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This new question: How do I say " One more" in Ancient Greek?, reminded me of an old question: How do you say "one more [something]"?, in which cnread advised that an ablative (in Latin) is used to indicate the degree of difference e.g, "one more apple" would be "more apples by one". An example: "una (ablative) plures tribus"--"one more tribe".

Beyond three, numbers are no longer governed by grammatical rules; therefore, the ablative cannot be deployed. How to say:

"Four more loaves than yesterday, please,"

My guess, in 2020, was:

"quattuor plures panes (quam) heri, si audes,".

Is this correct?

There could have been more serious implications to this e.g. what if a Roman officer had wanted to say:

"I want/need a 1000 more soldiers, please!"

Apart from the assumption that he would not have bothered with, "please", what would a Tribunus have said?

tony
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    The question asking about I want/need a 1000 more soliders, struck a chord in me with "Give me back my legions' or in the Latin from a google search 'Quintili Vare, legiones redde. So if has the authority, perhaps not as the request "I want" but perhaps as the command give me? da (do, dare). – fantome Mar 30 '24 at 03:03

1 Answers1

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In Nicholas Oulton's Book II, p.50: "plures copias cupit"--"He wants more forces,".

The Tribunus would have said:

"plures copias cupio (mille milites), si audes!"

Alternatively, "copias" could be omitted given that "mille"--"one thousand" is an indeclinable adjective and "milites" can be the accusative plural, giving:

"I want a 1,000 more soldiers, please!"

(My Tribunus is polite, even if the real ones were not.)

Note: when "a thousand" goes into the plural, "milia", is a neuter noun which does decline.

As for the grocery shop:

"plures panes cupio (quattuor), (quam) heri, si audes."

As already mentioned, "quattour" is indeclinable.

tony
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