Question about Indirect Statements

[RandyJ]

Once again I am befuddled by an English to Latin exercise found in North and Hillard's Latin Prose Composition. This time on the subject of Indirect Statements.
Exercise 48, #1 wants you to translate the following into Latin: "They informed the general that hostages would be given by all the states"
I translated "Ducem certiorem fecerunt [using their dopey construction for "informing"] obsides ab civitatibus omnibus datos iri"
However the answer key has "Ducem certiorem fecerunt obsides ab civitatibus omnibus datum iri"
OK - I know that the subject of the indirect clause must be accusative and must be used with the appropriate infinitive (in this case the future passive). But doesn't the main part of the verb there have to agree with the accusative subject in number, and gender in the accusative case? "Obsides" are masculine and plural, so why DATUM and not DATOS?
Thanks for any explanation.
Randy Jenkins

 

[Pacifica]

dopey construction

? It's just a normal construction.

However the answer key has "Ducem certiorem fecerunt obsides ab civitatibus omnibus datum iri"
OK - I know that the subject of the indirect clause must be accusative and must be used with the appropriate infinitive (in this case the future passive). But doesn't the main part of the verb there have to agree with the accusative subject in number, and gender in the accusative case? "Obsides" are masculine and plural, so why DATUM and not DATOS?
Thanks for any explanation.

Datum isn't a participle. It's a supine. And obsides is its object.

 

[RandyJ]

Wow... I must be very confused indeed. So I think you are saying that the sentence in question is not really an indirect statement at all, right? As a supine, yes, you only have the choice of accusative or ablative singular for a construction.
So as a supine an awkward English translation would be more like "they informed the leader to be giving the hostages from all cities"?
As an indirect statement, it would be more like "they informed the leader THAT the hostages {as a subject] will be given by all cities."
I guess I have trouble seeing "obsides" as an object.

 

[Pacifica]

I think you are saying that the sentence in question is not really an indirect statement at all, right?

No, I'm not saying that. It is an indirect statement (well, the part from obsides to iri is).

So as a supine an awkward English translation would be more like "they informed the leader to be giving the hostages from all cities"?

No.

It's more like "they informed the leader a (figurative) going to be done by all cities to give hostages".

Iri (passive infinitive of eo, used impersonally) = "[it] to be being gone", i.e. "that a going is/was taking place, that someone is/was going..."
Supine = "to...", "for the purpose of..."

Has your book told you anything about this supine + iri construction and about impersonal passive constructions in general?

 

[rothbard]

To be fair, the supine is usually considered an advanced topics in most books. In Moreland and Fleischer's Latin: An Intensive Course, which I used, it's covered in unit 17 out of 18.

 

[RandyJ]

Well, I must confess I don't use particularly advanced Latin grammars. Wheelock's Latin simply tells me that in the accusative, the supine "is employed with verbs of motion to indicate purpose" The illustration used is "ibant Romam rogatum pecuniam", 'they were going to Rome to ask for money". That's about all Wheelock gives me on supines. So in the practice sentence I started this thread with, I did not detect any real "verb of motion" (they informed the leader) although "will be giving hostages could, I suppose, be construed as indicating purpose.
I do have a copy of Allen and Greenough, but sometimes referring to that, I find more than I need to or want to know and am even more confused.

This is partly, I guess, where I went wrong: another Hill and North practice sentence says "The soldiers all declared that they would never leave their leader". The answer key (and thank God, I also,) said "Omnes milites affirmabant se numguam ducem relicturos esse." Since "se" (accusative plural) is the subject of the indirect statement then "relicturos" (accusative plural masculine) seemed the right choice for the stem verb of the future active infinitive. I applied this same approach to the sample exercise I started this thread post with which gave me "datos" but I was wrong. It was "datum" because it was an accusative supine which needs to be singular.
Thanks for all your responses, but I still don't quite understand the difference in the syntax between the two sentences.

 

[Pacifica]

in the practice sentence I started this thread with, I did not detect any real "verb of motion"

The verb of motion is iri.

Thanks for all your responses, but I still don't quite understand the difference in the syntax between the two sentences.

The difference is in the (very) literal meaning.

Afirmabant se numquam ducem relicturos esse = they declared (affirmabant) themselves (se) never (numquam) to be (esse) going to leave (relicturos) the leader (ducem).

Ducem certiorem fecerunt obsides ab civitatibus omnibus datum iri = they made (fecerunt) the leader (ducem) more certain (certiorem) [i.e. they informed the leader] it to be being gone (iri) [i.e. that a going was being performed] by all cities (ab civitatibus omnibis) to give (datum) hostages (obsides).

To understand the supine + iri construction, it's crucial to first understand impersonal passive constructions in general. Have you learned about them?

 

[rothbard]

Well, I must confess I don't use particularly advanced Latin grammars. Wheelock's Latin simply tells me that in the accusative, the supine "is employed with verbs of motion to indicate purpose" The illustration used is "ibant Romam rogatum pecuniam", 'they were going to Rome to ask for money". That's about all Wheelock gives me on supines. So in the practice sentence I started this thread with, I did not detect any real "verb of motion" (they informed the leader) although "will be giving hostages could, I suppose, be construed as indicating purpose.

It is also used when forming the passive future infinitive with iri, as this site explains.

 

[RandyJ]

Rothbard,
Thanks for the website link in your last post. So it is a form of the supine which acts as a future passive infinitive! Who knew? (well, you and Pacifica obviously)
I don't know what kind of jokers this duo of North and Hillard must have been if they threw this construction into the topic area on indirect statement in a fairly basic Latin Prose Composition text. After all the website indicates there's only something like 200 recorded uses of this in classical Latin.
While it is useful that this North and Hillard Latin Prose Composition text has a separate answer key book, it would be really nice to find an English-to-Latin composition text with some more detailed explanations in the answer key. Are either of you aware of any? I often find I learn grammar better trying to turn English to Latin than just learning Latin grammar rules by rote.
Thanks again to both of you.
Randy

 

[Notascooby]

You might like to try Bradley's Arnold 'introduction to Latin prose composition' the explanations are far more detailed than North and Hillard. There are PDFs of it and it's answer key available online if you search around for it.

 

[rothbard]

Thanks for the website link in your last post. So it is a form of the supine which acts as a future passive infinitive! Who knew? (well, you and Pacifica obviously)

It is a rather advanced topic, since this construction is only found a few times. Moreland and Fleischer's book, which I mentioned earlier, doesn't even cover it. By the way, I agree that Bradley's Arnold is much better than NH, especially since the latter is far too focused on military stuff.

 

[Dantius]

So the "-um iri" form is often taught as just "datum iri is a future passive infinitive: dixit obsides datum iri = "he said that hostages would be given." — obsides is the acc. subject, and datum iri the infinitive verb." Probably that's how your book explained it too.

Pacifica has correctly explained that, in actuality, iri is an impersonal passive ("that it was being gone..." i.e. "that people were going") and then datum a supine depending on that, with obsides as its object. But even the Romans sometimes forgot about this and thought it was just a future passive infinitive. For instance, Cicero in one of his letters has "tum meliore loco res erant nostrae neque tam mihi desperatum iri videbantur" — "at that time, our affairs were in a better place, and they did not seem to be about to be despaired over so much." The fact that videbantur is 3rd pl. indicates that res nostrae is the subject. If Cicero were construing this grammatically, it would have to be neque res nostras desperatum iri videbatur, with res nostras as the object of the supine desperatum. But he just conceived of it as a future passive infinitive, and used it equivalently to a sentence like "ii homines male facere videntur" ("those men seem to act badly").

So North and Hillard chose not to explain the origins of the construction, which would require introducing both the supine and the impersonal passive, but rather to just gloss it as a future passive infinitive — which is how even the Romans sometimes (ungrammatically) conceived of it — allowing them to introduce it in the section on indirect statements, where it more naturally belongs. But Pacifica's explanation makes it clear why datum doesn't become datos: because it's a supine, not a participle.

 

[Avunculus H]

If even Cicero, who is normally held up as the Gold Standard of Latin writing, has the "wrong" construction, and if it's attested in more cases, one could as well argue that the interpretation as a future passive infinitive is a valid alternative construction.

 

[Clemens]

If even Cicero, who is normally held up as the Gold Standard of Latin writing, has the "wrong" construction, and if it's attested in more cases, one could as well argue that the interpretation as a future passive infinitive is a valid alternative construction.

Not only can you argue it, but you should argue it. This is how language works. If native speakers (or writers) use a structure a certain way, then it's valid from the point of view of descriptive linguistics. A small step on the way to the modern Romance languages.

An example from American English: when I was quite young, most older people distinguished lie and lay in conversation, at least where I grew up. I rarely hear anyone make this distinction now, especially in the past tense. It's so rare that using the "correct" form will often get a confused response. Right now, the distinction is still maintained in formal writing, but I can foresee a time when it's no longer the case. Something else I'm noticing is more and more people using the simple past of irregular verbs as a past participle : I have fell, I have spoke, instead of I have fallen, I have spoken. Someone I work with is very prone to saying should have went.

 

[Clemens]

Another thing I'm noticing in American English: people using the pluperfect as a preterite (with the simple past replacing the past participle), so people say I had spoke to mean, I spoke.

 

[Avunculus H]

Yes, that's language change in action.

 

[Clemens]

Yes, that's language change in action.

I hate it; not language change in general, but but these particular ones. I fully recognize that I speak a somewhat archaic dialect (partially).