Disputatio:Crates Mallotes

Globum terrae

Mi IacobeAmor, scripsisti: "Traditur excogitasse globum qui terram in pilae modum exhibuisset ("Geophysical Earth" 2005:18)." Non teneo quid vis cum parenthesi "Geophysical Earth" 2005:18. Ceterum id factum nobis tradidit Strabo in Geographia 2.5.10, 3-5. --Fabullus 12:36, 2 Maii 2007 (UTC)

In

Lesgles, mutasti "qui studium grammaticae in Romam intulit" in "qui studium grammaticae Romam intulit"—sed Suetonius ipse, in De Grammaticis II, scribit Cratem Mallotem "studium grammaticae in urbem" intulisse. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:36, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

"In urbem", sed "Romam" (Romam eo, accusative of the place whither). Etenim in corpore scriptorum antiquorum "in Romam" nusquam reperitur. Lesgles (disputatio) 14:58, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

I look at Woodcock, New Latin Syntax I.5. It agrees with Lesgles I think. "Accusative answering the question 'whither?' ... normally helped by prepositions ... [exceptions] Names of towns and small islands ...". Roma is the name of a town (or shall we say city), but urbs is not. NB "... the poets omit the preposition freely." Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:20, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I knew & know why he's doing it (as we've seen him doing it from time to time over the past week or two), but I'm not feeling Rome there as the destination of a journey; hence no motion into the city (it's not Crates himself who's going into Rome). But maybe the abstract motion implied by the idea of bringing something in can justify the bare accusative too? Just asking! IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:01, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

Tertullian does seem to have used the bare accusative with infero: see here. Unless of course "haeresin Romam" isn't an easily made scribal error (for "haeresin in Romam"). IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:04, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

"In Romam intulit" does, however, occur (albeit from 1734). ¶ There's also "religionem in Athenas primus intulit" (albeit from 1677). IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:31, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

Here's an example with tuli from Livy: "[Fabius] iussit Q. Fabium consulem dicere se ex Aequis pacem Romam tulisse," and there are lots of examples of "Romam mittere" in Cicero and others. I think the plain accusative is the norm if there's movement of either the subject or the object. Lesgles (disputatio) 16:22, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

But note that fero isn't a compound verb. See my next comment. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 17:18, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

I think I can reconstruct why my ear went with the preposition! A professor long ago alerted me to native speakers' tendency (but not a rule!) to associate compound verbs with the prepositions that constitute their prefixes; so aufero implies ab, effero implies ex, defero implies de, infero implies in, and so on. If you look for examples of quite a few verbs in dictionaries, you can prove this tendency for yourself, though of course you'll find many counterexamples (e.g, constare ex and consistere in). So my ear was expecting inferre plus in. ¶ Incidentally, this association might support E at the (problematic) beginning of the first line of book 3 of De Rerum Natura: "E tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen." The usual choice in the MSS is apparently O, but A and Te and null have also been suggested. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 17:13, 19 Februarii 2017 (UTC)

Looks good. I was going to say you should publish it, but I see the scribe of the Munich manuscript got in ahead of you :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:31, 21 Februarii 2017 (UTC)