Disputatio:Niwiska

Niwiska est urbs Poloniae[fontem recensere]

Anglice: 'Niwiska is Poland's city'? IacobusAmor 17:23, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

... is a city of Poland. I guess you'd prefer an adjective, following Bradley's Arnold? Harrissimo 18:02, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC).[reply]

The English possessive does not have a one-to-one correspondence with the Latin genitive, so Iacobus's translation is a bit mischievous; the Latin can equally be rendered "Niwiska is a city of Poland"!

Idiomatically apt too: "Niwiska is a city of Poland's"! (The English idiom is 'a book of mine,' not 'a book of me.') What? Mischievous? Moi?! ::winkwink:: IacobusAmor 22:34, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be serious for a moment: the genitive in urbs Poloniae is the Partitive Genitive, which "may denote the larger whole, of which something forms a part, or the larger stock from which something is drawn: pars Galliae, 'part of Gaul', multi militum, 'many of the soldiers', cadus vini, 'a cask of wine'. Here again the idea of 'belonging' can still be seen [as with the Possessive Genitive]. When the genitive denotes the material drawn on, as in the last example, it may be called the Genitive of Material."—E. C. Woodcock, A New Latin Syntax (London: Methuen, 1959), p. 53. IacobusAmor 22:45, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bradley's Arnold wasn't written to tell us (or anyone) how to compose short geographical entries in an encyclopaedia. A more useful guide (I think) is Hofmann's Lexicon. I am looking at one of the first pages [1]. I notice that the first sentence of each entry is written without a verb; many encyclopaedias are written like that, but Wikipedia's style demands a verb. I also notice that almost every entry seems to begin with a nominative + genitive phrase (like our geographical entries). Thus Abae, Phocidis oppidum; Abae, Lyciae locus. But in Hofmann, in nearly every case, the genitive precedes the nominative. Maybe that's what we should be doing. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:49, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking up numerous words in Cassell's, I've noticed that the examples (drawn from Latin literature of the Golden Age) often put the genitive first; this is in contradistinction to the natural tendency of latter-day writers, working backward from Germanic & Romance patterns like 'the X of Y' and 'la X de Y. IacobusAmor 22:34, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My dismissal of B's A may come partly from the fact that I have always avoided buying a copy. I'm sure it's a great book really ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:42, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really! And generations of British schoolboys must have agreed! IacobusAmor 22:34, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I may raise the same point with the article Romanae Pugnae: the defining words appear to be in the genitive (though many can be construed to be in the locative), for example Actii pugna, which (Cassells reminds us) is Actia bella 'the battle of Actium' in Vergil. IacobusAmor 22:50, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Say, why doesn't that link work? The title seems to be exact: "Romanae pugnae." IacobusAmor 22:51, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Romanae pugnae (it won't work with a capital P). Harrissimo 22:54, 20 Februarii 2008 (UTC).[reply]