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This is a page where you can post your observations/reflections/questions on sight reading.
NOTE: We just had the first session of “Afternoons with Caesar and Cicero.” My goal is selfish: to bring you to the level that will make you my partners in sight reading.
ANOTHER NOTE: Sight reading is the ability to read an unseen text with relative ease, not being able to read a text you’ve worked on before. I am interested in your approaches to the unseen text. I’ll share mine, too.
Yesterday’s session gave me much to think about as to the logic behind the grammar and to the usefulness of being able to use logic to explain grammar!
Yes, indeed! Scott’s question was a provocative one: why would it be necessary to know what kind of genitive you have in, say, supplicii causa, if your goal is just to read Latin? Or rather, what kind of reflection led to the meticulous differentiation that we find in grammar books? Why would anyone bother to distinguish between inalienable and alienable possession (as in “Janet’s existence” vs. “”Janet’s purse”)? What good does it do to reflect while reading? (OK, I am tendentious.)
The genitive qualifies and limits the noun to which it is attached. What exactly does this mean? I actually would like to hear from you first, but because no one has said anything yet, let me start in a roundabout fashion.
“Come to the house.” This is a very general invitation which is bound to provoke questions from your invitee, unless you and s/he have already discussed the house in question. “What house do you have in mind?”
To answer those questions, you have to provide a more specific idea of “house.” You may say that the house is the red-bricked one, or that it is your house, or Jeff’s. By linking the concept of “house” to red bricks or owner, you make it more specific. The specifying linkage can happen in a variety of other ways, too: it is the house on the left, or the house where we last met. Or, it is *not* the house I built with my own bare hands. In all cases, you will be relating the very general concept of “house” to something else. And in many cases, your invitee’s lack of understanding will force you into piling up more linkages, because they describe in more concrete terms the otherwise general concept.
Let’s talk now specifically of linkages through genitive. In English, where there are no cases, there is a remnant of genitive which grammars describe as “possessive”: an example would be “Jeff’s house.” When you first begin to study Latin, this is usually the first use of the Latin genitive you learn. But what does it mean to possess? Jeff may only be renting the house in question, so the use of the apostrophe must serve some other purpose. And what about “Jeff’s parents”? One surely doesn’t “possess” his or her parents!
Or “Jeff’s name” – in what sense does Jeff has ownership over his name?
Here are some examples of possessive genitive listed in E.C. Woodcock’s (possessive!) very thoughtful analysis of Latin syntax (“A New Latin Syntax,” Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, ISBN 0-86516-126-7). All can be found on p.52 of the book; the translations are his.
domus Ciceronis (Cicero’s house)
Hasdrubal Gisgonis (Hasdrubal [son] of Gisgo)
coniuratio Catilinae (Catiline’s conspiracy)
belli pericula (the dangers of war)
hominis periculum (the man’s danger)
Woodcock’s explanations (same paragraph): “It should be noted that the relation between the possessor and the possessed may be very varied. On the one hand, the author or source of a thing may be regarded as its possessor, on the other, the person affected ny a thing (e.g. ‘the danger to the man’) may be regarded as having a proprietary interest in it.”
I really like Woodcock, but the above explanations sound evasive to me.
Scott’s question stands – is reflection about relationships necessary when you read Latin?
One inefficient approach is to start with the vocabulary you think you don’t know. Knowledge of the vocabulary is extremely important, but it is unlikely that you can’t figure out most of it from context (and remember it thus much more effectively). Remember: you know much more than you think.
I’ve seen many of you write down the vocabulary meaning of the words under the Latin or Greek words. This practice is a recipe for disaster for most of you: it lures you into guessing about the meaning of the sentence. I have my theory as to why this happens but am curious to hear from you.
I would agree that if all a student did was to write down the vocabulary meaning of the word, without regard to morphology and syntax, that it could be construed by an observer that the student might know little about the language and was just making educated guesses in the translation. However, in practice, when translating in class with some time pressure, the group translation effort often uses a division of labor, with someone taking on the task of handling the vocabulary, someone else identifying morphology and syntax, and others assembling the pieces. When the students rotate through the roles in handling many passages, learning should theorectically occur.
“Pauca eiusdem generis addit cum excusatione Pompei coniuncta.” Can such a sweet and short sentence trip anyone?
Two observations:
1. There is sight reading, and then there is sight translation. The latter is based on sight reading.
2. Sight reading skills are like driving skills – after a certain point, you no more think how you do it. More later…
Pardon – a third observation. Sometimes you need translation skills to translate from English into English as well.
odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris:
nescio. sed fieri sentio et excrucior…
We translated this in class. Here is Omnia performing it:
People are having fun with Latin. Here is a rendition of Catullus 16:
Ad omnia sum parata descendere ac omnia pati educationis causa. Scribatur Annette de sua provincia, Scottus suos computros dimittat, omnes ab armis discedant. Haec quo facilius certisque condicionibus fiant et iure iurando sanctiantur, polliceamur hodie facti memoris fore…
People – this was a GOOD session. Tantis rebus gestis, I am protinus full of expectations and anticipation. Proinde habete rationem posteritatis and write something here. The above distortions will be easy to read, given what you accomplished today.
mandatis acceptis aliquot nugas mitto:
Googlebooks
http://tinyurl.com/25rhj4q
Octupli Versione Metrica Latina
Greek tetrastitches rewritten in Latin in 8 different meters!
Annette – could you tranfer these meters into music? That would be awesome!
I mean, play them on your violin.
Quod ludibrium! In autumno quos libros legebitis?
misorthographia:
tetrastichs ( not tetrastitches!)
Dear Annette – have you passed your teenage years in Winterthur, Switzerland? If yes please answer with a short peep or send a email contact to me. If not – sorry for this lines, forget them and go one with your life as usual. Kind regards. Andri
To Andri-
yes to teenage years in Winterthur!
Please write: anne.swar@gmail.com
For your reading pleasure – some medieval Latin from The ‘Vulgate” Commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses(an extraordinarily expensive little booklet which brings me much laughter and joy):
…a quantitate nasi Naso dictus est, sive quia sicut canis venaticus naso bene sentiens feram persequitur donec eam captam detineat…
Ovidius autem nomen est proprium et ethimologizari potest sic: Ovidius enim dicitur quasi ovum dividens, id est occultum nobis et incognitum aperiens…
Let me know if you want more.
If any of planned to join us tomorrow – we rescheduled for next week.
TBA.