I am venturing some babysteps in writing in Latin (oratio soluta)
Can one of you Quintillians and Lactantius’s please comment on these efforts on sentences:
1) In orbe latine loquentium = in the latin speaking world (?)
2) Grex hominum quidam satis magnus versatus est = there existed a quite large group of people.
3) Fueruntne iratissmi? = were they very angry?
4) ‘Quid equum esse’ interrogandum est. = the question is ‘what is a horse’ …. (Am I right about the acc c inf construction?)
5) Clamor eorum maximi momenti et ponderis communicandi fuit = their cry was of most importance for communicating (??? - is the gerundive in genitive right?)
Tamquam nugacem me a vobis aestimatum iri non spero!
I don’t know about the impeccable, but welcome!
As for the Legenda Aurea, don’t hold your breath. I have just started the Vulgata Clementina and it will take me years.
Of course you can find instances (of which, by the way, you found only one: try actually reading them rather than just plugging out of a digital search and you’ll see how the Tacitus, first Livy, and Ammianus examples you pulled are actually not the sense we want here; the second Livy works as you want it, but I fancy it has a slightly different sense still, a bit of force of “in case”), albeit the vast concentration in later authors of non-Ciceronian Latin. I corrected you because the mistake is a common one and students ought to be taught that ‘Classical Latin’ grammar, as we teach and learn it, calls for an indirect question here which would not be introduced by si.
Counter-examples in Cicero would interest me and be a bit surprising. Evidence that utrum and num don’t overwhelmingly predominate - including in late Latin - now that would really be something.
Not at all. For one thing, dubium est+Acc+Inf is not really how it’s done (this usually negatively, not positively as here, and generally common only in Augustan authors and later) in Ciceronian ‘good Classical Latin’, i.e. the standard we try and learn/use. For another, even if it were, where is that whole phrase in your English?
Since you want to preserve Ciceronian purity, why don’t you provide examples from Tullius with explorare utrum. I found zero not only in Cicero but in any other author as well. And I couldn’t plug any with num either.
[*] a. An indirect question is occasionally introduced by sī in the sense of whether (like if in English, cf. § 572. b. N.):—
“circumfunduntur hostēs sī quem aditum reperīre possent ” (B. G. 6.37) , the enemy pour round [to see] if they can find entrance.
“vīsam sī domī est ” (Ter. Haut. 170) , I will go see if he is at home.
[*] Note.–This is strictly a Protasis, but usually no Apodosis is thought of, and the clause is virtually an Indirect Question.
With acc. and inf.: “dictator minime dubius, bellum cum his populis Patres jussuros,” Liv. 6, 14; so, “haud dubius,” id. 31, 24;
and
(εε) With acc. and inf.: “periisso me una haud dubium est,” Ter. Hec. 3, 1, 46; so Liv. 38, 6; Suet. Caes. 52 fin.; cf. “interrog.: an dubium tibi est, eam esse hanc?” Plaut. Mil. 2, 5, 9.—Ellipt.: “si exploratum tibi sit posse te, etc., non esse cunctandum: si dubium sit, non esse conandum,” Cic. Fam. 1, 7, 5.—
The point, as I intimated above, is that these aren’t really indirect questions (certainly not of the type ‘(neutrally) explore/investigate whether X is true or not’). I don’t know why you brought in Allen & Greenough as some kind of authority on this subject - your examples were actually better.
“si” has some use with the implication of “in case”. And it can be used for indirect questions in a sense - it just has a slightly different force. (As for the Terence example from A&G.) Then sometimes it is harder to count as an indirect question at all but still has the “in case” force, as for the BG example above; your 4 previous examples also fit neatly into this description of si in these uses (well, your first Livy was not relevant at all so I’m talking about the others).
The exact uses and implications of si in statements of this kind are neither relevant to the question the OP raised (as you would not use si here) nor necessary or apt for someone to study who did not realise that utrum/num were to be used.
the final Cicero is not an example of this at all (did you really even look at it?); Livy and Suetonius fall within my paradigm (both in terms of time, and in negativity); Terence and Plautus are hardly grammatical models we try to teach students at first (the kind who did not realise that the indirect question should properly take utrum or num). Nonetheless the Plautus is a very clear example and doesn’t fit my paradigm - that much I certainly grant! The issue is not that dubium est+Acc+Inf doesn’t crop up, but that it’s not the common or the classical construction.
If the OP is OK with Plautine diction, then maybe we can start looking for a place for L&S’s “periisso” in his compositions.
Cicero’s example is not about the use of si, but about the use of accusative and infinitive after dubium. It’s you who didn’t look at it.
In conclusion, it is preposterous to call error the use of si to introduce an indirect question because it doesn’t fit with your narrow view of acceptable Latin. Likewise for the use of accusative and infinitive after dubium.
Oh come on. Do I really have to explain to you that in “Nos quidem hoc sentimus: si exploratum tibi sit, posse te illius regni potiri, non esse cunctandum; si dubium sit, non esse conandum”, dubium does not take Acc+Inf?
It’s me who by all rights should be “sick and tired.”
I already explained how “si” is different, and unacceptable in a neutral indirect question of the kind the OP wanted. That explanation was for your benefit: the OP should have been sent off simply told to use utrum/num instead (which I’m sure you realize are better, even as you insist (wrongly) that si is also fine).
