quod pluribus bonum anglicum videtur detractas, et sensu nato et ratione usui benè quoquè conceptis.

Quoad vocabula peregrina, scribis sicut dialectos una in Anglico exstet. Sunt interim nunc sicut olim plures, et est boni dictionarii (illius OED, exempli gratiâ) eas omnes agnoscere, non unam solam promovere.

Scribis sicut creatur auctoritas vocabuli per aetatem antiquam atque stemmatem. Dissentio. Per usum creatur, et usus semper ê contextu sociale et proprio surgit, ê dimensione sociale apud Damoetan, ê gregibus. Mutant in tempore et greges et auctoritas. Crede praeter silentium chartarum historicarum ut Anglo-Saxones ipsi (quidam saltem) adventum barbarismorum complorabant,—imperfectae enim illae chartae. Integritas ac significatio sermonis res dependentes sunt,—ex gregibus qui per tempore et inter locis mutant dependentes, non minùs ex gregibus intra greges. Vocabula nova quià ferè utilia accipientur. Tunc aliena non ampliùs erunt. Paenè cives linguae fient!! Esne minùs Canadianus si atavi alibi nati sunt?

Necnon immobilis est significatio intra greges quoad res obscuras, cuius numerus certò permagnus est. Omnis singuli est suo proprio modo res obscuras apprehendere. Academicus intemperans et positivisticus solus qui audenter docet nihilum obscurum exstare et dubitationem dumtaxat querellam quae semper sanari potest esse.

Cum tempus est ut, conspectu absoluto secuto, locus in quo invenis sit aestimandus, relativisticum conspectum sumes.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

You are disparaging a majority opinion that says "nearer" is good English by judging English today against a standard of Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, despite understanding the word "nearer" and the reasons why people use it.
Indeed, just as I judge that "more" is correct and "morer" is not. Not every usage or form is "born equal" and correct. The "equippment" of the language itself establishes such things regardless of how many people misuse the equippment.

As for foreign words, you write like there is one dialect in English. There are many dialects in English today and there were in the past, and a good dictionary such as OED attempts to acknowledge them rather than promote only one.
No, I don't mean it doesn't have other dialects. But I mean a dialect such as Latin is not one of those dialects. Latin is Latin not English and English is English, not Latin. English-speakers may use the Latin words labor and doctor and heaps of other Latin words, but those words are still not English anymore than you are I or I am you. English is its own language and words/forms distinct from those of other language. And that is a very important distinction that people are becoming more and more ignorant of these days. That is not linguistic purity, but just distinguishing one language from another, just as we distinguish one person from another.

I don't have any problem with people using foreign words, but I do think there is a problem when they no longer make any distinction of those words being foreign, but ignorantly call everything and anything "English". Yes, it is much easier to do, and the majority may do it, but that doesn't make it right.



You write as if antiquity and pedigree gives authority to words. I disagree. Usage gives authority, and usage is always relative to groups (Damoetas's social dimension). Groups change and the authority changes in time. Believe that some Anglo Saxons were moaning about the introduction into their language of certain "foreign" words that we imagine today are "pure" Anglo Saxon because the historical record is imperfect. Linguistic purity and meaning are all relative—to groups that change in time and place, and groups within groups! New words are introduced into a language by and large because they are useful. When that happens, they are no longer foreign. They have linguistic citizenship!! Are you less Canadian if your distant ancestors weren't born in Canada?
I don't mean antiquity and pedigree gives all the authority. But a language as old as English is one whose past determines it more than its present. English is over 1500 years old. Its past is the first and foremost part and what gave the largest contribution to the language, and established it long before we came along, therefore indeed, it does have much more authority than we do . We don't get to use the language anyway we want to, for the language is already established by the strength of the ages behind it and that in fact is what keeps it strong. In comparison to what and how the past established the English language, and how people use "modern" against the past today, it is "modern" that is both the far less relevant and trustworthy aspect by which to judge by.
Last edited by Essorant on Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Essorant wrote:Latin is Latin not English and English is English, not Latin. English-speakers may use the Latin words labor and doctor and heaps of other Latin words, but those words are still not English anymore than you are I.
Do you see the racial implications in the things you say, Essorant? You seem to say that only words that come from the dialects of Angles, Saxons and Jutes may count as true English words today, but not words from anybody else.

Videsne eas res quas dicis substantialiter fontibus phyleticis seu stirpibus discriminare? Sola verba de dialectis Saxonum, Jutarum, Anglorum non illa aliorum nunc ut vera anglica numeras, id mihi videtur.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Do you see the racial implications in the things you say, Essorant? You seem to say that only words that come from the dialects of Angles, Saxons and Jutes may count as true English words today, but not words from anybody else.
If you are part of a family/race, you are nevertheless still yourself, Adriane, not your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, etc. That is the point I am making about English. English is a member too, distinct from other members such as Latin, Greek, etc, even though it belongs to the same "family"

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/engol-0-X.html wrote:...more than 80 percent of the thousand most common words in modern English come from Old English.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... eChart.svg
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Essorant wrote:English is a member too, distinct from other members such as Latin, Greek, etc, even though it belongs to the same "family"
Due to cross fertilisation, Modern English is not as distinct as was Old English 1100 years ago.
Confusionis specierum causâ inter linguas, non tam distinctum hodie quàm erat abhinc annos milia centum est Anglicum.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Sometimes I think there are too many foreign words, but I think the lack of discrimination between the native words and the foreign words is what makes makes for a much worse lack of distinction. How may the average English speaker today respect the word soul as English and psyche as Greek, when they are indiscriminately presented as one and the same "English? Even those that know better usually don't direct English-speakers to make such a distinction. The dictionaries are called "English" but include words as foreign as yin and yang. Therefore there is almost nothing that encourages the distinction or prevents people from more and more treating words even as foreign as yin and yang as if they are "English".

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Essorant wrote:Even those that know better usually don't direct English-speakers to make such a distinction.
I imagine it's because they don't agree with you.
Non tecum concurrunt, ut imaginor.

So you didn't like my suggestion that naturalization is a process that applies to words as it does to people?
Nonnè amavisti quod de donatione civitatis tam vocabulis quàm populis pertinente suggessi?
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Damoetas »

Essorant wrote:English is its own language and words/forms distinct from those of other language. And that is a very important distinction that people are becoming more and more ignorant of these days. That is not linguistic purity, but just distinguishing one language from another, just as we distinguish one person from another....

I don't have any problem with people using foreign words, but I do think there is a problem when they no longer make any distinction of those words being foreign, but ignorantly call everything and anything "English". Yes, it is much easier to do, and the majority may do it, but that doesn't make it right....

I don't mean antiquity and pedigree gives all the authority. But a language as old as English is one whose past determines it more than its present. English is over 1500 years old. Its past is the first and foremost part and what gave the largest contribution to the language, and established it long before we came along, therefore indeed, it does have much more authority than we do. We don't get to use the language anyway we want to, for the language is already established by the strength of the ages behind it and that in fact is what keeps it strong....
But WHY is it important to keep the words distinct? Why is it important to distinguish one language from another?

What do you mean "we don't get to use the language any way we want to" -- who is going to stop us? How do the ancient Anglo-Saxons have "authority" over us? Is it some kind of moral authority that "ought to" restrain us?

And what does it mean for a language to be "strong"? Can you give some examples of strong and weak languages?
Dic mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus' anne Latinum?

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Damoetas wrote:What do you mean "we don't get to use the language any way we want to" -- who is going to stop us? How do the ancient Anglo-Saxons have "authority" over us? Is it some kind of moral authority that "ought to" restrain us?
I am definitely not one of them, but I believe that there are many in this forum, Damoetas, who, while not agreeing with Essorant as regards English, would be more likely to agree if he substituted the word Latin for English, and Classical Romans for Anglo-Saxons.
Ego insisto me non in numero eorum esse, sed sunt multi, credo, in hoc foro, Damoeta, qui cum Essorant dissentiunt quoad opiniones de linguâ Anglicâ etsi libentiùs consentiant si Latinum pro Anglico et Romani Aevi Classici pro Anglo-Saxonibus substituentur.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Adriane,
So you didn't like my suggestion that naturalization is a process that applies to words as it does to people?

No, because it suggests that words/forms of any language may be English, which is not true. For English's own are what make English special and distinct from other languages. The English language is "English" specifically because it has soul as its own word/form distinct from Greek's psyche and Latin's anima, ghost as its own distinct from Greek's pneuma and Latin's spiritus, work as its own distinct from Greek's ergon and Latin's opus, etc in conjunction with distinguishing sounds, syllables, grammar, etc. People from any country may become Canadian because Canadianness isn't inherently "planted" in just a specific group. But linguistic Englishness however is inherently planted in only a specific dialectic group of words/forms that have distinct shapes, sounds, grammar and etymology, differentiating them from words of other languages. Father is inherently English and distinct from the cognate pater. The special sound-differences such as f instead of p and th instead t are characterizing aspects that distinguish this word as being of a different language from pater. For a word such as psyche we don't even need to go further than the ps- which is a sound combination that no English word begins with . Even the average numbers of syllables in words distinguish English to some extent. Unless a compound no English word usually exceeds three or four syllables, while exceeding that many syllables is commonplace in Latin and Greek. Even the letters or letter-groups that words begin with have distinguishing aspects. Beyond some dialectal deviants in English itself (vane, vat, vixen, jowl) no English word begins with j, v, x, or z. Also no English word begins with sk/sc for that sound became sh in English. Prefixes, suffixes, certain manners of making compounds, relations between words (doom/deem, moot/meet, God/giddy etc) are also distinguishing. All these things are not just Indo-European, and not just Germanic, but a special combination that is English and sets apart only English words as being dialectically English, not words of other languages.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Salve Essorant
Surely British doctors foreign-trained in medicine perform very skillfully. Similarly, practitioners just British-trained cure people quite effectively. Equally, take different students getting university degrees,—imagine nursing, dentistry, literature, journalism, science, engineering subject areas.
Am I writing English when I avoid words of unique Anglo-Saxon origin? Do words of Anglo-Saxon origin stop being English in the plural, with a "French" -s?
Scribone anglicé in vocabulis originis Anglo-Saxonicae solae fugiendis? Pluraliter per "-s" terminationem "gallicam", consistuntne vocabula originis Anglo-Saxonicae in sermone Anglico esse?
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

Also, I know that the word doctor is a fully naturalized English word and no longer a Latin word because it obeys English laws, with a plural "doctors", and regular verb form "to doctor" and an English adjective "doctorly". It belongs now to the English language.

Etiam, anglicè "doctor" vocabulum donationem civitatis anglicae plenè accipisse scio, non jam latinum esse, quià legibus anglicis paret. Nec "doctores" pluraliter, nec "docere" verbum, nec "doctus" adjectivum anglicè dicimus. Ad linguam anglicam id nunc attinet.

Actually, Essorant, I wouldn't worry about the number of foreign words in English diluting its unique identity as a language. No matter how many new words are introduced, the really important words remain characteristically English. In the real world, who wants to write English by avoiding words of Old English origin when they are so centrally important? http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/w ... 1/?view=uk

P.S. I read in Steven Pinker's Language Instinct (p.259) that linguists estimate that the characteristic traces of any language endure 10000 years at most.

Verum dicere, Essorant, numeri vocabulorum peregrinorum in linguâ anglicâ non tibi cura sit. Neque jacturam naturae linguae lugeas. Non refert quotcunque peregrina addantur, restant vocabula maximi momenti unicè anglica. Quis vocabula originis Anglicae Antiquae omittens utiliter anglicè scribat, cùm tàm necessaria illa vocabula?

Post scriptum. Apud Stephanum Pinker (The Language Instinct, p.259) legi ut linguistae vestigia cujus linguae propria decem milia annos non plus durare aestimant.
Last edited by adrianus on Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Active and passive case

Post by adrianus »

I'm not a linguist so apologies in advance to anyone who is.

I was thinking again about your gripe with "nearer" as incorrect English, Essorant. I read that the use of "near" as a positive in places in Old English indicates the influence of Danish Old Norse but I want to propose something more strange, just for the fun of it and precisely because I know so little about it.

As an Irish person saying "nearer", I pronounce both r's pretty clearly but a South-Eastern (Kentish) English person practically loses the final r. Similarly, many South-Eastern English people pronounce "near" as "neah'", so you have "near", "nearer", "nearest" pronounced as "neah (as a single long syllable)", "neareh" (but now with "ea" as a short sound), "nearest" (again with "ea" as a short sound). Is it just me or is that not pretty close to Anglo-Saxon "neáh", "neárre", "nýhst/néhst"?

Now, is it possible that the progression pos. -> comp. -> super. to the ear is single syllable -> two syllables -> two syllables, with the result that the words ner -> nerrer -> nerrest in Middle English is a good way of ensuring orthographically that the extra syllable in preserved in a Kentish accent, while being consistent with the regular terminal -r (the addition of "-or") in comparatives in OE? It shouldn't be equated with making a mistake like "better" and "betterer" or "more" and "morer".

I read that there are Old English variations in spelling "neárre", "neár", "nyr" for Modern English "nearer". But there are variations between Anglo-Saxon dialects, aren't there? I wonder, is "nyr" (nearer), "fyr (further) a more northerly dialect spelling and "neárre"/"fyrre" a more Southerly spelling?

Linguista non sum, ità cuicunque sic est ab initio aio, me excuses.

Denuò, Essorant, quaestionem tuam de gradu comparativo cum "near" anglicé pondero. "Near" sicut adverbium positivum quidem in anglico antiquo nonnumquàm invenitur, ut legi, quod indicat linguae danorum effectus. Ego autem aliam explicationem proponere volo, pro deliciis et pro illâ ratione ut verè tam paululum de hâc re scio.

Ego hibernicus in "nearer" dicendo ambas "r" liiteras clarè sono. Quidam de regione Angliae australe et oriente, Cantia enim, aliter sonat, secundam r litteram omittens. Me rogo utrum r terminans in orthographiam "nearer" adverbii anglicam non soloecismum signficet, sub affectu linguae nordicae antiquae danorum, sed ostentui sit ne secunda syllaba aboriatur (si verè in duabus syllabis "neárre" seu "neár" consistit), dum simul sic faciens id ad casus comparativos per "or" congruat.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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Re: Active and passive case

Post by thesaurus »

Essorant wrote:But linguistic Englishness however is inherently planted in only a specific dialectic group of words/forms that have distinct shapes, sounds, grammar and etymology, differentiating them from words of other languages.
You have very peculiar views about language. I think it is vital to understand that language is completely fluid, and that it is not reducable into discreet units.

I'm very interested in knowing your answers to the following questions: what is the difference between a language and a dialect? What is the "most English" dialect, and why is that the case? Also, at what point is the English language born (i.e., when do other German languages become English, where is the point of separation)? If I speak a dialect of English that for some reason uses p's instead of f's, or t's instead of th's, am I still speaking English? What if I'm speaking a dialect of English that you can hardly understand (or is this a different language?), or what if you understand me perfectly, but I use a number of "unenglish" phonemes? What if you're speaking what you consider to be pure English and the average educated American/Englishman etc. can't understand you? Or is communication incidental to language?

Sententiae tuae de linguis mirae inassuetaeque mihi visae sunt. Ut cogito ego, necesse est intellegas linguam ipsam fluidam esse et ne discretas in partis dividi posse.

Valde me interest scire quomodo te has quaestiones resoluturum: quid inter linguam dialectumque interest? Quae dialectus "Anglicissima" tibi videtur? Quando nata est lingua Anglica (i.e., quando variae linguae Germanicae in Anglicam se mutaverunt? Ubi est discrimen?) Si dialecto Anglici quadam loquor quae litteram P in loco litterae F (vel T pro TH) adhibet, estne haec dialectus Anglica? Quod si aliqua Anglici dialecto loquor quam tu vix intellegis (estne haec Anglica vel alia lingua)? Quod si facile me intellegis, sed sonos quosdam haud "Anglicos" loquente eicio? Quod si castissime rectissimeque (sic tu arbitras) Anglice loqueris, aliqui autem homo mediocris et e togatorum numero te non intellegit? Estne communicatio ipsa linguis nihilo?
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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Re: Active and passive case

Post by Essorant »

Damoetus
But WHY is it important to keep the words distinct? Why is it important to distinguish one language from another?
[...]
And what does it mean for a language to be "strong"? Can you give some examples of strong and weak languages?


The importance and the strength are the truth. The truth is that they are not one and the same language's words and therefore shouldn't be treated as if they are. A further importance is that words of a particular language have many correspondances and connections with each other that they don't have with those of other languages. The more intimate we are with one language and keep it distinct from another the more we are able to keep in touch and understand the language's words and in doing so use the language better and stronglier. For example, the average English speaker clearly understands what the word careful means for he has familiarity with care and full. But in a latinish word such as accurate he has no or little clue or interpretation whatsoever of the ad and cura that go into the word. For many even the equi- and nox in equinox don't mean anything. They may only mechanically memorize such words as wholes, for they have no intimacy with the parts that make them up. They don't have knowledge of "canis" being a dog, but mechanically memorize canine as being a dog-oriented adjective. This just confirms how foreign and distant such words shall always be. The reason they don't have intimacy with the parts that make up these words is because the words belong to a different language, a language that that has those parts and a language that most English speakers don't know and never will know.
What do you mean "we don't get to use the language any way we want to" -- who is going to stop us? How do the ancient Anglo-Saxons have "authority" over us?

A language is a collaborative monument of many ages. When people long began a great artwork it is only due that you should respect how it stands before you and preserve it and even restore ut where possible, and also contribute to it. When you approach the work of many ages before you, it is a disgrace if you will put only your own one self and your own one age over the authorship and art established by many people and many ages of the past, without which you wouldn't have the age-cultivated language you speak let alone to try to give over only into the authority of only your own self and your own age and pretend the past doesn't count anymore. The past has more authority because it established the language much before and much more than the present .

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