# Luciine villa Romae est?



## silverfire

Salvete!

I know that "ne" is used to ask questions, and that it is suffixed to the word about which the question is being asked.
Does the sentence "Luciine villa Romae est?" mean "Is LUCIUS'S villa (country house) in Rome?"

I mean, it seems to me that the questioner is asking specifically about Lucius's villa after having asked the whereabouts of, say, Marcus, Cynthia, Terentia, and other people's villas.

Otherwise, I think the word order should have been "Lucii villane Romae est?"


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## wandle

The suffix _-ne _is attached to the first word of the clause. Therefore the key word of the question should be placed first.
In your example, _Lucii _is the word which identifies which house is being asked about.

If you treat _villa_ as the key word, it should come first (_villane Lucii_...?), but the question may then be read as asking whether it is Lucius' house, and not some other property of his, that is at Rome.


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## silverfire

Thank you.


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## Ali Smith

So, would _Lucii villane Romae est?_ have been grammatically incorrect?


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## Sobakus

Ali Smith said:


> So, would _Lucii villane Romae est?_ have been grammatically incorrect?


This means approximately the same as _vīllane Lūcī,_ i.e. it's a confirmation question about _vīlla._ It's grammatically correct but marked – normally the focalised word (which is what_ -ne_ always attaches to) is moved to the first position in the sentence, but if you want to lessen the focalising force and present your words as continuous with your interlocutor's, you can avoid moving it, and repeat the word order that your interlocutor used. A sample conversation would go like this:

_– Lūcī vīlla, quae Rōmae est..._​_– Rēctēne accēpī? Lūcī vīllane Rōmae est?_ “Did I hear that right? It's Bob's estate that's in Rome? (Isn't it rather his house?)”​​Echoing the original word order presents the question as confirmatory, and fronting _vīllane_ would make it more insistent and incredulous.


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## Scholiast

saluete amici!

It would be a little odd to have a _villa_ in Rome. More likely a _domus_.

Σ


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## Ali Smith

I think vīlla simply means “estate”.


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## Sobakus

I thought the oddity of it was presumed in the original question, hence the surprised confirmatory _-ne._ It's presumed in my sample conversation at any rate – _vīlla_ is a country estate specifically, for agricultural production.


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