# filius sus ¿what word is "sus"?



## melonidas

Hello, in wikctionary.com Sus-suis, means pig. But this syntagm: "filius sus", doesn't it mean '' sons of him? 
I'm confused

thx!


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## Kevin Beach

It should be _Filius suus_, which means "His son"


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## bibax

_His son_ is _filius *eius*_ in Latin:

Pater et *filius eius* valde similes sunt. = The father and *his son* are very alike.

However Middle Ages Latin sometimes used _*suus*_ insted of _*eius*_ (influence of Romance languages?): pater et filius suus = father and his son (similarly like in Spanish: padre y su  hijo);

In Classical Latin filius suus would mean 'a son of himself' (he is a son of himself).


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## Scholiast

Greetings

With all respect to bibax (#3):


> _His son_ is _filius *eius*_ in Latin:
> 
> Pater et *filius eius* valde similes sunt. = The father and *his son* are very alike.
> 
> However Middle Ages Latin sometimes used _*suus*_ insted of _*eius*_ (influence of Romance languages?): pater et filius suus = father and his son (similarly like in Spanish: padre y su  hijo);
> 
> In Classical Latin filius suus would mean 'a son of himself' (he is a son of himself).



Latin preserves a nice distinction between _filius eius_ and _filius suus_ which is not apparent in English "his son".

_Marcus et filius *suus*_ will always mean "Marcus and his [i.e. Marcus'] son", whereas _Marcus et filius *eius*_ will mean "Marcus and his [i.e. someone else's] son".


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## bibax

> Marcus et filius suus will always mean "Marcus and his [i.e. Marcus'] son", whereas Marcus et filius eius will mean "Marcus and his [i.e. someone else's] son".


With all respect to Scholiast, it is not correct.

_ Marcus et filius *eius*_ means "Marcus and his (i.e. Marcus') son"
whereas
_ Marcus et filius *suus*_ is quite nonsensical.

HOWEVER, Medieval Latin commonly used *suus* instead of correct *eius*:

Ermengaudus comes et filius *suus* Regimundus
Rotbaldus comes et uxor *sua* Eimildis
...

beside correct

Domnus Radulfus Dolensis et filius *eius* Odo
Wido comes Pontivensis et uxor *eius* Adila comitissa
...

BTW, the Slavic languages preserve the distinction _filium suum/filium eium eius_ (_filio suo/filio eius_, etc.) as well, but _filius suus_ (_svůj syn_ in Czech) in the nominative case is extremely rare (nearly non-existent) both in Slavic and in Classical Latin. In the nominative case you should have always use *filius eius* (_jeho syn_ in Czech).


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## fdb

Eius is the genitive singular of is/ea/id. There is no such thing as “eium”. Scholiast’s description is correct.


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## bibax

Thanks for the correction.

Could you give us an example of using the reflexive possessive _suus_ in nominative?

It would be a real rarity (in Classical Latin, of course).


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## fdb

“hunc pater suus de templo deduxit,” _he was taken from the temple by his father_, *Cic. Inv. 2, 17, 52*
“suus rex reginae placet,” _a queen likes her own king_, *Plaut. Stich. 1, 2, 76*

Note however, that in these examples, suus does not refer to the grammatical subject of the sentence, but to the logical subject.


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## bibax

Nice examples. I like especially the Plautus' one. Very illustrative.

In any case, _Octavius et milites *eius* ... _means that the soldiers belong to Octavius and not to someone else.

BUT _Caesar in Italiam pervenit cum militibus *suis*_ (i.e. with Caesar's soldiers) is correct, of course.

You can find _"XY et milites *sui*"_ only in Medieval texts. The Medieval authors/scribes commonly mixed up *suus* and *eius*.


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## Imber Ranae

Scholiast said:


> Greetings
> 
> With all respect to bibax (#3):
> 
> 
> Latin preserves a nice distinction between _filius eius_ and _filius suus_ which is not apparent in English "his son".
> 
> _Marcus et filius *suus*_ will always mean "Marcus and his [i.e. Marcus'] son", whereas _Marcus et filius *eius*_ will mean "Marcus and his [i.e. someone else's] son".



It has to be _Marcus et filius eius_, though. *Bibax* is quite right about that: the referent of nominative _suus_ can't be a separate subject of the same verb, though it can be a direct or indirect object (see fdb's examples).


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## jrundin

Here is some classical Latin with a good use of "suus" in the nominative:

cuique est suus gladius:

Each man has his own sword. (Literally, "To each man is his own sword.")

Check out Allen and Greenough §301:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0001:smythp=301


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## Curt Jugg

Sorry to come late to this thread but I'm a beginner in Latin and what I've read about *suus* and *eius *here confuses me somewhat. I wonder if someone would be kind enough to clarify things for me. In Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer it says in paragraph 318: "*Eius*, _his_, never refers to the Subject of the Sentence...". And in Chapter 13 of Wheelock's Latin it says: "...the reflexive possessive adjective *suus, -a, -um *must be carefully distinguished from the nonreflexive possessive genitives *eius, eorum, earum*...which do not refer to the subject." But one of the examples quoted above as correct seems in fact to be using *eius *to refer to the subject of the sentence. What am I missing here?


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## radagasty

Curt Jugg said:


> But one of the examples quoted above as correct seems in fact to be using *eius *to refer to the subject of the sentence. What am I missing here?



Which example? I haven't looked through the thread very carefully, but, as far as I can tell, none of the examples quoted has _ejus_ with the subject of the sentence as its antecedent. Note that in a sentence like 'Pater et filius ejus valde similes sunt.', the subject is not _pater_ but _pater et filius ejus._


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## Curt Jugg

As you suspected, radagasty, I was incorrectly identifying the subject. Thanks for putting me right on that. To further clarify, would it be positively wrong to substitute _suus _for the _ejus _​ of your example?


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## radagasty

> To further clarify, would it be positively wrong to substitute _suus _for the _ejus _​ of your example?

By the standard of Classical Latin, yes. In Mediaeval Latin, though, _suus_ increasingly appears in place of _ejus_, with often with no reflexive force. That said, though, _pater et filius suus_ (unacceptable in the Classical language) would always refer to the father's son, whereas _pater et filius ejus_ could in principle (although rarely in practice) refer to another person's son.


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## Curt Jugg

Thanks again.


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