# quid agendum?



## DEIRDDRE

How do you translate this into English (or French, or Spanish, or German, or Italian)?


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## Whodunit

There's a typo in the word _aggendum_. It should be _agendum_.

The phrase means "What (is) to do?" in English. Here are the translations into the other languages you wanted to have it in:

French: _Quoi faire ?_
Spanish: _¿Qué hacer?_
German: _Was ist zu tun?_
Italian: _Che fare?_


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## DEIRDDRE

Thank you, merci, Danke, Gracias


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## VivaLaVita

agendum sin repentis magnum rethorica


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## veermer

Hi! "Quid agendum est" means in Italian " che cosa dobbiamo fare ?" i.e What do we have to do "?


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## Arrius

There is an implication of obligation in this gerund, so it means
*What does it behove us to do/ What ought we to do?/**What is to be done?* = Was liegt uns ob? (What is *there* to do? does not imply obligation).
The derived English word *agenda* is a neuter plural gerund in Latin meaning _those things which have to be done_, it is also the ordinary word for diary in French for the same reason.
I would say in French "_Que faire?",_and I think "_Was tun_?" may also be said in German besides "Was ist zu tun?", but I like the Spanish and Italian already given. By the way, there also exists the Spanish word _quehaceres, as DEIDDRE well knows,_ based on this with the meaning tasks/chores/duties.


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## Whodunit

veermer said:


> Hi! "Quid agendum est" means in Italian " che cosa dobbiamo fare ?" i.e What do we have to do "?


 
Not really. It literally means "What is to do?" The word _agendum_ is the gerundive of _agere_ where the copula _est_ was simply omitted to make it sound smoother. It is the neuter, because _quid_ is inherently treated like a neuter interrogative pronoun.

However, the meaning is the same as in "What do we have to do?" (Che cosa dobbiamo fare?)


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## VictaHeri

I personally think "À quoi faire" works really well, but I'm not a French expert.
In English, I would say
1) What is there to do?
2) What to do? (more idiomatic)
3) What will happen?
etc.
Ago is a very abstract word.  It might help if you can provide the context.
Hope this helps!


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## Arrius

VictaHeri said:


> I personally think "À quoi faire" works really well, but I'm not a French expert.
> In English, I would say
> 1) What is there to do?
> 2) What to do? (more idiomatic)
> 3) What will happen?
> etc.
> Ago is a very abstract word. It might help if you can provide the context.
> Hope this helps!


 
a) I think you had better consult a native French speaker about "à quoi faire?" - I have already made my suggestion, which I am quite happy with.
b) "What to do?" is possible, but does not mean the same as "What is there to do?" which might be what a tourist asks on arriving at a resort unfamiliar to him, or as a sorrowful statement about something undesirable that has already been done and that there is little hope of remedying.
"What will happen?" is a quite different idea from that required. *What is to be done*? implies necessity/compulsion as contained in the gerundive of the original Latin.
c)* Ago* (I act/ I do) could hardly be less abstract, and I think quite sufficient explanation has already been given to permit a good translation,
Salve tibi,
Arrius


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## VictaHeri

Arrius said:


> a) I think you had better consult a native French speaker about "à quoi faire?" - I have already made my suggestion, which I am quite happy with.
> b) "What to do?" is possible, but does not mean the same as "What is there to do?" which might be what a tourist asks on arriving at a resort unfamiliar to him, or as a sorrowful statement about something undesirable that has already been done and that there is little hope of remedying.
> "What will happen?" is a quite different idea from that required. *What is to be done*? implies necessity/compulsion as contained in the gerundive of the original Latin.
> c)* Ago* (I act/ I do) could hardly be less abstract, and I think quite sufficient explanation has already been given to permit a good translation,
> Salve tibi,
> Arrius


 
Yes, I know all of my suggestions have different senses, but I think the most important is the necessity of _doing _something-- the future gerundive implies obligation...
Although it is possible to translate the expression out of context, I usually prefer to translate _ago_ in a slightly more concrete sense for the modern English speaker...


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## virgilio

"Quid agendum est" is an elliptical expression in which, strictly speaking, a dative case should be present. 
e.g.
quid est mihi agendum? _What have I (got) to do?
Latin makes a distinction between two senses of "to have":
(1) "habere" indicates possession and ownership
(2) "esse" + dative of person advantaged or disadvantaged" indicates that something is available for the dative substantive to use but not to own.
Consequently,
equum habeo = I own a horse.
est mihi equus = "there is a horse for me" - "I have the use of a horse (but it's not mine)"

When a nominative substantive is qualified by a present passive participle, the two intimately combine to form a 'gerundive' idea (as is normal with oblique examples of such expressions) and, when used as the subject of a type (2) "have" expression above, the gerundive expression indicates an obligation which the dative "has".
This may be seen by comparing two sentences such as:
(a) est mihi _equus_ - I have a horse (at my disposal)
(b) est mihi _equus emendus -  _I have a horse-buying job (on my hands)

Gerundive expressions indicate obligation only when they are treated as subjects of verbs.

Virgilio


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## Arrius

*Gerundive expressions indicate obligation only when they are treated as subjects of verbs. (Virgilio)*

Surely when Cato made his famous pronouncement *Delenda est Carthago* to the Roman Senate in 150 B.C. (carefully avoiding any dative pronoun such as _mihi, nobis, or vobis,_ as crafty politicians are wont to do to avoid committing themselves), Carthago, in the nominative, seems to have been the subject of this brief sentence meaning "_Carthage must be_ _destroyed_".

*est mihi equus - I have a horse (at my disposal)* (idem)

*uxor est mihi* (I have a wife) does not refer to a one night stand: it is a question of _property_, literally in the early days of Rome, when it was legal to kill your wife, a mere chattel, if a man so wished .
Arrius ;D


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## virgilio

Arrius,
        Thank you for your interesting reply:
Re:"Surely when Cato made his famous pronouncement *Delenda est Carthago* to the Roman Senate in 150 B.C. (carefully avoiding any dative pronoun such as _mihi, nobis, or vobis,_ as crafty politicians are wont to do to avoid committing themselves), Carthago, in the nominative, seems to have been the subject of this brief sentence meaning "_Carthage must be_ _destroyed_"."
          The question you put is unanswerable except on a purely personal level. Did a native Latin-speaker hearing Cato's words unconsciously take the subject of "est" as being just the noun  "Carthago" or the whole gerundive phrase "Carthago delenda"? How can such a thing be known? It's like asking where in the English sentence "Carthage is to be destroyed" the paraphrased infinitive  "to be destoyed" gets its feeling of obligation from. or like asking, when you say "I have bought a car", whether you are thinking of the participle "bought" as describing "car" or as a kind of add-on 'pseudo-verb'.
Such questions are too intimately personal to be subjected to rules and it would, I suggest, be not only pointless but also intrusive to attempt to do so. That does not, however, preclude the grammarian from seeking to explain the underlying syntax mechanism.
There is plainly nothing in Latin phrases involving the present passive participles  (the so-called 'gerundive phrase')in themselves which automatically or inherently involves the idea of obligation:
e.g.
capta urbe cives legatos ad Caesarem pacis petendae causa miserunt

The gerundive phrase here plainly expresses intention but any idea of obligation is a non-starter.
The same is true of any gerundive phrase in one of the 'cases' (_aka_ the 'oblique cases'). It is only when the gerundive phrase is the subject of some verb or verbal element that the idea of obligation arises.
The explanation which I offered in my last post was an attempt to link another well documented use of "esse+ dative" with this idea of "having" something to do. 
 As for "uxor est mihi" and your explanation thereof, if it was as you say, it seems to argue my case quite eloquently. A chattel is something which is at your disposal to use; if you happen also to own it, that may be a bonus but is not germane to the issue. I was not seeking to imply that you could not also own the thing you were using but that an "esse + dative" phrase was talking particularly about its availability for use.
Perhaps I did not make that clear.
For some reason a line of Latin verse occurs to me in this connexion - though, I must admit, rather obliquely. Can't just remember which poet. Could it be Lucretius?:
         vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu
 "and life is granted to no-one freehold, to everyone leasehold"
I wonder what the civil rights crowd would make of that?

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> "Quid agendum est" is an elliptical expression in which, strictly speaking, a dative case should be present.


 
To my mind, that's not entirely correct. The phrase _Quid agendum?_ is defintely an elliptic phrase like English _What to do_?, but _Quid agendum *est*?_ is not elliptic, in my opinion. The sentence is grammatical and we have a subject (_quid_) and a predicate (_est_), and then sentence is comparable to German _Was ist zu tun? _(= What is to do?), which is possible to translate the gerundive literally: _Hoc mihi transferendum est_ = _Das ist mir zu übersetzen_, however, as you might know, such a sentence would never really be said.


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             How interesting that you should consider "est" the 'predicate'! It is, I think, a little disingenuous to speak of a "predicate" when the sentence is a question. However, leaving that aside for now, the verb "esse" - except in the very rare cases in which it has been used in the sense of "to exist" - is, like its modern European counterparts,  an 'empty' verb. It has no meaning of its own but its function is simply to provide a verbal interface for adjectives.
In some languages - as you will know - it is completely bypassed. In Japanese for example many adjectives have their own tenses and positive and negative forms, obviating the necessity for such a verb.
By the way, a word of warning with regard to "_Was ist zu tun? _(= What is to do?)" In the north of England the expression "What's to do?" usually means "What's the matter?" or "What's wrong (with you)?" - more like "Was ist los?" or "Was fehlt's?"
I can't imagine why either "hoc mihi transferendum est" or "Das ist mir zu übersetzen" "would never really be said".
Perhaps you might care to tell me.

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Anne345

French: usually "Que faire ?" eventually "Quoi faire ? 
"À quoi faire" is incorrect. 

Gerundives are verbal adjectives (In french  gerundive is called "adjectif verbal")
Usually an adjdective is not a subject ! 
A gerundive expresses an idea of obligation when it is used with esse, when it is an attribute, as in  "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse" (lit. "I also think Carthage to be destroyed is," i.e. "I also think Carthage must be destroyed").


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> Whodunit,
> How interesting that you should consider "est" the 'predicate'! It is, I think, a little disingenuous to speak of a "predicate" when the sentence is a question. However, leaving that aside for now, the verb "esse" - except in the very rare cases in which it has been used in the sense of "to exist" - is, like its modern European counterparts, an 'empty' verb. It has no meaning of its own but its function is simply to provide a verbal interface for adjectives.


 
I'm sorry. I have to concede that I explained it a bit wrongly. What I meant by predicate was that the construction _agendum est_ is a complete predicate, the _est_ is just the copula and _agendum_ is the gerundive. Together they form the _gerundive with esse_.

What you mean by _"a little disingenuous to speak of a "predicate" when the sentence is a question"_ remains mysterious to be. By _the sentence_, are you referring to that particular sentence in question (quid agendum est?) or a sentence in general? If it is the latter, I don't agree with you, because the existence of a predicate has obviously nothing to do with whether we're dealing with a question, exclamation or declarative sentence.



> In some languages - as you will know - it is completely bypassed. In Japanese for example many adjectives have their own tenses and positive and negative forms, obviating the necessity for such a verb.


 
Yes, that's true. Nevertheless, Japanese has the copula です (desu) meaning "to be". It is not conjugated, though: 私/あなた/彼/...はフダニト*です*。



> By the way, a word of warning with regard to "_Was ist zu tun? _(= What is to do?)" In the north of England the expression "What's to do?" usually means "What's the matter?" or "What's wrong (with you)?" - more like "Was ist los?" or "Was fehlt's?"


 
Interesting. I didn't know that. 



> I can't imagine why either "hoc mihi transferendum est" or "Das ist mir zu übersetzen" "would never really be said".


 
_Hoc mihi transferendum est_ is very common a sentence in Latin, but not the literal translation into German: _Das ist mir zu übersetzen_. The dative case in such cases sounds quiet archaic. We would prefer something like _Ich muss das übersetzen_. By the way, do you think that the French _Il me faut le traduire_ is some kind of the Latin gerundive with esse expressing obligation?


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## virgilio

Whodunit,
             Thank you for your interesting reply. I was a bit puzzled by your assertion that "the existence of a predicate has obviously nothing to do with whether we're dealing with a question, exclamation or declarative sentence".
  In diesem Zusammenhang könnte es dich interessieren, das Zeitwort "praedicare" im Wörterbuch nachzuschlagen, um die Bedeutung von "predicate" ein wenig näher auf die Ursprache abzustimmen.

(Mache ich Fehler, korrigiere, bitte!)

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Whodunit

virgilio said:


> In diesem Zusammenhang könnte es dich interessieren, das Zeitwort "praedicare" im Wörterbuch nachzuschlagen, um die Bedeutung von "predicate" ein wenig näher auf die Ursprache abzustimmen.
> 
> (Mache ich Fehler, korrigiere sie bitte!) Der obige Satz enthält keine Fehler , aber ich bin mir nicht ganz sicher, was du mit dem letzten Teil meinst. Etwas wie _um die Bedeutung von "praedicare" ein wenig besser zu verstehen_?
> 
> Best wishes
> Virgilio


 
Let's keep this discussion in English, though, in order not to scare off other members who'd like to contribute to it. The word _praedicare_, in my opinion, means _to announce_, so _Prädicat/predicate_ means _he/she/it announces_, doesn't it? Nevertheless, the word _predicate_ is what needs to be announced in order to make a sentence complete:

I like her. (> like her)
She dances with her dad. (> dances [with her dad])
Have you already met him? (> have met him)
Will you be having something to drink? (> will be having something to drink)

It is a verb plus the obligatory addition without which the verb would be meaningless. I'm not sure about the second sentence, because _with her dad_ could be left out without making the sentence nonsense.

Let me sum it up: The predicate can consist of the conjugated verb + additional verbs (being an infinitive, gerund, or participle in modern European languages) + additional requirements. Only the first part is necessary for some verbs.


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## Flaminius

whodunit said:
			
		

> Yes, that's true. Nevertheless, Japanese has the copula です (desu) meaning "to be". It is not conjugated, though: 私/あなた/彼/...はフダニト*です*。


I am increasingly getting unsure if we can safely call です a copula but it is conjugated;
kare-wa gakusē deshita.
he-TOPIC student copulaPast
He was a student.
Any further discussion on this point is welcome; but in JP. 


I think I share a common view with virgilio and others in arguing that gerundive is primarily a verb-like adjective and that the passive debitive (should be V-ed) sense developed later.  An example I have in mind is _secundus_, _-a_, _-um_, which is the gerundive of _sequor_.  It is just an adjective with "verbish" sense; following.  There is no element of _should_ here.



			
				virgilio said:
			
		

> The question you put is unanswerable except on a purely personal level.





> Gerundive expressions indicate obligation only when they are treated as subjects of verbs.


I find, however, myself in disagreement with you here.  Constructions such as "delenda est Carthago" consist of a subject, a predicative adjective and a copula.  And I think I can find evidence outside a personal level.

One may read the following in an old mathematics thesis;
a^2 + b^2 = c^2 on a  						rectangular triangle,
quod erat demonstrandum
[which was to be demonstrated]

The antecedent that _quod_ refers back to is the equation; not _demonstrandum_ or equation + _demonstrandum_.  If one word can be replaced by a relative word while the other is not, I take it evidence that the two belong to different sentential components.

For "[equation] erat demonstrandum,"
[equation] is the subject and _erat demonstrandum_ is the predicate.


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## virgilio

Flaminius,
            Re the "gerundive". It's a pity that this adjective has come to attach itself only to the present passive participle and not to the 'substantive+ participle' phrase, of which it is a perfect epithet. 
The problem in such cases is that we 21st century modern folk make the mistake of assuming that our own 'handle' on the matter is the most likely way the ancients thought about it too. This is not, Flaminius, in any way a criticism of you but just a largely unrecognised assumption that we all tend to make. 
That's why I wrote earlier that the question was unanswerable because to answer it would mean trying to pry into the personal ways of thinking of folk long dead. Not only impossible but positively unseemly too!
  I think your mathematical QED idea was a real attempt to 'universalise' the thing but - as your translation of the sentence demonstrated - the modern mind becomes immediately apparent.
In Latin - as you know - "quod" was frequently used in place of its demonstrative correlative "id" and "id erat demonstrandum" takes us unfortunately no further forward than "quid erat agendum".
My own view is that a dative is *always* implied with such expressions even when it is not stated. Examples of similar unstated implications in languages are legion. If you imagine such a dative, you are no longer 'chained' to assuming that the obligation-idea is somehow contained within the present passive participle but is a function of the _gerundive phrase_ attended by an adverbial dative.
Best wishes
Virgilio


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## FXSI

Concuerdo con Flaminius (si lo bieninterpreté):

'Quid agendum?' omite el obvio 'est' ('sit', si se tratase de discurso indirecto), y 'quid agendum est' significa literalmente 'qué es aquello que debe ser actuado [hecho, realizado, llevado a cabo,..]'.

El sujeto es 'agendum', gerundivo empleado como sustantivo, y en la frase en nominativo.  El verbo copulativo o atrubitivo 'est' le atribuye el predicado nominal 'quid' (en el caso, pronominal interrogativo), por supuesto, en nominativo. La respuesta conserva el sujeto: 'hoc est agendum' _(what is to be done, is that)_.

En México decimos (y con mucha frecuencia) '¿qué hay que hacer?', en el sentilo literal de 'aquello que hay que hacer es ¿qué?' (donde el sujeto es 'aquello que hay que hacer' y el predicado, '¿qué?'); como es obvio por la esperada respuesta: 'Lo que hay que hacer es esto', abreviada comúnmente en 'esto'.

Bueno..: Así interpreto yo las funciones gramaticales de las dos palabras titulares; pero, obvio, sin autoridad alguna 'imponenda'.

En cuanto al dativo implícito ('mihi', 'nobis', 'alicui'), sujeto agente del gerundivo, creo se omite intencionalmente, para evitar un 'responsable' de cumplir la obligación, aunque (en Sonora) la frase castellana citada, común, viene a equivaler a "¿qué deseas que haga?", "¿qué me invitas a hacer?", "¿en qué quieres (o quieren [ustedes]) que coopere?".

'Auf wiederschreiben'


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## virgilio

FXSI,
       Gracias por su explicación. Déje que yo proponga una traducción alternativa de "quid agendum est ((sit) - según)?" En vez de "'qué es aquello que debe ser actuado [hecho, realizado, llevado a cabo,..]'. sugiero "qué es aquello que verdea en medio de la savana" (no..no., pido perdón, es que yo estaba pensando a una canción mejicana que me gusta) Perdón!
Yo sugiero "qué es aquello che uno debe actuar (hacer, realizar, llevar a cabo)"
Me parece que usted talvez se haya olvidado del dativo que siempre va implicado con estas frases gerundivas. Y porqué se omitería "intencionalmente" mención del responsable en casos semejantes?
Una cosita más: si la persona referida por el dativo fuera de veras "sujeto agente del gerundivo", la frase perdería toda su fuerza obligatoria, porqué el "agente" parece ya estar cumpliendo su deber.
Me parece que usted emplee aquí la palabra "sujeto" en el senso de "tipo" o "hombre", como el italiano "tizio".

Viva el mariachi!
Virgilio


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## Flaminius

The discussion so far has raised two major questions:
What are the conditions for a gerundive to have a sense of obligation?
What rôle does _agendum_ play in sentence, "quid [est] agendum"?
*Virgilio* has expressed his position on the first question that "[g]erundive expressions indicate obligation only when they are treated as subjects of verbs."  It then follows that _agendum_ in the second question is the sentential subject.

My objection to this understanding is that _agendum_ is not the subject but the predicate of the sentence under analysis.  As *Anne345* has mentioned, adjectives are seldom subjects.  The gerundive in this debitive construction is clearly an adjective since its ending is affected by the noun.  Compare the following two;
delenda est Carthago.
delendae sunt Athenae.

Even if the gerundive is an adjective, it is theoretically possible that the adjective modifies the noun and constitutes the sentential subject together with the noun.  My last post (#20) was a rebuttal against this take.  If the subject is to be replaced by a relative or  interrogative pronoun, the whole subject should go; not one component thereof.  Since we find _agendum_ remaining after the formation of a question sentence "quid est agendum," we can assume that _quid_ and _agendum_ are different components; the former is the subject and the latter the predicate (or part of the predicate "est agendum"), of the sentence.

I think Virgilio and I are in agreement in seeing the importance of the "dative subject" for this construction.  In usual Latin sentences, the semantic subject (as opposed to morphological subject, marked by nominative) is expressed by ablative.  The semantic subject, or the one who is obliged to perform the action, of "epistula scribenda est" is expressed by dative; E.g., epistula mihi (*me) scribenda est.

The dative subject enables us to compare debitive gerundive with deponent verbs.
sentendia tua mihi placent.
epistula mihi scribenda est.
Nominative nouns are the target of emotion or judgement expressed by the predicates.  I.e., I have pleasant feeling for your opinions.  A letter needs to be written.  The dative subjects are the agents of the predicates.

Finally, the conditions for a gerundive to have a sense of obligation are very difficult to set forth.  Some of the sentences I have considered are below:
Petreius cum paucis equitibus occulte ad exploranda loca proficiscitur.
de inferenda quidem injuria satis dictum est.
hostis Antonius judicatus Italia cesserat; spes restituendi nulla erat.

The nuance ranges from purpose, obligation to prospect.  The effect of the prepositions involved cannot be overlooked.  But at least they are not just passive participles.


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## virgilio

Flaminius,
             Wow!  Quite a "tour de force"! I find unfortunately a few problems in what you have written. First may I disagree on a point of logic:
You write:
"*Virgilio* has expressed his position on the first question that "[g]erundive expressions indicate obligation only when they are treated as subjects of verbs." It then follows that _agendum_ in the second question is the sentential subject."
Not so.  My point was that, as I understand the phrase "quid agendum", neither is the subject while the other is predicate but rather the whole phrase "quid agendum" is the subject (in the grammatical sense of that term _i.e._ nominative) and that "est" means not so much "is" as "there is".
The commonly used adjective "gerundive" only makes any sense when applied to a phrase (substantive +participle) which taken as a whole has a "gerund" force.
Consequently, for example, in English we can see a "gerundive" phrase (for what that adjective is worth!) in:
I am sick and tired of that woman gossiping

What makes me sick and tired is not the woman herself but her "gossiping"

In English it can't be conclusively proven but for me the word "gossiping" in such sentences is a present active participle - even though it is clear that present participles have all _derived_ from gerunds. 

You further write: "As *Anne345* has mentioned, adjectives are seldom subjects."
I would go further still: adjectives are never subjects. They are as incapable of the feat as your shadow would be of stealing your wallet. Without you (and the sun, of course) your shadow does not exist. Similarly the only way an adjective can get to be nominative is to attach itself to a noun while that noun is combining with a verb to produce a sentence.

As for: "I think Virgilio and I are in agreement in seeing the importance of the "dative subject" for this construction. In usual Latin sentences, the semantic subject (as opposed to morphological subject, marked by nominative) is expressed by ablative."

I'm afraid you've lost me completely there! With respect I deny that any datives can be 'subjects' of any verb and your assertion that 'semantic subjects' in Latin are normally ablative persuades me that by "subject" you mean something quite different from what I mean.
I know enough Greek to know that "semantic" means "to do with meaning" and that "morphological" means "to do with form" so presumably you are aware of a large - and indeed representative - number of instances in Latin in which the writer chose to adverbialise the subject he "meant" by making it ablative, while artfully using another nominative substantive as a kind of 'decoy'.
Well, such a 'counterpoint'  is not without precedents in verse rhythms for example but I would be grateful for a dozen or so examples of such apparently perverse practical jokes from the writings of actual Latin authors.
No links, please! Just quotations, if possible also with details of author, work, chapter and verse. I feel as if I've been reading Latin for several decades with my eyes shut!

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## FXSI

Un saludo, Virgilio.

Te agradezco tu anotación acerca del 'sujeto agente del gerundivo'.  Es claro que 'sujeto' no es aquí 'sujeto gramatical', sino 'sujeto real'; en el caso, adecuadamente equivalente a 'actor' o simplemente 'agente'...

Aunque, como bien dices, no tan 'agente', pues, si está actuando, ya está realizando aquello a lo que parecería se le pretende obligar.

Creo son consecuencias de nuestro querer analizar el lenguaje, en que toparemos con dificultades similares al anatomista que pretenda analizar algo vivo.., aun con riesgo de matarlo.

Lo bueno es que el pueblo, único dueño y señor del lenguaje, seguirá hablando y comunicándose, como pueda y como quiera, digamos lo que digamos quienes nos entretenemos con asuntos gramaticales como éstos.


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## virgilio

FXSI,
Gracias por su respuesta.  En lo que a sujetos gramaticales y sujetos reales se refiere yo diría que la diferencia que se muestre entre los dos se muestra tan solo a los que han ya comprendido la frase en que se encuentran y ya saben como se la expresaría en su propia lengua moderna. Me parece que el términe "sujeto real" no sea más que el tratar de imponer un modo de pensar local y moderno sobre un idioma paneuropeo y anciano - en otras palabras de racionalizar de premessas particulares a una regla general.
 Por eso yo no reconozco sujetos "semanticos" ni sujetos "reales". Para mí un sujeto ha de ser nominativo y en verdad prefiero el términe "nominativo", porque "sujeto" en castellano - así como "subject" en inglés - ha una conotación demasiado larga para servir a los gramáticos.
Pido perdón por mis conocimientos algo raquíticos del castellano.

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## FXSI

Te agradezco, Virgilio, tu comentario, que me ha ayudado a pensar; y estoy completamente de acuerdo con lo que creo en él expresas:

Creo que el señalar 'sujetos reales' depende de la cultura desde la que te comprendes a ti mismo; y el hablar de 'nominativo' es algo propio, sí, del llamado 'indoeuropeo' (y de sus descendientes), pero no necesariamente de cualquier lenguaje humano.

Me ayudaste, pues, no poco con tu aporte, y nada batallé para entender tu castellano.  Te comunico, en agradecimiento, mi persuasión de que tu "premessas" en mi idioma vernáculo es propiamente 'premisas'.


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## virgilio

FXSI,
       Te agradezco mucho tu respuesta y  tu corrección de "premisas".  Es que desde hace varios meses ya vengo hablando mucho italiano y poco castellano. A veces las palabras me salen de la boca metá castellanas metá italianas!.
Hai visto acaso la pelicula italiana "Non Ci Resta Che Piangere"?  Los dos protagonistas (Massimo Troisi y Roberto Benigni - actores excelentes) se encuentran en una escena en Espana senza saber hablar el castellano y juzgan mejor anadir a la terminación de cada palabra italiana una "s".
por ejemplo
"siamos spagnolos"
Quando me pongo a hablar (o escribir) el castellano después de un largo contacto con el italiano, yo me siento quasi como uno de ellos.

Una película excelente!

With best wishes
Virgilio


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