Salvete, I’m studying Wheelock’s book and just yesterday I came across a sentence in the workbook that got me thinking on something. Wheelock states that the in standard word order that the indirect object should follow the subject. In the first declension, as y’all know, the endings for both the genitive singular and the dative singular end in -ae. As I translated the following sentence I found myself perplexed: “The sailor kept giving many gifts and kisses to the woman.” I gave that lengthy bit of information to pose this question…since feminae follows the subject nauta would it be permissable to place ad, and in other instances pro before the dative so as to prevent one from creating confusion between the genitive and the dative cases? For example, translating Nauta feminae as “the woman’s sailor” instead of "the sailor to the woman. My apologies for the lack of brevity, and gratias in advance.
There’s no need. The context will solve everything.
Context is right. It may seem really intimidating now that you’re beginning, but after you’ve worked through the grammar and practiced it for a little bit there won’t be much ambiguity. In your example, you’ll naturally be looking for the receiver when you see the verb “dare,” and you’ll read feminae in that way.
By the way, you can’t put “pro” before “feminae” because pro takes the ablative case, so it would be “pro femina”. But this has the sense of “on behalf of” and not simply indirect object.
Would it be uncommon, or even strange, for one to see a preposition before a dative noun? I know that I have seen it often with the ablative (i.e. in, sine, cum, et cetera).
I don’t think any prepositions take the dative. This is probably because the ablative case expresses separation and motion, while the accusative often indicates location or place. The dative is interested in who benefits or receives an action/object.
For example, you don’t say “I am walking to Rome” as “eo Romae,” but “eo (ad) Romam”. The preposition is optional. Likewise, you don’t return to your “domo” but to your “domum”. It’s the same with countries, islands, cities, etc.
Sorry for this weak explanation. I know Wheelock talks about that somewhere, but I don’t remember what he says. It has something to do with the lost locative (i.e. location) case in Latin, whose duty was subsumed by the others. Some grammarian here will be able to explain it.
Edit: I just remembered that you can have a genitive of location “domi,” “at home”. So I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore.
It’s genitive of location, and it’s not even genitive, it’s actually a remnant of indo-european locative which ends in -i. Why it has changed into -ae in first declension and how the -i of the locative formed the basis of the -e of singular ablative in the third, I can’t tell you as of now - I have an old German book that explains it very thoroughly.
One example that I can give is that the locative of second declension nouns in -ius never contracts: Genitive Brundisi, locative Brundisii.
About the real question, I would have to agree on context. … .