Quaestiones

Latin Learning Latin
1

Salvete, amici!

I have a couple of questions :imp:

1 - How can one tanslate the aglutinated negative english words into latin, for instance, “nonflying-bird”. I Know that “Qui passer volans non est”, or perharps, “non ens passer volans” do the trick, but I wonder if there be a way to get rid of the circumloquium.

2 - I know that a vowel followed by 2 consonantibus is long, and so is one with the macron. So I ask what is the diference between a and ?; between e and ē, and the other vocales in instances such as lectum, lēctum; tēctum; stēlla, inf?ns…

3 - How do I turn a verb into a adjective; and how is its regency is affected, if it is? For instance, john smokes; John is a smoker.

4 - Can the ecce be used as conjunction? Portuguese ‘Eis’, which means ecce, admits the construction “eis que”, which might mean “for”, “indeed”, or even strong consecutive ones, such as “and then it happens/happened/will happen that”. If so, is it like eis, If not, is there anything like it?

5 - I also need a latin dictionary, a printed one, that displays the macra, discriminates every meaning, specially when it comes to verbs and verbal regency, that also discriminates the period in which it is used. With the optionals: examples, authors of occurrance for trick and weird words.

I was hearing the recordings in the audio thread, and I’d like to pose some questions about them. (to anyone, really, not only the ones who recorded. Although something tells me that I should ressurect it.)

6 - How do one know the quality of the e’s and the o’s, i.e., when should any of the two be the closed or the open?

7 - What is the sound of the gn? (I heard, I think I heard, four different sounds: all the velar oclusives, nasal, voice and unvoiced, followed by n; and a palatal nasal)

2

I can only help you with this first question, other more-experienced posters can deal with the rest. K? IMO you can render non-flying bird as “passer haud volans”.

Vale! :smiley:

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4

Gratias vobis ago pro responsis

you can render non-flying bird as “passer haud volans”.

But that would be a nonflying bird, not a nonflying-bird. :cry:

here vowels are short and long and syllables are > light and heavy> .

Could you explain me what is meant by light and heavy? :cry:


Valete!

5

Light and heavy are terms used to refer to syllables, reserving “long” and “short” for vowels only. After much analysis, I must disagree with Allen on this Indian practice: long syllables are held for a longer period than short syllables, the exact same distinction between long and short vowels. Calling them “light” and “heavy” does nothing to describe this phaenomenon.

To your quaestions, Tertie Roberte:

  1. There is no way in Latin; the agglunation is a Germanic trait. In Latin, one must explicate the term into a phrase.

  2. You are right that a long syllable with a consonant cluster (lectum) that has a short vowel is a long syllable, while a long syllable with a consonant cluster that has a long vowel (tēctum) is also a long syllable. The difference is that, in the latter case, the vowel is held for a longer period of time, and the whole syllable is therefore slightly longer than the former example. Still, they both are long syllables. Note: stella and lectum do not have long vowels, as you have written.

  3. Fumator. Otherwise, the participle.

  4. No, ECCE merely means BEHOLD or HERE IT IS/HERE THEY ARE.

  5. Casell’s Latin English Dictionary is good: note, it does not mark vowes with hidden quantity, as in tēctum. I leaned these from Lingua Latina.

  6. Long e and o tend to be a bit closer than the short varieties. Long o tends to open under stress (Vict?ria), as in Italian.

  7. The ‘n’ remains true, but the ‘g’ repraesents a velar nasal.

6

Gratias tibi ago pro responso :smiley:


Note: stella and lectum do not have long vowels, as you have written.

I have got those from Lingva Latina itself :open_mouth: : Stella in chapter XIII v. 43; Lectum participle of legere, cited in chapter XXIII, used throughout the book therefrom.

Are they all wrong? why?

7

Basically a syllable is heavy if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or ends in a consonant and is light if it ends in a short vowel – it’s basically another set of terms for long and short syllables. The thinking behind the terms seems to be that heavy syllables have a vowel that is checked by something (either by a consonant, the second half a diphthong, or a continuation of the vowel), while light consonants are unchecked and so you they’re back-heavy or not. Like Lucus says, this originated in Sanskrit grammar and it doesn’t seem to have caught on for the Classical languages which have very similar structures in this respect. But I disagree with Lucus that long/short is any better in describing the different syllable types since I can’t see how a short/light syllable like stru takes longer to say than a long/heavy syllable like ut.

8

‘Stru’ (in initial position, as you’re saying) doesn’t take any longer to say than ‘ca’ or any other short syllable, not in Latin or even Italian. Perhaps there are extra milliseconds involved, but nothing substantial. As for ut, on its own it is short, so I don’t understand.

9

For me it takes noticeably longer, but alright. For ut, I was thinking of it in contexts where it would be scanned as long (before a consonant I guess) – I don’t see how it could take more time to say than stru.

10

In poetry the syllables would be scanned as long even though the vowels are short by nature.

11

In poetry the syllables would be scanned as long even though the vowels are short by nature

I know that, in truth, it was this very fact that drove me to ask the difference between the one and the other. :slight_smile:



Anyway, I’d like to know how is it possible to conclude that the vowels in lectum, participle of legere, and in stella are not naturally long, can anyone explain me?

12

An exaple of lengthening can be seen in “t?ctum” :

tangere > *tanctum > t?ctum

The loss of the ‘n’ resulted in the lengthening of the vowel. Or rather, the nasalization of the vowel lengthened it, and eventually the nasalization fell away.

Compare:

legere > lectum

(Naturally, in both cases, the ‘g’ is made voiceless into ‘c’ by the ‘t’.)

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