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retypepassword
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Sub

Post by retypepassword »

How do I use sub? In Wheelock's vocabulary list for Chapter 7, sub is listed with "Abl. with verbs of rest, Acc. with verbs of motion."

I find that unclear. When am I to use the ablative with sub, and when am I to use the accusative? If there are two verbs in a sentence, for example, which verb do I choose to determine if the noun/adjective I use after sub is in the ablative or accusative form?

Also, are the two sentences in my profile correct (I came up with them myself)?

fierywrath
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Post by fierywrath »

why does it matter? latin is a dead laungage.

Pros
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Question about the dead language.

Post by Pros »

Why is Latin a dead language? Is there a reason Latin died? What is lacking in Latin that English or any other language survives or supplants it? As a beginner in Latin, I have found Latin to be not too strict in translating a sentence. No articles for instance. Could that be one of the problems why Latin died?

retypepassword
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Post by retypepassword »

I don't care whether or not Latin is a dead language; it's a beautiful language dead or alive. That was my main motivation for trying to learn it in the first place.

Nonetheless, fierywrath, you were not very helpful in answering my question.

Latin "died" because it fell out of use and was replaced by other languages, like the Romance languages and in particular, English. This is the same reason why Old French died, why Middle English died, why Sanskrit died, and why many languages died during the era of the Roman Republic. It is rather unfortunate that Latin ousted so many other languages, but we are seeing the same thing today. Latin was a world languages two centuries ago; today, English is a world language. Though this may sound cliched, history does repeat itself. Eventually, English will fall out of use, and it will be replaced by another language.

Thanks in advance to anyone who answers my question about sub.

modus.irrealis
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Re: Question about the dead language.

Post by modus.irrealis »

Pros wrote:Why is Latin a dead language?
Usually "dead language" refers to a language that has no native speakers, but that's true of Latin only because of our terminology (compare the situation with Greek), since there's almost a billion native speakers of languages that are directly descended with no break from Latin -- I'd think all languages would love to die the way Latin did :D.
retypepassword wrote:When am I to use the ablative with sub, and when am I to use the accusative?
Basically that when you want to speak about the position of something that's at rest as being under something else, you use the ablative. And when you want to say that something that's in motion is going under something else, you use the accusative. That's pretty much repeating Wheelock but think of the difference between "he's hiding under the couch" (ablative) vs. "he dove under the couch" (accusative).
If there are two verbs in a sentence, for example, which verb do I choose to determine if the noun/adjective I use after sub is in the ablative or accusative form?
I can't think of a situation that could arise -- could you give an example?

Arvid
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Re: Question about the dead language.

Post by Arvid »

modus.irrealis wrote:Basically that when you want to speak about the position of something that's at rest as being under something else, you use the ablative. And when you want to say that something that's in motion is going under something else, you use the accusative. That's pretty much repeating Wheelock but think of the difference between "he's hiding under the couch" (ablative) vs. "he dove under the couch" (accusative).
This is the exact situation in German with prepositions such as "auf" and "unter." If the motion takes place IN the space indicated by the preposition, it takes the Dative; if the motion goes from OUTSIDE that space INTO it, it takes the Accusative. Illuminating cross-connections like this are just another reason to study Latin!

retypepassword
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Post by retypepassword »

@modus.irrealis: Thanks for your reply. That really cleared things up for me.
modus.irrealis wrote:That's pretty much repeating Wheelock but think of the difference between "he's hiding under the couch" (ablative) vs. "he dove under the couch" (accusative).
To clarify:
I do not want my friend to walk under the guillotine, so s/he runs under the guillotine.

Only walk and runs would matter in determining the case of the noun after sub for the translation of the sentence, right? If so, this would also be the answer to my question about two verbs.

Edit: And are the sentences in my signature
(AMOR·IN·HOC·MVNDO·NON·EST
IN·LOCO·ALIO·EVM·FORTASSE·INVENIRE·POTES)
grammatically correct?

modus.irrealis
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Re: Question about the dead language.

Post by modus.irrealis »

Arvid wrote:This is the exact situation in German with prepositions such as "auf" and "unter." If the motion takes place IN the space indicated by the preposition, it takes the Dative; if the motion goes from OUTSIDE that space INTO it, it takes the Accusative. Illuminating cross-connections like this are just another reason to study Latin!
You're right -- it is very similar to German. Ancient Greek too has something similar, except it has a third possibility in using the genitive for motion from.
retypepassword wrote:I do not want my friend to walk under the guillotine, so s/he runs under the guillotine.

Only walk and runs would matter in determining the case of the noun after sub for the translation of the sentence, right? If so, this would also be the answer to my question about two verbs.
I don't like how Wheelock phrased it as depending on the verb -- you basically use sub with the accusative when you're describing a motion that goes from not being under something to being underthat something, i.e. when the goal of the motion is to end up being under something -- if the motion simply happens to take place under something, you'd use the ablative. So it's not the verb alone that determines which case you use.

With your example, my inclination would be that they'd require the accusative, but to take an example of the opposite (it's from the Vulgate but I don't expect Classical Latin to be different), there's qui ambulant sub sole "who walk under the sun" -- here, even though it's a verb of motion, sub is used to indicate the object under which the walking takes place not that the goal of the walking is to go under the sun.

Hope that's clear.
And are the sentences in my signature
(AMOR·IN·HOC·MVNDO·NON·EST
IN·LOCO·ALIO·EVM·FORTASSE·INVENIRE·POTES)
grammatically correct?
They seem grammatically correct to me.

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