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While doing some independent translating, I came upon a sentence structure which I am having difficulty putting into Latin. The structure is as follows:

into and out of the X of Y

or, more generally,

into and out of the X

Now, in this situation, it is natural for one to think that one could use in and ex for this construction. However, these prepositions take different grammatical cases, the accusative and ablative, respectively. We are now faced with the conundrum of what case should be used. Currently, I am translating the sentence as such, with X having been replaced by the word culina, and Y having been replaced by domus, for demonstration purposes:

in culinam et e culinā domūs

(Macrons only used for differentiation between grammatical cases.)

Would this be a correct translation of "into and out of the kitchen of the house"? Or, is there another, more correct way to translate this construction? In general, is there a rule for declining nouns that have more than one preposition (which each take a different case)?

Sam K
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    If the pronoun is attached to a verb, as in " Intrat locum et effugit." – Hugh Feb 23 '17 at 13:34
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    @C.M.Weimer This is not a duplicate. I saw that question and it did not address what one would do if the prepositions take different grammatical questions. Thank you for the suggestion, though! – Sam K Feb 23 '17 at 19:26
  • I just stumbled upon this question again after a long time. If you indeed think that this is not a duplicate, can you add a link to the other question and describe how it fails to address your question? Then I'd be more than happy to reopen. – Joonas Ilmavirta Nov 30 '17 at 23:50
  • @JoonasIlmavirta Well, the question that apparently that apparently already has the answer to this question does not address what occurs when the two prepositions take different noun cases, which was the main substance of my question. I suppose the title was a bit misleading, as if one were to just look at that, the question has already been answered. But, when you look at the nuance in my question, it really addresses a separate issue. – Sam K Dec 01 '17 at 02:17
  • I can see that now, but it would be worth highlighting the difference to the other question, for example by mentioning that the case of repeating the same case after two prepositions was covered in another question. I find it useful to explicitly differentiate a question from old ones. It will help future readers, since there can easily be a great number of very useful but quite similar questions. – Joonas Ilmavirta Dec 01 '17 at 05:20
  • @JoonasIlmavirta I see your point, but I do not see the worth at this point, as I have already received a satisfactory answer. – Sam K Dec 01 '17 at 14:36

1 Answers1

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Your translation is correct. I, too, would repeat the noun.

As mentioned in this other question, it is very rare to find a noun governed by two prepositions. And I was unable to find such a construction where the two prepositions should have introduced two different cases; so perhaps that just never occurred.

If it did, I suspect the Romans would have used the case demanded by the preposition closest to the noun, considering that they regularly do the same thing with agreement (I think it's usually stulta est puella aut puer quemcumque heri hic videbam).

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