Use of the Pronoun qui, quae, quod

BrianBerbati

Member

Location:
Illinois, USA
Hello, everyone. My last few translations have gone well. I have one question on English to Latin number 5. Is my use of qui in the nominative correct? I had a thought that it may be in the accusative case. I think it relates to magister so it would be in the nominative, but I want to make sure. Also, I want to very my word choice is fine, especially in my translation of hostem and capiebant. Thanks for the help.

Brian

Latin to English
1. Illa puella pugnam vīderit.
This girl will have seen battle.
2. Hī mīlitēs fēlīcēs erunt.
These soldiers will be lucky.
3. Magister discipulōs docuerat.
The teacher had been teaching the students.
4. Virī hostem capiēbant.
The men were arresting an enemy.
5. Rosam puellīs dederō.
I will have given a rose to the girls.

English to Latin
1. The boy had loved the girl.
Puer puellam amaverat.
2. The girl will have warned that soldier.
Puella illum militem admonuerit.
3. I will be luckier.
Felicior ero.
4. Caesar had captured this lion on the wall.
Caesar hunc leonem ceperat in muro.
5. The teacher who had taught in the room will have eaten those apples.
Magister qui docuerat in camera ederit illa mala.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

Latin to English
1. Illa puella pugnam vīderit.
This girl will have seen battle.
2. Hī mīlitēs fēlīcēs erunt.
These soldiers will be lucky.
3. Magister discipulōs docuerat.
The teacher had been teaching the students.
4. Virī hostem capiēbant.
The men were arresting an enemy.
5. Rosam puellīs dederō.
I will have given a rose to the girls.
That's basically right.
I think, English would usually translate forms of hic with "this" and forms of ille with "that".

4. Caesar had captured this lion on the wall.
Caesar hunc leonem ceperat in muro.
It would be better to translate this sentence as if it said "this lion which is on the wall" or "this lion, which you see on the wall" -- otherwise the Latin sentence sounds like the wall was the place where the capturing took place.

I had a thought that it may be in the accusative case. I think it relates to magister so it would be in the nominative, but I want to make sure.
It's correct, but the case of a relative pronoun does not depend on the word it relates to. Its number and gender are determined by the word it relates to; its case is determined by the syntactic role it fulfills in the relative clause.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
It would be better to translate this sentence as if it said "this lion which is on the wall" or "this lion, which you see on the wall" -- otherwise the Latin sentence sounds like the wall was the place where the capturing took place.
That was my first thought too, but then I realized that the English sentence could also mean that the lion had been captured on the wall. It's ambiguous.
 

BrianBerbati

Member

Location:
Illinois, USA
It's correct, but the case of a relative pronoun does not depend on the word it relates to. Its number and gender are determined by the word it relates to; its case is determined by the syntactic role it fulfills in the relative clause.
Ah, I remember that now. The number and gender are determined by the antecedent, while the case is determined by the relative clause. I remember the trick to just picture the relative clause as its own sentence to find out what case the pronoun will be.

Is there a more clear way of translating English to Latin #4 without deviating from the original meaning or should I stick with what I have now?

Latin to English
1. Illa puella pugnam vīderit.
That girl will have seen battle.
2. Hī mīlitēs fēlīcēs erunt.
These soldiers will be lucky.
3. Magister discipulōs docuerat.
The teacher had been teaching the students.
4. Virī hostem capiēbant.
The men were arresting an enemy.
5. Rosam puellīs dederō.
I will have given a rose to the girls.

English to Latin
1. The boy had loved the girl.
Puer puellam amaverat.
2. The girl will have warned that soldier.
Puella illum militem admonuerit.
3. I will be luckier.
Felicior ero.
4. Caesar had captured this lion on the wall.
(Caesar hunc leonem ceperat in muro.)
5. The teacher who had taught in the room will have eaten those apples.
Magister qui docuerat in camera ederit illa mala.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Is there a more clear way of translating English to Latin #4 without deviating from the original meaning or should I stick with what I have now?
I can't be sure which of the two meanings your teacher or the author of your textbook had in mind, since both interepretations are possible and there's no real way to determine the intended meaning without any context. If I were your teacher, I would accept a translation for either interpretation. Now, I would also guess that most teachers wouldn't expect you to be aware of the issue pointed out by Bitmap at this stage (if the teachers were even aware of it themselves; don't assume that every Latin teacher knows Latin perfectly or even very well — though I hope yours does).
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Another detail:
3. Magister discipulōs docuerat.
The teacher had been teaching the students.
Most of the time, docuerat would rather translate to "had taught".

Although I guess there can be exceptions and it's often hard to rule out possibilities in contextless sentences, "had been teaching" usually implies that the teaching was still going on, and that would require an imperfect verb in Latin. For example, "The teacher had been teaching the students for a long time" more often than not will mean "The teacher had started teaching a long time before and was still teaching then". In such cases Latin works differently than English and will say magister discipulos diu docebat, which is very literally "The teacher was teaching the students for a long time", but really conveys the idea that would be denoted in English by "had been teaching".
 

MIB

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Phoenix, AZ, USA
May not be of concern or even correct, but shouldn't 'in camera' be inside the relative clause?
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
May not be of concern or even correct, but shouldn't 'in camera' be inside the relative clause?
It's not really wrong where it is now, but it's ambiguous whether it refers to docuerat or ederit so yes, it would be better to put it before docuerat.
 

BrianBerbati

Member

Location:
Illinois, USA
I can't be sure which of the two meanings your teacher or the author of your textbook had in mind, since both interepretations are possible and there's no real way to determine the intended meaning without any context. If I were your teacher, I would accept a translation for either interpretation. Now, I would also guess that most teachers wouldn't expect you to be aware of the issue pointed out by Bitmap at this stage (if the teachers were even aware of it themselves; don't assume that every Latin teacher knows Latin perfectly or even very well — though I hope yours does).
Okay, given this information I’ll keep it as it is.

Another detail:
Most of the time, docuerat would rather translate to "had taught".

Although I guess there can be exceptions and it's often hard to rule out possibilities in contextless sentences, "had been teaching" usually implies that the teaching was still going on, and that would require an imperfect verb in Latin. For example, "The teacher had been teaching the students for a long time" more often than not will mean "The teacher had started teaching a long time before and was still teaching then". In such cases Latin works differently than English and will say magister discipulos diu docebat, which is very literally "The teacher was teaching the students for a long time", but really conveys the idea that would be denoted in English by "had been teaching".
Yes, my teacher does want me to pay attention to verb tenses, thank you for pointing that out. I changed my translation.

It's not really wrong where it is now, but it's ambiguous whether it refers to docuerat or ederit so yes, it would be better to put it before docuerat.
Okay, thank you for the word order suggestion.

Latin to English
1. Illa puella pugnam vīderit.
That girl will have seen battle.
2. Hī mīlitēs fēlīcēs erunt.
These soldiers will be lucky.
3. Magister discipulōs docuerat.
The teacher had taught the students.
4. Virī hostem capiēbant.
The men were arresting an enemy.
5. Rosam puellīs dederō.
I will have given a rose to the girls.

English to Latin
1. The boy had loved the girl.
Puer puellam amaverat.
2. The girl will have warned that soldier.
Puella illum militem admonuerit.
3. I will be luckier.
Felicior ero.
4. Caesar had captured this lion on the wall.
Caesar hunc leonem ceperat in muro.
5. The teacher who had taught in the room will have eaten those apples.
Magister qui in camera docuerat illa mala ederit.

Brian
 

Gregorius Textor

Animal rationale

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patronus

Location:
Ohio, U.S.A.
That was my first thought too, but then I realized that the English sentence could also mean that the lion had been captured on the wall. It's ambiguous.
The lion had been captured on the wall -- syntactically possible, but semantically very improbable.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
But a lion being on a wall at all, whether at the time of capture or at the time of speaking, is improbable anyway — though not impossible; in either case I guess he must have escaped from somewhere and ended up on the wall.
 

Gregorius Textor

Animal rationale

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patronus

Location:
Ohio, U.S.A.
I was commenting from my perspective as a native speaker of English. This started as English to Latin, "wall". So it could be a paries after all. And thanks for making me aware of the distinction.
 

john abshire

Well-Known Member

  • Patronus

May not be of concern or even correct, but shouldn't 'in camera' be inside the relative clause?
that was my thought too, when i first read the sentence, that in camera should be before docuerat.
This makes the sentence easier to read, following the unwritten rule that the verb goes last.
I would also have placed ederit at the end, for the same reason.

5. The teacher who had taught in the room will have eaten those apples.
Magister qui in camera docuerat illa mala ederit.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
It's better to put in camera before docuerat to avoid ambiguity, but there isn't really a problem with ederit coming before illa mala. The verb-comes-last rule isn't really a rule; only a tendency and a variety of word orders are regularly found. But it's still good to be aware that Latin's tendencies are different from the fixed English word order.
 
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