# I asked him if he was about to do that [Indirect question]



## Ricardinho

So in Latin class today I realized that there is a specific aspect of indirect questions I am not familiar with yet.

Now, if I said "quid fecisti", that's the direct question, "what did you do".   And the indirect question is of course "rogavi quid fecisset", or "I asked what he had done".  No problem there...

So, what I'm looking to know is, how would you say...in English, we might ask "are you about to do that"?  And the indirect question becomes "I asked him *if* he was about to do that".    Somehow, I very much doubt that the correct way to say that in Latin would be "rogavi si eum id facturum esset".   

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## CapnPrep

Ricardinho said:


> Somehow, I very much doubt that the correct way to say that in Latin would be "rogavi si eum id facturum esset".


Actually, it is possible to use _si_ for indirect yes/no questions in Latin, much as in modern Romance languages, but the subject of the subordinate clause should be nominative, not accusative.

Another way to construct the sentence is with _-ne_, just as in a direct yes/no question: _Rogavi (eum) id esset*ne* facturus_.


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## Scholiast

Greetings

With all (considerable) respect to CapnPrep's learning (who is perfectly correct to say that the subject within an indirect question must be nominative), his suggestions regarding the use of _si_ and the enclitic interrogative particle -_ne_ in indirect questions would not satisfy a captious schoolmaster (or scholiast).

These may indeed appear in some vulgar Latin. But classically correct is to use _num_:

Direct Qu.: _id facies_? ["Are you going to do that?"]

Indirect Qu.: _eum rogavi num id facturus esset_ ["I asked him whether he was going to do that"]

_eum rogavi num id facturus *sit*_ is also grammatically correct and semantically possible, but will be best translated "I *have* asked him whether he *is* going to do that").


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## CapnPrep

Scholiast said:


> These may indeed appear in some vulgar Latin. But classically correct is to use _num_:


_Num_ and _-ne_ are equally correct, just as they are in direct questions. It is indeed characteristic of the captious schoolmaster to arbitrarily declare the one to be classically correct and the other vulgar…  _Num_ loses its negative force in indirect questions, and this may explain its more widespread use in this context.

_Si_ was evidently the preferred form in colloquial language, but it does not necessarily follow that it was incorrect in classical prose. One can easily find examples from model authors (although perhaps not involving the verb _rogo_). I might understand the schoolmaster's unwillingness to teach this construction, but as usual the reality of the language appears to be more complex.


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## Scholiast

Greetings

CapnPrep has, as usual, a great weight of scholarship on his side when he declares



> _Si_ was evidently the preferred form in colloquial language



L&S, for example, supply several instances, mostly from Plautus and Terence. And the Romance legacy will confirm that _si_ = "whether" was a vulgar Latin formulation. The instances supplied from Cicero and Caesar, however, allow other syntactical construal, along the lines suggested in Gildersleeve & Lodge, §460.

Of course CapnPrep is right in this much: all grammar is an extrapolation from actual usage, and there will inevitably be some doubts and approximations. But for the purposes of the original enquiry (#1) I thought it best to offer the "schoolmasterly" explanation.


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## Ricardinho

Ah, nice, I was closer than I thought...change si to num and use nominative facturus...

Now, here's another thing.   If you ask someone "id facturus est?", that means, I presume, are you about to do it...compared to "id facies?", will you do it.   However, when you go to subjunctive "facturus esset" the ability to translate as "about to" is lost, correct?It becomes either will/would only?    I presume this because the professor explained to us today that when going to the imperfect subjunctive, the distinction between "faciebat" and "fecit" is lost, and  this seems to be a similar event.


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## Scholiast

Dear Ricardinho

This was precisely why I used, and suggested, the "going to" formulation for tackling the Latin future participle in Indirect Speech.

Latin permits both
_
id faciam_ - "I will/shall do this"

and

_id facturus sum_ - "I am going-to-do this"

"going-to-do" translates almost exactly the sense of the -_urus_ participles, both in Indirect Statement (_sperat se venturum esse_, "he hopes to come/that he is going to come") and in Indirect Questions (_nescit num venturus sit_, "He knows not whether he will come/is going to come").

For the purposes of an English native-speaker, treating the Future Participle as "going-to" will for most purposes do the trick, especially in regard to the Indirect questions. _nescio num quae omnia dixi intellecturus sis, sed valde spero. 
_
I do hope this is helpful


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## Ricardinho

Scholiast said:


> _nescio num quae omnia dixi intellecturus sis, sed valde spero.
> _



I'd say "of course" , but then I just realized they didn't teach us the ways how you can say yes...if you can say quidem by itself I'll go with that; otherwise..._intellexi quidem..._


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## Ricardinho

Just remembered this thread.  So, let's say I did say "Eum rogavi si id facturus esset", or indeed "_Rogavi (eum) id esset*ne* facturus_" and then I continued to say "but he said no/that he was not", would that be "et (is) negavit", " et is se negavit facturum(us??) esse"? Am I even close?  And is there another way to say it besides "negavit"?  Nego/negare being "deny" and that, at least in my English speaking mind, implying an interrogation rather than a simple question.


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