Genuflectere/Stare/Mori

[cinefactus]

De legibus Quocirca melius est rationes referri causamque exponi censoribus,
It is interesting though—most of the examples on PHI are along the lines of melius est verb object, or melius est verb + ablative, or melius est ut

 

[Notascooby]

I feel sorry for the OP lol

Mori= nominative, neuter, substantive
Stans= nominative, neuter, adjective
est= copula
melius=nominative, neuter, comparative adjective in agreement with Mori stans

Dying, while standing, is better than.....

???

 

[cinefactus]

there are lots of examples along the lines of melius est mori quam genu flecto vivere

 

[cinefactus]

This is what Bennett has to say on the subject

The Infinitive with Subject Accusative (like the simple Infinitive) is used as Subject with esse and Impersonal verbs, particularly with aequum est, ūtile est, turpe est, fāma est, spēs est, fās est, nefās est, opus est, necesse est, oportet, cōnstat, praestat, licet, etc.; as,—

nihil in bellō oportet contemnī, nothing ought to be despised in war;
apertum est sibi quemque nātūrā esse cārum, it is manifest that by nature everybody is dear to himself.

 

[Godmy]

Thanks, Cinefactus!

@Notascooby I'm afraid Dantius is right and I'm sorry for obfuscating the subject, as I wrote, I should have thought of melius est on the virtue of it being a neuter (some sort of "id") as something that can't really have any agreement with the subject, the subject as a whole, needs to be neuter as well (and ACI or ACI+participle as a whole is neuter). "Dying, while standing" <- that "while standing" still modifies "Dying" ... and since "dying" is an infinitive here, it can't be modified with a nominative participle, the pariticiple needs to agree with the subject of "mori" which would be an implied accusative... My reasoning that I went on with was a completely different sort of syntactic picture, as if thought the infinitive was some sort of adverbial to the participle (yes, a pretty weird way of looking at it, in retrospective'), but I see that now as incompatible with "melius (neuter) est".

But I'm glad though the Syntactic graphs tool is working now as a result! (I would have never fixed it otherwise)

 

[cinefactus]

What I found interesting was the almost complete lack of examples of melius est + subject accusative. It seems much more common just with a verb or with an ablative absolute or ablative of attendant circumstances.

 

[Godmy]

What I found interesting was the almost complete lack of examples of melius est + subject accusative. It seems much more common just with a verb or with an ablative absolute or ablative of attendant circumstances.

I had gone through all those examples as well earlier tonight (melius est & est melius), but, in the speed, I misread/misanalyzed the one you sent: I read exponere instead of exponi, referre instead of referri ... which made it look as though the accusatives were objects of the infinitives (which can't be if they're passive! )

 

[Ybytyruna]

I've found some interesting examples...

Nunc te melius't expergiscier [...] - Plaut., Asin., II, 1.
Exporgi melius est lumbos atque exsurgier. - Plaut., Pseud., in prologo.
Poma intervelli melius est, ut quae relicta sint, grandescant. - Plin., Hist. nat., XXVII, 47.
Melius est legatarium non lucrari, quam emptorem damno adfici. - Iustin. Dig., XI, 7, 1, 1.

 

[Pacifica]

Dantius is right indeed (just to confirm it once more).

If anyone is still confused, perhaps this post of mine can help: THREAD: accusative-and-infinitive-clauses

 

[Godmy]

Sorry again! In retrospective, most of what I said here earlier today was completely hallucinatory: the brain malfunctioned and got me to interesting ends eventually! But I'm so glad that, because of it, I fixed the Syntax graphs tool after many years! I remember I made it explicitly with the thought to be used on the forum, since it's so handy to send the pictures...

Oh well!

 

[Notascooby]

Thanks folks, now I know.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

The morphosyntax differs in no meaningful way from the logic of the indirect statement, right?:
Dico [hominem] mori stantem... 'I say [that a man] dies standing...'
Melius est [hominem] mori stantem... 'It is better [that a man should] die standing...'