Homines erant tam audaces ut nullo modo contineri possent.
I really have no clue what it could be and don’t even want to guess for I’m sure to be wrong.
Gratias vobis ago.
Ablative of Manner - see A&G 412b. At least that’s my vote!
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This is funny because modus can be translated variously way, means, manner, mode… Actually, I took it as an ablative of means, there was no means by which they were able to be contained. Either way, it “means” the same thing…
Sorry for off-topic, but for a long time I was intrigued with such questions about different kinds of ablative. What is the meaning of this classification? Does it make better understanding of the text, is needed to pass Latin exams, or is an academic Linguistic problem?
I know, that instrumental case (and locative) in Latin merged with ablative. And “nullo mode” is INS (from text content), ergo ABL. Would it be better for me to learn that it is “Ablative of manner”?
Similarly, when I see “with/by” in an English text (nullo modo - by no means), I can say (with some additional conditions) that there is an instrumental construction, but I never pondered how can this information come in handy.
Aetos & Barry- those were going to me by two guesses, but seeing that I have been wrong in the past here on textkit when assuming such, I chose to hold my tongue (or rather hold back my fingers since I’m typing). Though I think that I’m going to have to agree with Aetos on this one.
Will.dawe- the reason why I want to learn the uses of the ablative is because I’m practicing Latin composition, or rather, double translation for now, and since not all uses of the ablative required a preposition (as I’m sure you’re aware of), I need to be able to recognize them in English texts so as to be able to translate them correctly into Latin, i.e. with or without a preposition.
When I see an ablative with no preposition, I suspend decision on its meaning-relation to the sentence, and assume that I will get that relation later, from context. But this is after some years of study. In the beginning, I didn’t know what kinds of relationships an ablative might denote.
At the beginning, it was helpful to have the ablatives-of-whatever, because each named one of the possible relations.
So, to me those ablative-of-whatever designations form a ladder that you throw away when you don’t need it any more (ladder metaphor borrowed from L. Wittgenstein).
My guess is that such ladders appear in elementary instruction in many fields.
Good observations all. It’s really an adverbial use of the noun, and the force of it is normally clear from context. The authors we like to read certainly didn’t bother with categories, but used it naturally. My 4th year students (now 5th) decided a while ago that “Ablative-of-whatever” should an official category.
Thank you. Now I see how useful it may be.
I was just realizing that the ablative of manner only uses cum and can be omitted if the ablative has an adjective, so it definitely can’t be an ablative of manner as I was agreeing with Aetos (much less is it an ablative of means), for it doesn’t make sense to translate the omitted preposition here as with. I think what you’re saying now makes sense, Barry, so I’ll just go with that it’s an adverb. Unless someone else proposes something better (bedwere? I’ll trade you the answer of this question of mine for some more answers for D’Ooge’s exercises lol)
Then, it would be more correct saying “noun phrase acting as an adverb”. As long as there is its plural form, “nullis modis”, it cannot be an adverb by itself. At least, I never heard about plural adverbs. So, “modo” here is a declined form of “modus”.
This textbook has examples of Ablative of Manner without præpositions:
Whoa. How’s that for a game changer? I guess I was right the first time. Thanks for that.
More accurate? I was simply observing that ablatives are used adverbially in the syntax of the clause. Magnā celeritāte cucurrit, “he ran with great speed” is the practical equivalent “he ran very switfly.” Regem sagīttīs petīvit, “he attacked the king with arrows,” sagīttīs expresses instrument, but it also limits the action of the verb, even though we don’t translate it adverbially. Prepositional phrases are also most often used adverbially.
Of course nullō modō frequently is used as an ablative of manner. But in the example of the OP:
Homines erant tam audaces ut nullo modo contineri possent
How does nullō modō express manner? Manner expresses some characteristic or activity which is associated with the action of the verb, turba cum calamitāte ad portās adiērunt, “the crowd approached the gates with shouting” (this is why it’s most common with verbal nouns). Does nullō modō really represent an activity associated with continērī, or is it stating there is no means or facility by which the people can be contained? Perhaps it will be clearer if we substitute another expression? ut nullīs tēlīs continērī possent, “that they were unable to be contained by any weapons…”
Sorry for incorrect word, I had no intent to be arrogant. English is a foreign language for me. Your sentence is absolutely right, I was correcting Propertii saying “it’s an adverb”, even though it can be a colloquial contraction.
Here, “nullō modō” modifies “possent”.
Placement is wrong for that. I would expect it before possent for that were so.
Barry, you make a convincing argument and I’m sorely tempted to change my vote! You’ve also identified the main issue here at least for me: how do we translate modus ? How we translate modus depends to a great extent on context. If we translate it as “way”, then the ablative of manner is an attractive description, but possibly misleading (as I’m beginning to think). One of the characteristics that define the ablative of manner is that is used with abstract nouns, particularly nouns denoting a quality. Is modus such a noun? I can see it as an abstraction, but not really a quality. If we translate it as “means”, then ablative of means seems a more appropriate description. The key word here is “description”, because the average Roman didn’t think about whether he was using the ablative in either of these ways. If you could put a little thought bubble above his head, it would probably contain “no way-no how”! In the end, as you pointed out earlier, the sentence “means” the same thing: Their degree of audacity made them unstoppable.
P.S. You’ll love this: Ablatives are to Latin grammar what black holes are to space: They suck in all matter and energy. (From Latin for Dummies)
I checked several treebanks for “nullo modo + VERB + possum”, and only UD Latin-ITTB contains examples corresponding to this structure. It’s made of texts from XIII century, so is not a Classic Latin. (Though, treebanks are very short extracts from real texts, so such a rare construction can be missing by chance.)
For example:
- Unde necesse est quod nullo modo intelligere possit substantias separatas: quia impossibile erit ipsum esse separatum.
- Consequently, that it could in no way understand separate substances is quite necessary, since it could not be separate in its own being.
This sentence was parsed (manually) as following:
where, obl is an adverbial attaching to a verb, and xcomp is a “modal verb + verb” relation.
Other examples can be retrieved using the query:
[word="nullo"] . [word="modo"] & [pos="VERB"] . [lemma="possum"]
All of them mark “nullo modo” as a modifier of “possum”.
Also, in Offices of Cicero (William Johnson, 1828) we can find the following rearrangements:
- nullo modo videri potest - potest nullo modo videri (it can by no means appear)
- placere nullo modo potest - nullo modo potest placere (by no means can please)
- probari posse nullo modo - posse nullo modo probari (can by no means be approved of)
I think that “nullo mode” and “possum” could be placed more or less freely during the Classic period as well.
P.S. I like how this sentence is made:
- nullo igitur modo anima humana corrumpi potest
Well, I think it’s a language, not an algorithm. The thought occurred to me that possum + infinitive is really a unit, and that perhaps the attempt to make the adverbial phrase modify one or other element of the unit is not the best approach. Maybe substituting an “official” adverb will help, ut aegre contineri possent. What does aegre modify?