# tibi non credo / illam uir maxime amat



## Buonaparte

Dear Forum, 

I'm stuck (again), this time regarding when to use datives and when not to. 

Using the dative 'tibi', I understand that 'tibi non credo' translates as: 'I don't believe you'. Fine.

Why would I not use the dative of ille (illi) when translating the following phrase:'The man loves her enormously'? 

My text book uses the accusative (illam) and I'm not sure why, given the example of tibi above. So my textbook says that I should translate 'The man loves her enormously' as 'illam uir maxime amat', whereas I would have thought that 'illi uir maxime amat' would have been better. 

Many thanks, Buonaparte


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## modus.irrealis

Hi,

It's something that depends on the verb. Most verbs are like _amo_ in that you use the accusative, but there are some verbs (like _credo, impero, placeo_) that use the dative, and basically you have to memorize which. That's a bit of a simplification, but this is something you'll pick up as you learn more, since you just need to learn which verbs have which construction, but normally it's the accusative for verbs where the English equivalent has a direct object.


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## Condessa

Some verbs are transitive and some others are not. If you look up, you'll find "credo" has a transitive meaning and an intransitive meaning. 
The transitive one is the one you use when you say something like "I believe that it isn't going to happen"; and the direct object is "that it isn't going to happen". 
The intransitive one is the one you use when you say "I believe her", where "she" is not the direct object, 'cause she's nor "believed" (meanwhile "that it isn't going to happen" is what is believed by me).

If he loves her, she's the one who is "loved", so she's the direct object, so you must say "illam". The man, who is the lover, must be in nominative. 

I don't know the meaning of "uir", could you help me?

(I apologise for my english, sorry, I hope it would help)


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## modus.irrealis

Condessa said:


> Some verbs are transitive and some others are not.


I agree, but I just wanted to point out that the transitivity of a verb is not the same across languages, and that's what's tricky (for an English speaker) about verbs like _credo_: these are transitive verbs in English but intransitive in Latin.



> I don't know the meaning of "uir", could you help me?


It's _vir_ -- Buonaparte must be using a book that doesn't distinguish between _u_ and _v_.


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## Buonaparte

Many thanks for the responses, they are very useful to me - they provide a fuller explanation to some of the terms given in my text book.

A list of verbs that use the dative as opposed to the accusative (is 'use' the correct verb here?): credo, faueo, praesum, pareo, impero, obsto, supplico, adsum, minor, placet, licet. Any more anyone knows of?

I'm a bit weak on the formal knowledge of grammar so I'm not sure of the difference between transitive/instransitive verbs at the moment. I think that's the next chapter...

And I thought 'u' was 'v' in Latin? No?

Buonaparte


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## modus.irrealis

Buonaparte said:


> A list of verbs that use the dative as opposed to the accusative (is 'use' the correct verb here?): credo, faueo, praesum, pareo, impero, obsto, supplico, adsum, minor, placet, licet. Any more anyone knows of?


There are a lot. Some that I can think of are _invideo_ "envy", _noceo_ "harm", _servio_ "serve", _persuadeo_ "persuade." (And I think you can say "use" there, although "govern" might sound better.)



> And I thought 'u' was 'v' in Latin? No?


Yes, in that the ancient Romans only had one letter, but the usual practice nowadays seems to be to use both _u _and _v_ as separate letters.


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## virgilio

Buonaparte,
                One of the functions of the accusative case is to house "objects" of transitive verbs.
It might not be a bad idea to think of verbs as being in a way like stars in the heavens, energy sources radiating energy away in all directions into space. Some stars have planets, some don't,
A transitive verb is like a star that has a planet revolving around it because some of the star's energy is not simply lost in space but strikes the surface of its planet and warms and energises it. The term "transitive" is used of verbs whose energy 'transits' across, striking an object, like solar energy transiting across and striking a planet.
e.g.
The verb "to love" (amare) is both in English and in Latin a transitive verb because its energy always strikes some object:
e.g.
vir (nominative) mulierem (accusative) amat
man loves woman.

Intransitive verbs are like planetless suns, whose energy just gets lost in space because it finds no object to strike and energise.
e.g.
"to go"
The child goes to school
intransitive verb, no object here. There is a rule of syntax that a verb object cannot be assisted by a preposition. Therefore "school' cannot here be an object because of the presence of the preposition "to"

The verb "credere" is peculiar in that it is intransitive, as far as the *person* you believe is concerned  but transitive, as far as the *thing* you believe is concerned.

The "cre" part of the verb meant "increase" or "enhancement", as can be seen in English words derived from Latin like "*cre*scent (moon) - (increasing moon)  in*cre*ment and *cre*dit.
If someone tells you something and you believe him, Latin says you "give him (dative) increase" (one more person convinced), hence "tibi  credo"
The *thing* you believe on the other hand is just an ordinary object (accusative).
Accordingly to translate into English the Latin sentence "id (accusative) tibi (dative) credo" - literally "I believe that to (or for) you." a paraphrase would be necessary like "I believe you, when you say that."

Hope this helps
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Condessa

I do agree with you, modus: the transitivity of a verb is not the same across languages. That's why I suggested Buonaparte to look up in a dictionary. 

Thanks for "vir", of course you're right. 

In Spanish, you can identify a transitive verb by turning the sentence into passive. I mean, if you can turn an active sentence into passive, and the direct object into a (passive) subject, it means there's a transitive verb. Does any of you know a "method" to identify transitive verbs in Latin (and in English)? Or do we have to look up in our dictionaries each time?


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## virgilio

Condessa,
             Most English verbs are ambivalent in the matter of transitivity and whether they are transitive or intransitive depends in a majority of cases on what the speaker decides that it shall be:
e.g.
The policeman stopped the traffic and our car stopped.
I couldn't catch the ball because the sleeve of my jumper caught on a hook and held me back.
The house of cards collapsed when I collapsed the gate-leg table.

One of the glories of the English language.
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Breogan

virgilio said:


> Buonaparte,
> One of the functions of the accusative case is to house "objects" of transitive verbs.
> It might not be a bad idea to think of verbs as being in a way like stars in the heavens, energy sources radiating energy away in all directions into space. Some stars have planets, some don't,
> A transitive verb is like a star that has a planet revolving around it because some of the star's energy is not simply lost in space but strikes the surface of its planet and warms and energises it. The term "transitive" is used of verbs whose energy 'transits' across, striking an object, like solar energy transiting across and striking a planet.
> e.g.
> The verb "to love" (amare) is both in English and in Latin a transitive verb because its energy always strikes some object:
> e.g.
> vir (nominative) mulierem (accusative) amat
> man loves woman.
> 
> Intransitive verbs are like planetless suns, whose energy just gets lost in space because it finds no object to strike and energise.
> e.g.
> "to go"
> The child goes to school
> intransitive verb, no object here. There is a rule of syntax that a verb object cannot be assisted by a preposition. Therefore "school' cannot here be an object because of the presence of the preposition "to"
> 
> The verb "credere" is peculiar in that it is intransitive, as far as the *person* you believe is concerned  but transitive, as far as the *thing* you believe is concerned.
> 
> The "cre" part of the verb meant "increase" or "enhancement", as can be seen in English words derived from Latin like "*cre*scent (moon) - (increasing moon)  in*cre*ment and *cre*dit.
> If someone tells you something and you believe him, Latin says you "give him (dative) increase" (one more person convinced), hence "tibi  credo"
> The *thing* you believe on the other hand is just an ordinary object (accusative).
> Accordingly to translate into English the Latin sentence "id (accusative) tibi (dative) credo" - literally "I believe that to (or for) you." a paraphrase would be necessary like "I believe you, when you say that."
> 
> Hope this helps
> Best wishes
> Virgilio




Great explanation, Virgilio, poetic and accurate at the same time.


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## modus.irrealis

> In Spanish, you can identify a transitive verb by turning the sentence into passive. I mean, if you can turn an active sentence into passive, and the direct object into a (passive) subject, it means there's a transitive verb. Does any of you know a "method" to identify transitive verbs in Latin (and in English)? Or do we have to look up in our dictionaries each time?


I think that works for Latin as well, except then I'd guess you'd need to check the dictionary to see if the passive forms are used  -- but I think it might better to see if the verb takes an accusative object, although again if you're not sure you'd have to check the dictionary. That test probably has problems when applied to English though, because there are some sentences that can be made passive, (e.g. "they laughed at him" > "he was laughed at") which aren't transitive.

And looking up in the dictionary can of course be replaced by learning how verbs are used by being exposed to them in actual context, say by reading Latin.


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## virgilio

Breogan,
            Thank you very much for your very kind words.

With best wishes
Virgilio


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## virgilio

modus.irrealis,
                   You wrote:"And looking up in the dictionary can of course be replaced by learning how verbs are used by being exposed to them in actual context, say by reading Latin" 
Hear, hear!  Not only "can" but "should" too!
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## berndf

modus.irrealis said:


> I agree, but I just wanted to point out that the transitivity of a verb is not the same across languages, and that's what's tricky (for an English speaker) about verbs like _credo_: these are transitive verbs in English but intransitive in Latin.
> ...


 
In the sentence "I believe him" believe is intransitive in English, too. Because the accusative/dative distinction is lost in English it is sometimes difficult to tell if an object is direct or indirect. There is a trick though how you can tell: If it is a direct object you get the same meaning if you put the sentence into passive voice, if not, it is an indirect objects. Try "He was believed by me". If this means anything at all it does certainly not mean "I believed him". Hence "him" is an indirect object and the sentence has no direct object. The usage is therefore intransitive.


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## modus.irrealis

berndf said:


> In the sentence "I believe him" believe is intransitive in English, too. Because the accusative/dative distinction is lost in English it is sometimes difficult to tell if an object is direct or indirect. There is a trick though how you can tell: If it is a direct object you get the same meaning if you put the sentence into passive voice, if not, it is an indirect objects. Try "He was believed by me". If this means anything at all it does certainly not mean "I believed him". Hence "him" is an indirect object and the sentence has no direct object. The usage is therefore intransitive.


That sentence does sound strange and I would agree that in general you can't make that sentence passive (but I can accept it as passive in certain contexts -- it sounds better in the negative for example). But this doesn't work with many of the other verbs. There's nothing wrong with "he was ordered" (_impero_), "he was harmed" (_noceo_), "he was assisted" (_subvenio_). And I don't think the fact that you can't say "a car is had (by him" or that you can say "he was given a car" suggests anything about the transitivity or intransitivity of the corresponding Latin verbs. I think there may be underlying reasons for the kind of verbs you expect to be transitive or intransitive but the details in each language have to be learned separately -- even within Latin, why are _iuvo _and _subvenio_, or _iubeo_ and _impero_, treated differently?


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## berndf

modus.irrealis said:


> That sentence does sound strange and I would agree that in general you can't make that sentence passive (but I can accept it as passive in certain contexts -- it sounds better in the negative for example). But this doesn't work with many of the other verbs. There's nothing wrong with "he was ordered" (_impero_), "he was harmed" (_noceo_), "he was assisted" (_subvenio_). And I don't think the fact that you can't say "a car is had (by him" or that you can say "he was given a car" suggests anything about the transitivity or intransitivity of the corresponding Latin verbs. I think there may be underlying reasons for the kind of verbs you expect to be transitive or intransitive but the details in each language have to be learned separately -- even within Latin, why are _iuvo _and _subvenio_, or _iubeo_ and _impero_, treated differently?


 
I didn't mean to say that direct and indirect objects *always* agree between Latin and English. I only commented on your suggestion that "I believed him" were a transitive use of the verb "to believe" in English. "I believed the story" is transitive, "I believed him" not. And because of the loss of the dative/accusative distinction in English it is sometimes not easy to tell if an object is direct or indirect.

In the case of _impero_ you are right: "ei imperavi" is non-transitive while "I ordered him" is transitive (while _ordinare_ from where _to order_ is derived is again transitive: "eum ordinavi").


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## modus.irrealis

berndf said:


> I didn't mean to say that direct and indirect objects *always* agree between Latin and English. I only commented on your suggestion that "I believed him" were a transitive use of the verb "to believe" in English. "I believed the story" is transitive, "I believed him" not. And because of the loss of the dative/accusative distinction in English it is sometimes not easy to tell if an object is direct or indirect.


Sorry for the misunderstanding. If it's about English, I had an argument here on these forums about direct and indirect objects, and passivization was an argument I used in favour of something being a direct object, but now I'm not so sure. I'll just say that I don't think that passivization is either necessary or sufficient for something to be a direct object.


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## wonderment

berndf and modus.irrealis, hello.  Are we talking about Latin or English grammar?  If it’s about English, the distinction between direct object and indirect object is not ambiguous, I don’t think:

I read a book. (book = direct object)
I read him a book. (him = indirect object, book = direct object)
I read to him. (him = object of preposition)

I believed him. (him = direct object, the verb is transitive)
He is believed by me. (= the passive counterpart of the above sentence)

I believed in him. (him = object of the preposition, verb is intransitive)
This sentence doesn’t have a passive counterpart.


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## berndf

wonderment said:


> berndf and modus.irrealis, hello.  Are we talking about Latin or English grammar? If it’s about English, the distinction between direct object and indirect object is not ambiguous, I don’t think:
> 
> I read a book. (book = direct object)
> I read him a book. (him = indirect object, book = direct object)
> I read to him. (him = object of preposition)
> 
> I believed him. (him = direct object, the verb is transitive)
> He is believed by me. (= the passive counterpart of the above sentence)
> 
> I believed in him. (him = object of the preposition, verb is intransitive)
> This sentence doesn’t have a passive counterpart.


 
This is my last post here because I think we shouldn't discuss English grammer in here.
"I believed him" ist definitliy NOT transitive, see OED, "to believe" I.1 where you may find the example sentence "I believe God" and usage I.1. is maked as instransitive. Another hint is that the German translation which also corresponds etymologically is "Ich glaubte ihm" where "ihm" ("him") is dative.


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