Hello again.
Fretum angustum quo Sicilia ab Italia disiungitur
Disiungere isn’t deponent.
So why passive here?
Paul.
Ablative of separation?
quo Sicilia ab Italia disiungitur is a subordinate clause. What kind of clause? What is the subject of the clause?
The channel. That separates the 2 countries. So I still don’t see why passive.
What is the role of Sicilia in the clause?
I’m sure if you all ask me enough questions it will become clear to me.
Sicilia is separated from Italia by a channel.
Exactly: is separated. Is that active or passive? And which word in the Latin sentence expresses “by”?
One problem I have frequently seen with Latin students (and students in general), that I think may be occurring here, is overthinking the material. Sometimes it’s best to not worry about why something is in a particular form. Additionally, and I don’t know if you are a native speaker of English or if it is this way in the UK, but in the US use of the passive voice is frowned upon -something I find utterly ridiculous, given how much it can contribute to the sense of what is being said. This contributes to it giving Latin students some difficulties with the frequency of the passive in Latin.
If fretum is doing the separating, why is it not ablative? It’s the cases that are confusing me.
Okay, so I think I see what confuses you. The complete sentence is:
Interim Medus et Lydia vento secundo per mare Inferum navigare pergunt ad fretum Siculum (id est fretum angustum quo Sicilia ab Italia disiungitur).
The parenthetical remark translates literally to: “that is (id est), the narrow straight (fretum angustum) by which (quo) Sicily is separated from Italy (Sicilia ab Italia disiungitur)”. Fretum angustum is nominative because it is the complement of id est. What follows is an attributive relative clause – a more precise specification of the fretum angustum, that grammatically could just as well be left out.
Most importantly, the case of fretum angustum is completely independent from whatever goes on in the subclause quo Sicilia ab Italia disiungitur. Consider the sentence Sicilia ab Italia disiungitur by itself. “Sicily is separated from Italy”. By what? To express that, you use the ablative: Sicilia ~aliquo~ ab Italia disiungitur. In this sentence, it so happens that this something by which Sicilia disiungitur is expressed by a relative pronoun, which accordingly needs to be ablative.
Fretum angustum is semantically “doing” something, but syntactically it is in a different clause, and its case is not dictated by the verb disiungitur.
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OK, so “fretum angustum” (nominative) is the antecedent for the ablative “quō” in the subordinate clause.
I’ll get there 
Thanks.
Paul.
As Hylander said in his original reply “ quo Sicilia ab Italia disiungitur is a subordinate clause. What kind of clause? ”
I was going to elaborate on it but thought surely you would see it is a relative clause. Maybe not. LLPSI gives lots of examples of these clauses.
You will also see that as disiungitur is passive you need an “agent” that’s the reason Quo is in the ablative case. My students have found relative clauses hard to grasp.
On Ronolio’s point about English passive usage he is right that it is frowned upon especially in official documents and correspondence. The point being that the passive is used to obfuscate, something which is more difficult to do when using simple direct prose.
I blame my age. Sometimes I just seem to hit a roadblock. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I expect to see a comma? Dunno. I need to stand back and take stuff apart (into clauses etc).
Paul.
My humble opinion: don’t analyze the grammar too much. Let it flow and just grab the general sense of the text. If you read the texts many times, you’ll be able to go deeper and deeper every time you go through a given text.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that I expect to see a comma? Dunno. I need to stand back and take stuff apart (into clauses etc).
You have to remember that Romans didn’t use a comma. A relative pronoun acts like punctuation. You start reading the sentence, you come to the relative clause and that means you expect some additional information about what you have read. When you reach the verb in the relative clause and the sentence continues, it is as if something has been put in parenthesis.
I have sympathy with Tico’s point. People obsess over what sort of ablative something is for example and this can cause students to lose focus. Look for simple explanations first. Reading things through several times usually helps. Try to understand what is going on at a broad level before even thinking of translation. Deciding that the ablative was something to do with separation blinded you to the simpler explanation that it was the agent of the passive verb. (agent is I think the terminology Ørberg uses. ). You have in my opinion to know basic grammatical rules but at a beginning level there are not many of those. What kind of dative or ablative seem to be the least useful and most boring questions about grammar. Often one simply cannot decide.
Don’t despair! We all get things wrong. ( except MWH and Hylander (mostly))
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Heh.
I think it may have been you that pointed out to me, after I had read several chapters of LLPSI, that I quite simply hadn’t understood as much as I thought I had.
It’s fun to flick through the texts, more or less understanding what’s going on. But as we all know too well, one simple misunderstanding can lead us along entirely the wrong path.
As you know, I’ve just arrived at the subjunctive in LLPSI. I don’t find it in the least bit intimidating as I already “know” the subjuctive mood. I have a feel for it and don’t need to know what “kind” of subjunctive we’re talking about.
I’m hoping to get the same “feeling” for ablatives. I think I may have made a start, as I already sometimes think “why is this guy wibbling on about this and that type of ablative?” A lot of the time we just know, without having to analyse. I feel fairly confident that once this stupid heat goes away and I can get back to concentrating, I’ll get on OK.
Thanks (all) for all the help so far.
Paul.
This is driven home in a later exercise. Quō as a marker following a nominative. It nearly got me 
I’m now seeing quō as “by which”.
Paul.
PS. Currently doing a small token amount of Latin each day as trying to get on with piano and guitar.