Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The dative construction is a grammatical way of constructing a sentence, using the dative case.A sentence is also said to be in dative construction if the subject and the object (direct or indirect) can switch their places for a given verb, without altering the verb's structure (subject becoming the new object, and the object becoming the new subject).
"Dative" comes from Latin cāsus datīvus ("case for giving"), a translation of Greek δοτικὴ πτῶσις, dotikē ptôsis ("inflection for giving"). [2] Dionysius Thrax in his Art of Grammar also refers to it as epistaltikḗ "for sending (a letter)", [3] from the verb epistéllō "send to", a word from the same root as epistle.
A difference from English grammar is that in open future conditions, it is usual in Latin to use one of the future tenses, when English has the present tense. [7] Apart from the types mentioned below it is also possible to have mixed conditionals, for example with different tenses in protasis and apodosis. [8]
Latin word order is relatively free. The verb may be found at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence; an adjective may precede or follow its noun (vir bonus or bonus vir both mean 'a good man'); [5] and a genitive may precede or follow its noun ('the enemies' camp' can be both hostium castra and castra hostium; the latter is more common). [6]
Like Latin, Spanish makes use of double dative constructions, and thus up to two dative clitics can be used with a single verb. One must be the dative of benefit (or "ethical" dative, i.e. someone (or something) who is indirectly affected by the action), and the other must refer to the direct recipient of the action itself.
In the United States, in grammars such as Gildersleeve and Lodge's Latin Grammar (1895), the traditional order is used, with the genitive case in the second place and ablative last. In the popularly used Wheelock's Latin (1956, 7th edition 2011) and Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar (1903), however, the vocative is placed at the end.
In Latin grammar, a double dative is the combination of a dative of reference with a dative of purpose. A common translation is "As a (dative of purpose) with reference to (dative of reference)." This was formerly known as "predicate dative" or "dative of service", with usually the following characteristics of the noun in the dative of purpose:
The impersonal form of this tense can also be made using intransitive verbs such as eō 'I go' and verbs such as persuādeō 'I persuade' and ūtor 'I use' which do not take an accusative object: nōn est respondendum ad omnia (Cicero) [5] 'there is no need to reply to everything' mihī Arpīnum eundum est (Cicero) [6] 'I have to go to Arpinum'