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How can one predict the length of theme vowels in verbs?
The theme vowels a, e, and i in infinitives are long. But, in other forms of those verbs, they can be short. But when, exactly? What are the rules for this? And how about the suppletive vowels used after a consonant stem: are they always short?
Cerberus
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Why were some medieval maps made in Latin?
Documents in Medieval Latin states that (page 18)
Large numbers of maps, from small areas such as the English counties to world maps, were published from the early 16th century onwards. Many contain descriptions of considerable length in Latin,…
HDE 226868
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5 answers
Why is there no future perfect subjunctive in Latin?
Why is there no future perfect subjunctive verb form in classical Latin? I can't think of a time it would be used, but I can think of an English translation: "if subject were to have verbed, then clause". I've tried looking it up and I can't seem to…
tox123
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What's the Latin word for "jade"?
I'm trying to write a short thing about a jade statuette that my family has had for roughly forever, but when I looked up "jade", I found... nothing. Well, I found plenty of results, but there was nothing about the mineral, which is what I'm looking…
anon
13
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1 answer
How would a servus publicus be named - using the nominative or the genitive?
I was reading this encyclopedia entry on Roman naming, and it discusses the naming of Roman slaves. Originally, slave's name was the name of his master + "puer". During the age of the Roman Republic, the slave's name was his own name - sort of like…
HDE 226868
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13
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When did Latin lose the locative?
Latin has, depending on who you ask, 6 or 7 cases. The 7th case is the locative – the Cambridge Latin Course (which I study) does not have it, rather it just lists words like 'domi' as 'at home' – not 'domus' as 'little house'. So my question is…
Bob Eret
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Are there instances of free indirect discourse in Latin or Greek?
Free indirect discourse is a type of narrative device which has some similarities with direct discourse and some with ordinary indirect discourse, but is different from both. Here's an English example, from Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young…
TKR
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3 answers
How to transliterate 中文 in Mandarin pronunciation to Latin?
I am working on an art project that I would like to collect the hundreds of different transliterations of 「中文」 zhōng wén in Mandarin Chinese. (Pronunciation available here: https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/de/中文)
How can I transliterate zhōng wén…
Lun
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Does 'verbum' mean both word and verb?
The word verbum means "word", but I want to find out whether it can also have the more specific meaning "verb" (as opposed to other kinds of words).
Lewis and Short does not list "verb" among translations of verbum, but one of my dictionaries…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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How do I say that something will "probably" happen in Latin?
I was recently writing in Latin and had the misfortune of getting an English construction in my head that I had a difficult time fitting into a Latin thought pattern:
I will probably be there soon.
I ended up settling on something pretty…
brianpck
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13
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Usage of nihil and nihilum
I know that nihil is an irregular noun, being undeclinable and used only in the nominative and accusative cases. I know that nihilum is a more regular 2nd-declension neuter word, with all the usual endings in all the usual cases. And I know both…
KRyan
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Origins of the word "hodie"
Hodie is a Latin adverb meaning "today" or "at the present time". I am rather curious as to how this word developed.
Was it originally a compound of hōc and diē, which would be translated as "on this day"? That's the only theory I have so far; are…
Sapphira
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13
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Why "impressa" in Æneid IV.659–60?
So Dido's almost finished her long, drawn-out suicide scene, and we get the lines
Dīxit, et ōs impressa torō, "Moriēmur inultae,
sed moriāmur," ait.
It seems like impressa is being used here as an active past participle ("and, having imprinted…
Joel Derfner
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How do I use gerundives of obligation for deponent verbs?
(Inspired by the comments on this answer.)
The gerundive of obligation is a wonderful little idiom in Latin, as in Cato's famous mantra
Carthāgō dēlenda est "Carthage must be destroyed"
In this case, dēleō is a normal transitive verb meaning…
Draconis
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13
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Why do we call a case a casus? And why rectus, obliquus?
I would translate the grammatical word casus (whence English case) as "a fall". And, indeed, the German word is Fall, Dutch naamval ("name fall"). Why is this word used for the grammatical function of nouns?
The Romans already used casus thus. But…
Cerberus
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