Re: Question about supines, gerunds, and the like

Trebor Jung wrote:

> Garth wrote:
>
> "I've seen the word "supine" come up a few times lately. I know (I think)
> that it's a type of verbal noun, but how is it different from a gerund?
>
> Google is your friend (and mine); from the AHD: "A defective Latin verbal
> noun of the fourth declension, having very limited syntax and only two
> cases, an accusative in -tum or -sum and an ablative in -t or -s. The
> accusative form is sometimes considered to be the fourth principal part of
> the Latin verb."
Yeah, the Wikipedia says something similar (although it disagrees on the
form of the ablative). But that still doesn't tell me what a supine
does, semantically. Why would you use a supine instead of the accusative
or ablative gerund? What does it mean to have a supine form distinct
from the gerund and the infinitive?

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.

> "On that note, what's the difference between a participle and a gerundive?
> Is there any?"
>
> What's a gerundive?
I don't know. :( Some sort of verbal adjective. I could be totally
misremembering, though.

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