Numa Pompilius Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 if you know latin or are learning latin please tell me. I am learning it in school, but it would benefit me the most if i could use outside of school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Well, I use it in my research...historical Romance linguistics. Admittedly, I'm not fluent, even remotely, but I can comfortably notice and discuss case, gender, number, tense, aspect, mood...and other areas of Latin morpho-syntax and syntax. Outside of that, um, don't ask me to read Cicero, Pliny, or any other literature piece in the original! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numa Pompilius Posted November 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Well, I use it in my research...historical Romance linguistics. Admittedly, I'm not fluent, even remotely, but I can comfortably notice and discuss case, gender, number, tense, aspect, mood...and other areas of Latin morpho-syntax and syntax. Outside of that, um, don't ask me to read Cicero, Pliny, or any other literature piece in the original! Could you tell me what imperfect, perfect and present mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Octavius Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Well, I use it in my research...historical Romance linguistics. Admittedly, I'm not fluent, even remotely, but I can comfortably notice and discuss case, gender, number, tense, aspect, mood...and other areas of Latin morpho-syntax and syntax. Outside of that, um, don't ask me to read Cicero, Pliny, or any other literature piece in the original! Could you tell me what imperfect, perfect and present mean? This is 'English', but it should help for definitions. http://www.englishpage.com/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLavius Valerius Constantinus Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Well present and perfect in latin are the same things as english. Yet the imperfect really is just the same thing as past tense. Oh by the way doco, Cicero isn't bad as you think. His style is quite confusing sometimes because of his way of forming sentences and words, but he writes just like Caesar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Oh by the way doco, Cicero isn't bad as you think. His style is quite confusing sometimes because of his way of forming sentences and words, but he writes just like Caesar. Oh, it's not that...I just don't read the language very well! I can pick the grammar apart, but with a dictionary for the lexical items. Sad, innit? I do the same with French. On the list, eventually, is to get better in reading Latin. Gotta get better with French first...I promised my graduate advisor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Could you tell me what imperfect, perfect and present mean? The quick and dirty version: Linguists describe what verbs do by various methods, but one way is to discuss tense, aspect, and mood. Tense = time, as in you have all of three choices here: past, present, and future. Aspect is how the time is tweaked, how it is described. There are various ones here: punctual (with a definitive beginning and end; usually either the preterite or the aorist), durative (happens over a period of time, and often doesn't have a definitive beginning and end; imperfect, progressive), perfective (usually relates to two different tenses; perfect and sometimes the aorist), among others. Indo-European languages, as I recall, generally have a fair amount of aspect in the languages, but are no where near the aspectual level as, say, the Austronesian languages. Mood is kinda just that: what's the perspective of the speaker. Indicative is just a statement about the world, usually without emoting anything. Subjunctive, and its cousin the optative, impart doubt, emotion, will, and other 'subjective' points of view; optative is the will of whatever Supreme Force the culture believes in, and often includes supernatural phenomena. Imperative is usually a direct command. For many languages, this is the limit...but there are other options, I believe. So, that being said: Present: tense Perfect: usually a puntuctual or perfective verbal form, depending on the language. In Latin, it tends to be more punctual, but the modern Romance languages have compound perfect tenses which are perfective in aspect. Imperfect: a past tense form which is durative in aspect. Hope that helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numa Pompilius Posted November 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 (edited) Yes it does, thanks. please visit my forum i am creating for latin speakers. I will need some help on what to put in it. http://s11.invisionfree.com/LatinSpeakers/index.php Edited November 18, 2006 by Numa Pompilius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Yes it does, thanks. please visit my forum i am creating for latin speakers. I will need some help on what to put in it.http://s11.invisionfree.com/LatinSpeakers/index.php Well, that's fine, but you really should re-organize your forums. Nouns and verbs are two different classes of words; you really shouldn't put a nouns thread in a verbs form. I would probably organize it more like this: Phonology: Consonants; Vowels Morphology: Nominal: Nouns, Adjectives, Verbal Adjectives; Case, Gender, and Number Inflection Verbal: Tense, Aspect, and Mood; Participles (which is also Verbal Adjectives) Syntax: Phrase construction; Lexicon I'm leaving a lot out...but this is a basic design. I guess the first question really must be: what is your focus or goal with the page? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursus Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Amazingly enough, there is an entire subfolder at UNRV devoted to Latin. I shall move this thread there to point the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numa Pompilius Posted November 19, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2006 (edited) yeah i never saw that there was a subfolder fo latin. Sorry... ...Thanks for the advice on my forum but i don't think i need it anymore Edited November 19, 2006 by Numa Pompilius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Dalby Posted November 22, 2006 Report Share Posted November 22, 2006 yeah i never saw that there was a subfolder fo latin. Sorry... ...Thanks for the advice on my forum but i don't think i need it anymore I might as well answer your question now that I'm back on line. I'm a member and I do Latin. At school I was taught to write it (as well as read it) and I never really saw the point in that. But now I'm even writing entries on the Latin Wikipedia, so there was a good reason for it after all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted December 24, 2006 Report Share Posted December 24, 2006 If you give me Latin I can usually translate it if I sit down with it long enough, and I'm here if you have any questions, but usually if you drop a question on this subforum it gets answered pretty fast. When I stumble over Latin grammar, I just leave my questions here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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