Unreal Condition in Oratio Obliqua

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi.

About Gildersleeve & Lodge
Abridged Sentences
Oratio Obliqua
section 659. Unreal Conditions in Oratio Obliqua
(section number might be different among versions that are around)
sample 3.

Nisi eo ipso tempore nuntii de Caesaris victoria essent allati existimabant plerique futurum fuisse ut (oppidum) amitteretur,

Caes., B.C.,3-101-3
Had not the news of caesar’s victory been brought at that very time, most persons thought the city would have been lost. (in Oratio Recta : nisi nuntii allati essent, oppidum amissum esset.)

I’m confused about the relation of tenses between allti essent and existimabant and futurum fuisse.

It looks like allati essent is determining the tense of existimabant.
But then it seems fit rather in the form futurum esse than futurum fuisse.

So I guess existimabant futurum fuisse might have been first composed, and then the tense of allati essent was adjusted to make the sentence “the sentence of Unreal Condition”.


I’m sorry, I’m pretty confused.

2

deleted

3

Hi again, Qimmik. :smiley:
Thank you for answering my question


you wrote :

allati essent is pluperfect – the protasis of a past unreal condition (in indirect speech/oratio obliqua). This remains the same as in direct speech.
…
…
In direct speech, this would be Nisi nuntii allati essent, futurum fuisset ut amitteretur.

Yes, that explanation is helpful.
But what is confusing me seems to be elsewhere.


I know about the construction of Unreal Condition, as I have read the sections that treat it these days (597 and those several sections that are linked from there),
though the construction of Unreal Condition in Oratio Obliqua is very difficult for me to understand.




I’m still confused, but if I explain my problem,

I feel the time of (futurum) fuisse is earlier than that of existimabant, in the tense relation,
But qui existimabant seem to be imagining about the future, from the impression of Nisi nuntii allati essent, existimabant plerique.
So I feel it has to be (futurum) esse, not (futurum) fuisse.

But I also think that existimabant might not be connected with the nisi clause in respect of the tense,
and that qui existimabant might be imagining the whole Nisi nuntii essent allati, futurum fuisset ut oppidum amitteretur,
if I force it into an ut sentence : existimabant ut futurum fuisset ut oppidum amitteretur nisi nuntii essent allati.
Then I can accept the (futurum) fuisse.

But to me the sentence also seems as if what is conditioned by the nisi essent allati was not the oppidum amissum esse,
but rather, by the nisi clause, why they existimabant so and so was explained, or conditioned,
Then I feel existimabant and the nisi clause is related in tense.
Then existimabant should, as I feel, take esse, not fuisse, since qui existimabant are imagining about the future, not about the past.

In understanding every given samples of the Unreal Conditions of Oratio Obliqua, this ambiguity puzzles me and keeps me in suspense.

4

Regulam tertiâ in clausulâ in grammaticâ de A&G nota.
Note the rule in 3 in A&G §589b.

Et hoc nota:

“If the news had not come [/been brought], most were ready to believe ‘it is about to happen that the city will fall’”
“If the news had not come [/been brought], most were ready to believe that it was about to happen that the city would fall”

NOT this / NON est hoc: “Most were ready to believe this: ‘it was about to happen that the city would fall if news of Caesar’s victory had not come [/been brought].’”

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deleted

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Hi, Adrianus. :smiley:

You asnswered about existimabant, that impf. ind., rather than futurm fuisse.
You understand that what is conditioned by the nisi nuntii essent allati seems to be existimabant plerique, not futurum fuisset ut oppidum amitteretur.

In Gildersleeve & Lodge,
Conditional Sentences,
3. Unreal Conditional Sentences,
section 597
Remark 2.
it is explained about the case where impf. ind. is used in the apodosis of Unreal Conditional Sentences.

In Unreal Conditions, after a negative Protasis, the Apodosis is sometimes expressed by the Impf. Indic., when the action is represented as interrupted (see section 233)

sample :
Labebar longius, nisi me retenuissem. (see section 254, remark 3)
(I was about to slide down further, if I had not retained myself)

And 254 explains about the Indic. mood.
Remark 1. says,

The Latin language expresses possibility and power, obligation and necessity, and abstract relations generally, as facts ; whereas, our translation often impliesthe failure to realise.

examples of translation : it is possible (but doesn’t occur), I can (but do not), you should have (but did not), it had to be (but it didn’t go so)

samples :
Possum persequi … (I can persequor, but do not)
Longum est persequi … (it will be too long if I persequor, so I do not)
Ad mortem te duci oportebat (you ought to have …, but it didn’ go so)
Volumnia debuit … (Volumnia ought to have …, but she didn’t)
Vivum illinc exire non oportuerat (he should’nt have escaped alive, but he actually escaped)

Remark 3. says,

The Indic. is sometimes used in the leading clause (the Apodosis) of conditional sentences, thereby implying the certainty of the result, had it not been for the interruption…
With the Impf. the action is often really begun :

samples :
Labebar longius, nisi me retinuissem (I was letting myself go on too far, had I not checked myself.
Omnino supervacua eratdoctrina, si natura sufficeret (the Protasis can be positive in the post-Augustan writers) (training were wholly superfluous, did the Nature suffice.)
Preaclare viceramus, nisi Lepidus recepisset … (We had gained a brilliant victory, had not Lepidus received …)

Though it is not written in Gildersleeve & Lodge, the use of Indicative gives an impression of confidently judging something, compared with the weaker confidence expressed by the Subj..

And section 233, in which what you are saying is written,

The Imperfect is used of attempted and interrupted, intended and expected actions (Imperfect of Endeavor). It is a tense of disappointment and (with the negative) of Resistence to Pressure. > [/quot]
examples of translation : was going to …, was about to …, was almost …ed, attempted to … (the result is unsaid), was expected to .. (but was not actually …), would not (resistently)

samples :
Curiam relinquebat > (he was for leaving the …)
Lex abrogabatur > (the law was about to be abolished)
ostendebatur quomodo … > (an attempt was made to show how …)
Aditum non dabat > (he would not grant access)

Though different from the Subj. which expresses the speaker’s imagination as an imagination, this use of the Impf. Indic. resembles it in expressing the speaker’s imagination almost as a fact.
So this Impf. Indic. could be called another Subj..






By the way, I would like to ask you about Unreal Condition in Oratio Obliqua.
Gildersleeve & Lodge gives these patterns.

A.Dico (dixi), te,

… I’ve written too long, (having much time and idle energy since it is Sunday today), I ask you tomorrow about this.

7

Adrianus has pointed to the right section of Allen & Greenough to explain the construction existimabant plerique futurum fuisse uti [oppidum] amitteretur. This is simply an idiomatic way of putting a past unreal condition into indirect discourse (oratio obliqua) with a passive verb, and the tenses of the individual verb forms shouldn’t be analyzed individually. I have to admit I was unaware of this construction and I can’t recall having encountered it many times (maybe I read past it without analyzing it).

However, as the translation in Allen & Greenough indicates, existimabant is not an indicative apodosis of an unreal condition. The translation is: “most people thought that unless at that time reports of Caesar’s victory had been brought, the town would have been lost.” Not “unless . . . the reports had been brought, most people were ready to believe that the town would have been lost.” The condition in direct speech is nisi nuntii allati essent, opidum amissum esset.

It’s true that the imperfect can have an inceptive or conative meaning (Allen and Greenough 471c, Gildersleeve and Lodge 233), but with a verb such as existimo, the imperfect generally just “denotes an action or a state as continued or repeated in past time”. Allen & Greenough 470:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+470&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

The examples in Allen & Greenough with censebat and putabatur illustrate this.

Gildersleeve and Lodge 231.

Adrianus wrote:

“If the news had not come [/been brought], most were ready to believe ‘it is about to happen that the city will fall’”
“If the news had not come [/been brought], most were ready to believe that it was about to happen that the city would fall”

Adrianus’s translations may have been attempting to give effect to what I wrote in my misleading post, which I deleted. But they unnecessarily complicate the original passage from the Bellum Civile. Once again, the construction existimabant plerique futurum fuisse uti [oppidum] amitteretur is simply an idiomatic way of putting a past unreal condition into indirect discourse with a passive verb, and the tenses of the individual verb forms futurum fuisse shouldn’t be analyzed individually.

I apologize for my previous erroneous and misleading post.

8

I can tell you I was attempting to translate from the Latin, Qimmik, and not give effect to what you wrote. I can’t check what you did write because you deleted it. That affects the following replies, but that’s a small thing.
Verum dico, e latinis verbis verti non ex eis quae tu scripsisti et delevisti. Epistulis ablatis, responsa sequentia confunduntur—parvum autem est at obruit tuam sententiam.

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Hi Qimmik and Adrianus.

Qimmik write :

This is simply an idiomatic way of putting a past unreal condition into indirect discourse (oratio obliqua) with a passive verb, and the tenses of the individual verb forms shouldn’t be analyzed individually

I see. Just an idiomatic way of rendition. OK.


Qimmik wrote :

Adrianus’s translations may have been attempting to give effect to what I wrote in my misleading post, which I deleted…I apologize for my previous erroneous and misleading post.

No, you didn’t take the sentence as “if the news had not come, most were ready to believe…”. It was I who introduced that reading. You from the first time were saying “if the news had not come” was the condition for “futurum fuisse ut amitteretur”, not for “existimabant”. So I think you didn’t have to delete that post.




To Adrianus,
Do you think the sentence

Nisi eo ipso tempore nuntii de Caesaris victoria essent allati existimabant plerique futurum fuisse ut (oppidum) amitteretur,

can be taken both ways, if you don’t consider the context of Caesar, B.C. ?
I mean,
reading 1. nisi essent allati, existimabant … (if the news had not come, most were ready to believe…)
and reading 2. existimabant futurum fuisset ut … nisi essent allati. (most were thinking that had not the news arrived at that very time the city would have been lost.)





Well, I still have a little doubt in the explanation of Gildersleeve & Lodge.

In G&L,
Conditional Sentences
3. Unreal Conditional Sentences (section 597 in my version)
Remark 4.
these patterns of rendering Unreal Conditiional Sentences into Oratio Obliqua are shown.

A. Dico (dixit), te, si id crederes, erraturum esse.
B. Dico (dixi), te, si id credidisses, erraturum fuisse.
A. Dico (dixi), te, si id crederes, fore ut decipereris.
B. Dico (dixi), te, si id credidisses, futurum fuisse ut decipereris.

What puzzles me is A (both active A and passive A).
As I feel, erraturum fuisse seems better than erraturum esse, as a rendition from errares.
By using fuisse, I think, the nuance of Unreal Imagination could be expressed.
If you use esse rather than fuisse, I think the time of erraturum esse becomes later than the time of crederes, which is not good as a rendition from si crederes, errares.
The same can be said about fore ut decipereris.
I’m not sure I could express my thinking very well, though.




I’m not in a hurry.
So you can give me answers sometime later in this week.
Why I say this is because replies can often become too long for detailed explanation, that takes us too much energy and time.

10

Qimmik was right to point out that “existimabant is not an indicative apodosis of an unreal condition”. So it must be “most people thought…” + indirect speech [protasis + apodosis] and not protasis + apodosis [ “most people thought…” + indirect speech]. I translated the way I did because I saw “most people” as most people in the town thinking “at that very moment” about what was about to happen and not people generally thinking about what would have happened if the news hadn’t arrived . Only “most people thought…” + indirect speech [protasis + apodosis] fits the A&G explanation for “futurum fuisse”, however.
De clausularum ordine et explicatione in illâ grammaticâ de A&G, rectè dicit Qimmik. Aptus hic ordo solus: “existimabant” cum oratione obliquâ quae protasin et apodosin continet. Ego aliter verti quod ut populum oppidi finxi pro “plerique” adjectivo et in viam falsam erravi.

11

The point, I think, is that “futurum fuisse” is later than “futurum esse” [or “fore”]. You say that “erraturum esse” in the apodosis sounds later than the imperfect subjunctive in the protasis but I think you just have to live with that as a subjective annoyance until the annoyance fades away in time, hopefully. Usage trumps theory in language, I reckon.
Ante autem “futurum esse” [vel fore] venit “futurum fuisse”, per quod tempus distinguitur. Alienum tibi est protasin verbum imperfecti temporis habere cum verbo in apodosi futuri temporis infinitivo modo,—at tibi ineptia peculiaris est quae posteriùs evanescat. Significantior consuetudo linguae quam theoria, puto.

12

Thank you Qimmik and Adrianus.
My problem is gone now.


Adrianus wrote :

Qimmik was right to point out that “existimabant is not an indicative apodosis of an unreal condition”. So it must be “most people thought…” + indirect speech [protasis + apodosis] and …Only “most people thought…” + indirect speech [protasis + apodosis] fits the A&G explanation for “futurum fuisse”,

Yes, now I totally agree with Qimmik.




Adrianus, about that doubt which Oratio Obliqua rendition is right, te erraturum esse or te erraturum fuisse, as rendered from errares in Unreal Conditional Sentence (the grammar book says te erraturum esse is right), you advise me just to live with that as a subjective annoyance, just to understand that the usage has trumped theory.
OK, I accept it as a usage.
But one more question.
You say subjective.
Did you once feel that subjective annoyance about this matter, or not at all from the first look of this construction ?

13

Tot mihi sunt aliena qui facundè latinè non loquar; dein regulam loquendi ostensam in quâ grammaticâ non arguo.
So many things are strange to me because I’m not fluent that I’m quite accepting if something is presented as the right way to say something in a grammar.

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Then I will accept, too.
But I can’t halp thinking where I cannot understand.


About these patterns of rendering Unreal Conditiional Sentences into Oratio Obliqua,

A. Dico (dixit), te, si id crederes, erraturum esse.
B. Dico (dixi), te, si id credidisses, erraturum fuisse.
A. Dico (dixi), te, si id crederes, fore ut decipereris.
B. Dico (dixi), te, si id credidisses, futurum fuisse ut decipereris.

What do you think the Fut. Participle is used for ?
Is it used to give a Subjunctive-like function to the Inf. (a subjective vision of present or future, or past, all represented to the mind as a kind of future), and not to be understood as meaning Indic. Fut. (a factual future) ?

(Iust to remember,
A. dico te is crederes erraturum esse. is O.O. of si crederes, errares, and this Impf. Subj. are meaning a Present Unreal Condition and a Present Unreal Result.)

Also, I have a problem in judging which the Inf. is coupled with in tense relation, with the main verb (dico), or with the conditional clause (si crederes).
It’s very ambiguous.

15

Junya,

Turns out your comment is very perceptive indeed.

But did you also perceive the short sentence directly following your quote from Gildersleeve & Lodge on page 386, section 597, Remark 4:

“A is very rare; A, [A in italics in the book = the second A in your post, Junya] (is) theoretical.

In Anne Mahoney’s ‘Essential Latin Grammar’ (a revision of Bennett’s New Latin Grammar) it says in parag 321, under the heading ‘The Apodosis’: “The Imperf Subj of the Direct Discourse becomes the Fut Infinitive. But this construction is rare.”

Woodcock, in ‘A New Latin Syntax’ (1959, reprint 2005), is totally dismissive. He puts the whole issue down to a munk’s typo while copying Caesar. On pages 236-7 he writes:
“As it is logically impossible for –urum esse to represent any idea which has not reference to the future (i.e. which is not still capable of fulfilment at the time of speaking), it is clear that the following passage ought be emended: Caes. B.G. 5,29. … “

He then describes in some detail the inconsistencies in the B.G. passage, ending up by noting: “The transposition of letters from ‘sese’ to ‘esse’ is a common type of palaegraphical error.” Nihil novi sub sole! :smiley:

Since the occurrence of this particular(ly) heinous construction is so extremely rare, it seems unlikely to have kept friend Adrianus or any other keen Latinist awake at night.

Vale!
Int

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“The Imperf Subj of the Direct Discourse becomes the Fut Infinitive. But this construction is rare.”

If I ever learned this rule (it would have been cir. 1960-1), I had completely forgotten it, and I can’t recall ever having stumbled over it in reading (though I’ve probably read more Latin poetry than prose in the intervening years, and this sort of thing just doesn’t show up in Latin poetry). This exercise has been a good opportunity to review some grammar.

Thanks for your clarification, Interaxus. But I hope you’ll forgive me if I couldn’t resist finding some slight amusement in “a munk’s typo”.

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Hi Interaxus and Qimmik. :slight_smile:
Interaxus and Qimmik say one would almost never encounter this syntactical difficulty in reading actual texts,
so I feel I am advised to leave off thinking about this matter as it is only a trifling matter,
and now I hesitate to post further questions about this problem.
Is it ok if I asked you further on ?






One or two days ago I posted:

Well, I still have a little doubt in the explanation of Gildersleeve & Lodge.

In G&L,
Conditional Sentences
3. Unreal Conditional Sentences (section 597 in my version)
Remark 4.
these patterns of rendering Unreal Conditiional Sentences into Oratio Obliqua are shown.


A. Dico (dixit), te, si id crederes, erraturum esse.
B. Dico (dixi), te, si id credidisses, erraturum fuisse.
A. Dico (dixi), te, si id crederes, fore ut decipereris.
B. Dico (dixi), te, si id credidisses, futurum fuisse ut decipereris.

What puzzles me is A (both active A and passive A).
As I feel, erraturum fuisse seems better than erraturum esse, as a rendition from errares.
By using fuisse, I think, the nuance of Unreal Imagination could be expressed.
If you use esse rather than fuisse, I think the time of erraturum esse becomes later than the time of crederes, which is not good as a rendition from si crederes, errares.
The same can be said about fore ut decipereris.
I’m not sure I could express my thinking very well, though.

Interaxus, yes,
in Woodcock, New Latin Syntax, p.235, the table of patterns of rendering O.R. into O.O.,
3. Present Unreal
O.R.
Si hoc diceret, erraret.
O.O.
Censeo, si hoc diceret, eum erraturum fuisse.
Censebam, si hoc diceret, errraturum fuisse.
Woodcock says it should be -urum fuisse, not -urum esse.
That’s what I thought right for the rendering of Present Unreal sentence into O.O…
Then should I consider Gildersleeve&Lodge is wrong as to the way of rendering Present Unreal sentences into O.O. (it says -urum esse is right) ?



About Gildersleeve&Lodge’s O.O..
errares can mean both “you would be in error (now)” and “you would (in the future) be in error”.
I guess si crederes, errares as O.R. of Dico te si crederes erraturum esse was meaning “you would (in the near future) be in error” originally, not “you would be in error (now)”.

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Si id credas, erres = [Hypothetically speaking] if you were to believe that, you would be wrong
Si id crederes, errares = [You don’t but] if you believed that [now or even potentially], you would be wrong [—you cannot now believe that because you don’t actually believe that now—in that false scenario suggested by a past subjunctive tense applied to a condition that has passed, according anyway to A&G §517n.1, // in illâ circumstantiâ non jam possible quam indicat subjunctivi modi usus praeterito tempore quod decessa est occasio eveniendi, secundum A&G §517n.1]

Dico te, si id crederes, erraturum esse.
I maintain that, if you believed that [at this present moment] you would be wrong [in that false scenario suggested by a past subjunctive tense in connection with a condition that has passed, because at this present moment you don’t believe it]

Dico te, si id credidisses, erraturum fuisse.
I maintain that, if you had believed that [in the past] you would have been wrong [in that false scenario suggested by a past subjunctive tense in connection with a condition that has passed, because at that moment you didn’t believe it]

I suppose so. That sounds reasonable to me (or bits of that). A potential dimension of what might have been but isn’t or wasn’t at the time since false, and not what might be at some future point.
Justum quod dicis vel justae partes eius. Materiae spatium quod includit actiones impossibiles vel falsas solas in eo tempore justo spatii describendi.

19

:smiley:

Adrianus wrote :

Dico te, si id crederes, erraturum esse.
I maintain that, if you believed that [at this present moment] you would be wrong [in that false scenario suggested by a past subjunctive tense in connection with a condition that has passed, because at this present moment you don’t believe it]

Thank you, that explains very clearly to me.
I was a little uncertain about why they used Impf. Subj. for expressing a Present Unreal Condition and Result.
(I had partially understood it by literally translating it into Japanese. The Japanese language also uses a lot of past tenses, Impf., Pf., Plupf., Futpf., in expressing Unreal Conditional sentences. I also use this translation technique in understanding strange-looking Aor. and Pf. and the like past tenses in Greek.)
By your explanation of that, now I feel I can understand that erraturum esse, futurum esse.
Can I understand the Impf. Subj. Apodosis is expressing a kind of parallel world ?

But I still feel erraturum fuisse would fit better as the O.O. of Present Unreal result errares,
since fuisse would be able to express the Unreal imagined result better than esse,
according to your explanation, you would be wrong [in that false scenario suggested by a past subjunctive tense in connection with a condition that has passed, because at this present moment you don’t believe it].
Past tense by itselfm even in Indic. mood, can express an Unreal Imagination (as I understand from that translation technique I mentioned above. I think Gildersleeve and Lodge also has sections for such uses.).






Finally, about the understanding of Fut. pt. -urum, there is further problem to me. If you are not annoyed by my persistency and allowed me, I will ask it.

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Surely everyone is interested in hearing about the problem.
Nonnè omnis vult audire quid sit quod te consternet?