Difference between in and ad

[Dido]

Is there a difference between in and ad?

Marcus ad scholam it
Marcus in scholam it

Both mean Marcus goes to school, so what's the difference or are they interchangeable?

Another question: I read the answer somewhere, but I can't find it anymore: when do I use e and when ex? (same goes for a/ab)

Thanks in advance

And another question

In fluvium post domum ire non licet

My translation: it's not allowed to go to the river behind the house
Answer key (not without mistakes, as I've already noticed): it's not allowed to go in the river behind the house

Are both correct?

And another one (sorry, I wish I could edit )

He goes to school without books

My translation:
Sine libris ad scholam veniunt

Answer key:
Sine libris in scholam veniunt

Is my translation correct as well?

Ofcourse it should be: THEY go to school without books

 

[Pacifica]

Hello, the difference between in and ad is as follows:

In can, as you may know, be used either with or without idea of movement - without: in schola sum = I am at shool ("in" school) - then it's used with the ablative; and it's not that use that concern us here. What concerns us is when there is an idea of movement (used with acc.)... The slight difference between in and ad is that ad means that you are going "towards" something and in that you are "entering" it. Think of English "to" and "into", that's a similar difference. Of course the nuance isn't always translatable in English.

He goes to school without books

My translation:
Sine libris ad scholam veniunt

Answer key:
Sine libris in scholam veniunt

Here both can be correct, it's just that with ad scholam veniunt one has in mind the image of the students on their way to shool, and with in scholam veniunt, of them arriving, "entering" the school.

I hope it's not too confused. Anyway you'll get used to the difference with time.

I forgot to answer one of your questions: before a consonant, most of the time e and a are used instead of ex and ab.

 

[Dido]

Thanks again for your clear explanation.

Could you (or someone else, ofcourse) also answer my question about ex/e (ab/a?)

 

[Pacifica]

Sorry I'd forgotten. But it's done. I answered at the same time as you were replying .

 

[Imber Ranae]

In the simplest terms, ex/e is to ab/a as in (+ acc.) as is to ad (with verbs of motion).

 

[Adrian]

Is there a difference between in and ad?

Hello Dido,
in addition to comprehensive help provided by my colleagues, I have prepared some short excerpts from my grammar books, which I believe will help you understand the basic difference between ad/in + accusative case. I hope you and future visitors of the forum will find them of any use.


§ 103. Adjectives signifying motion or tendency to a thing, have usually after them the accusative with the preposition ad or in, seldom the dative ; as, pronus, propensus, proclivis, celer, tardus, piger, &c. ad iram, or in iram.

§ 144. Obs. 5. Verbs signifying Motion or Tendency to a thing, are construed with the preposition ad ; as, eo, vado, curro, propero, festino, pergo, fugio, tendo, vergo, inclino, &c. ad locum, rem, or hominem. Sometimes, however, in the poets, they are construed with the dative ; as, It clamor coelo, for ad caelum. Virg.

Obs. 1. When a thing is said to be done, not in the place itself, but in its neighbourhood or near it, we always use the preposition ad or apud ; as, Ad or apud Trojam, At or near Troy.

Obs. 3. When we express the distance of a place where any thing is done, we commonly use the ablative ; or the accusative with the preposition ad ; as, Sex millibus passuum ab urba consedit, or ad sex millia passuum. Caes. Ad quintum milliarium, or milliare, consedit Cic. Ad quintum lapidem. Nep.

in + accusative denotes: into, on to, to, against; motion into a place or action directed toward inner of the object

Legātus in Hispaniam missus est.
Militēs ad oppidum appropinquant.
The preposition “in” indicates movement into a place, while “ad” indicates movement to the surroundings, hence, in contexts of hostility.
Peditēs tela in hostium equitātum iaciunt.
The preposition ad with accusative can appear with verbs that do not express movement, responding to the question ubi (‘place where’): Ad exercitum manēre.

in dies – from day to day
in uicem – in turn

 

[Godmy]

Could I ask you, Dido, what's your native tongue? It could help a lot in the future in easy explanations.

 

[Pacifica]

I think it's Dutch, she said in her introduction thread she was from the Netherlands. So there are good chances. If not she'll tell...

 

[Godmy]

Oh, I see, then a latin-skilled Dutchman could help her the most
but I guess you have described the problematic thoroughly Now it's just "how to set up my mind to treat it naturally"

(for example my language has a native distinction between in+acc, in +abl, ad+acc - so it is understandably much easier to explain to a Czech )

 

[Pacifica]

I imagine!

 

[Godmy]

Here both can be correct, it's just that with ad scholam veniunt one has in mind the image of the students on their way to shool, and with in scholam veniunt, of them arriving, "entering" the school.

Also: ad scholam veniunt and in scholam veniunt can simply denote the target/goal of the journey.
ad scholam veniunt - their target is to finish their jurney standing in front of the school or nearby
in scholam veniunt - their target/goal of the journey is to end up in the school

So both of them can say that they are on the road. So "in" has two options: 1) they are going to the object and they want to end up inside 2) (as you said) they are entering

The only Roman constructions which seemingly violate that (but they are not really violating that, they just say it differently) are of this kind: ad Romam venit -> where I would expect "in", but I suppose they just don't emphasize the entering phase... (unless they use a bare accusative )

 

[Pacifica]

Yes, actually it's not so easy to explain all the nuances, I missed some... But, can one really say ad Romam venit...? I thought prepositions were always omitted with names of towns.

Edit: Yes, really instead of "entering the school" I should have said "with the aim to enter the school..." - actually I didn't necessarily mean "entering the school right now", but even later... I couldn't express well what I had in mind. Damn...!

 

[Adrian]

Yes, actually it's not so easy to explain all the nuances, I missed some... But, can one really say ad Romam venit...? I thought prepositions were always omitted with names of towns.

Edit: Yes, really instead of "entering the school" I should have said "with the aim to enter the school..." - actually I didn't necessarily mean "entering the school right now", but even later... I couldn't express well what I had in mind. Damn...!

I just checked google books; "ad Romam venit" does appear in them, however these are books dating from 1700-1800. Personally I would rather see bare accusative in reference to town/city destination e.g. Mēdus Tūsculō Rāmam it (quia pecūnia Iūliī in sacculō suō habet)

 

[Godmy]

Hmm.. now I've just found "eo ad forum (Plaut)" (which might be even ok, because the speaker may have simply in mind that his destination is "apud forum" (or "ad forum" as they sometimes use it in substitution for "apud") and not "in foro"

I think that the only example with a city is my Lingua Latina: Per se Illustrata book where the author has explained in the margins that "Tusculum eo = ad Tusculum eo" but it would be probably "in Tusculum" preferably (which is more emphasized "Tusculum eo")

So ok, having done some research it seems that there are not some outstanding exceptions to the thing/rule I've stated in my penultimate post...

 

[Pacifica]

Really I was taught prepositions were NEVER used with proper names of towns... Always eo Romam, Roma proficiscor, etc... Well maybe there are exceptions.

 

[Godmy]

Surely you can use them if the verb is not strictly the verb of the motion which uses them frequently or to convey a different kind of message: here "ad Tusculum" would mean that your destination (for example a little village or a port) is not "in Tusculo" but "apud Tusculum/ad Tusculum".

And "in Tusculum" is either (theoretically) a kind of emphasis (not found much in practice) or the verb used is not very much frequent with the allative kind of accusative.

Edit: Also. Pacis puella, the use is necessary if you say e.g. "in urbem Romam" here the bare accusative is banned... Titus Livius says frequently ad urbem Romam but he's usually talking about the hostile armies nearing to the city, he's never really hinting that the armies are on their way inside (nobody would ever thought that possible when they had their own armies outside defending the city/civitas.. etc etc etc)

 

[Pacifica]

Yes, I meant names of town alone.

 

[Godmy]

Yes, then the "in+acc" is probably harder (or near to impossible) to find as an emphasis with cities with normal verbs of motion.

The other case:
Livius: inter haec uis omnis belli uersa in Capuam erat

You would expect that the bare accusative would be enough, but in that time that "allative" meaning was already restricted only to certain verbs connected with walking/riding/travelling, it seems.

-------

Also this is a good universal way to see a difference between in+acc and ad+acc: when you say "in", then your virtual destination is located inside the object in the accusative, when you say "ad" then your virtual destination is located next to the object in the accusative (and if you imagine some hmm... appealing object then you get the grammatical notion nicely)

 

[Pacifica]

(and if you imagine some hmm... appealing object then you get the grammatical notion nicely)

What on earth do you mean...? Hahaha.

 

[Godmy]

What on earth do you mean...? Hahaha.

I don't know