Can someone link me sources pages etc or even better tell me a bit about apposition of places etc. Kennedy doesn’t say much.
For example I want to write mount alvernia hospital.
Is it all accusative or do I use a quasi genitive of description:
Valetudinarium montis alverniae.
Where alverniae could be in apposition to montis or mean the mount of alvernia?
Weird! Got to love a language that makes you think so much?
In Allen & Greenough, check out Para. 282 (Apposition) and para. 426 (an example of apposition of a place name: “Mosa profluit ex monte Vosego”). I think the example exactly fits your question.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001%3Asmythp%3D282
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001%3Asmythp%3D426
Thanks!
And can we be sure vosego is not an adjective? I can’t find it on Wiktionary but will look again.
It’s just I have seen at least one example of a genitive being used instead of apposition, admittedly in a modern work mirabile magus oz (although I have just noticed that title has apposition rather than genitive, although that could be cos oz is in l indeclinable!
Anyhow to of my head the emerald city is urbs smaragdorum
There must be a resource covering apposition of place names other than to say urbs takes simple apposition.
If I’ve missed something in the paragraphs you mentioned I’m sorry, I’ll reread later.
PS vicipaedi has lots of institution names so I’ll have a look.
And can we be sure vosego is not an adjective?
If you check Lewis&Short, you’ll see that Vosego is the ablative of Vosegus, which is a masc. noun meaning a specific chain of mountains in Gaul. (The modern name is Vosges), so it is definitely standing in apposition to monte. There is no adjectival form of Vosegus. Here’s the entry:
https://logeion.uchicago.edu/Vosegus
Thanks. Actually, as I often discover, English place names have the same genitive or appositive split. For example:
Cape horn
(As I say later, I’m beginning to think this is not apposition, but using a noun as an adjective.)
Cape of Good Hope
I’m just surprised there isn’t a list out there with different examples to see if there is any pattern at all.
A few examples off top of my head:
Rivers: apposition, both in Latin and English
Cities: as above
Islands: apposition definitely possible in Latin, perhaps there are examples of the genitive. Besides we say ‘of’ in English, eg island of Britain.
Mountains: apposition in both, can’t think of counter examples.
Bays gulfs, straits, passes,etc Bay of Naples, gulf of Mexico, straits of messina but Caudine forks. I wonder how these work in Latin, and if we can infer a rule.
Not geographical, but related are days of the week. We use apposition: moon day sun day, but Latin uses genitive and two words dies Solis etc.
Similar are churches and temples. I think we both use the genitive.
Streets and roads: we tend to apposite, is that a word? Eg: bond street, Epsom road London road. Or is something other than apposition, as in the case of urbs Roma, but using a noun as an adjective? Rome and the city are clearly the same thing, whereas London and road are not.
But via Appia via sacra.
I don’t know if there’s an actual list comparing the use of appositive genitives to the use of nominative nouns in apposition or adjectives formed from nouns, all with respect to place names, except to say that both are used in Latin, which I think you already know. Here’s what A&G have to say concerning appositive genitives (it’s not much):
Allen & Greenough, Para. 343d:
d. A limiting genitive is sometimes used instead of a noun in apposition (Appositional Genitive) (§ 282):—
As you can see in example 2, the name of the city could be expressed both ways, with the noun in the nominative case standing in apposition as the regular form. I imagine this would be useful in poetry where in this instance you could substitute a long ultima (Antiochiae) with a short ultima (Antiochia) to satisfy metrical requirements.