grammar rationale?

Latin Learning Latin
21

Here is an explanation of videatur from Gildersleeve & Lodge, sec. 528:

https://archive.org/stream/gildersleeveslat00gilduoft#page/332/mode/2up

See especially Remark 2: “Videri is used, as a rule, personally”.

Allen & Greenough, sec. 582, also addresses this, but not as clearly or as thoroughly:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+582&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

Since this construction is assimilated to indirect discourse, you could perhaps make a case that removeris is perfect subjunctive, representing – and indistinguishable from – future perfect indicative in direct discourse (contrary to what I stated above). I still think it’s better to view removeris as future perfect, coming as it does at the beginning of the ut sequence, and setting up the expectation of a future “more vivid” conditional. Would Cicero have thought about this?

22

Here’s Menge (2007³) on uideri.

23
  1. “vidēmur enim quiētūrī fuisse, nisi essēmus lacessītī” (De Or. 2.230) , it seems that we should have kept quiet, if we had not been molested (we seem, etc.). [Direct: > quiēssēmus … nisi essēmus lacessītī> .]

As with the hypothetical example that I offered, this example shows clearly that the condition applies not to videmur/videantur but to the dependent infinitive. Barry has no basis for disagreement.

As to removeris, Hylander, I found your initial justification of indicative unconvincing and do think it ought to be subjunctive as in indirect speech, but my Latin is not good enough to say whether fut.perf.indic. is represented by perf.subj. in primary indirect speech (there must surely be definitive comparanda, though), nor whether in this particular case it would have registered with a native reader as one or the other, given the coincidence of form.

So, hlawson38, it seems we’ve worked our way round to endorsing your original understanding of the sentence (rendering videantur by “most probably”; but your “removed” should be “remove” and “would” should be “will”). Little did you know you’d be stirring up a hornet’s nest. :smiley:

24

Allen & Greenough say this (sec. 484c):

c. Notice that the Future Perfect denotes action completed (at the time referred to), and hence is represented in the Subjunctive by the Perfect or Pluperfect:—

He shows that if they come (shall have come), many will perish, dēmōnstrat , sī vēnerint , multōs interitūrōs.
He showed that if they should come (should have come), many would perish, dēmōnstrāvit , sī vēnissent, multōs interitūrōs.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+484&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

But they don’t give an example of real Latin.

See also Woodcock, A New Latin Syntax, p. 236 (again, no real examples):

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106010985098;view=1up;seq=264;size=200

A real example from Livy 34.13.2-3:

legatosque ab suis missos rogare Hannibalem ut exercitum propius Tarentum admoueat: si signa eius, si castra conspecta a Tarento sint, haud ullam intercessuram moram quin urbs; in potestate iuniorum plebem, in manu plebis rem Tarentinam esse.

Courtesy of Woodcock, p. 226.

Why am I wasting my time on this stuff on a Saturday afternoon?

25

when you could be reading West’s Odyssey. But that settles it, I think (but of course you may pronounce my opinion irrelevant :wink: ). Subjunctive it is. It’s what one would expect, after all.

26

Highlander wrote,

It doesn’t make a whole lot of difference …

Barry wrote,

True enough – regardless of how the construction is conceptualized in our meta-language, the meaning and rendering of it remains the same.

While personally I don’t think there’s any question but that Highlander and mwh’s analysis of the grammar is correct, Highlander and Barry, you seem in agreement - and I would agree - that it really doesn’t matter, though, hlawson38, it seems to matter to you, and I want to understand your question. But please hold …

Barry wrote,

the grammatical elephant in the room is …

I don’t think there’s a grammatical elephant in the room. I think the elephant, or nuance, in this sentence, if any (Cicero wasn’t trying to be obscure), is what Highlander points out, namely, that we English speakers balk at the personal use of videri, though as Greenough and Highlander point out, it’s quite common in Latin. So how to translate it? Highlander suggests (converting to the impersonal form we’re used to in English), " ‘apparently,’ or perhaps ‘it looks like’ ". I read it as more emphatic, “they are seen to be” meaning (converting to the impersonal again), “it is obvious/evident/clear/demonstrable that …”. What is Cicero’s rhetorical strategy here? What do the following sentences in the speech suggest? That to me would be the more interesting thing to discuss/debate.

But to you, hlawson38, the grammatical analysis was important. But in re-reading your original post, it’s not clear to me where your doubt was about the meaning of the sentence? Hopefully you weren’t trying to analyze the sentence first grammatically and then determine its meaning?

If you start with a clean slate and re-read it, in order of its delivery, where does it or did it break down for you?

Nunc,
nisi me fallit,
in eo statu civitas est,
ut,
si operas conductorum removeris,
omnes idem de republica sensuri esse
videantur.


Randy Gibbons

27

mwh: I think you’re probably right that removeris is perfect subjunctive, not future perfect. At any rate, this is a textbook future conditional.

28

Would Cicero have known the difference (as Highlander also asked)?

mwh, you also ask whether it would have registered with a native reader as one or the other, given the coincidence of form. Not sure if we know whether or not there was a coincidence of form, see this 1988-1989 article Perfect Subjunctive and Future Perfect Paradigms by Rex Wallace: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3297571?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=future&searchText=perfect&searchText=and&searchText=perfect&searchText=subjunctive&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Ffc%3Doff%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bacc%3Doff%26amp%3BQuery%3Dfuture%2Bperfect%2Band%2Bperfect%2Bsubjunctive&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

29

Randy, why on earth do you insist on abusing Hylander’s name?

30

Sorry, I don’t insist on it, just an unconscious mistake. Sorry, Hylander!

31

I took extreme offense at the indignity inflicted on my name and flew into a sputtering rage, especially since the -igh- spelling threw the stress back onto the first syllable, reducing the -a- vowel to a mere schwa (who wouldn’t be outraged at that?), but I will magnanimously condescend to forgive Randy this time.

But seriously, the Wallace article apparently suggests that in the classical period, at least, on the evidence of poetry, both the perfect subjunctive and the future perfect fluctuated between long and short i, not that the two forms were distinguishable from one another by the quantity of the i.

32

Randy Gibbons wrote:

But to you, hlawson38, the grammatical analysis was important. But in re-reading your original post, it’s not clear to me where your doubt was about the meaning of the sentence? Hopefully you weren’t trying to analyze the sentence first grammatically and then determine its meaning?

Thanks for the question. I believed I had found a satisfactory meaning for the passage, but I could not find grammatical precepts with which the verb-forms in the sentence were consistent. Using google, I found a couple of old commentaries on this oration, but there were no grammatical comments on what was bothering me. So I concluded that if the grammar of this sentence is too elementary for commentary, then I need some help.

So I posted my judgments on these verb forms, and asked for help.

removeris bothered me because it could be future perfect indicative or perfect subjunctive. I tried it as future-perfect, but in reviewing my note cards and grammar books I couldn’t find a proper grammar match. I don’t mean there is none, just that I couldn’t find one.

So I decided to just think that subjunctive is there often for conter-factual ideas, and those political hirelings were definitely not removed. Then at the most general level for sequence-of-tense, in relation to main and subordinate clauses, I applied the sequence of tense rule like this:

videantur: verb of main clause, present passive subjunctive. In my mind, I translated this as “would be seen”, rather that “would seem”, because I reckon the latter in English is less definite.

removeris: subordinate-clause verb. Counterfactually it happened before videantur. For the primary sequence, the perfect subjunctive fits.

sensuri esse: future active infinitive, the complement of videantur, something that would be seen to be about to be happening. If the hirelings were taken away [but they were not], then observers would see everybody [omnes] beginning to think in similar ways about public issues.

This was my reasoning for the judgments on the verbs in my OP, but I didn’t post my reasoning, just the conclusions about the verbs.

Let me add a last point. Somebody who wants to master a subject must learn a mass of precepts. That’s where I am. But the master of a subject can speak cogently about which precept is appropriate in particular situations. That’s where I’m heading, but I may be too old to get there before being gathered unto my ancestors. :wink:

33

Thanks, Hylander, for graciously letting me off the hook!

Thanks, hlawson38, for explaining your thought process. As for your “too old,” though, I’ll see your ‘old’ and raise you a few years (quite possibly decades), which is why my poor brain more and more frequently makes mistakes like thinking Hylander and writing Highlander!

Randy Gibbons

34

Interesting question about whether or not Cicero really would have thought of the difference. That Romans could get passionate about grammar put me in mind of the following from Attic Nights:

DEFESSUS ego quondam diutina commentatione laxandi levandique animi gratia in Agrippae campo deambulabam. Atque ibi duos forte grammaticos conspicatus non parvi in urbe Roma nominis, certationi eorum acerrimae adfui, cum alter in casu vocativo “vir egregi” dicendum contenderet, alter “vir egregie.”

[2] Ratio autem eius, qui “egregi” oportere dici censebat, huiuscemodi fuit: “Quaecumque,” inquit,“nomina seu vocabula recto casu numero singulari ‘us’ syllaba finiuntur, in quibus ante ultimam syllabam posita est i littera, ea omnia casu vocativo i littera terminantur, ut ‘Caelius Caeli, ‘‘modiusmodi,’ tertius terti,’‘Accius Acci,’‘Titius Titi’ et similia omnia; sic igitur ’ egregius,’ quoniam ‘us’ syllaba in casu nominandi finitur eamque syllabam praecedit i littera, habere debebit in casu vocandi i litteram extremam et idcirco 'egregi, ‘non ‘egregie,’ rectius dicetur. Nam ‘divus’ et ‘rivus’ et ‘clivus’ non ‘us’ syllaba terminantur, sed ea quae per duo u scribenda est, propter cuius syllabae sonum declarandum reperta erat nova littera, quae ‘digamma’ appellabatur.” [3] Hoc ubi ille alter audivit, “O,” inquit, “egregie grammatice vel, si id mavis, egregissime, die, oro te, ‘inscius’ et ‘impius’ et ‘sobrius’ et ‘ebrius’ et ‘proprius’ et ‘propitius’ et ‘anxius’ et ‘contrarius,’ quae ’ us’ syllaba finiuntur, in quibus ante ultimam syllabam i littera est, quem casum vocandi habent? Me enim pudor et verecundia tenent, pronuntiare ea secundum tuam definitionem.” [4] Sed cum ille paulisper oppositu horum vocabulorum commotus reticuisset et mox tamen se conlegisset eandemque illam quam definierat regulam retineret [p. 42] et propugnaret diceretque et “proprium” et “propitium” et “anxium” et “contrarium” itidem in casu vocativo dicendum, ut “adversarius” et “extrarius” diceretur; “inscium” quoque et “impium” et “ebrium” et “sobrium” insolentius quidem paulo, sed rectius per i litteram, non per e, in eodem casu pronuntiandum, eaque inter eos contentio longius duceretur, non arbitratus ego operae pretium esse eadem istaec diutius audire, clamantes conpugnantesque illos reliqui.

35

That does seem to be a very clear example, and thanks for providing it.

As for Highlander/Hylander, “There can only be one!”

36

Thank you for the translation notes, mwh. I feel flattered that a passage, difficult for me, attracted the careful attention of those whose skills are so much greater than my own.

Hugh