ANTE INTER and the accusative

Latin Learning Latin
1

I assume that by saying ‘ANTE and INTER’ (as well as PER POST etc)
are goverened by the accusative case means that they ONLY exist
in sentences using the accusative.

Can somebody give me one example of one of these words
used with the accusative (i assume there are no other way to use
these words)

Thanks.

2

Felis ante fenestram inter canes currit

3

and the point is that when you use ‘ANTE’ that ‘FENESTRAM’ has
to be in the accusative?

Is ‘FENESTRAM’ in the accusative because ANTE is in the sentence
or is it always like that in such a sentence?

Thanks.

4

If you say ‘in front of the window’, then ‘window’ is accusative (in the Latin, of course). That seems to be the clearest way to explain it. A prepositional phrase is like a little ‘packet’ grammatically separate from the rest of the sentence: thus, whenever you say ‘in front of the window’, it is ante fenestram.

5

The the following should all be true:

The cat is in front of the window (window is in the accus)

The window is open (window is nominative)

The cat is in the window (window is accus)

Correct?

Thanks.

6

Yep, all correct.

Prepositions are said to ‘govern’ a case, meaning that they must be followed by a noun in that case. So, for example, a word belonging to the preposition ‘ante’ is always in the accusative; a word belonging to ‘sine’ always in the ablative. There are some prepositions, that govern two cases

Those cases have nothing to do with the normal function of these cases in the sentence. For instance, in the sentence: the cat runs before the window, you could replace ‘before the window’ with ‘there’; e.g. an adverb of place.

Hope this helps.

Groetjes
Ingrid

7

No, ablative, because in takes the ablative when it means ‘in, inside’. It takes the accusative when it means ‘into’.

8

prepositions either take the accusative or the ablative, some both. a general thing to keep in mind is that the accusative signifies motion with a preposition and the ablative signifies location. so ‘in’ with accusative means “into” whereas with the ablative it means simply “in” as “inside”. of course, this is just a general rule.