I’ve started a Classics degree at university. This degree is for absolute beginners and is designed to bring them up to the level of 1st year undergraduate in an Oxbridge classics course - in three years. As such, it is pretty intensive and lecturers often have little time for niceties. I’m doing rather well but I ran into a problem - parsing cases of relative pronouns in English. At the moment we’re working on the Hillard and Botting book and I ran into this sentence: “In this city, which we were attacking, there were many captives”. I parsed the relative pronoun in the subordinate clause as accusative: In hac urbe, quam oppugnabamus, fuerunt captivi multi. I reasoned that the nominative is “we” and it is subsumed in the verb. The lecturer said that I was wrong, the case of the relative pronoun is nominative and the proper translation for the relative pronoun is “quae”. I don’t understand why but I need an answer to parse future examples. For the sake of comparions, Hillard and Botting gives the following example on pg. 67: The wall, which we built, was very high: Murus, quem aedificavimus, altissimus erat. As you can see, in the H&B example, the case of the relative pronoun is accusative. Well, what do you guys think?
There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that you are correct in your parsing: the relative pronoun here is the direct object of the verb and so must be in the accusative case. The bad news is that your supposed teacher didn’t know this, which leads one to wonder about his/her qualifications to teach Latin.
Keep reading the book, because obviously it’s teaching you better than the lecturer!
Thank you for your reply. I am glad that I parsed the relative pronoun correctly as I couldn’t see the logic of my lecturer’s reply. On the other hand I am seriously disturbed that it appears to be a mistake on the part of my lecturer as he extremely well-respected in classical circles and is single-handedly responsible for the preservation of classical studies in my country. However, he was in an extremely bad mood land very distracted last time so that might have affected his judgement. I will try to clear it up with him next Monday. Many thanks.
Out of curiosity, may I ask who your lecturer is? He sounds like an impressive person, if he single-handedly preserved Classics in an entire nation. I’m sure he was just having an off-day.
I don’t want to discuss the matter on a public forum but if you send me an email at: jadebonoATgmail.com (replace AT with @ - necessary precaution to prevent spam) I’ll tell you all about him. He really is an impressive person with great experience and has done a lot of good with this course which he himself has tailored. I can judge the quality of a lecturer since I myself am a professional teacher (though I took three years’ study leave to follow this course) and this guy is top-notch. Mind you, he is temperamental and prone to getting flustered if things get bumpy. Unfortunately, during our last lecture, he got very annoyed with my course mates because they weren’t studying. Some of them were even writing out the declensions on paper before answering his questions and a few them had skived en masse. He got really waxy and was very short with all us- which is why I didn’t dare press him for a comprehensive answer. Fortunately, he cools down as swiftly as he flares up so I expect he’ll clear up the matter next monday.
Ok. I cleared up the matter with my lecturer. I couldn’t bear it any longer so I called him up. He was in a much better mood and was much amused with my problem. Anyway, it transpired that he was actually talking about ANOTHER sentence:
Hillard & Botting, Exercise 92 no. 6:
We seized the city, which had been fortified by a high rampart. Of course, in this example, the case of the relative pronoun IS nominative.
The fault, therefore, is mine, all mine and nothing but mine. Oh, well. I must pay closer attention next time. Thanks to everyone who took the time to help me out.
Oh, well. I must pay closer attention next time. Thanks to everyone who took the time to help me out.