Which of the two consuls has died

[jaffa]

I have recently returned to some serious Latin study and am working my way through the Colebourn 'Latin Sentence and Idiom' book. I would be very grateful for some help with the word 'uter'
The sentence I am trying to translate is:
Which of the two consuls has died?

My attempt so far is :
Uter consulum perivit

However Colebourn in a note writes the following:
Do not use the genitive: which of the two consuls: uter consul. But use the gen. of a pronoun eg. which of us two: uter nostrum. The reason for the difference should be obvious.

I'm afraid this is not at all obvious as far as I am concerned and I would be most grateful for some expert assistance.

 

[Bitmap]

The reason for the difference is not really obvious to me, and I think that's a weird thing for a grammar book to write.

I don't really have an explanation. That's simply how the word works. uter and uterque typically take the singular, not the partitive genitive. That said, *uter nos and *uter vos sounds rather weird, so you have the exception there.

It essentially works like quis. You would say quis consul cecidit for "which consul fell?/ which one of the consuls fell?", but not *quis consulum; however, you would say quis vestrum cecidit?

I wouldn't rule out that you can find the partitive genitive somewhere in the recesses of Latin literature, but it's not the way classical Latin commonly handles it.

 

[jaffa]

Thank you very much for your reply. I suppose the fact that uter vos sounds weird is what Colebourn was trying to get at. I don't think he expressed himself very well in the footnote but I think you have solved the problem for me.

I will go with uter consul perivit

 

[Bitmap]

Yes, that should be fine.

Btw., you see something similar in the Latin words for "both", uterque and ambo.
uterque (from uter, obviously) refers to "both", but as two entities separate in time and place; ambo means "both" in the sense of "both entities at the same time and in the same place". Therefore, uterque usually takes the singular while ambo takes the plural.
So you would have
anno DCCXI ab urbe condita uterque consul cecidit. ("In 711, both consuls fell" - but at different times and in different places)
ambo consules eodem proelio ceciderunt. ("Both consuls fell in the same battle" ~ more or less the same time and the same place, especially if they fought side by side)

 

[Issacus Divus]

The reason for the difference is not really obvious to me, and I think that's a weird thing for a grammar book to write.

This struck me as rather weird too. It'd really only make sense to me if the book was meant for people who already knew a lot, or if the book was designed to progress the reader more with each chapter. I could understand if he said "it should be obvious" for something that you can deduce logically, like "ubique", but not for explaining word.

 

[jaffa]

Yes, that should be fine.

Btw., you see something similar in the Latin words for "both", uterque and ambo.
uterque (from uter, obviously) refers to "both", but as two entities separate in time and place; ambo means "both" in the sense of "both entities at the same time and in the same place". Therefore, uterque usually takes the singular while ambo takes the plural.
So you would have
anno DCCXI ab urbe condita uterque consul cecidit. ("In 711, both consuls fell" - but at different times and in different places)
ambo consules eodem proelio ceciderunt. ("Both consuls fell in the same battle" ~ more or less the same time and the same place, especially if they fought side by side)

Thank you, very interesting. I suppose if uterque is translated as 'each' and ambo as 'both' then this works in the same way in English.