Hello! I have a few questions from LLPSI: 1. "Puella ludit cum cane sua margarita": Why "sua" follows "margarita" and not "cane"? In other words, shouldnt it be "cum cane suo (cuius nomen margarita est)"? 2. "Aemilius Avunculus vester est, id est frater matris". Both "avunculus" and "frater" are masculine, so why do we use "id" and not "is"? Is it because "id" refers to the concept or "uncle", as we would write in english "Aemilius is your uncle, ("uncle") is the father of the mother"? 3. "Quam longus est gladius eius? -Duos pedes longus est." Why is "duos" applied and not "duo"? Is "pedes" a plural accusative here? Thanks
Canis is either masculine or feminine, depending on the dog itself. Note that this doesn't apply to all animals - felis is always feminine. I think this means "which is to say", just as i.e. in English. I wasn't aware that it was actually uses in Latin that way, though. Yep, lengths are put in the accusative when saying "X is Y length". I believe it can take the genitive (and probably the ablative) when the length is just an adjective, as gladius duorum pedium, "a sword of two feet".
Just adding declension to duo http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/duo#Latin (see table: "inflection"). (Btw.: on the bottom of your post to the left there is a button "edit" and you can use it to edit your post ) Edit: Judgin by Czech (where we have exactly the same constructions) we say either gladius duorum pedum... aliquid facit when the legnth is not he main information of the statement or gladius duos pedes longus est when we want to say just the length and finish the statement.
Nikolaos: Thanks! Does this "rule" for animals taking their sex from the particular animal in question, apply to adjectives as well? i.e. "Cum cane gravis" and not "Cum cane grave"? Godmy: Thank you! Uhm, do you happen to have an email address? It would be really nice to be able to talk with a fellow LLPSI-ist I'm sorry if its a weird request, and I would do it over a personal message, but I cant seem to find that feature here. (Same as the "edit" button...)
Gravis is the same in both masculine and feminine, but yes. Canis magnus and canis magna are both correct.
Indeed, but I don't think that affected gender. At any rate, I've only ever seen an mf next to canis in any dictionary.
I just tried to send you a pm Try to check if you got it. In the right top corner you can see some "alerts" when something new "arrives" and also "inbox" which is there to manage the PMs. It's called today not "PMs" but "conversations". (At least I hope it means private conversations).
Something else to note -- if a 3rd declension adjective is modifying a noun, the proper ablative ending is -i, not -e. For example, cum cane gravi. If, however, the adjective is being used substantively, then the -e ending is usually used for the ablative.
Indeed... an unconventional structure in these aspects is ablative absolute where present participles take quite regularly "-e": illo imperante My theory is either that it has been like that in older latin and got stuck in ablatives absolute and serves in classical latin as distinction between normal ablatives and ablative absolute (which would make sense) ....or that the participle is in fact a second substantive with somehow free relation (agreement) to the actual agent/substantive which is nex to it. (that would be probably something like "With him, with the one giving orders" instead of traditional "With him giving orders") <- but of course conventional translations would never agree
Pro+noun But this is not an argument at all because you can find any other ablative absolute which looks like this...
