# Grammar/esse/nominative/imperative



## Handbag

There is a prayer in Church Latin that goes:

  ...NOS [object of ADMITTE]  ...LARGITOR [nominative, = pardoner]  ..ADMITTE.

  The addressee is being asked to admit the suppliant to a (previously mentioned) group, while acting as a pardoner.

  It is the ‘while acting as’ that interests me;  he could have put ENS I suppose, being Late Latin, but it is just implied.  Is there a grammar that mentions this construction?  I failed to find it in Kennedy, or  Allen & Greenhough.


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## CapnPrep

_Largitor_ stands in apposition to the subject _tu_ (which is left unexpressed). You can read a little about this in A&G. They don't give any examples in the imperative, but there is one example with implicit _ego_ as subject: _litteras Graecas *senex* didici_ ("I, an old man, learned Greek letters", i.e. I learned Greek as an old man).


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## Handbag

Thanks Cap’n, that really helps to clarify things for me.

  My remaining difficulty is that a sentence whose main verb is an imperative has two subjects: the asker and the addressee, who (if made explicit) would be in the nominative and vocative respectively.  

  In the given sentence, if the subject had been singular (rather than the plural ‘we’ which occurs earlier), then LARGITOR could be in apposition either to the asker or the addressee. 

  If the sense were to be “I, a pardoner, ask you, a lord, to admit me....”, would we see

            ME LARGITOR (sc. EGO) DOMINE (sc. TU) ADMITTE...

  What do you think?  I guess it’s just an ambiguity resolvable only by context.


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## CapnPrep

Handbag said:


> My remaining difficulty is that a sentence whose main verb is an imperative has two subjects: the asker and the addressee, who (if made explicit) would be in the nominative and vocative respectively.


This is not correct: a verb can only have one subject, and this goes for the imperative as well. In a 2nd person imperative, the subject is the addressee. Anything in the nominative (or in the vocative) refers to the addressee, never to the asker. 



> If the sense were to be “I, a pardoner, ask you, a lord, to admit me....”, would we see
> 
> ME LARGITOR (sc. EGO) DOMINE (sc. TU) ADMITTE...
> 
> What do you think?


You can't add _ego_ to this sentence. There is only one verb, _admitte_, and its subject can only be _tu_. But notice how in your English sentence, you added the verb _ask_. This changes things, because more verbs means more subjects.

It turns out that the original example (I assume you're referring to the Second Intercession) also contains an extra "asking" verb:intra quorum nos consortium, non aestimator meriti, sed veniae, *quaesumus*, largitor admitte​If you changed the plural _quaesumus_ to singular _quaeso _as you suggested, then the two nominative phrases (_aestimator meriti_ and _veniae largitor_) would indeed become ambiguous, referring either to the subject of _quaeso _(ego) or to that of _admitte_ (tu). But again, this isn't because the imperative has two subjects, but because there are two verbs in the sentence.


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## djmc

Ego largitor te dominum precor ut me admittes

Largitor the nominative would be in apposition to ego (the ego could be omitted), and dominum the accusative, in apposition to te. With prayers, requests etc. the vocative would be more common. For example te domine precor, I beg you O Lord.


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## Handbag

Thanks Cap’n for this further clarification.  However, there is still a difficulty:

  I omitted the _quaesumus_ because the sentence is valid without it.  And its meaning is unchanged.  The fact is that any sentence containing an imperative is in direct speech, and thus really does imply two subjects, the person speaking and the person addressed.  You can replace the imperative, with a verb plus _ut_ and subjunctive, as DJMC points out, but you don’t need to.

  I didn’t mean that you would write _ego_, my ‘sc.’ meant it could be understood, in the same way as _tu_.

  This has become a minor matter, since you solved my difficulty by pointing out the appositional aspect of _largitor_.  But  I am still finding it interesting, and wonder whether the matter is discussed in a grammar somewhere, and whether the addressee in apposition would be in the vocative.


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## CapnPrep

I see what you mean — that an imperative necessarily involves both the speaker and the addressee — but grammatically speaking, there can only be one subject. So there is no ambiguity in a simple sentence like _Largitor me admitte_: _largitor _can only refer to _tu_. Adding a verb like "I say" or "I ask" may not change the overall meaning very much, but it definitely makes the _syntax_ of the sentence more complex.



Handbag said:


> But  I am still finding it interesting, and wonder whether the matter is discussed in a grammar somewhere, and whether the addressee in apposition would be in the vocative.


The vocative is more usual, as djmc said above. But if the subject of the sentence also happens to be _tu_ or _vos_ (as in imperatives, but also in other kinds of sentences), then appositives referring to the addressee can be in either the vocative or the nominative. 

I found a brief mention of this in A&G (§340,a).


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## XiaoRoel

Supongo que te referirás al canon de la consagración que despues del "memento" de difuntos ruega por los vivos pecadores:
[et omnibus     sanctis tuis :] intra quorum nos consortium, non aestimator meriti, sed     veniae, quaesumus, largitor admitte.

En traducción oficial católica al español:
en cuya compañía te rogamos nos     admitas, no en atención a nuestros meritos, sino por tu gran misericordia.

Una traducción más literal:
En cura compañía (la de_ omnibus sanctis_) admítenos, no como juez de (nuestros) méritos, te rogamos,  sino de (tu) perdón, tú que das con largueza.


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## Imber Ranae

Also keep in mind that _quaesumus_ is parenthetical, and means little more than "we pray". It wouldn't be normal for such a parenthesis to have an explicitly named subject.


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## Handbag

Imber, the point is that an imperative sentence has two people involved:  the speaker and the addressee.

The _quaesumus_ is irrelevant, the presence of two subjects - one asking and the other doing - is what exercises the mind.

We must remember that language is not an invention of grammarians, but an organic growth, and there may be no 'answer' to what is probably a non-problem.  But I'd be interested to see any mention in an authoritative text.  Particularly on whether a noun in apposition to the addressee is in the vocative.


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## Imber Ranae

Handbag said:


> Imber, the point is that an imperative sentence  has two people involved: the speaker and the addressee.
> 
> The quaesumus is irrelevant, the presence of two subjects - one asking  and the other doing - is what exercises the mind.



Yes, two people are involved, but that doesn't matter. The addressee is  the focal point of an imperative clause. The grammatical subject can  only be the person who actually performs, or is the patient of, the  action of the verb, not the one who orders it done. It would produce  syntactic chaos if it were otherwise. This is true for Latin, this is  true for English, this is true for every Indo-European language I've  studied. Likewise the vocative refers only to the addressee, never to  the addresser.

In your example this would hardly be required anyway, since you already  have a direct object _nos_ which, being first person, necessarily refers to the speaker[s]. Thus any noun referring to the speakers  would be accusative in apposition with _nos_. Simple.



> We must remember that language is not an invention of  grammarians, but an organic growth, and there may be no 'answer' to what  is probably a non-problem. But I'd be interested to see any mention in  an authoritative text. Particularly on whether a noun in apposition to  the addressee is in the vocative.


An authoritative text? How  would you know that it isn't just repeating the invented rules of a  grammarian?

Look, my knowledge of this isn't based on some simplistic rule in a  schoolbook primer. It's based on the considerable amount of actual Latin  texts I've read, in addition to the fact that every Latin grammar and  every scholarly article I've encountered has nowhere mentioned such a  usage (and the same is doubtless also true for the others in this thread  who have already patiently addressed your question with the same  answer). But if you think you've found an example of such, let's see it.  I'd be overjoyed and fascinated to come upon a novel usage like this.  The missal you brought up in the OP isn't it, though.

Now, as to whether an appositive to the subject, expressed or implied, of an  imperative sentence should be in the nominative or vocative case—that  is a different question altogether, but a good one nonetheless. The  answer is not so simple, and in fact either case may be used. But can we  draw a distinction between the two? It would appear that we can,  albeit not always with absolute certainty.

The difficulty is of course compounded by the fact that the two cases  are so often indistinguishable. However, a somewhat simplified  formulation can be applied which says that the case will be determined by the relation of  the appositive noun (together with its attributes) to the verbal idea of  the sentence. That is to say, Are the two closely connected with each  other, such that the former explains the circumstances or condition  under which the latter is to occur? If so, then the nominative is  much more likely to be used; Or is the appositive noun merely a name or  attribute of the addressee that has no real effect upon the task which  he is being enjoined or besought to carry out? In this case we  can expect a vocative.

As for the example in your missal, the former is clearly the more  applicable answer: It's not saying "Admit us, O non-judger of merit but  bestower of grace", which makes little sense (not to mention  vocative phrases are rarely so elaborate). Rather it's "Admit us, [O  Lord,] not as a judge of our deserts, but as the bestower of grace,  into...[etc.]"

And this doesn't apply only to imperative sentences, but also more  generally to any sentence wherein someone is being addressed, and not just  for appositive nouns but for adjectives and participles as well (the  latter of which is unlikely to be vocative for the very reasons already  stated). So the choice can be between the vocative and whatever other  case the addressee, whether mentioned by name or by personal pronoun,  happens to be in.

For a more detailed discussion on this matter and some further  considerations there's a decent (and relatively recent) paper you can  view  here  [PDF file], although I cannot affirm how authoritative it is.


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## Handbag

Imber, I don’t know if your tirade is provoked by a misunderstanding or what, but I’ll have one more go and then be silent forever.  After all, my original difficulty was quickly addressed by the Cap’n, and the imperative/subject/object caper is a minor follow-on that I found (and still find) of some interest.

  If I write _rogo te malum es_, ‘I’ am present as a subject, and, if the addressee obeys, he is also a subject, doing the eating.  Both these persons can be qualified by appositional nouns.  The sentence _malum es_ has the same meaning, but now it seems we may not attach a noun to the asker, simply because some ‘syntactic sugar’ has been left out.  I am merely wondering whether any grammar guru has discussed this.

  Of course an authoritative grammarian (AllenNgreenhough, Bennett, Kennedy...) will cite rules – but he knows better than anyone when a rule is inadequate, and will discuss & explain the point.

  The meaning of the Church Latin is perfectly plain, and I do not cite it as an example of anything.

  I don’t agree with your translation _bestower of grace_.  The prayer does bang on rather about sinners & mercy, so I think the _forgiveness_  shade of _venia_ (L+S II, OLD 4) is to be preferred, and thus _pardoner_ for _veniae largitor _in my precis.

  And........ the rest is silence........ – from me at any rate.


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