Imperatives with singular nouns describing groups

Notascooby

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

I'm not sure the Romans would have used an abstract noun. "Hello class" would be salvete discipuli.

I could be off the mark though.
 
Thanks, but I'm really more interested in the general concept of the singular/plural imperative with a singular noun that describes a group. 'classis' is just an example and not relevant to my question
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
My guess would be that both patterns are possible but it's hard to make a definitive statement because the situation doesn't occur often in the literature. I only vaguely remember seeing it with a plural verb once. I think it was in the Vulgate (so not classical Latin).

In general (that is, not in the imperative specifically, but in other moods) singular collective nouns take singular verbs. But they occasionally take plural ones. An imperative is a little different, though, because the vocative that accompanies it isn't technically its subject.
 
Thank you, I think the fact that the vocative is not the subject is the key. It would seem to me to be natural to use the plural imperative if you were looking at multiple people, even if you used a collective term to call out to them.
 
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