Re: pro-anything

At 11:18 am -0400 21/4/99, From
Http://Members.Aol.Com/Lassailly/Tunuframe.Html wrote:
>Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 21/04/99 02:16:35  , Pablo a =E9crit :
>
><< "Angry and frustrated, he walked" which would be more
> like short for "Feeling angry..." (i. e. adverbial, not
> adjectival). >>
>
>I would rather call it a passive gerund.
Depends rather on the language.  In Latin, which was referred to in the
original mail, they'd be perfect passive participles and nominative case,
'agreeing' with the subject, thus:

iratus et frustratus ambulabat.

Note: no word corresponding to the English pronoun 'he' that started this
off :)

In late Latin it did indeed become common to use the ablative of the
present active participle.  That doesn't apply here.  But, e.g.:

She walked along singing happily.

(a) laetiter cantans perambulabat.
(b) laetiter cantando perambulabat.

In (a) 'cantans' is nominative singular and agrees with the "understood"
subject 'she'.
In (b) 'cantando' is the ablative of the gerund 'cantandum' =3D (a) singing
[not use in the nom. or the acc. unless governed by a preposition.  The
Romance, like their Romance descendants, always used the infinitive as
subject or object verbal nouns], hence the -o is correct [no feminine
agreement!] and the phrase is sort of adverbial: "in singing happily, she
walked along".


[snip]
>
>In French you even may have a gerund referring to the object :
>"il le quitta, anxieux" : "he left him (as the latter was) nervous".
>
'anxieux' looks to me like a simple adjective.  Certainly in Latin that's
all we'd have:

anxium relinguit.

Note: no 'il' or 'le'   :)

Ray.