# seruus autem dominum multa mentitus facile decepit



## Buonaparte

Dear Forum,

I'm trying to grasp the scope of participle phrases. 

*seruus autem dominum multa mentius facile decepit*

I'm reliably informed that the above sentence translates as:
_'But the slave, having told many lies, easily deceived his master'_​My question is: why is it incorrect to translate the sentence as:
_'But the slave, having told many lies easily, deceived his master'_​Many thanks, Buonaparte

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## Anne345

multa mentius ?? 

adverbs tend to precede the word or words to which they belong.


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## Flaminius

Maybe _multa mentitus_?


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## clara mente

I must agree with Flaminius here, "mentitus (pref.part. of mentior,iri) in apposition with "servus" would be the only thing which would make sense to me as well.


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## Anne345

Of course ! 
I only hoped Buonaparte would understand the importance of one letter !


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## Buonaparte

You're right, I typed this incorrectly. As you say, it should read _multa mentitus

_Importance of accurate typing is becoming clearer and clearer to me!

Thanks for the explanation.

Buonaparte


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## virgilio

Buonaparte, 
To answer your question "_'But the slave, having told many lies easily, deceived his master'" _is a possible but improbable translation. Latin adverbs 'home in' on the nearest verb and in the sentence you cite the choice is between a verb (decepit) and a participle (mentitus).
Participles are verb-flavoured adjectives and so they are adjectives 'on the outside' but contain verbal elements on the inside. The verbal elements within Latin participles are usually very concentrated and so it is quite possible for such verbal elements to 'attract' adverbs even through the 'outer shell', so to speak, of the adjective in which they are encased (as in this case attracting the adverb "multa"). 
However in this case the adverb "facile" is standing also next to a full verb (decepit) and so would naturally 'home in' on that rather than on the weaker verbal force within the participle "mentitus".
If the writer had wanted "facile" to be attracted by the verbal element within "mentitus", he (or she) would have altered the word-order:

servus autem dominum multa facile mentitus decepit.
(or even)
 servus autem multa facile mentitus dominum decepit.

Hope this helps.
Best wishes
Virgilio


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