Salvete!
Does mittere take the dative or the preposition ad with the accusative?
I’ve seen it with ad. (i.e. mitte ad me)
Any help would be appreciated.
Cambrensis.
A very quick scan in my dictionary says:
mitto, misi, missum, 3,
1)throw aliquid(acc) alicui (over sth., at sth.)
2)send aliquid (acc) ad aliquem (to someone)
There are other meanings and constructions, prominently in+accusative.
Ad, because mittere implies motion. The accusative case deals with motion (when not the direct object), and when you send something to someone, you’re really sending it towards them.
That is true. Also, I see most often the dative substituted by “ad + acc.” when the direct object is a person. It has a colloquial flavor which would eventually dominate in the Romance languages.
Adrianus vobis salutem mittit. I think “ad” + pronoun has a slight advantage (depending on circumstances) in avoiding any possible misunderstanding when “mihi”, say, can also be understood as a possessive “my”. But most times there will be no possibility of ambiguity, I know. Lewis and Short dictionary (online), as usual, has loads of examples of both acc. and dative usage, depending on circumstances, as you know.
It is important to note that the regular way to greet someone epistolarily is “nominative. dative. salutem. dicit.” No motion implied. To go home is domum ire. To go into somewhere (expressing motion) is in + acc., while a locative state in is in + ablative. To go out of something or away from something is one exception (no pun intended) that I know of.
Salve, Christophore. While the use of “dicit” is more traditional (and Ciceronian), the use of “salutem mittit” + dative is understandable and Ovid uses it. I think Plautus may use it, too. After AD 600 it appears more frequently (or so I’ve read) but, as I say, there’s a classical precedent. It’s definitely in L&S. I just thought it fun and appropriate in the circumstances. Also “ad” is used in dedications with “mittere”, according to L&S, and there’s no motion there. Not saying you’re wrong, you know, but just saying you will find exceptional types of usage.
Plautus does use it (salutem mittere). See http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/plautus/pseudolus.shtml And it can be found in the later writers Gregory of Tours (538-594) and Columbanus (543-615).
I checked L&S and I see also “mittere ad” for sending word, announcing, reporting, telling, complimenting, as well as dedicating. Motion of the messenger may be implicit, of course, in some of these. But now we have telephones and the internet!
I wasn’t saying you’re wrong, and I wasn’t saying it was a hard and fast rule. I already noted an exception. Granted that there will be more.
So using ad, which order do the words take?
For example…
Mittamne pecuniam ad iuidicium pro dono ?
Or…
Mittamne ad iuidicium pecuniam pro dono ?
Any help would be appreciated.
Cambrensis.
Thought I’d do the two birds with one stone thing…
To render the English should, is it best to simply use the present tense?
Or should oportet be used?
For example, for the English, Should I send money to the judge as a gift, how should this best be rendered?:
- Oportetne pecuniam ad iudicium mittere pro dono?
- Oportetne pecuniam ad iudicium pro dono mittere?
- Mitteo-ne pecuniam ad iudicium pro dono ?
- Mittamne pecuniam ad iudicium pro dono ?
I have this sentence in 6 romance languages.
5 of them use the present tense to render this sentence. Romanian uses an extra verb for should.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Cambrensis.
I don’t think the Latin subjunctive carries any sense of obligation, or moral judgement or expediency in the same way as the English subjunctive use of “should”, in the sense of “ought to”, does. (“Should”, of course, can also mean “would” in English but you’re not talking about it in that sense.) So present tense is best in Latin with the impersonal “oportet” or by using “debeo” or “opus (indeclinable = need) est”. I read “Mittamne pecuniam ad iudicium pro dono ?” more in a rhetorical light “Would I send money to a judge as a gift?” (emphasis on the word “gift”). Answer: no.
As for the word order, this is how I understand it. When you depart from the usual word order of subject + object + indirect object + adverb + verb you are adding emphasis, and the sense of emphasis is the reverse of English with words placed earlier in the sentence having emphasis over those following with the exception of the last word in the sentence having a special emphasis when following the verb. I think that’s a particular beauty of Latin. The word order matters a great deal.
I think word order in questions are troublesome. I’m inclined to believe from examples I’ve read of direct speech and such, that the same rules apply, but that the verb at the end of the sentence gets particular emphasis (as it does in English). Some sources I’ve read say this even amounts to stressing the final syllable of the verb at the end. (Talked about this in the topic “Prosody and syllable stress”. Others in this forum will surely challenge this.) Focussing on your first post, here’s how I think about it:
Pecuniamne ad judicium pro dono mittám? = no special emphasis other than to the first word in the sentence and a questioning intonation on “mittam”.
Pecuniamne pro dono ad judicium mittám? = emphasizes “pro dono” – as opposed to considering the money in another sense. (I think it was considered ugly to put a preposition at the start of the sentence, so that’s why it doesn’t go first. If you had to do so --put “dono pro” first, that is,-- you had a last obscure resort, maybe just poetic, and that was to put the preposition after the word it applied to and, in that case, you stressed the preposition --which normally is depressed “prò” – just to let the hearer know it was in an unusual place, as in “dono pró” – but normally otherwise you just went ahead and put it first “pro dono”.)
Mittámne pecuniam pro dono ad judicium? = emphasizes “ad judicium” – since “ad” is ugly at the start of the sentence its place must be at the end, but I think that now makes the verb sound funny so it shifts to the front.
Others with much wider reading and sensitivity to these matters might guide us both on this. The theory about the preposition at the start of a sentence being less desirable may be rubbish, but I just wonder at some sentences I see. I think this is a great topic in its own right.
There is the dubitative subjunctive: Quid igitur faciam? non eam ne nunc quidem
quom accersor ultro? The first line of Terentii Eunuchus. “What, then, shall I do? Shall I not go, not even when I’m asked to?” In that case, though, I would probably omit the -ne, but I’m definitely no expert on composition.
Adrianus,
Thanks for you post. Very interesting.
I noticed you we placing stress on the last syllable in mittám.
I’ve read over and over that Latin never had stress on the last syllable.
Do you have any references that have a different view?
I’d be interested in reading them.
Could you send me a link to your post about syllable stress.
I couldn’t find it.
After reading your post, I realized that mittam could be either the future or the subjunctive.
So what would be the best rendition then?
- Oportetne pecuniam ad iudicium mittere pro dono?
- Nonne pecuniam ad iudicium mitteo pro dono?
- Nonne mitteo pecuniam ad iudicium pro dono?
I look forward to reading you reply.
Thanks,
Cambrensis
There are other examples of the Latin subjunctive implying obligation - most of what I’ve seen are in Cicero, I believe. I don’t think I noted them, but I did notice them when going through de re publica. Perhaps one day I’ll look through it again to see if I see the same thing.
And again, off the cuff, I’m afraid, but Horace talks about raising, I thought, the intonation on the final syllable to indicate its a question, much like we do in English. I’ll have to check my sources again. Sorry about the brevity and the possibly incorrectness.
Sorry for not answering you sooner, Kembreg, but I was away. The link to the earlier thread on Prosody and Syllable Stress is http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?t=6031&start=0
That’s interesting about the Horace evidence, Chris. I must have a look for it, or hope you might remember the reference. Thanks for pointing out about the other possibilities with the Latin subjunctive, too, Chris. I spoke too loosely. I see those sentences (such as “quid faciam?”), assume the future tense and discount the subjunctive. I’ll be more awake now. I’m still not sure, though, that a dubitative subjunctive implies obligation, as “quid faciam?” may translate better into the uncertain “What might I do?” rather than “What ought I to do?” or “What should I do?” (with should in an "ought’ sense rather than a ‘would’ sense here). (I note that your own translation uses "shall’.) Does a dubitative subjunctive imply obligation, as well as doubt or uncertainty? Using the Latin subjunctive as a command “Come tomorrow, please” “Cras venias” may hope for or expect the person commanded to oblige, perhaps.
When I look at Allen & Greenough on this http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0001&query=smythp%3D%23462 I see that you are right, Chris. Sorry for wavering. Also mentioned there is “The Imperfect and Pluperfect of the hortatory subjunctive denote an unfulfilled obligation in past time:–
morerētur, inquiēs (Rab. Post. 29) , he should have died, you will say.
potius docēret (Off. 3.88 ) , he should rather have taught.
nē poposcissēs (Att. 2.1.3) , you should not have asked.
saltem aliquid dē pondere dētr?xisset (Fin. 4.57) , at least he should have taken something from the weight.
In this construction the Pluperfect usually differs from the Imperfect only in more clearly representing the time for action as momentary or as past. This use of the subjunctive is carefully to be distinguished from the potential use (§ 446). The difference is indicated by the translation, should or ought (not would or might).” Spot on. Always learning (and forgetting!).
Kembreg, sentence 1) Oportetne pecuniam ad iudicium mittere pro dono? is best of the 3. I presume you mean “mitto” in sentences 2 and 3 and, if so, that would mean “Surely I am sending money…”. Nonne, meaning “surely”, expects the answer yes, and if you want to use it: “Nonne pecuniam pro dono ad iudicium mittere oportet?” = “Surely I (one) should sent money to the judge as a gift.”
In the earlier post I gave the link to the discussion on stressing the ultimate syllable. I just thought to add that I’m as convinced as ever, by the way, that circumflex and grave accenting was meant to be taken literally (as a accented syllable with a raised and then lowered pitch for a circumflex and a depressed accent for a grave), and only later became solely a spelling convention to disambiguate some words and word types. For my benefit (just so I might remember it), more examples of Latin words with a stressed final syllable are the imperatives edúc and edÃc (from compounded words educo and edico). Ref in Bennett, New Latin Grammar (1895). http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/PG/Bennett/bennett.htm
It occurred to me, also, Chris, that the reference to Horace and accenting the ultimate syllable in a question may be talking about examples from his poetry, rather than him talking about, or describing, the usage. In which case, many people will discount poetic usage as just “poetic licence” and not as reflecting spoken practice. A pity because it’s hard to disentangle the evidence here.
I’m not a native English speaker, so my grasp of the modal verbs is probably less than perfect.
I see now, too, that the sense of a dubitative subjunctive doesn’t quite apply to the original question here. Nonetheless, in the quote from Terence, the character is talking to himself, not being able to make a decision on what he is to do. I’ve heard subjunctive in ‘real’ questions (that is, directed at someone) defined as dubitative.
Salve Timeodanaos. Chris was just correcting my assertion that the subjunctive in Latin had less to do with expressions of obligation that in English. I don’t think you’re recommending it for Kembreg’s sentence, Chris. Allen (section 443 of New Latin Grammar) explains how the Deliberative Subjunctive = Dubitative Subjunctive, – two terms for the same thing which amounts to “asking yourself questions”. [This is all new to me.] He (Allen) says it’s related to the use of the subjunctive when giving commands or urging someone else (the hortatory subjunctive). The deliberative/dubitative subjunctive is used in asking questions implying doubt, indignation, or the impossibility of doing something, and one example given is “An ego non venirem”, “What, should I not have come?” So, I guess you could say “An ego pecuniam ad iudicium pro dono non mittam?” Allen says that, by using “An” to ask the question (more usual in the second part of a double question for “or”), you are suggesting indignation or surprise, so here it would mean, perhaps, “What, should I not be sending money as a gift to a judge?”. It also means, Kembreg, that your original “Mittamne pecuniam ad iudicium pro dono ?” (if you mean it as a subjunctive) would mean raising doubts, or introducing a note of irony about the sending, or emphasising the asker’s quandary, rather than simply seeking advice, perhaps. “Oportet” and “debeo” are still better, I think, for the direct question. I agree with you, Timeodanaos, that a dubitative subjunctive doesn’t really apply to Kembreg’s original question.