# cristarum caputum castae or cristarum caputum costarum



## yan_shams

Hello, everyone. Could you help me to change _crista caputis costae_ into genitivus pluralis form? Should it be _cristarum caputum castae_ or _cristarum caputum costarum_?


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## exgerman

There is something wrong with the original.  You need to proofread. 

_crista_ is fem. singular nom., _costae_ is fem plural nom. They don't agree so it's hard to tell what the intended meaning is.

Also note that the genitive of _caput_ is _capItis_.


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## yan_shams

_crista _is sing. nom., _capitis _is sing. gen., _costae _is *sing. gen.* 
N. sing. crista capitis costae
G. sing. cristae capitis costae

Should _capitis costae_ (sing. gen.) be changed into _capitum costarum_ (pl. gen.)?
N. plur. cristae capitis costae 
G. plur. cristarum capitis costae 
or
N. plur. cristae capitum costarum
G. plur. cristarum capitum costarum


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## metaphrastes

yan,
I am not a Latinist, then, take it as a Latin exercice for me, too - until some expert come in.
First, what you mean by the first sentence: _crista capitis costae? Crista _means both a crest (as birds or cocks have) or a plume on a helm (that suggests a bird's crest). Then, _caput _means either the physical head of any animal (including rational ones...) as well a chief, a leader, say, a captain. It means also _a person, life, the top (of something), the source or mouth of a river, the chapter (of a book) _or _a heading. _Now, I assume you mean either an animal crest (because every animal *has *a physical head!) or the plume on a helm, because a military chief (a captain) would have a helm! and these are the only meanings that match one another.

Then, I assume you mean either:
_the crest of the head (of some animal), _or
_the plume (crest) on the helm of a captain_, and it seems to do more sense to be related with _costa_. Well, _costa _means strictly _a rib_, but it means also _side (of the body, _probably because the ribs made up our side_), _and also, no more in a bodily sense, _a wall, a side/flank/back _and, from Portuguese usage, it seems me natural _costa _means also the _maritime coast_, the _coastline, _in a local, geographical sense. I am assuming this Portuguese meaning is valid, too, in Latin, because this is the only I see would match with _the plume on the helm of the captain (_or _chieftain).
_
Thus, the meaning I figure out is: _the crest (_that is, _the plume on the helm) of the captain of the coastline (_be it the _maritime coast _or the _riverside zone). _It seems to make some sense, since these natural lines are important in military terms.

Now, *if *this is the actual meaning, the genitive singular you ask would mean something as *of the crest (of the plume on the helm) of the captain of the coastline *(in whatever precise sense it has in context). It seems me your draft 


yan_shams said:


> G. sing. cristae capitis costae


works well, since _cristae _is the correct genitive singular form of _crista.
_
Now, I will not go farther than that, because to put everything in plural and not falling in non-sense, it would be good to know what exactly would be meant. To begin with, *if *_costa _actually means _coastline_, I am not sure it might be used in plural, in this particular meaning. In Portuguese, we would say _a costa marítima _but _as costas marítimas _(in plural) would not make too much sense, for when we see the sea's shore we see a single continuum. Now, Latin usage would have the last word and definitively I would wait for an expert to help us, here.

May you please say what you mean exactly by your phrase and the plural forms you ask about? If you was not sure, I gave you hints more than sufficient to figure out something and to work on that. And probably our true experts would jump in only after you doing your part of the task 

*PS: *It seems me it would be good to say what elements exactly you want in plural, because there are many possibilities. One could say _the crests (the plumes on the helm) of the captain of the coastline _as well _the creast (the plume on the helm of each one) of the captains of the coastline_, and I still wonder if _coastline _might be used in plural, in Latin, and *if *this is the true meaning at all of your phrase, or anything else. Please, clarify.


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## yan_shams

Metaphrastes, _crista capitis costae_ is a medical term which means 'crest of head of rib' (AnatomyEXPERT: Crest of head of rib 9 - Structure Detail).


yan_shams said:


> N. plur. cristae capitis costae
> G. plur. *cristarum capitis costae
> or*
> N. plur. cristae capitum costarum
> G. plur. *cristarum capitum costarum*


The question is: which of the two is correct:
1. cristarum capitis costae = crest*s* of head of rib (in gen., of course)
2. cristarum capitum costarum = crest*s* of head*s* of rib*s?*
When speaking Russian we would most likely use the 1st form. What about Latin?

Sorry for not providing any context. It's just an exercise from a medical textbook. I'm trying to help a friend who is a student at a medical university.


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## metaphrastes

yan_shams said:


> Metaphrastes, _crista capitis costae_ is a medical term which means 'crest of head of rib'


Oh my good Lord! Blag Gospod' moi! I was actually far away!  No problem, it was a good exercice for me. Actually I thought also on some medical meaning, but I gave no second thought for that 

Now I recall in Portuguese the word "crista" is used also in relation to bones, such as "crista ilíaca" - "iliac crest".



yan_shams said:


> The question is: which of the two is correct:
> 1. cristarum capitis costae = crest*s* of head of rib (in gen., of course)
> 2. cristarum capitum costarum = crest*s* of head*s* of rib*s?*
> When speaking Russian we would most likely use the 1st form. What about Latin?


Now, to what is worth, in Portuguese we might say:
1. a crista (singular, in gen.) da cabeça (idem) das costelas (plural)
_(this seems me to be the more natural form)_​2. as cristas (plural) da cabeça (singular, in gen. sense) das costelas (plural)
_(this sounds me ok, too, but the first plural is actually not necessary because the last plural makes clear we are speaking about several ribs, each one with its own head's crest)_​3. a crista (singular, in gen.) das cabeças (plural) das costelas (plural)
_(It seems natural only if one wants to emphasize and describe the heads in particular)_​4. as cristas (plural) das cabeças (plural) das costelas (plural)
_(It seems natural only if one wants to emphasize and describe specifically each one of the crests)_​To be true, it seems hard to draw an absolute rule, in Portuguese (and other combinations might possibly work, according precise context), but the bottom line is that _costelas (costarum) _in any case should be in plural, since they are the head's crest bearers and their plurality implies the plurality of the bore elements as the head and the head's crest.
Now, any element you put in plural would put it in focus and particularize it. Thus it would depend mostly what element exactly you want to describe in particular: _each one of the several crests? each one of the crested heads? each one of the headed ribs? _This is my best guess, so far we speak about Portuguese.

Now, if those nuances on emphasis might be possible in Latin, only an expert might answer: @Scholiast, @jazyk, @Cagey, _Adjutorium! Ego clamabo! _


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## Scholiast

saluete amici

_poscimur_ (metaphrastes #6, _in fine_).

As this is a medical technical term, it does not come under the usual or expected rules of classical Latin grammar, and it really depends on the purpose and context for which yan_shams' friend wants to use it.

Without further information or context, my hunch is that even a scientist with a pedantic Latin education would simply refer (in the plural) to _cristae _but with _capitis costae _in the singular, because the entire concept is generic, and the only thing that is plural in what is (apparently) being referred to are specific instances or examples under discussion. In any case, as the qualifier (ca_pitis costae_) is in the genitive (rather than adjectival—which would require strict grammatical agreement), it's perfectly proper to leave it singlular, just as one may have _flos campi_ ["flower of the field"—or of "a field"] but equally _flores campi_ ["flowers of the field] without having to pluralise the "fields"—and it is not as if either in English or any other language one would understand this to imply that there is only ever one "field" in the world.

Σ


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## yan_shams

Thank you, Scholiast. That's exactly how we would say it in Russian!

Thank you all who joined the discussion. I really appreciate your help.


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## metaphrastes

yan_shams said:


> Thank you, Scholiast. That's exactly how we would say it in Russian!


Well, thanks God the OP is answered  Now, _for what is worth,_ I have a (hopefully) educated guess about this agreement between Russian and Latin usages: the common lack of defined or undefined articles, whose usage defines if any articled noun means a specific or a generic stance of any thing or being.

I realized that because, when I made up the possible Portuguese usages, systematically I added the defined article - that is, assuming the phrase would refer a concrete, specif stance of a defined head's crest, or rib's head, or rib. Then, the last element, the rib, under a defined article, had to come in plural, not as a generic concept.

Now, to match the natural Russian usage and the Latin formula that Scholiast judged more plausible, Portuguese would demand changing from defined article to undefined. It should be something as that (remember that in Portuguese there are no cases' declination, than in general the preposition _de _has genitive force):
_as cristas _(a concrete instance, with defined article) _duma cabeça (duma=de+uma, _that is, preposition with genitive force + undefined article, _any generic head_) _de costela (preposition with genitive force, anarthrous, *without article*, denoting a generic, "abstract" rib). _Transposing that to English, it would go something as this: _the crests of a head of rib (of a rib's head). _The undefined article would not be repeated _(duma cabeça duma costela) _because _uma cabeça de costela _would make up a single generic, abstract entity, what the English contraction _a rib's head _might be a good parallel.
This is the only way a Latin language as Portuguese - however with articles and no more noun's declination - might render the same idea of a plural, concrete stance of a crest that is part of a generic concept of _a rib's head._
I hope this digression is forgivable within a Latin forum and may be of some use in discerning what is implied by having or not articles (as Russian and Latin haven't) and having or not noun's declination (as Portuguese haven't)


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## yan_shams

You are right, the Latin and Russian grammars are surprisingly similar (in some aspects). As you said, we have no articles. Moreover, we have the same number of cases (6) as in Latin and (what's interesting) the same names (Nom–Gen–Dat–Acc–Abl–Voc) and functions of cases. That's particularly interesting because Russian is not a Roman language as Portuguese, Italian and French are and all these languages do *have *articles and (I guess) have no cases. Very interesting topic. For some reason, I didn't think about it before. 

By the way, thank you for calling experts. If you didn't I wouldn't have been answered so quickly, I'm sure.  And thanks for interesting thoughts about our languages.


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## Scholiast

saluete omnes!



yan_shams said:


> (what's interesting) the same names (Nom–Gen–Dat–Acc–Abl–Voc) and functions of cases



This is not at all surprising, for two reasons. One is that when Russian grammar was first studied and codified (in the middle ages), it was done by scholars—many of them monks or missionaries—who were themselves steeped already in Latin and especially Greek grammar and its terminology.

Secondly, as Russian (along with the other Balto-Slavonic languages) is Indo-European, it shares with the other inflected languages of the I-E "extended family" much the same case-usage for substantives.

Σ


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## metaphrastes

yan_shams said:


> That's particularly interesting because Russian is not a Roman language as Portuguese, Italian and French are and all these languages do *have *articles and (I guess) have no cases.


Now, for what is worth, from what I know, Portuguese defined articles came from Latin demonstrative pronouns, as _illo - _however, I have not my sources available right now to expand on that and to give more details.
And yes, the only Romance language that has cases is Romanian, that is very interesting in this aspect, since it seems to be in an intermediate stage between a fully declined language as Latin and modern Romance languages, all of them having lost cases through time and having only a few remnants, specially in oblique pronouns.
Romanian has identical nominative and accusative forms - and this requires preposition's usage to mark the accusative, specially. And the genitive and the dative have also identical forms and, for this reason, there are a kind of preposition that marks the genitive - if context is clear enough, it may not be used but, for clarity's sake, it often is used.
There are somewhat obsolete or archaic vocative forms (which tend to disappear in modern written or spoken communication) interestingly enough, most often ended in _"e"_, as in Latin and Greek (and Russian also, by the way). Thus, the Greek vocative for _Kyrios _is _Kyrie, _as in _Kyrie eléison. _The Latin vocative for _Dominus _is _Domine, _if memory helps me. The Russian vocative for _Gospod' _is _Góspodi, _and does not use the _"e" _ending, but _Bog (God) _has the vocative _Bozhe_, and this happens in many other divine or biblical names, as well, as you know. My guess is that this _"e" _ending came from Greek influence through Saints Kyril and Methodius and his disciples, since this is seen mostly in biblical and liturgical language.
Now, Romanian has as vocative of _Domn (Dominus, Lord), Doámne _(being the diphthong _oa _a very common metaphony of stressed _"o" _and not determining the vocative at all, rather being determined by many cases of verbal or nominal inflection_). Dumnezeu _means _God _(and its roots would be _Dominus Deus/Zeus_, and in their phonology it is quite common some shifting between _z _and _d_). The vocative is _Dumnezeule. _For Christ, we have _Hristós, _and the vocative is _Hristoáse, _the stressed _"o" _suffering the same metaphony as in _Doámne._
Interestingly enough, their defined articles are postponed and agglutinated with their nouns. Then _Lord _is _Domn; the Lord _is _Domnul; of the Lord _is _Domnului_, being the genitive ending added after the article. This postponed defined article came, it seems, from some proto-Bulgarian influence but, phonetically, it is not too far from the defined articles used in Western Romance languages.
There is no ablative nor instrumental case and, in such cases, prepositions clarify their function with nouns in nominative form, so far I know and remember.
Thus, Romanian is a very singular in that it is, in some features, in a middle way between fully declined Latin and non-declined Western Romance languages. Maybe the influence of surrounding inflected languages (mostly the Slavic ones) helped to keep in them the awareness of the primitive Latin cases - however in lexical terms, the Slavic influence, although identifiable, is not part of the primitive substratum (Dacian-Thracian) nor Latin dominant superstratum.


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## metaphrastes

yan_shams said:


> Moreover, we have the same number of cases (6) as in Latin and (what's interesting) the same names (Nom–Gen–Dat–Acc–Abl–Voc) and functions of cases.


Well, I wonder because I learned the fifth Russian case as being called Instrumental and not Ablative. The other five cases agree substantially in function and usage both with Greek as well with Latin, however, when we come to Ablative or Instrumental functions, it seems me things no more match well. Greek dative is the standard case with instrumental power, as when one says _to baptize in (with, by) water _(in dative)_, _where Russian would have the Instrumental _vodoyu. _Latin Ablative, if memory helps me, may be used with an instrumental power, but it may be used with other functions, too, so far it is part of a circumstantial complement, able to be _ablated _from the phrase without it loosing its structure and essential meaning (and Instrumental character would be only one possible feature of ablative complements).

Might one actually establish an exact correspondence between Latin Ablative and Russian Instrumental cases (as we find in all remaining cases)?


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## Scholiast

saluete de nouo



metaphrastes said:


> Romanian is a very singular in that it is, in some features, in a middle way between fully declined Latin and non-declined Western Romance languages. Maybe the influence of surrounding inflected languages (mostly the Slavic ones) helped to keep in them the awareness of the primitive Latin cases



Of course this is right. "Fringe" communities are always more conservative in their linguistic habits than the metropolitan community: one of the things that commended Seneca (Elder) to polite society at Rome, though he came from Corduba, was precisely the fact that he spoke Latin more elegantly than those at the top in Rome.

There are nearer examples. In New Jersey, or New Hamphshire—or indeed New Zealand—spoken English is almost certainly far closer than what we hear on the streets of London nowadays to what Shαkespeare _noster_ heard, and wrote for.

Σ


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## Scholiast

saluete amici!



metaphrastes said:


> Might one actually establish an exact correspondence between Latin Ablative and Russian Instrumental cases (as we find in all remaining cases)?



I resurrect this thread because while looking for something else, I notice that metaphrastes' question (# 13) has gone unanswered.

My knowledge of Russian is poor, but I'm fairly sure the answer is "no". I don't believe, for instance, that the Russian Instrumental is used with anything like the range of prepositions that occur with the Latin ablative (_a/ab_, _e/ex_, _in_, _pro_, _sub_, _super_, to mention but a few), nor for expressions of time ("et resurrexit *tertia die*"), and if there is an absolute participial usage in Russian at all (I don't believe there is) corresponding with the Latin Abl. Abs., it would most likely be with the Genitive, under the influence of ecclesiastical Greek.

Σ


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