How do I turn this sentence into a question?
Praecōnī festum nōn parat. He does not prepare a feast for the herald.
Is it as simple as
Cui festum nōn parat?
Or is there another word I should use instead of cui?
Thank you
Jim
Hi Jim
The latin seems to me to be correct but it yields an odd question which without context is difficult to understand. The answer to a question “for whom one is not doing something” could list a very large number of people. If by means of the question you want to establish that a feast is not being prepared for the herald (for an unspecified reason) then perhaps starting with Nonne, which expects the answer yes, is best.
“Nonne praecōnī festum nōn parat.”
Surely he isn’t preparing a feast for the herald.
If a feast is being prepared but it is not for the herald then “Cui festum parat”, works to establish for whom the feast is actually being prepared.
If you have more context that might change how you express the question or make sense of it.
This is from an exercise using the Dative “for X”, “to X” and special verbs that take a date object
So the statement is
The king is not preparing a feast for the herald. (not a brilliant sentence, but that’s not the point)
So I want to create a sentence where the answer would be “for the herald”
For Whom is the King not preparing a feast?
The Herald
This isn’t part of the exercise, I just thought I would turn the statements into questions.
The positive ones are easy. I’m just not sure who who ask the "for whom is he not…?
I’m just not sure … "for whom is he not…?
The sentence is fine. So is your question as it’s designed in effect for testing someone’s comprehension of "The king is not preparing a feast for the herald. "
Rex festum praeconi non parat.
Cui rex festum nōn parat?
Praeco.
Turning statements into questions is an excellent way of reinforcing your understanding.
If the dative is confusing you think of the phrase cui bono? To whom is the benefit? Who profits? The dative as you probably know often conveys the sense of advantage/disadavantage. (the phrase is a bit complicated as bono is also dative.)
I am sorry if I made heavy weather of this!
Small, picky point:
Cui rex festum non parat?
The answer would be dative, praeconi, not praeco, if the intended answer is the herald.
(But the question itself, devoid of context requiring the herald as the answer, would be pragmatically equivalent to the assertion “Omnibus parat rex festum”, “The king is preparing a feast for everyone.”)
Thanks Bill you are quite right. I should have been more careful with my cut and past!
I was rather thinking of the case where the herald has arrived and it would be customary to offer a feast but it had been decided not to offer one. So the answer would simply be rex festum non parat.
Thank you guys. I often worry that I will be teaching myself incorrect Latin. So now I can go on writing the questions. (I often write Latin-Latin questions for what I am reading. It really tests whether I understand what I am learning.
Gratias vobis ago.
Jim