Salvēte!
So, I have a question about the preposition “in” which governs the ablative and accusative cases both. My understanding is that it calls for the accusative when motion to is involved, and the ablative when static location and motion from are involved. “Into, onto” with the accusative and “in, on” with the ablative, more or less.
In Familia Romana, chapter 4, I have now read: Dāvus sacculum in mēnsā pōnit. Sacculum tuum in mēnsā pōne! Now my gut feeling is that this is motion to and should be accusative. But it is not, according to Ørberg. Obviously, I defer to Ørberg. Maybe I have language interference from German?
Does this strike a chord with anyone else?
I can see that you are thinking that the bag is moving to the table and so what then is the difference between going into say a house. But the way to think about it is to ask a question “in what place does Davus put the bag?” and the answer is clearly “on the table”. The important thing is not the movement of the bag just its position. So “in plus ablative” tells us the “place where”.
in plus accusative usually means “into” and Davus does not place the bag “into” the table.
I think all this is developed in chapter 6.
Since you seem to be a German native speaker, consider these two possible translations of “Davus sacculum in mensa ponit”:
a) Davus legt das Säckchen auf den Tisch.
b) Davus legt das Säckchen auf dem Tisch ab.
Both of these are identical in meaning and both are correct, but the grammar is different: Translation a) corresponds to what you expected to see in Latin: the preposition “auf” followed by the Akkusativ to denote the “place to which” the sacculus is moved. However, the Latin construction used with the verb “ponere” corresponds more closely to translation b), where “auf” is used with the Dativ to denote the “place where”, not the “place to which”.
I hope this helps!
Its interesting to see the German. In Latin if you change the verb from ponit to imponit (adding the prefix “in”) the construction changes from “in plus ablative” to “in plus accusative”. (CAP IX: Pastor laetus ovem in umerōs impōnit ).