I've been studying latin for about a month now and I was working on Wheelock's latin reader with a friend. and she why "Tum equum hasta tundit" translates to "then he strikes/beats the horse with a spear" and not "then the horse strikes with a spear". although i got the right translation and sorta know why it's so, i can't seem to put it into words to explain to her. can anyone enlighten us?
The full text can be found here: http://www.quasillum.com/latin/wheelock/chapt08-2.txt
under 'Laocoon and the Trojan horse" (GM9)
2007-10-29 21:10:11 · 2 answers · asked by jeyy 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Word order has nothing to do with it. The cases used tell you the function of the nouns in Latin. Here, 'equum' is in accusative case, singular. Accusative is used for direct objects - the things that receive the action of the verbs. The verb is 'tundit', from 'tundere', meaning 'to beat', so someone beat the horse. Who did it? There's no nominative word in the sentence that would logically serve as subject. 'Hasta' could be a nominative, but that doesn't fit - how could a spear beat something? The verb is 3rd person singular, and since the Romans did not normally use subject pronouns, that may be 'he/she/it beats', with 'he beats' being the most fitting. That leaves 'hasta', which could also be ablative case, and that fits as the means to beat the horse.
2007-10-30 01:09:15 · answer #1 · answered by dollhaus 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Its like that becauset the action always has to be put before the noun get?
see in this case the action is striking/beat
the object is the spear
and the subject is the horse
so its like what he did to who he did it to with what
thats kinda like the order in most cases
2007-10-29 21:22:33 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋