All Questions
Tagged with syntax ablative-absolute
13
questions
6
votes
0
answers
128
views
On the (alleged) ambiguity of "Fabricius a subsellis demisso capite discesserat" (Cic. Clu. 58)
Some Latinist scholars (e.g. Lavency (1986) and Longrée (2014), i.a.; see the full references at the bottom of this post) have noted that the following example from Cicero could in principle be ...
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1
vote
0
answers
86
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Searching for a proper definition of "Ablative Absolute" (AA)
When including the following two examples from Cicero in what turned out to be a too long! answer to a previous post, a terminological question came to my mind: How would one classify those ...
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7
votes
1
answer
421
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Cethegus (...) recitatis litteris debilitatus atque abiectus conscientia repente conticuit. (Cic. Catil. 3, 10)
I was wondering about the correct/preferred syntactic analysis of recitatis litteris in the following complex sentence from Cicero:
Tum Cethegus, qui paulo ante aliquid tamen de gladiis ac sicis, ...
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6
votes
0
answers
99
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Is "Te id dicente id non fit." good Latin for "You saying so does not make it so."?
Is "Te id dicente id non fit." good Latin for "You saying so does not make it so."? There are a couple of things I am not sure about it. When the participle is in ablative ("...
- 4,908
3
votes
1
answer
581
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participium coniunctum vs. ablative absolute of transitive deponent verbs
I was wondering why the "active meaning" and the transitivity of deponent perfect participles like cohortatus in (1) are not naturally preserved in the Ablative Absolute in (2). Why is it ...
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11
votes
1
answer
243
views
Scope of negation with absolute constructions
In Latin and Greek, when a negator appears in an absolute construction (ablative absolute, genitive absolute), it is generally taken to negate the predicate within that construction:
hostibus ...
- 31.5k
2
votes
0
answers
117
views
Is an Ablative Absolute construction like "portā clausā" ambiguous in Early Latin?
As a follow-up question of two previous posts (cf. here and here), I was wondering if an Ablative Absolute construction like portā clausā is ambiguous in Early Latin as it is in Classical Latin. For ...
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4
votes
0
answers
110
views
The longest Ablative Absolute construction attested in the Latin literature?
I was curious about the longest Ablative Absolute (AA) construction attested in the Latin literature. For example, the following one from Plautus has seven AAs juxtaposed (used by him to create a ...
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10
votes
2
answers
609
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Can a "dative of agent" appear in an Ablative Absolute construction (and, more generally, in a non-verbal context)?
I was wondering to what extent the syntactic distribution of so-called “datives of agent” and that of “ablatives of agent” is different. For example, besides appearing in verbal contexts (e.g., ...
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8
votes
1
answer
727
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Can Gerundives be predicates of Ablative Absolutes?
I was wondering if Gerundives, the verbal adjectives referred to as "future passive participles" by Latin grammarians, can appear as predicates of Ablative Absolute constructions.
As is well-known, ...
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4
votes
0
answers
273
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ante solem occasum vs. *ante diem adventum
The intransitive verbs that typically enter into constructions with perfect participles of the so-called "dominant" type are deponent: e.g., ante Ciceronem mortuum, post Ciceronem natum, etc....
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7
votes
3
answers
358
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Quo mortuo nuntiato (Cicero) // Ab urbe condita nuntiata (?)
Given my description below on nested/double predicative participle constructions (e.g., quo mortuo nuntiato) and given the well-known parallelism between so-called “dominant” participle constructions (...
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6
votes
3
answers
589
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Can the absolute ablative be used with a prepositional phrase?
In all cases of ablativus absolutus that I know, there is a main word and an attribute and both are in ablative.
For example, me absente is "while I am away" and Caesare duce is "when Caesar is in ...
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