Ducerentur

john abshire

john abshire

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Unam per sequanos, angustum et difficile, inter montem iuram et flumen rhodanum, vix qua singuli carri ducerentur,

One through the sequani, narrow and difficult, between the mount Jura and the river Rhone (by which scarcely one wagon at a time could be lead;

Ducerentur = could be lead?
Should or would be lead? Is there a way to know whether could, should or would?
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

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Location:
Belgium
john abshire dixit:
Unam
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That should be unum, right?
john abshire dixit:
Ducerentur = could be lead?
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Yes. Well, "led".
john abshire dixit:
Should or would be lead? Is there a way to know whether could, should or would?
Click to expand...
It depends on context... It's hard to give a single, all-encompassing rule, but in this specific sentence you can tell that "should" is an unlikely meaning, as it's much more natural to say that a narrow passage can only accomodate one wagon at a time, rather than that there is some obligation or need for it to do so. As for "would", if I read "by which scarcely one wagon at a time would be led", my instinct would be to take that "would" construction as a future-in-the-past ("would be led" = "was going to be led"), which would be expressed entirely differently in Latin. There are theoretically other ways you could take that "would", too, but it just isn't as good as "could" to convey the intended meaning.
 
john abshire

john abshire

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Pacifica dixit:
That should be unum, right?

Yes. Well, "led".

It depends on context... It's hard to give a single, all-encompassing rule, but in this specific sentence you can tell that "should" is an unlikely meaning, as it's much more natural to say that a narrow passage can only accomodate one wagon at a time, rather than that there is some obligation or need for it to do so. As for "would", if I read "by which scarcely one wagon at a time would be led", my instinct would be to take that "would" construction as a future-in-the-past ("would be led" = "was going to be led"), which would lead be expressed entirely differently in Latin. There are theoretically other ways you could take that "would", too, but it just isn't as good as "could" to convey the intended meaning.
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It is unum.
I was afraid that the answer would be “it depends on context”.
I can’t get the translation close enough yet for that.
Thanks
 
 
Godmy

Godmy

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She means that in your original post you wrote "unum".

Well, it describes the property of the path. What kind of path is it? A path through which vagons could be lead only one by one. Here the "could" just comes to be most handy. The meaning in your mind for this subjunctive is not "should" or "would" or "could" or... "may"... in this instance, the meaning in your mind is "describing the characteristics of the path" and then, if you insist on translating it (since, a casual reader of a foreign language doesn't translate, they just read inside the language <- I'm not saying you are that YET) - but if you want to translate, then you FIND out on the spot in the very moment, that in English the characteristics is best expressed by "could".
 
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A

Adrian

Civis Illustris

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Godmy dixit:
Just imagine if they weren't in such a hurry and took that mountain path ; P It could hypothetically avert many forum arguments 2000 years later! :D
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Exactly, you should really be more considerate of people millennia after you discussing hypotheticals in complex dead languages. What were they thinking?
 
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