Textkit Greek and Latin Forums

Salvte descipulii socii

P&R #5 reads as follows:
Quando homines satis virtutis habebunt.

virtutis is in the genitive singular. Does satis take a genetive much like many prepositions take the ablative?

I translate this sentence as: When will men have enough of wisdom? Meaning, haven't they had enough already?! Habere[i/] is a transative verb, so shouldn't vertutis be in the accusative, virtutem?

Valete,
Rob Carignan
Portland, Maine

Firstly, I don't have the username and password to access the graphic you use as an avatar, so I get an annoying dialogue box flash up everytime I access a thread to which you have posted. I believe I PM'ed you about this earlier

Secondly, a number of nouns and pronouns use the genitive construction:

satis (enough)
plus and minus (more and less)
nimis and parum (too much and too little)
quantum and tantum (how much and so much)

so:

Vix cibi satis habemus: We have hardly enough food
Quantum pecuniae reliquum est How much money is left?

Habere is a transative verb, so shouldn't vertutis (sic) be in the accusative, virtutem?

Satis is a pronoun.

So it's "When will the men have enough wisdom?"

We use the same kind of construction in English.

"Haven't you had enough of his nonsense? I had too much of it ages ago"

I should add two other pronouns to the list, for completeness.

Multum (much)
Quid (What?, but only sometimes used this way)

So:

Quid novi? (lit. What of news?, meaning what's new/What have you got to tell me?)

"All", however, does not take this kind of construction. All of them is ei omnes.

Interesting, turps, or should i say turds. I've made some mistakes in my life,
several of which have been punished with time at Her Majesty's pleasure
thinking about what I'd done, but never has such a terrible act been carried
out on this earth as your saying "satis is a pronoun". I mean, what in Rome's
white Senate house are you on about? I know Ovid was a twat, but even he would
not have wasted a second of his life with such a retarded thought.

no seriously, it's an abverb (derived from an indeclinable noun) you silly
sausage. That's another reference to your being an utter pork scratching.

you may do Latin, but i dont think it's appropriate for you to rape it.

As Socrates said, "rape, my dear ion, is always wrong."

see you on Tuesdays at Life

P.S. I only just saw "multum is a pronoun" in the second post! errrr

Interesting, turps, or should i say turds. I've made some mistakes in my life,
several of which have been punished with time at Her Majesty's pleasure
thinking about what I'd done, but never has such a terrible act been carried
out on this earth as your saying "satis is a pronoun". I mean, what in Rome's
white Senate house are you on about? I know Ovid was a twat, but even he would
not have wasted a second of his life with such a retarded thought.

Temper.

My my, a retort of infinitely more merit than your initial post!

satis and multum indeed are not pronouns; the former could arguably be regarded as an indeclinable adjective and the latter a substantive adjective in the usage under discussion. Strictly though, they are both adverbs, petrified noun cases. When satis goes with a genitive, it is really working more like a noun: e.g. "enough (of) ____". satis often functions merely to modify the verb (or an adjective or other adverb) and in such cases will not provoke a genitive: e.g. satis pecuniam habes "You have money enough"... satis pecuniae habes "You have enough (of) money" is a more common sight, however.

As for the original sentence, I think it is more likely that it suggests that men do not have enough virtue yet and the author wonders when they will. To have enough virtue is not really an option, except perhaps in jest or if you take virtue to be more along the lines of "hubris" - this would imply to me that there is a limit to how virtuous a person should try to be, which sounds like nonsense to me.

poeta nequitiae meae wrote:Interesting, turps, or should i say turds. I've made some mistakes in my life,
several of which have been punished with time at Her Majesty's pleasure
thinking about what I'd done, but never has such a terrible act been carried
out on this earth as your saying "satis is a pronoun". I mean, what in Rome's
white Senate house are you on about? I know Ovid was a twat, but even he would
not have wasted a second of his life with such a retarded thought.

no seriously, it's an abverb (derived from an indeclinable noun) you silly
sausage. That's another reference to your being an utter pork scratching.

you may do Latin, but i dont think it's appropriate for you to rape it.

As Socrates said, "rape, my dear ion, is always wrong."

see you on Tuesdays at Life

P.S. I only just saw "multum is a pronoun" in the second post! errrr

O poeta, a bungling of grammar terminology hardly constitutes a rape of the Latin language. The usage of the grammatical features of Latin is infinitely more important than the names of those features. In the future, should you wish to correct someone (which you are certainly welcome to do!), you need to do so in a manner and discretion that befits and benefits a friendly and educational discussion. I would also refraining from such words as "turd", "twat", and "retarded"; except at the proper times of course (possibly on the playground).

I can see why one might think satis a pronoun since the adverb does indeed require a genitive construction, as does the interrogative pronoun Quid, in such expressions as Quid novi as Turpissimus rightly pointed out. However this is a genitive of quality. Easily done. D'ailleurs, as benissimus has already said, a few errors in grammatical terminology can't harm the language itself. However it would be nice for learners to be given the correct term, it's only fair. Still, due to my lack of wider reading (had ne'er seen it before) I did not realise that si may also be used as cum of habitude. That's no foreskin off my bishop.

Episcopus wrote:I can see why one might think satis a pronoun

In truth, I know satis is not a pronoun, I just made a really dumb mistake and didn't proofread my post. The result was I was raked over the coals for it.