I need grammar practice!
- Thread starter Lysandra
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No antecedent is not uncommon, but look at what Pacifica said:
Yes. sunt qui is the regular expression, like this Livy sentence:
Sunt qui Larentiam volgato corpore lupam inter pastores vocatam putent
Here, Propertius uses "est qui" for some reason. What confuses me is that est quibus and sunt quibus both scan equally well, so there's no metrical reason for Propertius to use the weird construction. He also seems to be the only classical writer who does this agreement. Perhaps someone more scholarly than I am can offer an explanation as to why Propertius did this.
Sunt qui Larentiam volgato corpore lupam inter pastores vocatam putent
Here, Propertius uses "est qui" for some reason. What confuses me is that est quibus and sunt quibus both scan equally well, so there's no metrical reason for Propertius to use the weird construction. He also seems to be the only classical writer who does this agreement. Perhaps someone more scholarly than I am can offer an explanation as to why Propertius did this.
By this I suppose you mean an 'attraction', and I agree with you. But I rather think that in both cases est agrees with a singular subject, for I don't like that P should have coined this usage in Latin. The semantics would then be just as clear, I think, but the grammar a little less difficult, as in:
Est quibus Eleae concurrit palma quadrigae < Est palma eis quibus (ea) concurrit... etc.
That is, "There is a palm for them to whom...
and est quibus in celeris gloria nata pedes < est gloria nata eis in celeris pedes quibus (sunt pedes celeres).
"There is glory born to those whose feet..."
No, it isn't an attraction. An attraction is when a word is attracted into the case/gender/number/mood/whatnot of a nearby word while it should logically be in another case/gender/number/mood/etc.
For example: hunc adulescentem quem vides, malo astro natus est (from the Satyricon): here hunc adulescentem should logically be hic adulescens, as subject of natus est, but it's attracted into the accusative of the following quem.
There is no such thing happening in est quibus, since there isn't really any singular word around which would have est attracted into the singular.
No, that makes for a very strained reading and thus is extremely unlikely. The simpler explanation is the more natural (and correct). Est quibus means "there's [some people] for whom..." (after all, in colloquial English too it often happens that the verb is illogically singular in "there's"), and, as I said, is a literal imitation of a Greek construction:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=sum1
Unless you call "attraction" the fact that one so often says "there is" such and such singular thing that one ends up saying "there is" with plural things as well. I suppose it would make some sense, but I'm not sure this is "officially" called attraction.
I see your point, and the dictionary does corroborate. But this ἔστιν οἷς, which is to begin with an idiom, is an example of attraction and the deletion of the pronoun whose case has been attracted, as happens more often than not, as in:
μάχαιραν ἔδωκα ᾧ ἐμαχέσατο ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ. 'I gave a sword to whom fought in the war.' (< μάχαιραν ἔδωκα αὐτῷ ὃς ἐμαχέσατο ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ) or the Latin imitation gladium dedi cui in bello pugnauit, where the case of the personal pronoun has been attracted to that of the relative and subsequently deleted, leaving the relative pronoun in the 'wrong case'.
In your example, ἔστιν οἷς stands rather for ἔστιν αὐτοῖς οἵ, 'it is the case for those who' > 'there are some who'.
Edit: That, at any rate, is my guess.
μάχαιραν ἔδωκα ᾧ ἐμαχέσατο ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ. 'I gave a sword to whom fought in the war.' (< μάχαιραν ἔδωκα αὐτῷ ὃς ἐμαχέσατο ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ) or the Latin imitation gladium dedi cui in bello pugnauit, where the case of the personal pronoun has been attracted to that of the relative and subsequently deleted, leaving the relative pronoun in the 'wrong case'.
In your example, ἔστιν οἷς stands rather for ἔστιν αὐτοῖς οἵ, 'it is the case for those who' > 'there are some who'.
Edit: That, at any rate, is my guess.
Insolence.
[*] 2522. Attraction.—A relative pronoun is often attracted from its proper case into the case of its antecedent, especially from the accusative into the genitive or dative. A demonstrative pronoun to whose case the relative is attracted, is usually omitted if unemphatic. Cp. “Vengeance is his, or whose he sole appoints:” Milton.
That's pretty suave of old Johnny.
Edit: Of course, Spenser does it like a bodily function.
That's pretty suave of old Johnny.
Edit: Of course, Spenser does it like a bodily function.
1. accusative, omnes
2. uncommon form of present infintive (ind. statement after ‘ait’)
3. dative (of purpose in double dative construction with ‘omnibus’—as a laughing-stock to everyone)
4. potential subjunctive?
5. The miles gloriosus is led on to believe the meretrices are genuinely in awe of him, but in truth the women are simply having some fun and games (as implied by the winking and the ‘knock-kneed kisses’) … at least, that’s my interpretation.
Beautifully done. Eugae 
For number 2 we're missing the 'voice' of the verb.
I asked 5 without really knowing myself, though our thoughts seem to be in accord: that, despite their efforts, the prostitutes couldn't help cracking a smile when making kissing motions at the soldier.
The 'bonus' was alliteration, the sort of which only masterclass playwrights such as Plautus can use...
For number 2 we're missing the 'voice' of the verb.
I asked 5 without really knowing myself, though our thoughts seem to be in accord: that, despite their efforts, the prostitutes couldn't help cracking a smile when making kissing motions at the soldier.
The 'bonus' was alliteration, the sort of which only masterclass playwrights such as Plautus can use...
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