INDIRECT STATEMENTS

 

Ok, so one of the keys to recognizing and translating indirect statements is to know how to recognize infinitives.

Most Latin verbs have six infinitives.  Infinitives have tense and voice.  So they dictate when the action happens and to whom it happens.

Now I like to put my infinitives in a chart like this:'Say your verb is capio, capere, cepi, captumACTIVE PASSIVE

PRESENT this one is the second principal part of every verb.

capere

this one is STILL the second principal part, but you drop the -re and add the -i if it is first, second or fourth conjugations.  take off the whole -ere if it is third or third -io. capi

PERFECT This one is the third principal part + the suffix -isse

cepisse

This one is the fourth principal part. captus esse

FUTURE This one is your future active participle plus esse

capturus esse

This one is your perfect passive participle plus iri

captum iri

 

Now, let's look more closely at infinitives, two at a time.

Present ActivePresent Passive

Present Active Infinitives are the second principal parts of the verb. They end exclusively in -re and are translated as "to ______"   

first conjugation:   laudare  to praisesecond conjugation:   monEre  to warnthird conjugation:  ducere  to leadfourth conjugation:  audire  to  hearthird -io's  conjugation:  capere   to take

Now if we take these and make them passive:

Present Passive Infinitives:

You use the Present Active to form these.  But how you do it depends on the conjugation of the verb:PRESENT ACTIVE INFINITIVESfirst conjugation:   laudare  to praisesecond conjugation:   monEre  to warnthird conjugation:  ducere  to leadfourth conjugation:  audire  to  hearthird -io's  conjugation:  capere   to take PRESENT PASSIVE INFINITIVESfirst conjugation:   laudari  to be praisedsecond conjugation:   monEri  to be warnedthird conjugation:  duci  to be ledfourth conjugation:  audiri  to be  heardthird -io's  conjugation:  capi   to be taken  

PRESENT PASSIVE INFINITIVESfirst conjugation:   laudari  to be praisedsecond conjugation:   monEri  to be warnedthird conjugation:  duci  to be ledfourth conjugation:  audiri  to be  heardthird -io's  conjugation:  capi   to be taken  So you see, you take the present active infinitive and for FIRST, SECOND, and FOURTH, you drop only the last -e and add an -i to the end. For THIRD and THIRD IO, you drop the whole -ere and then add the -i.

Perfect Active Infinitives:

take the third principal part of the verb and add -sse

so laudavi becomes laudavissemonui becomes monuisseduxi becomes duxisseaudivi becomes audivissecepi becomes cepisse

This works for any THIRD principal part.

These infinitives are translated as "to have _____"

to have praised, to have warned, to have led, to have heard, to have taken.

Perfect Passive Infinitives

You really don't even have to FORM these.  You just take the fourth principal part and add esse.

So you get this:

laudatus esse   to have been praisedmonitus esse  to have been warnedductus esse  to have been ledauditus esse  to have been heardcaptus esse   to have been taken Notice that with these, the first part ends in -us.  It's actually -us, -a, -um, and the endings will change depending on the subject of the infinitive in indirect statements

We are not going to do the Future Passive Participle, but the Future Active you DO need to know. 

These are easy.

Take your fourth principal part:

laudatusmonitusductusaudituscaptus

take off the -us and add -urus

laudaturus, moniturus, ducturus, auditurus, capturus

Future Active Infinitives (continued)

after you add the -urus, you add esse, so what you wind up with is:

laudaturus essemoniturus esseducturus esseauditurus essecapturus esse

Like the perfect passive infinitives, these -us endings will change in indirect statement to reflect the subject of the indirect statement.   They are actually -us, -a, -um endings.

Now that you have seen how to form infinitives, look at these and determine what kind they are  (I am using vocab from Units 8, 9  here).

celebrare

accepturus esse

accipi

repudiavisse

victus esse

vincere

celebratus esse

Now that you have looked at some infinitives, let's actually talk about Indirect Statement:• this grammatical construction is used OFTEN in Latin

and is very important• we use it all the time in English.• Indirect Statement is a way of conveying reported

speech--telling how someone thinks or feels or what they have said without directly quoting that person.

• The elements of an Indirect Statement in Latin are o a verb of thinking, feeling or saying (head verb0o an accusative nouno an infinitive  (see, that's why you need to know how

to recognize them)• An Indirect Statement is a dependent clause. It cannot

be a sentence by itself.  

Let's look at some Indirect Statements in English:

Caesar said that all the books had been hidden.

In this statement, there are two parts:

The MAIN CLAUSE (containing the head verb and its subject)  and the DEPENDENT CLAUSE (containing the indirect statement)

Mother thinks that father is in the city today.The new queen said that the king has too many soldiers.Magistra thinks that the entire class ought to be praised 

Note how a phrase like "that all the books had been hidden" is NOT a complete sentence.

All of those phrases in pink are indirect statements, but like sentences, all of them have subjects and verbs.

"that all the books had been hidden"

The BOOKS are the subject, and "had been hidden" is the VERB, but these are in an indirect statement, so they don't operate like subjects and verbs normally do.

Where are the subject and verb in "that the king has too many soldiers?"

Let's look at those indirect statements again:

Caesar said that all the books had been hidden.Mother thinks that father is in the city today.The new queen said that the king has too many soldiers.Magistra thinks that the entire class ought to be praised Now, all of these indirect statements have both a verb and a subject in them.  Notice we aren't at all discussing the main clauses (in blue).   Above you will find the subject of each indirect statement UNDERLINED and the verb in ITALICS.  

Lets move them to the next slide and start talking about Latin:

Caesar said that all the books had been hidden.Mother thinks that father is in the city today.The new queen said that the king has too many soldiers.Magistra thinks that the entire class ought to be praised Now that we have looked at how indirect statements are dependent clauses, found that they have both subjects and verbs, it's time to talk about Latin. The SUBJECTS of indirect discourse (which are underlined above) go in the ACCUSATIVE case in Latin. The VERBS  (which are in italics above)  will be INFINITIVES in Latin.  

Let's start off with a very simple sentence containing Indirect Statement. Mother thinks that you like her.The MAIN CLAUSE is "mother thinks"The Indirect Statement is "that you like her"The head verb is "thinks"The subject of the Indirect Statment is "you"and the VERB in the Indirect Statement is "like". So if we start putting it in Latin, we get Mater putat   "mother thinks"te "you"  (te is accusative because the subject of the ind. statement is accusative in Latin)amare  "like"  (the verb is an infinitive, because it is a verb in indirect statement)    

So what you get is

Mother thinks that you like her

Mater putat te eam amare.

Mater =  subject of main clauseputat =  head verb in main clausete  = accusative subject of indirect discourseeam =  direct object of infinitiveamare =  verb in indirect discourse

Let's look at another one:

The king said that the queen was in the palace.

The MAIN CLAUSE is "the king said"The INDIRECT STATEMENT IS "that the queen was in the palace"The head verb is "said"The subject of the indirect statement is "the queen"The verb of the indirect statement is "was""in the palace" is just a prepositional phrase and should be treated normally.

Let's put it in Latin on the next slide:

The king said the queen was in the palace.

The king said:   rex dixitthe queen :   reginam  (it's accusative because it's the subject of the indirect statement)

was:  esse (it's an infinitive because it's the verb in the indirect statement)

in the palace:   in aula.   (it's normal, because it's just a prepositional phrase)

rex dixit reginam in aula esse.

sequence of tenses:

Sequence of tenses CAN be confusing, but really, all it does is show time relationships.

Think of it this way:  we have already established that in indirect statements there is a main clause that has a verb.  And you already know that there is a verb in the indirect statement.  So you  have TWO verbs(one of which is the infinitive in the indirect statement)

And you know verbs have tense and so do infinitives.  So sequence of tenses is how the time relationship works between that head verb in the main clause and the infinitive in indirect statement.

Let's look at our two examples:

Mother thinks that you like herNow look at this sentence:   is the "thinking" happening at the same time as the "liking"?   It is happening at the same time.

When you have this--main verb and infinitive happen at the same time--the infinitive HAS to be present tense.

Mater putat te eam amare.   (this is why we used a present infinitive for amare)

Now, let's say we changed the tense of putat to a past tense:

Mater putavit te eam amare =  Mother thought that you liked her.

See?  the liking and thinking happens at the same time because we used a present tense infinitive.

Remember this rule:

Regardless of the tense of the main verb, • present infinitives indicate action at the same time as

the main verb• perfect infinitives indicate action BEFORE the main

verb• future infinitives indicate action AFTER the main verb.

 Compare:

Mater putat te eam amare.Mater putat te eam amavisse.Mater putat te eam amaturum esse.

Notice in the three examples above, the main verb is the SAME.  I changed the tense of the infinitive.  Go to the next slide to see how these translate:

Mater putat te eam amare.  Mother thinks you like her  (the thinking and liking happen at the same time because the infinitive is present tense.

Mater putat te eam amavisse.  Mother thinks you liked her.  (the liking happens BEFORE the thinking because the infinitive is perfect tense)

Mater putat te eam amaturum esse.  Mother thinks you will like her.  (the liking happens after the thinking because the infinitive is future tense)

This is sequence of tenses!

Let's look at sequence of tenses with the other sentence:

The king said the queen was in the palace.Now, for this one, the queen was in the palace at the SAME time the king said it.  So we used a present infinitive.

Rex dixit reginam in aula esse.  (see, esse is present)

If we change the infintives:rex dixit reginam in aula fuisse.Now we have a perfect tense infinitive, so the queen has to be in the palace BEFORE the king says it.The king said the queen had been in the palace.

rex dixit reginam in aula futuram esse.The king said the queen would be in the palace.

Now, in just 26 short slides I have given you the information necessary to figure out indirect statements.

You can apply this to your exercises in Unit IX.  

Keep in mind that if you rush, and you don't figure out what is accusative or what kind of infinitive you have, you will probably not get the questions right.

More questions?  Ask me!