This is phrase from one 18th Ct. letter, with which I have serious problems. Any help is welcome. thx in advance: ''...dum in dioecesum confiniis vel tuendis, vel protrabendis altercarentur, pacis ordine perturbato''
For that you'd normally need utrum... an... and finite verbs.I understand it as something like this: "while they argued about whether to guard or protract (?) the confines of the districts
Ordine perturbato is an ablative absolute, so it doesn't make a main clause as your translation would make it look like.the order of peace (was) disturbed"
I know... Thought it was a bit weird with vel -vel.For that you'd normally need utrum... an... and finite verbs.
Reading it as a complete sentence, I took it to be a Tacitus-style clause. I have no idea whether that is likely in this text, but if it were, I thought it made some sense.Ordine perturbato is an ablative absolute, so it doesn't make a main clause as your translation would make it look like.
Tacitus has a very sharp style with many ellipses, but his sentences are complete; that bit, having no main clause, couldn't possibly be a complete sentence.Reading it as a complete sentence, I took it to be a Tacitus-style clause.
That makes sense. And in most cases its some form of sum that is subject to ellipsis.I suppose it can be discussed, but in my view, they are complete because even if there's an ellipsis of est or sim., it's still implied, the sense is understood, so the thought is complete.
Where, exactly? I've just gone to the Latin to English forum, pretending that I was a newbie with a query, and there are a bewildering number of pinned posts. I'm not sure why the top one is pinned at all, and the others seem to be in a strange order. But it's not in the READ THIS BEFORE POSTING IN THIS FORUM thread, where you'd expect it. (Also, the link to the English to Latin forum in that thread is dead.)That is actually one of the rules of the forum, that translation requesters should provide context.