seneca2008 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 11:56 am
bipesimplume wrote:litterās discendō/litterīs discendīs fruī possumus legendō.
What exactly do you think "legendō" means here as opposed to lectione? I can see that you have to have a noun in the ablative as the object of fruī but I don't see why you want a gerund here, nor why you want to place it after "fruī possumus".
It's an exercise about gerunds
Other than that, no difference (also, I had overlooked the provided vocabulary so I didn't know the preferred choice was lēctiōne). The word's placement is meant to separate it from the first ablative gerund. Plus these Romans had a penchant for splitting adjective phrases. And it rhymes.
Ars aliōs regendī non facilis est discī/ad discendum.
Again I don't see why "est discī" instead of "discitur". The English sentence is " is not easily learnt" not "is not to be easily learned".
Not
est discī, but rather
facilis discī, i.e. "easy to learn" (literally, "easy to be learnt"), which corresponds more closely to the intended English meaning. The author tries to hint at the Latin constructions by using odd English constructions, but my interest lies in capturing and translating the meaning. (Whether the solution with
discitur and the construction with
discī mean the same to a Roman is an open question.) I had been looking for a confirmation for
facilis discendī, but I ran into this instead:
Gildersleeve wrote:
421. The Infinitive, as a substantive, is used regularly in
two cases only Nominative and Accusative. In the other
cases its place is supplied by the Gerund and the Ablative
Supine.
NOTES. 1. Traces of the original Dat. (or Loc.) nature of the Infinitive are still
apparent in many constructions, which are, however, mostly poetical:
It is confined principally, however, to adjectives of capability, ability, necessity, etc., and adjectives like facilis (with act. as well as pass. Inf., first in PROP.), difficilis, and the like: Rōma capī facilis, LUCAN, n. 656.
seneca2008 wrote:
I am glad you are bringing alternatives up as it makes one think about the constructions, but I dont have a ready answer and cant immediately find precedents.
Don't worry. I'll keep them coming. Easy questions are neither fun nor didactic.
"Ars aliōs regendī non facilis est ad discendum"
ad plus the gerund expresses purpose so I dont think this works.
Here it should say
facile instead, as the adverb modifying
discendum, e.g.
ars aliōs regendī non ad facile discendum est. But really the problem is that
ad discendum is active and would automatically take
ars as its subject. Next.
katalogon wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 9:21 pm
litterās discendō/litterīs discendīs fruī possumus legendō.
I'm trying to come up with something which would rule out this usage of the ablative gerund, legendō, in the suggested solution.
I've found in Allen & Greenough in section 507, Note 1:
The ablative of the Gerund and Gerundive is also very rarely used with verbs and adjectives: as, -- nec continuandō abstitit magistrātū (Liv. ix. 34), he did not desist from continuing his magistracy.
So could we take the suggested solution using legendō as falling into the "very rarely" class or is there something else that would definitively rule it out?
Good point. But how else do you suggest rendering "enjoy + —ing" in general?