Lovely examples.
L&S thank you very much indeed. Lewis & Short plurimas tibi gratias agunt.
Lucus Eques, no, I understand clearly, but you’re not understanding what I’m saying. In Latin, yes, you’re right. Ab urbe condita, a christo nato, a caesare morto, etc… are temporal events. But this is a developed idiom (cf. Allen and Greenough).
The whole “ab puero” thing is a far developed idiom, further still than ab urbe condita. Likewise, Vergil can use iuuentus as a young man (Aen. II.63). But “youth-hood” does not literally mean “a young boy”, nor does “from the boy” literally mean “from boyhood”. In English (mehercule, adriane, tu primum recte dicis), “from the city having been founded” is not temporal. In order for that to work in English, you must have “from the founding of the city”.
One must not commit the fallacy of equating later Latin with earlier Latin. If it were inherent in PIE, then English could have adopted it, but clearly cannot.
Aye, but we’ve gotten a bit away from the original question, haven’t we? And that is, the original point was not an error, because Latin does funky things that do not always make literal sense in English, just like “from the city having been founded” in English is not temporal, but spatial (my memory has returned).
I still have been very busy to pore over my old notes and look through texts from vague memory (it has not entirely returned).
Curate, amici, ut ualeatis.
I say that’s neither in English. It’s incorrect English if used other than to convey the literal translation of the Latin. Nec temporale nec spatiale anglicè est at corruptum, si plus quà m subtile latinae locutionis sensum anglicè dicere vis. Probè dicis “from the city’s having being founded” quod temporale sensum clarè habet.
Vere in sermo Anglico, melius est loqui “from the founded city” quoniam “urbem” in accusitavo, non genitivo est.
Nice one, Chris. However… Ludus ingenuus, Christophore. Verumtamen…
Allen & Greenough libris (Novi Grammatici Latini) auctoritatem invoco, ubi dicit (ad 497am sectionem)
So how, then, does one disambiguate the two senses, spatial and temporal, “from the founded city” and “from the city’s founding (or the founding of the city)” in English translation? Out of context, just by the latter meaning being statistically the more probable.
Quomodò autem sine contextu utrum sensum, spatialem et temporalem, “from the founded city” atque “from the city’s founding” anglicè disambiguare? Res probabilitatis est, et probabilius exemplum alterum.
You’ll find no such thing in English grammars where a noun and a participle are so entwined that the participle carries the main idea.
Note, I’m not saying that we ought to translate it some way or another, I’m disagreeing with Lucus Eques that participles are so static, even though he disagreed with such a notion later in the thread.
And as for disambiguation, I suggest context and patterns.
Agreed, Chris, which is what I mean by talking about using statistics derived from patterns in previously known contexts for situations when you have no context.
Ita est, Christophore. Verùm est quod dicere volebam quia, cum casibus sine contextu, eventibus statisticis ab formis derivatis e contextibus priùs cretis usi oportet.
What sense did the author intend? In the example “ab urbe conditâ”, the likelihood will be temporal rather than spatial, – but you know I don’t actually know the statistics. (A bit risky, yes.)
Uter sensus ab auctore quodamcunque destinatus est? Hoc in exemplo “ab urbe conditâ”, temporalis sensus probabilior erit quà m spatialis. (Ut verò autem dicam, id pro certo nescio. Sic dicere ità res sine periculo non est)