Mihi / Tibi Usage

Latin Learning Latin
1

Salve,

I’m a little confused to how these pronouns are being used.

Example:
Estne Tibi Charta.

Which supposedly means: “Do you have the paper?”; However, my latin dictionary states that Mihi / Tibi are the dative cases of the pronouns Ego / Tu. If this is so, then why are they being used in the nominative? Or is this some idiom I’m not aware of?

2

Hi and welcome,
It’s an idiom, whose meaning (in your sentence) is:
Is it your paper?

When you use a pronoun (or other kind of substantive) in dative case with the verb “to be” it takes the sense of possession (because of this it’s actually known as dative of possession). Ex. gr.: Multa sunt nobis officia /Multa officia habemus, i. e.: We have a lot of duties.

Grammar reference: _Dative of Possession

The Dative is used with esse and similar words to denote Possession:–
\

  • est mihi domī pater (Ecl. 3.33) , I have a father at home (there is to me).
  • hominī cum de? similitūd? est (Legg. 1.25) , man has a likeness to God.
  • quibus opēs nūllae sunt (Sall. Cat. 37), [those] who have no wealth.

    The Genitive or a Possessive with esse emphasizes the possessor; the Dative, the fact of possession: as,–liber est meus, the book is MINE (and no one’s else): est mihi liber, I HAVE a book (among other things)._
    http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001&query=head%3D%23239

Regards,
Gonzalo

3

Thank you Gonzalo.

I don’t think I encountered that rule yet; Which explains my confusion. So, thanks for clearing that up.

4

I have a short question I might as well ask here.

How does the locative case work? I must have skipped over this one while learning my grammar. I’m aware, as in the above example, “domi” means “at home,” and I think “Romae” means “at Rome.” Is the genitive case the same as the locative, as the accusative case means a destination, like in “romam veni”?

In a diary entry I wrote in the composition forum the other day I didn’t know how to write “the liberal arts which I had learned at school;” “artes liberales quas schola [vel ‘scholae’?] docueram.”

Edit: OK, Allen & Greenough say to use “in + ablative” for “place where,” so “in schola.” Still not entirely clear on the locative case, though.

5

Locative means the same thing as in+abl.

Locative is used in few examples. It is used with names of towns and small islands, and of course also domi.

The locative is an old case which is no longer actively present in the latin declension. Because of its similarity to the genitive case (the ending being -i) it is often called the locative genitive. The ending -i in the ablative of i-stems in the third declension is also of the same origin, or so I’ve read.

Only in one class of declension it is possible to differentiate between the genitive and the locative: in stems on -ius or -ium, where the genitive is often contracted, it is neder contracted in the locative. Thus, Brundisii might be genitive OR locative, while Brundisi is most certainly genitive.