Re: Question about supines, gerunds, and the like

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").

>  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.

>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". In each language 
where it's used, it seems to have a different meaning. Don't try to find a 
common meaning...


>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. 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 :)) .

So, someone still wanting to beleive that Latin is a "logical" language? ;)))

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

Replies