Wheelock's FAQ chapter 23

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Wheelock's FAQ chapter 23: Questions

Questions are listed at the top of the page and are divided into several categories. Click on the links at left and you will be taken to the question and corresponding answer below.

Category: General
GEN	Is there any particular reason Latin has no perfect participle in the active voice-- that is, "having praised." Would you use some other construction to convey that meaning? I can think of plenty of sentences where a perfect active participle would be useful: "Having thrown Wheelock's out the window, I felt great." I'd be surprised if Latin didn't have some way to express that concept. What am I missing?

Category: General

GEN

Is there any particular reason Latin has no perfect participle in the active voice-- that is, "having praised." Would you use some other construction to convey that meaning? I can think of plenty of sentences where a perfect active participle would be useful: "Having thrown Wheelock's out the window, I felt great." I'd be surprised if Latin didn't have some way to express that concept. What am I missing?

Wheelock's FAQ chapter 23: Answers

Category: General
GEN:	Is there any particular reason Latin has no perfect participle in the active voice-- that is, "having praised." Would you use some other construction to convey that meaning? I can think of plenty of sentences where a perfect active participle would be useful: "Having thrown Wheelock's out the window, I felt great." I'd be surprised if Latin didn't have some way to express that concept. What am I missing?
A:	Answer from Amber Seely [ambers7@mail.utexas.edu]: I would use an ablative absolute (see chapter 24). "With Wheelock having been thrown out the window, I felt great" It is a combination of a perfect passive participle in the ablative plus the object of the action, in this case Wheelock, also in the ablative. Then you would attach the rest of the sentence in the normal manner "ex fenestra..." Oh, also, an ablative absolute can be used with a present participle: "Throwing Wheelock out the window..." Answer from Mary McClavey [mary.mc@sympatico.ca]: Seems to me that I remember two constructions which convey the sense you mean: 1. ablative absolute 2. a "cum clause" with the the subjunctive.

Last updated Thu Nov 13 17:12:42 GMT 2003 FAQ ©2003 by its creator Gary Bisaga and Meredith Minter Dixon. Copyright to FAQ answers is retained by their authors.