Object of become

[Leizorex]

One of my students wanted to put into Latin the lovely phrase, "Sunlight becomes broom" (the common name of a golden-tawney wild grass found on our mountainside)

Sol (or Lux solis) ____________ commutatur . Sol (or Lux solis) _____________ fit. looks okay to me also. "Genista" of course is botanically completely wrong for a grass of whatever common name, but I have never seen a source for authentic Latin botanical nomenclature).

But what case should "broom" be in? Accusative does not seem right because to become something is not quite like being the object of an operation.

THANKS!

 

[Pacifica]

You are right, "become" does not take an object. It takes a predicate complement. The complement with fit in Latin should agree with the subject in the nominative.

Thing are different with commutatur. With this, you need in + acc. It will translate literally to "is changed into".

 

[scrabulista]

I always took "Mourning Becomes Electra" (play by Eugene O'Neill) as "Mourning makes Electra more attractive," rather than "Mourning turns into Electra."
(definition 3 on https://www.dictionary.com/browse/become?s=t)
I'd think the same of "sunlight becomes broom."

Are either of these the plant you're describing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broom_grass

 

[Pacifica]

I always took "Mourning Becomes Electra" (play by Eugene O'Neill) as "Mourning makes Electra more attractive," rather than "Mourning turns into Electra."
(definition 3 on https://www.dictionary.com/browse/become?s=t)
I'd think the same of "sunlight becomes broom."

Then you need something like decet + accusative.

 

[cinefactus]

"Genista" of course is botanically completely wrong for a grass of whatever common name, but I have never seen a source for authentic Latin botanical nomenclature).

It was good enough for the Plantagenets.

 

[Leizorex]

Andropogon glomerata, vero.

"decet" would surely be correct for Electra, but the sense intended here was transformation

 

[syntaxianus]

You could use a meaning of evado:

L&S, s.v. evado:

2. In partic., to turn out, fall out, end in some manner, to have an issue of some kind, to result, to turn to or become something: ex communibus proprii, ex fucosis firmi suffragatores evadunt, Q. Cic. Pet. Cons. 9, 35; cf. Cic. Or. 27, 95; id. Fin. 4, 25, 69: quos judicabat non posse oratores evadere, id. de Or. 1, 28, 126: fuit autem Athenis adulescens, perfectus Epicureus evaserat, id. Brut. 35, 131​

In English there is that strange usage of "wind up": "How did you wind up (= "turn out to be, become) a classical philologist?" (As opposed to the "wind up" in turning the knob of a watch or an old clock.)

Evadere, to "come out" or here, "turn out to be," seems parallel.

 

[syntaxianus]

It looks like "broom" is cytisus scoparius. What the everyday term would have been at any particular time and place is another question.