Look at the sentence
MISERIS AUXILIUM DARE DEBEMUS
It says that the objective infinitive Dare may or may
not have a direct or indirect object.
Is it possible to not have the direct/indirect object and
just say
DARE DEBEMUS
This doesn’t sound right. Something is wrong.
Thanks.
Well, I suppose you could. Most of the meaning would be lost, but I presume it would roughly be the equivalent of saying in English “We should give away [part or all of our possessions, ie what we have available to give away].” Should it be included on a more complex context, then it would be even clearer. “Esuriens ab nobis panem rogat. Habemus panem. Ei dare debemus.”
Is ‘EI’ which I assume is the plural for IS considered to
be the direct obj or the indirect obj? I would say that it
is not since it is in the nominative.
If it were the direct object it would have been ‘EIS’ or ‘EOS’
It looks like the nominative in the sentence ‘EI DARE DEBEMUS’.
Thanks.
Ei is the dative singular of the pronoun. Apologies, I could have marked the long i. Thus the indirect object.
EÃ dare debemus, id est alicui dare debemos.
I see what your saying that it’s the dative but the book says
that the complementary infinitive may or may not have
an indirect object.
If ‘Ei’ is the indirect object, as you stated,
what would happen if we got rid of it.
Like you said, we could just say ‘DARE DEBEMUS’. That
would be still correct, yes?
Thanks.
Oh, but yes. My mistake. When you wrote “It says that the objective infinitive Dare may or may not have a direct or indirect object”, I didn’t read the last part!
I would ask for someone more knowledgeable to state their opinion, but I would believe that, yes, “Dare debemus” would work nicely, without neither direct nor indirect object.
I think the point is that there are more verbs you could use as an objective infinitive than just ‘dare’, e.g. “cogitare debemus”.
and yes, of course the same would also work with dare.
“nonne auxilium miseris dare debemus?”
“dare debemus.”