How would one express a causative idea in Latin. For example, how would I say You caused this to be written
Fecisti hoc scriptum esse. ← That’s my best attempt, but it doesn’t sound right at all.
For those of you Semitic language scholars, is there some construction similar to an H conjugation?
Usually, some form of facio is used with an ut clause.
I.e., fac ut urbem deleas - see that you destroy the city. But you can also use efficio and (I’m sure) many other verbs. I’m guessing that the idea in English is usually expressed not with “to cause” (which sounds a little awkward) but with “to bring about” or “to have (something done).”
It was I that had that song written for you. - ego ut carmen illud tibi scriberetur effeci.
Hence fit ut - it happens that, it comes to pass that (it is caused that) - you may be interested in the discussion of that expression in this post
Multas gratias tibi, bellum paxque, ago!
What do you think about this:
Effecisti ut hoc scriberetur. “You brought about that this was written.”
What do you think about this:
Effecisti ut hoc scriberetur. “You brought about that this was written.”
That seems fine to me! With the minor caveat that I’d translate it as “You had this written,” which seems the better English rendering. But “brought about” emphasizes the causal aspect that we’re discussing.
-David
i can hardly believe that greek uses the middle voice for this function! armenian, the other IE isolate, has all middle voice functions as greek (both indirect and direct reflexive), as well as deponent verbs and overlap of passive/middle forms; however, even armenian in this sense uses an auxiliary (this time 'tal, to give) just as the french use ‘faire’ for expressions ‘i make X do X’, which makes more sense.
then again, latin is a bit silly in that it seems torn between the middle voice and pure reflexives: ‘urbe potior’ but of course ‘nos celamur’. i hazard a guess and say that indirect reflexives (as greek ‘diwkomai’, ‘i pursue’ i.e. chase for myself) like ‘sequor’, i follow (i.e. i come after X for myself) remain in latin as middle while those direct reflexives as ‘se conferre’ use the accusative reflexive. if i ever came across the form ‘aliquid conferor’, i would say that it should mean something along the lines of winning or even delivering something. of course the indirect reflexive in the sense ‘i give X TO myself’ ‘mihi aliquid do’ would not mean ‘aliquid dor’ which is nonsense.
That is true. I had never thought about that before!
Yes, it does seem strange that Latin uses both se uertit and uertitur.
Regarding French, E., don’t you think it’s a bit confusing to use faire both for direct causative (“make something happen”) and indirect causative (“had something done”)? At least English can express this nuance. Of course, I haven’t been doing much reading in French recently (not to mention conversation!) so I don’t have any examples at hand.
Even Latin doesn’t do this:
I had my brother give her the reward.
effeci ut frater ei praemium daret (uel dederit, perf. subj. for definitely completed action in past, defying laws of sequence))
I made my brother give her the reward.
fratrem coegi ut ei praemium daret (uel dederit)
But if I’m not mistaken, both sentences in French would use faire?
It also seems strange to me that Latin uses facio for causative predicate adjectives: i.e., I made him angry, etc. heri fratrem iratum [esse] feci (yesterday I pissed my brother off) but not, as far as I can tell, causative predicate clauses heri fratrem ut magna cum ira aestuaret coegi (yesterday I made my brother seethe with rage)
If I’m seriously off here, I’d love to know more. This is the sort of thing that doesn’t really get addressed in most grammar books. Perhaps good prose comp texts deal with this somewhere (but I don’t recall Bradley’s Arnold, which I basically read in its entirety, mentioning it much at all).
-David
don’t worry, my french is very poor these days, i haven’t studied french for nearly 3 years. i guess we who are consumed by many other languages, glad to say for both of us some non-indo european ones, do not wish to dwell on the language which many of us learned first, even before latin.
in your second example you used coegi, and french would probably use some verb of forcing like forcer/obliger qn. Ã faire qch. etc. while it would use faire in the first example. however i didn’t see it as frequently used as in english, it seems quite clumsy, but that just might be my opinion. the thing i hated about french was the rendering of sentences like ‘je me fais respecter’, meaning ‘i get respected’. at first i thought that it should not be an infinitive but a past participle, hence the straight, i make myself respected, but the infinitive stands therefore the oblique ‘me’ must be in the dative, as ‘i make respecting for myself’, which is a kind of gay french deux cent oignons autour du col version of the middle voice!
of course, people often overlook the existence of faire que + subj., similar to any latin form of facere + subj., as ‘il faisait que je me fâchasse’, since this would sound odd and an acc. infin. is preferred.
Episcope, your rusty (?) French is much keener than mine, I’m afraid. fachasse? I don’t recognize that form, probably because it’s one of the literary (i.e. extinct ) tenses. I suspect it may be something slightly crass, though? (See Contextual Hermeneutics, Chap. 2 Authorial Predilections p. 67ff.).
I don’t remember seeing much of forcer or obliger in my reading (mainly Camus) though that usage certainly makes sense. Maybe also coercer, though that’s just a guess from an English word that most likely has a French cognate.
BTW I recently caught a faire + predicate adjective in the wild. (Recently means this morning. In the wild means Tacitus.) It was something like …formam uitae iniit quam celebrem miseriae temporum et humanum audaciae fecerunt (he assumed the lifestyle that the wretchedness of the age and the impudence of men made notorious). That lifestyle being delator - informer! (in Taciti libro primo annalium 74-75).
Best,
David
forcer is quite common, and fâchasse is simply an imperfect subjunctive, though as you can probably observe its formation corresponds to that of the latin pluperfect - with the past historic (i.e. lat. aorist) terminations removed and -sse, -sses, -[circumflex]t; -ssions, -ssiez, -ssent added. i am not sure the french literary tenses would be on your list of à faires given your current CIRCVM STANCE!! LIVE THE DREAM BELLUMPAXQUE LIVE THE DREAM
i am not sure the french literary tenses would be on your list of à faires given your current CIRCVM STANCE!! LIVE THE DREAM BELLUMPAXQUE LIVE THE DREAM
Yes, or should I say, CIRCVM IACENCE? Er… that is, your advice is sound. Someday, when I’m not trying to study Korean and Latin, I’ll return to the French of my youth (potius autem ipsa in Gallia).
-David
hahaha bellumpaxque you dog! ban him from textkit!
i agree though, the only time you would catch me learning french again is if i had to write something with it, or were actually in france herself.