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5 votes
1 answer
246 views

LLPSI: Ch. 14, Ln. 38, "et oculōs aperiēns..."

My question stems from a passage of Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata Familia Romana in chapter 14 on page 104 beginning at line 38 as follows. Question Does "aperiēns" modify oculōs even ...
Mr. Blythe's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
112 views

On the syntactic distribution of ablative gerund and nominative present participle

I've always taken it for granted that in Classical Latin nominative present participles cannot be replaced by ablative gerunds without a meaning change. For example, in the following case the ...
Mitomino's user avatar
  • 9,036
8 votes
2 answers
358 views

On the syntax of 'Cogitate quantis laboribus fundatum imperium (...) una nox paene delerit' (Cic. Cat. 4, 19)

Picking up the thread of analyzing beautiful structures involving participles in Cicero's works (e.g. see this link), I'd like to raise a question about the syntax of the following complex sentence. ...
Mitomino's user avatar
  • 9,036
3 votes
1 answer
581 views

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 ...
Mitomino's user avatar
  • 9,036
3 votes
2 answers
107 views

Active verb with future passive and perfect participle?

How does the active verb "veniunt" work with the word "consideranda"? Almost like a periphrastic? As I have translated below: "Ac initio quidem duo principalia decreta ante omnia consideranda ...
MichaelJYoo's user avatar
  • 1,039
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 ...
Mitomino's user avatar
  • 9,036
4 votes
2 answers
197 views

Using Participles in Latin Tenses

In English, we can communicate progressiveness of an action by combining a form of "to be" with a participle. For instance, "I am acting" is progressive, whereas "I act" is not. I am wondering about ...
Ronald J. Zallman's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
727 views

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, ...
Mitomino's user avatar
  • 9,036
6 votes
2 answers
243 views

When are -ns words used with accusative direct objects?

In English, one common generalization is that "-ing" words only take direct objects when they are verb forms, not when they are true adjectives or true nouns. (There are only a few possible exceptions,...
Asteroides's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
572 views

Subject-verb agreement when the subject is a dominant participle construction

My question is whether constructions similar to the following English one, which is drawn from Jespersen (1909-1949, vol. V: 138), can exist in Latin, i.e., constructions where (i) the subject is ...
Mitomino's user avatar
  • 9,036
7 votes
3 answers
358 views

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 (...
Mitomino's user avatar
  • 9,036
12 votes
1 answer
390 views

How can participles (inflected forms) be distinguished from deverbal adjectives (derived forms) in Latin?

Many modern linguistic analyses of languages like English draw a sharp theoretical distinction between participles, which are analyzed as inflected forms belonging to the paradigm of some verb, and ...
Asteroides's user avatar
  • 29.7k
12 votes
3 answers
908 views

Can esse be used with a present participle?

I do not recall ever seeing esse in any form used with active present participles (like faciens). One could imagine something similar to the English distinction between "he does" and "he is doing" in ...
Joonas Ilmavirta's user avatar