I’m working my way through the book and reading around the subject. I’m focussing on the use of the word ‘ut’ at the moment. This has brought me to the subject of substantive clauses. In LLPSI I find the sentence ‘Sed heri e villa fugi, ut verbera vitarem, atque ut amicam meam viderem ac semper cum ea essem.’ I’m not having any issues with understanding the meaning but I’m trying to gain a deeper insight into exactly what’s going on grammatically.
Perhaps my question is about how one might categorise the verb ‘fugere’ and whether this sentence uses substantive clauses and quite what sort. I’ve been reading in Allen and Greenough about substantive clauses of purpose and of result. I’m finding no mention of the verb ‘fugere’ and would like to feel more sure about quite what is going on?
Hi, the ut clauses here aren’t noun clauses, or clauses of result.
They mark in this context the intention of the agent in the main clause and so are purpose clauses (why did the character flee? in order that…). (This can only be understood from context as ut can introduce both purpose and result clauses in the positive.)
They are not noun clauses but adverbial (i.e. they don’t substitute for a noun in the main clause, but an adverb. Note also that noun clauses of purpose are a different beast). Check out e.g. AG 529 and following here:
An ut clause can depend on all sorts of verbs. What’s important is the grammatical relationship between the leading verb (fugi in your example) and the verb of the ut clause. Here the verbs of the ut clauses have imperfect subjunctives (vitarem, viderem, essem). That’s because the leading verb is in a past tense.
These ut clauses are self-evidently purpose clauses. They say what his purpose was in running away. They answer the question “why?,” or more precisely ’”with what purpose?” or “in order to do what?” He ran away to avoid beatings and to see his girlfriend.