Linqua Latina, Capitulum X

[jowens]

Salvete,

A quick question on Linqua Latina, Capitulum X, around line 9 is the sentence

"Canis amicus hominis est, ea bestia fera non est."

The pronoun in the second clause is feminine - but it seems it must be referring back to 'Canis', which I believe is masculine based on the adjective 'amicus'.

Thank you in advance.

[modus.irrealis]

My understanding is that such pronouns usually agree with the predicate noun in their own sentence rather than the word it refers back to (see A&G 296), so here "ea" is feminine because of "bestia", in spite of the fact it refers back to "canis".

[Scribo]

That makes sense.

[paulusnb]

Is, ea, Id become demonstrative when modifying a noun. So yeah, ea is fem. because of bestia.

[Tertius Robertus]

The pronoun in the second clause is feminine - but it seems it must be referring back to 'Canis', which I believe is masculine based on the adjective 'amicus'.

it is "ea bestia" which refers back to dog: that beast (animal) is not feral (wild/untamable).

[modus.irrealis]

Ah, so it's not "ea non est bestia fera" as I thought -- that makes my post above irrelevant, but I guess it's still an interesting fact about how gender agreement in Latin works.

[jowens]

I know this is probably quite simple, but Linqua Latina and the college companian don't really go into it - What clues do you see that let you know it should be 'That' as opposed to 'It'? How do you know that it should be 'That beast is not feral', rather than 'It is not a feral beast', is it the word order?

[Hampie]

I know this is probably quite simple, but Linqua Latina and the college companian don't really go into it - What clues do you see that let you know it should be 'That' as opposed to 'It'? How do you know that it should be 'That beast is not feral', rather than 'It is not a feral beast', is it the word order?

hic, hæc, hoc : this
ille, illa, illud : that
is, ea, id : he, she, it

[jowens]

I know this is probably quite simple, but Linqua Latina and the college companian don't really go into it - What clues do you see that let you know it should be 'That' as opposed to 'It'? How do you know that it should be 'That beast is not feral', rather than 'It is not a feral beast', is it the word order?

hic, hæc, hoc : this
ille, illa, illud : that
is, ea, id : he, she, it

Isn't hic/ille more about 'this, right here' and 'that over there' more than just this and that? And it seemed from the previous replies, that in this instance 'ea bestia' was translating to 'that beast' as opposed to 'it/he/she'

[Hampie]

I know this is probably quite simple, but Linqua Latina and the college companian don't really go into it - What clues do you see that let you know it should be 'That' as opposed to 'It'? How do you know that it should be 'That beast is not feral', rather than 'It is not a feral beast', is it the word order?

hic, hæc, hoc : this
ille, illa, illud : that
is, ea, id : he, she, it

Isn't hic/ille more about 'this, right here' and 'that over there' more than just this and that? And it seemed from the previous replies, that in this instance 'ea bestia' was translating to 'that beast' as opposed to 'it/he/she'

I was lazy :3. I read the article about the latin pronouns on Wikipedia. And it indeed states that is, ea, id are very weak demonstrative pronouns. There’s also iste and ipse one of them being between hic and ille, one of them meaning ’this yours'. Anyhow, latin does not work the same way as english do, and treats demonstrative pronounce differently – it also depend on the time a text was written. A direct translation trying to achieve word to word corespondency will always be quite fuzzy. If I recall correctly, ille, illa, illud lost much of it’s ’power’ during mediaeval times and the meaning became almost synonymous with is/ea/id, the professor said when we read some latin text at uni.

Is, ea, id are indeed stronger than he/she/it – since latin will not use pronouns at all most of the times when the subject is clear only by observing the verb ending. "It’s not a feral beast" would probably not have an ’ea’ at all, since it’s quite clear from the ’est’ that it’s the beast that is the subject and the feral is the predicative attribute. Bestia fera non est. ’It’s not a feral beast’ ’Ea/ille/ipse bestia non est’ ’That beast is not feral’….

I might be wrong a lot thought, but that was my, rather confusing, five cents :3.

[adrianus]

Ah, so it's not "ea non est bestia fera" as I thought -- that makes my post above irrelevant, but I guess it's still an interesting fact about how gender agreement in Latin works.

Ego equidem vos ambos, modus.irrealis Tertíque Roberte, rectè dicere credo, at ità anglicè sententia vertenda est, ut opinor:
Personally, I think you are both right, Tertius Robertus and modus.irrealis, but in my opinion it translates best in English as

"[The] dog is man's friend, it is not a wild beast"

[furrykef]

I hate to nitpick (OK, I love to nitpick ), but the name of the book is "Lingua Latina", not "Linqua Latina"... the Romans never used 'q' in place of 'g' as far as I know.