Case for word following "because of"

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi I’m new here and I have a question.

I’m trying to figure out, what would be the proper case for a word that comes after “because of”/ “propter”. As in the sentence: I am happy, because of the news. Would “the news” be abblative? That is my guess but some reason it is kind of throwing me off.

Thanks in advance for any help :slight_smile:

2

Hi, and welcome!

Both the verb “laetor” and the adjective “laetus/-a” can be constructed with a plain ablative:

“Laetor nuntiis”, or “laetus/-a sum nuntiis”.

You can just as well (or maybe even better) use a preposition, such as “de”, “ob” or “propter”. In either case, you must use the case that the preposition governs: “de” takes the ablative, “ob” and “propter” take the accusative.

3

Thanks alot! :smiley:

4

It’s a more formal construction, but if you didn’t want to worry about messing around with cases you could use the construction “propterea quod,” which also means “because,” or “on account of.” It implies a strong causal relation between two phrases. Like “I’m happy (precisely) because I received good news.” “Laetor propterea quod bonum nuntium accepi.”

5

Hi. The answer in your question is: propterea quod.