Disputatio:Allium cepa

Nah, Alexanderr...it was fine. Utor, uti is a deponent verb which always takes the ablative. Well...Cato sometimes uses accusative, but he's a freak.--Ioshus ^(disp) 16:26, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't exactly understand what your talking about, however I thought "utuntur" means "are used" so wouldn't keeping homines mean that people are used as food? Alexanderr 16:29, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your homines utuntur CAN mean 'people are used', but not in the sense that's coming to your mind: think instead of utuntur as meaning 'they're used to', equivalent to 'they've accustomed themselves to', and you may get a feel for why the specified thing shouldn't be accusative: it has to be something like an ablative of specification. ¶ Deponents, commonly called passive in form but active in sense, are similar to another structure you'll want to know: middles. A difference between middles & most deponents is that middles have active analogues, but most deponents don't; compare the middle lavor 'I wash (myself)' and the active lavo 'I wash (something)'. My favorite middle is a complete sentence: excalceor 'I unshoe myself, I take my shoes off'. IacobusAmor 17:47, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think utor can mean "be used to, accustomed to", unless you're counting the meaning to enjoy the friendship of. But whne I correct you you often come back at me with a cite.... --Iustinus 18:04, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Baldi (p. 396) glosses utor as 'I make use of' :), and that's a better way of phrasing the idea: again, at least to English-speakers, it shows why the referent can't be accusative: we've got to take into account the syntactical urges inherent in the preposition (whether my to or Baldi's of). IacobusAmor 18:24, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. I'm just saying that semantically utor ≠ soleo. --Iustinus 18:44, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I said. It is deponent. utuntur means "they use".--Ioshus ^(disp) 16:30, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh okay. Nevermind. On a side note "qua" is what? ablative? Alexanderr 16:32, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sic.--Ioshus ^(disp) 17:37, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sic, est! IacobusAmor 17:47, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A deponant verb is a "crossdresser" verb that is always used in the passive form, even though the meaning is active. Utor is even worse than this: it takes an ablative object. Thus, to say "He uses the fish" you need to say pisce utitur. Weird, eh? So how do you say "The fish is often used"? Well, you cannot say that if you use the verb utor. Since utor always has a passive form, but an active meaning, there is no way to get it into a passive meaning. So use a synonym instead: piscus saepe { adhibetur | usurpatur | in usu est }. Hope this helps. --Iustinus 18:04, 25 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Er, piscis, duh. Bad place to make a mistake like that! --Iustinus 18:24, 17 Decembris 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of points[fontem recensere]

(1) Isn't the preferred spelling 'caepa'. Even if not, there are quite a few dead links elsewhere to 'caepa' that need correcting. (2) Also, surely your onion is not a root but a swollen leaf base? 82.36.94.228 16:17, 17 Decembris 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(1) The species epithet appears to be cepa. (2) En: calls it a bulb. After all, its bulbous entity can generate bulbils! IacobusAmor 17:44, 17 Decembris 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cepa, if I'm not mistaken, occurs relatively early, so it's not just an error. Myself, when I'm speaking Latin I prefer cepa simply because that's the form Apicius uses... though I suppose that's not exactly high Latinitas. --Iustinus 18:24, 17 Decembris 2008 (UTC)[reply]