Disputatio:Arthurus Guido Lee

Pro tempore removi ...

Bibliographia

• Latinitas, 1958.

quia quid sit non liquet. Liber? Symbolae? An ibi symbolam scripsit? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:48, 21 Decembris 2011 (UTC)

De temporibus

Dixit emendator anonymus: Erat means something that lasts long while fuit means to have been at a certain time.

Respondeo: It's more complicated than that. Of a long term habit, Suetonius (for example) does use the imperfect (as one might say "He used to offer a glass of sherry to early evening visitors"). Of a long-lasting appointment, Suetonius doesn't use the imperfect as a regular thing, or so it seems to me. When would he use it? To take this latter case, I would use the imperfect when the statement is explicitly setting the temporal context for a punctual event ("he was a fellow of John's when his translation of the Amores was published") but not otherwise, and I think Suetonius would do the same. But am I right? And do other Latin biographers do it differently? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:28, 27 Octobris 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to read more about this as well. I've always used imperfect in such cases and not so much because of the length of an action/habit, but because I was describing a state (e.g. somebody having been a poet). But to be honest, I was essentially just assuming that Latin works like French here, not because I have a good knowledge of the subject. Sigur (disputatio) 11:55, 27 Octobris 2020 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I think I'm saying that it works like French too. Not that my understanding of the French imperfect comes from a native speaker, because, when they try to explain it to me, it's clear that the explanations they have learned don't correspond with their own usage. (So it seems to me.) But I find that Grevisse (Le Bon Usage, 1964 edition, p. 652) says it as I always thought it was. L'imparfait indique, sous l'aspect de la continuité ... un fait qui était encore inachevé (lat. imperfectum) au moment du passé auquel se reporte le sujet parlant: il montre ce fait en train de se dérouler, mais sans en faire voir la phase initiale ni la phase finale. Example: V. Hugo: Comme le soir tombait, l'homme sombre arriva. Cf. my own second example above. Then, as Grevisse's first special case, Un fait d'habitude dans le passé. Example: A. France S'il voyait un ivrogne chanceler et choir [=cadere], il le relevait et le réprimandait. Cf. my first example, in which, however, Guy Lee and alcohol have a warmer relationship.

Of course, I could well be influenced by the English imperfect. He taught Latin for forty years. Past tense: it's all history. He was teaching Latin when I arrived. Imperfect, setting the scene for a punctual event. He used to teach Latin on Thursdays. The alternative imperfect, a habit he'd got into. But He taught Latin on Thursdays. Past tense, coldly setting out the fixed timetable. A nice nuance, that :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:27, 27 Octobris 2020 (UTC)

Well, in French, de Gaulle était politicien (that defines what kind of person we are talking about), il a été Président de la République (something which is only part of his career). Whether the same works in Latin, no idea... Sigur (disputatio) 19:29, 27 Octobris 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I had never thought of that pair of examples, but it makes perfect sense to me. Guy Lee "erat philologus" but "fuit socius collegii S. Ioannis". Unless someone else has a comment, that's how it will be for me. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:30, 28 Octobris 2020 (UTC)