Re: Question about supines, gerunds, and the like

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Garth Wallace :
>
>> Yeah, the Wikipedia says something similar (although it disagrees on the
>> form of the ablative).
>
> According to my Latin grammar, the ablative form of the supine ended in
> "u" (just get rid of the m :) ) and was uncommon, exiting only for a few
> verbs and used only as complement of some adjectives. The example it
> gives is: res jucunda auditu: something nice to hear. "Auditu" completes
> "jucunda": agreeable, nice.
>
>>  But that still doesn't tell me what a supine
>> does, semantically.
>
> Adverbial use, goal, used only after verbs of movement (again according
> to my Latin grammar). Example: eo lusum: I come to play (the book did
> the translation from "go" to "come").
Ah, that makes sense.

So, supines are sort of adverbial, and the ablative supine is only used
with a few verbs and adjectives? Do you know if there's any particular
reason why the two forms are considered "accusative" and "ablative"?

Or why it's considered a verbal noun at all...seems more like a verbal
adverb with a couple of forms that look nominal.

>>  Why would you use a supine instead of the accusative
>> or ablative gerund?
>
> Each language has its quirks. Latin just didn't use ablative gerunds for
> goal complements after movement verbs. As for the Swedish "supine", it
> seems to have quite a different use and origin from the Latin supine. I
> wonder why it's called that way...
>
>>  What does it mean to have a supine form distinct
>> from the gerund and the infinitive?
>
> Once again, each language has its quirks. Asking that is like asking
> what it means for French to make gender distinctions in nouns.
Yeah. It just wasn't clear to me before how it was used.

>> Going by the examples in the Wikipedia article on Slovene grammar, it
>> seems to express purpose there. But that doesn't seem to be what it does
>> in Swedish, according to Andreas. And I can't remember even talking
>> about it in my high school Latin class.
>
> It seems the term "supine" just means "some invariable verbal derivative
> form that we can't really classify as anything else".
I'll have to remember that tactic. ;)

>> I don't know. :( Some sort of verbal adjective. I could be totally
>> misremembering, though.
>
> If I'm not confusing gerunds and gerundives (since French calls the
> gerund "gérondif" - at least if I'm not mistaken :)) - confusion arises
> easily), in Latin, while the gerund was an *active* *nominal* form used
> to give a complete declension to the infinitive (which existed only in
> the nominative and accusative), the gerundive was a *passive*
> *adjectival* form, expressing obligation: amandus: which must be loved.
I seem to remember my Latin teacher and textbook referring to the
"-ndus" form as the "future passive participle". Is "gerundive" just
another word for that?

> Problem: in the masculine and neuter non-nominative forms, it was
> identical to the gerund, and my book even shows examples where the
> gerundive replaced the gerund, when the gerund received an accusative
> complement. I guess the Romans were just as confused as us with those
> two near-identical forms expressing such divergent meanings :)) .
Oy. I can't really blame them. :P

> So, someone still wanting to beleive that Latin is a "logical" language?
> ;)))
Heh heh heh. I started conlanging because it *wasn't*. My first attempt
at a conlang was a modified, "regularized" Latin that added some
features I found in my encyclopedia that sounded interesting.