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According to Festus (can be found in L&S under cenaculum):

cenacula dicuntur, ad quae scalis ascenditur

While the overall meaning of the statement is quite clear (namely that the upper room that were accessible by stairs are called cenacula), I fail to understand ascenditur, as I can't see to whom it might relate: if it were to relate to an unmentioned person/thing that climbs the stairs, I find it hard to reconcile with the passive voice (as if the stairs are an active agent) - and even if that is the case - wouldn't the plural would be better fit? (to portray a general picture). Other nouns here are plural so they also should not relate to ascenditur.

d_e
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2 Answers2

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Here, ascendere is used instransitively (Festus isn't talking about climbing the room itself but climbing up to the room). Moreover, it seems that the Romans didn't typically think of stairs as things that were themselves climbed but as the means of climbing up to something else (at least when they used the verb ascendere).

Therefore, if you want to turn the verb passive (for example, to deemphasize or entirely omit mention of the specific agent of the action [that is, the climber]), this can't be done by using a regular 'personal' passive, where quae (= cenacula) or scalae is the subject. (Note, however, that this can be done in English, where we could say 'the room that is climbed up to' or 'the room that stairs are climbed to.')

Instead, to get a passive idea in Latin by using the verb ascendere, you have to use an 'impersonal' passive.

From Gildersleeve & Lodge, Latin grammar, §208:

208. IMPERSONAL VERBS.—Impersonal Verbs are verbs in which the agent is regularly implied in the action, the subject in the predicate, so that the person is not expressed.

...

2. The passive of intransitive verbs is often used impersonally... The subject is contained in the verb itself.

Literally, then, the passage from Festus means 'to which the act of climbing is performed by way of stairs' or '...to which there is climbing by way of stairs'; or, a bit more loosely, 'to which one climbs by way of stairs'/'that one climbs up to by way of stairs.'

In English, we can translate this more loosely still as '...that is climbed up to,' as if the subject were the relative pronoun quae and the verb were ascenduntur, or '...that stairs are climbed to,' as if the subject were scalae and the verb were again ascenduntur.

cnread
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  • Your observation is very interesting: "the Romans didn't typically think of stairs as things that were themselves climbed but as the means of climbing up to something else". This is related to the so-called "satellite-framed" nature of Latin, where the preverb expresses directionality, and the verbal root encodes the manner. The meanings of the prefixes were quite transparent and the Ground (i.e., the Place) is expressed (i) via a PP or (ii) via a NP. The adjunct scalis is specifiying the manner component and, as you point out, unlike in English, it cannot be construed as a direct object. – Mitomino Jul 19 '20 at 19:55
  • Gildersleeve & Lodge's descriptive claim that "Impersonal Verbs are verbs in which the agent is regularly implied in the action (...) The passive of intransitive verbs is often used impersonally" can be appropriate when accounting for why only some intransitive verbs (so-called "unergatives") enter into the impersonal passive construction. For more discussion, see Section 1 in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impersonal_passive_voice – Mitomino Jul 20 '20 at 02:33
  • [disclaimer: my father was the Latin expert in the family, I'm strictly a linguistic dilettante] given that dicuntur is also passive, it all fits rather nicely. The passive is better translated into English as reached via a/the staircase, complete with the irony of adding a Latin word that wasn't present in the original. – Will Crawford Jul 20 '20 at 10:18
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    @cnread: Why can't "ad quae scalis ascenditur" = "to which it-is-climbed by stairs"? This could have been written as gerundive-of-obligation impersonal construction: "ad quae scalis ascendendum est" = "to which it-ought-to-be-climbed by stairs" = "....it must be climbed by stairs", where "scalis" is dative plural. – tony Jul 20 '20 at 11:46
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    @tony, Sure, I suppose another translation could be 'to which it-is-climbed by stairs' – it's not my cup of tea, but why not? I don't see that the gerundive construction is the same at all: there's no obligation to climb the stairs in the original version. Also, note that, even if a gerundive were used, scalis would still be ablative, because the stairs aren't doing the climbing, and they have no obligation to do so. The dative with gerundive shows who has the obligation, not the means by which the obligation is discharged. – cnread Jul 20 '20 at 16:37
  • @WillCrawford In fact, the lexical "addition" of the preposition via in your English translation corresponds to the means component that can be claimed to be grammaticalized in the ablative case of scalis. By the way, note that your translation lacks the manner component encoded in the Lat. verbal root (-sc(e)nd-), i.e., the English verb reach only encodes directionality (cf. the Lat. prefix ad-) but lacks manner. – Mitomino Jul 20 '20 at 18:05
  • @Mitomino true enough. I wish English allowed us to write to which by stairs is a-climbed :) – Will Crawford Jul 20 '20 at 19:17
  • @Mitomino or which is climbed to via a staircase. Just seems a bit clumsy. – Will Crawford Jul 20 '20 at 19:20
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    @WillCrawford natural translations like yours above (although lacking some information from the original text) are typically better than those clumsy ones that try to fit all the original information. Translation is often a matter of selection... – Mitomino Jul 20 '20 at 19:53
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This is an impersonal passive, and for that purpose Latin uses the third person singular although there is no logical subject. You should read ascenditur as "someone climbs" or "one climbs" or "people climb" or some such thing; perhaps the English "one" comes closest in general. There is no subject because this is a subject-free construction.

(I cannot help mentioning how the passive works in Finnish. We only have an impersonal passive, nothing personal. Thus the passive voice can be seen as a "seventh person" in addition to the usual six. Latin can do the same but there is no separate form; the form is shared with the third person singular personal passive.)

Joonas Ilmavirta
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  • As you point out, the impersonal passive construction can be seen as "a subject-free construction". However, some linguists who believe in (syntactic) empty categories, would say that it is better to regard it as "a null subject construction", i.e., there is a syntactic subject but it is phonologically null (for some references, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null-subject_language). – Mitomino Jul 19 '20 at 20:20
  • IIRC, the same is true in Welsh and Irish: no personal passive (though a periphrastic one has developed) but an impersonal one. – Colin Fine Jul 19 '20 at 23:01
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    @Mitomino In a null-subject sentence (like "Arma virumque cano.") the subject could easily be supplied, but in this case no subject (like "someone," "people") would fit in. If no subject would fit (without changing the verb's voice), it cannot really be said to be "phonologically null" (i.e., "silent"). – Sebastian Koppehel Jul 20 '20 at 06:36
  • @SebastianKoppehel In null-subject languages like Latin impersonal constructions can be claimed to have a null expletive pronoun in subject position. Note that in non-null-subject languages like German there is a subject pronoun in impersonal constructions: e.g., cf. Es wurde getanzt, lit. 'It was danced' and Es regnet, like in English It rains. So, according to some linguists, in Lat. ascenditur there is a null expletive subject (technically, a null expletive pro). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_expletive – Mitomino Jul 20 '20 at 07:54
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    @Mitomino You seem to have so much to comment on the answers that maybe you should post your own. Multiple points of view are welcome, and yours is unfortunately buried in the comments. – Joonas Ilmavirta Jul 20 '20 at 10:03
  • Thanks for your kind invitation, Joonas, to post a new third answer but my comments are just minor qualifications on the two excellent answers (I upvoted both!) to the simple question above. As noted, for me an interesting point is why Latin lacks the expression He {climbed/ascended} the stairs (to the room), i.e., why in Latin scalas cannot be the direct object of a verb like ascendere. – Mitomino Jul 20 '20 at 17:39
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    @Mitomino But such pronouns in impersonal constructions do not exist in Latin. Is it not silly to claim the existence of a part of syntax which unfortunately is always invisible? It is an unfalsifiable claim! (And what goes on in German is a whole other can of worms. In educated speech you can still say “mich hungert” [I am hungry, but with an impersonal verb].) – Sebastian Koppehel Jul 20 '20 at 18:13
  • @SebastianKoppehel The issue of empty subjects (expletive ones included) has a long tradition in formal syntax, especially since the formulation of the allegedly universal principle that all clauses have subjects (the so-called Extended Projection Principle, EPP for short: cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_projection_principle ). For some relevant (although admittedly too technical) discussion, see http://157.138.8.12/jspui/bitstream/11707/476/3/6.1.2.pdf Still, is the universal status of EPP (and more generally, so-called Universal Grammar) controversial? Yes, probably it is. – Mitomino Jul 20 '20 at 19:33
  • @SebastianKoppehel As for your interesting German example, it is funny that the expletive pronoun es can be added after the impersonal verb: cf. p. 20 of https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/83653183.pdf In contrast, the non-impersonal example ich hungere is said to be possible as controlling verb: 'I am fasting/dieting'. Turning back to the topic of the present post, if there is control (i.e. agency), the impersonal passive construction of this second example should be possible. Is this prediction correct? Impersonal passive constructions are only possible with agentive intransitive verbs. – Mitomino Jul 20 '20 at 20:37
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    To add to the collection of impersonal verb constructions, Polish does it with the reflexive rather than the passive chodziło się, “it would go itself”. It seems that this construction is a universal need and each language has to find a different way to accommodate it in a grammar not designed for it. – Martin Kochanski Jul 21 '20 at 05:12
  • @Mitomino Your prediction is indeed correct. Any intransitive verb is eligible and transitive ones too if they can be used intransitively. I wonder if that works in Latin? In foro canitur. – there is singing in the forum. Vir illustris in oppidum nostrum venit. In foro canitur. – A famous man came to our city. He is being sung in the forum / there is singing in the forum? – Sebastian Koppehel Jul 21 '20 at 22:25
  • @SebastianKoppehel Yes, I agree with your intuition: in foro canitur sounds perfect as an impersonal passive construction. However, note that the statement "any intransitive/intransitivized verb is eligible" is too general for Latin (and probably for German too). For example, I think that the intransitive verb mori does not enter into the impersonal passive construction: see https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/9379/on-the-absence-of-impersonal-passives-of-deponent-verbs – Mitomino Jul 21 '20 at 23:18
  • Interesting. Impersonal actives (placet, licet, oportet and friends) are more common in Latin than impersonal passives, but it now strikes me that those are all intransitive verbs. For a transitive verb if only the patient is known, a personal passive will do. If neither agent nor patient is known, does Latin always use an impersonal passive for a transitive verb, or is it a choice? – C Monsour Jul 22 '20 at 01:17
  • @CMonsour Excellent question! Would you mind asking that as a separate question? At least I'd be glad to learn more about that. I have an impression about that but I think someone could provide something much more solid. – Joonas Ilmavirta Jul 22 '20 at 07:08
  • @JoonasIlmavirta Thanks. I will do this. – C Monsour Jul 22 '20 at 21:27