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Position of reflexive pronouns
In Allen and Greenough all the examples of reflexive pronouns have them come before the verb, but Pliny the Younger in e.g. letter 6.20.11 has 'non moratus ultra proripit se effusoque cursu...' and again at 6.20.12 'paret aegre incusatque se,…
G. Lewis
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John Owen's poem: Umquam or numquam?
I happened to see one of John Owen's poems, Horologium Vitae, which writes:
Latus ad occasum, umquam rediturus ad ortum,
Vivo hodie, moriar cras, here natus eram.
and it is translated poetically as: (I don't know who the translator is)
From East…
Kotoba Trily Ngian
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Why "suam" and not "eius" is used in this sentence?
In lines 63-70 of chapter XVIII of Lingua latina per se illustrata. Familia Romana, one reads:
Discipuli magistro tabulās suas dant. [...] Magister suam cuique discipulō tabulam reddit, prīmum Sexto, tum Titō, postrēmō Mārcō, atque [...].
For…
Charo
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Quidquid vs quæcumque
Both quidquid and quæcumque are ways of translating English whatever or all things that [sth.], but is there any difference in meaning in that specific context?
I have a vague notion, not based in anything objective, but just in intuition from…
Rafael
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8
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Why is "uenetus" a colour name?
I recently came across the following entry on Wiktionary for the adjective "uenetus":
of or pertaining to the Veneti; Venetian
blue, blue-green, sea-blue
Why and how is this adjective related to this second meaning? Was it a colour the Veneti…
Ergative Man
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8
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What does "Potochoterophii Fohsiensis" possibly mean in a Latin cryptogram from "Cocker's Decimal Arithmetic" textbook?
I was reading an old math textbook, Cocker's Decimal Arithmetic, and came across this cryptogram:
The question I have is about the beginning of the text:
Anixo guo Anamfiggino Jorammi Lehkeg Lofoxrofeholrii Torgiemgig Im Xonifafu Disohemiemgi…
Charles Hoffmann
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8
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"redire ad" or "redire in"
In LLPSI, one can read:
Medus, qui Graecus est, in patriam suam redire vult.
I would have expected
Medus, qui Graecus est, ad patriam suam redire vult.
Indeed Cicero uses "redire ad se atque ad mores suos" and Caesar "ad neminem unum summa…
user13971
8
votes
1 answer
Auto-antonyms in Latin
It seems there are no questions on this site about it because I can't search out.
An auto-antonym (also called contronym, antagonym, Janus word, etc.) is a word whose antonym can be itself. For example, to dust can be to remove dust from, but also…
Kotoba Trily Ngian
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Do we ever see mixing of B and V word-initially?
In later Latin, /b/ between vowels merged with /w/, eventually leading to forms like modern Italian avere from Latin habēre. This only happened within a word: illa bucca became Italian la bocca, not *la vocca.
When these sorts of sound changes are…
Draconis
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8
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2 answers
A type of subordinating construction governing the dative?
Here is a line from Aeneid 6:563, along with my gloss of the parts of speech and the formal inflectional categories and proposed free translation.
nulli fas casto sceleratum insistere limen
n.sg.dat n.nom adj.sg.dat adj.acc v.inf …
user1002
8
votes
2 answers
What is the difference between "in umerīs" and "in umerōs"?
In chapter 6 of LLPSI, we have the following sentence
Syrus et Lēander duōs saccōs in umerīs portant
While in chapter 9, we have:
Pāstor laetus ovem in umerōs impōnit.
Why the ablative in the first sentence and the accusative in the second one?
Sapiens
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8
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Why is this Etruscan letter sometimes transliterated as "ch"?
I've noticed that the Etruscan letter is sometimes transliterated as "ch", as you can see in the following image of an information panel in the Hypogeum of the Volumnus family:
I can show you a specific example of…
Charo
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8
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Why is "quī" used immediately following a plural accusative noun?
In Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, chapter 6, exercise 5.8, I see the sentence:
Dominus verberat servōs ____ nōn pārent.
Since servōs is accusative, I put quōs in the blank. But the answer key says quī is the correct answer. Why?
Nathaniel is protesting
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In what ways Latin is considered to be "imprecise"?
To a rather outstanding @Penelope's answer, @Unbrutal_Russian comments:
... Latin is very imprecise as a whole by the standards of modern European languages, and was pretty imprecise even by Greek standards except where precision was purposefully…
d_e
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Reference with hic, is and ille
Consider this example:
Ecce Marcus et Gaius. Hic canit, ille auscultat.
Here are Marcus and Gaius. The latter sings, the former listens.
When there are two or more things one could refer to, hic often means "the latter".
The first of two can…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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