Colloquia Personarum Cap. XXIII - Orberg

Hello again,

Apologies for posting again so soon but just trying to make sure I’m on top of every nuance of the things I’m reading to develop my fluency. This is another thing where I’m confident (hopefully!) of the meaning but I’m confused on the exact form of a word.

Non puto eum umquam ante mediam noctem dormitum ire

I think this is:

I don’t think that he ever goes to sleep before midnight

but…

in the relevant Chapter of Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, to which the Colloquia is an accompaniment, we’ve focused on the future participle. In this case i think that that would be 'domiturum iri and that’s why I’ve translated this not as a future action but as an accusative/inifinitive in the present tense (barring the fact it doesn’t flow from the text that it would be in the future anyway) Is that correct? And if so, what part/case/declension/tense/insert-correct-word-here!? is ‘dormitum’ taking? It isn’t a present participle because there’s no ‘nt’ in the middle there and it isn’t in the infinitive itself?

I’d be really grateful for any opinions. Thanks in advance and for spending your time reading this through.

Cheers,

Andrew.

Hi Andrew,

dormitum here is the supine form of the verb and is often used after verbs of motion, esp. with eō. and expresses purpose, so as in your translation, it means go - to sleep. Remember that the infinitive is never used in Latin to express purpose. Here is a link to the appropriate section in Allen & Greenough’s New Latin Grammar:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001%3Asmythp%3D509

Thank you! I’ll look over the Supine chapter again and thanks for the alternate reference you’ve provided. Puzzle solved!

Cheers again,

Andrew.