Convenire and Accusative

[Angie]

I studied linguistics and French literature as an undergraduate and French language and literature as a grad student. I'm a language teacher (usually French, but I've done elementary Japanese and Latin and a seven-year stint of EFL). I've also traveled a fair amount outside my home country (US), to Canada, Latin America, Western Europe, the Arabian Peninsula, and Japan.

That sounds so fun to me. I wish I had not been so pressured by other people to focus on certain things in college, and had pursued my own interests more. I'm sure you've had tons of fun traveling.

Being able to read French and Russian literature without translation would be like a dream to me. Maybe in my next lifetime.

 

[Clemens]

That sounds so fun to me. I wish I had not been so pressured by other people to focus on certain things in college, and had pursued my own interests more. I'm sure you've had tons of fun traveling.

Being able to read French and Russian literature without translation would be like a dream to me. Maybe in my next lifetime.

Well my choices haven't exactly been lucrative. I didn't pay off my student loans until I was over 40.

 

[Angie]

Well my choices haven't exactly been lucrative. I didn't pay off my student loans until I was over 40.

There's that. Selfishly, I'm glad there are still passionate, willing souls to enter these areas of study. Who else would answer my questions about ablative vs. accusative tenses?

 

[Pacifica]

... or point out to you that the ablative and the accusative are cases, not tenses?

 

[Angie]

LOL...see, I really am doomed. Thankfully I have no important decisions to make for the remainder of the day!

 

[Hortatus]

Learning and making mistakes, are almost the same thing aren't they

Angie today I found an inscription you might like to practice your tenses, it's from a real Roman gravestone (I know, cheerful right?)

NFFNSNC (Non fui. Fui. Non sum. Non curo.)

 

[Pacifica]

LOL...see, I really am doomed.

Lol, nah. That's just terminology. Not the most important thing at the end of the day, though it's good to know it.

 

[Angie]

Haha...I swear, I do know the difference! But, mis-thought, or typed, or whatever.

 

[Clemens]

... or point out to you that the ablative and the accusative are cases, not tenses?

That just reminded me that in Japanese, adjectives have tense. And negative forms.

 

[Pacifica]

That just reminded me that in Japanese, adjectives have tense. And negative forms.

I think we've had a conversation about that (at least the tense aspect) before. It's pretty cool.

 

[Pacifica]

It also reminds me of how the same Arabic terms are used for cases and moods: the nominative has the same name as the indicative, the accusative has the same name as the subjunctive, and the genitive has the same name as the jussive. I imagine that's (at least partly) because both members of each pair have similar (often, but not always, identical) endings.

 

[Pacifica]

By the way, you wouldn't need to create a thread like this one if you were learning Arabic. In Arabic it's easy: absolutely all prepositions, in all contexts, take the genitive. Well, that is easy. But it doesn't necessarily make Arabic easier than Latin overall.

 

[Clemens]

By the way, you wouldn't need to create a thread like this one if you were learning Arabic. In Arabic it's easy: absolutely all prepositions, in all contexts, take the genitive. Well, that is easy. But it doesn't necessarily make Arabic easier than Latin overall.

Where do you think Latin is easier than Arabic, assuming we leave out things like familiar roots and the same script?

 

[Pacifica]

Where do you think Latin is easier than Arabic, assuming we leave out things like familiar roots and the same script?

Well, if you leave out those things, I guess it isn't much easier. Though perhaps the missing vowels make Arabic somewhat intrinsically harder.

 

[Pacifica]

... but maybe only in that specific respect, rather than overall. It's hard to tell, really.

 

[Pacifica]

I guess the pronunciation of Arabic is also harder than that of Latin to native speakers of Indo-European languages.

 

[Pacifica]

Syntax is one area where Arabic tends to be simpler than Latin. Arabic is mostly written in short independent clauses, very unlike Latin.

 

[Hortatus]

One example I have noticed is that Caesar consistently uses the accusative with se abdo to express hide/conceal oneself in the woods/forest: se in silvas abdiderunt.

Thank you for this comment Dumnorix, I loved the idea the warriors hiding themselves in the forest so much that I've started reading an English translation of the invasion of Britain - it's great, although I think I was hoping that the Romans had to hide in the forest! So far there have been at least three hidings in woods and the Roman fleet has been destroyed by the tide and storms on the first two landings, how did they ever manage to conquer anywhere? I've read the first page or so in Latin and it seems doable, so I've ordered a hard copy.

 

[Hortatus]

Arabic is mostly written in short independent clauses, very unlike Latin.

Latin does seem to have long sentences (though you said clauses, I thought sentences!). Does Arabic have noticeably shorter sentences than English? If so, does it use demonstrative pronouns a lot to link ideas?

 

[Clemens]

If we take the Qur'an as the most exemplary Arabic text, even the longest chapters are composed of a series of discrete sentences, and a fair amount of compound sentences (using coordinating conjunctions). There are, of course, subordinate clauses in Arabic, but I don't recall seeing anything in the Qur'an to compare with the lengthy, paragraph-long sentences composed of branching and nesting clauses like is found in a lot of Classical Latin texts. An Egyptian once told me, by the way, that written Arabic discourse tends to have a meandering, exuberant quality compared with the European tradition of hierarchical relations between clauses and ideas.