Milia and the genative

Latin Learning Latin
1

The use of the plural MILIA always is followed by the genative.
This makes sense if the sentence is:

The thousands of people

because ‘people’ is the possesion of ‘thousands’

the same is true for a sentence such as:

The thousands of cars drove

because again the ‘cars’ are the genative of ‘thousands’

but what if the sentence was

The thousand ran quickly

Why would ‘ran quickly’ be in the genative?

Thanks.

2

Verbs do not have cases.

The use of the genitive after “thousand” only refers to words which are dependent on the noun, i.e, other nouns & adjectives.

3

It’s technically not a genitive of possession, it’s a partitive genitive. English ‘of’ expresses both ideas though, so it’s not a problem.

‘Ran quickly’ is a verbal phrase, it doesn’t take case endings like a noun. You could say “The thousands of people ran quickly” and people would be genitive. ‘Ran’ is the verb and ‘quickly’ is an adverb modifying ‘ran’. Also, Latin ‘mille’ which means ‘1000’ doesn’t take a genitive. Only the plural ‘milia’ ‘thousands’ does. So, “The thousand men” would be: mille viri, but “thousands of men” would be: milia virorum. English idiom is similar, we say “a thousand men” not “a thousand of men” and likewise we say “thousands of men” and not “thousands men”.

4

If this is true then the sentence, “There are thousands of cars in the street”
then cars and street are in the genative because they are dependent
on ‘thousands’ which is a noun in the plural. Wouldn’t ‘street’ be in
the ablative though?

If the sentence was, “There are thousands but it doesn’t matter because
they ran away.” Are ‘matter’ and ‘they’ dependent on ‘thousands’?

Thanks.

5

yes, street would be in the ablative not the genitive… ‘streets’ is not connected to ‘thousands’.

in the second sentence ‘they’ is a pronoun and so it refers back to ‘thousands’ so yes it’s dependent upon it but it’s not the same idea as the genitive… it’s a pronoun, it’s replacing ‘thousands’. ‘matter’ is a verb and it’s subject is the entire first phrase (There are thousands).

6

Then i would assume that the sentence, “There are thousands of places
to him” that ‘him’ is dependent on the subject but it is not in the same
idea. ‘Places’ is should however be in the genative

How about this one, “There are thousands like that.” ‘Like’ is a verb.
Is ‘that’ part of the same idea?

Thanks.