Rule 73: Gerunds and Gerundives 

Oh god tell me about it

I am struggling my exam is in less than a month help

@@daisya728 somehow I passed all latin classes, my GPA suffered, but never got below a B-... vocab saved my butt. Good luck bro

Me being a latin-american, Brazil, understood absolutely nothing just as well. And isn't his fault, no, it's just confusing by itself

Here _cunctando_ is a gerund. Recall that a gerundive is an adjectival form (it's a verbal adjective) but in your sentence _cunctando_ is not an adjective (it does not agree with any noun in case, gender, and number). So it can only be a gerund.

4:18

I think you’re more correct than not, and we should never be wedded to an overly literal translation.

I think you’re more correct than not, and we should never be wedded to an overly literal translation.

Hmm...I think we forget the first principle of communication is understanding. As such, there are many ways to get there so quibbling over how something is said seems to be one of the unique problems Latin suffers from as everyone is always trying to dunk on each other intellectually. None of us are native speakers, all we have left are the vestiges of the language passed on down to us and we also need to take note of the past producers of the language and their intentions; a Cicero (wordy!) vs. say Erasmus. And this idea that we need to somehow justify Latin through English use is not only misguided, but anachronistic - English didn't exist when Latin was being widely spoken throughout Europe. Yet, Latin still lives. So the assertion that the phrase is not idiomatic English has no relevance and to make the leap about what a native speaker would announce is problematic as none of us are native speakers. That said, "cupido montis ascendendi" is simple: "cupido" is a noun and this particular notion of desire, in Latin, often takes the genitive (desire OF something). That is how Latin works; it worked that way before English existed, and it will continue to work that way ad infinitum. Since the noun has as its object mountain, Latin will use the objective genitive (cupido montis) and we can further modify that noun with adjectives, participles, or gerundives (cupido montis magni, cupido montis quassi, cupido montis ascendendi - perhaps a better participle example can be found!). In these examples, the desire is for the mountain itself; whatever type is specific to the speaker in their mind. In your suggested example, the desire would pertain to the activity that is engaged in with the mountain - in fact, the activity could be independent of the mountain. So, a desire TO CLIMB the mountain, the emphasis is on the climbing act or process. I would contend Latin won't use an infinitive (I think we gravely misunderstand this concept) but rather a gerund (as the infinitive is really the nominative form of the gerund, a neuter singular noun, which, it should follow, would use the same form for its accusative case). If that be the case, the noun "cupido" would still take a genitive object and you'd have to use a verbal noun (gerund) in this instance. What happens? Something strange - the gerundive form before seems to reappear BUT it is really the genitive form of the gerund (ascendendi again!) but, since the emphasis is on the activity/process and not the object (mountain) then perhaps the phrase you suggest looks like this "cupido ascendendi montem" since the verb noun/gerund here is the objective genitive of the noun "cupido" and, being verbal in nature, can take an accusative object. After all, "vivere est bonum" is easy to figure out with this insight; "vivere" is a nominative gerund, which is a neuter singular noun, and "bonum" is an adjective modifying it (notice it is also. nominative, singular, neuter). The translation of it as "to live" or "living" is an ENGLISH problem, not a Latin one. Either way, that is how ENGLISH expresses its gerund/verbal noun concept; so using either one as a reference for translation from Latin is totally ok; any quibbling about that would be to address an English deficiency. Which brings us to "errare est humanum". Seeing that "errare" is a gerund i.e. a neuter singular noun in the nominative case, then it makes total sense that the adjective "humanum" is applied because in Latin, adjectives must agree with nouns they modify in case, number, and gender. Hope that helps! (sperare est humanum!)

To me, that just strikes me as poor language use to have a gerund which looks like it could be a gerundive in the accusative case followed by another noun also in the accusative case, but serving as an object of the gerund. While it seems plausible according to rules of grammar, it’s a bit confusing, and language should always strive to be comprehensible whenever possible. But with the genitive case forms, you don’t have this case collision. There are other examples of situations where Latin goes out of its way to avoid ambiguous case collisions (e.g., you would use the ablative (and not the dative) of agent with a passive periphrastic that also has with it a dative indirect object).

@@latintutorial As for the first point, note that it is equally ill-formed a prepositional ablative gerund construction like "in pollicendo multa" (cf. the well-formed non-prepositional construction in 4:30). So note that the problem is different from what you suggest. The prepositional construction "in pollicendo multa" is not "confusing" nor causes ambiguity but it is ill-formed. For some reason (?) the appearance of a preposition makes the gerund construction ill-formed in both "ad deponendum audaciam" and "in pollicendo multa" (cf. ok "ad deponendam audaciam" and "(in) pollicendis multis"). So the question is why "pollicendo multa" is correct but "in pollicendo multa" (or, for that matter, "ad pollicendum multa") is not. By the way, note that the construction "ad pollicendum multa" does not cause ambiguity either but it is ill-formed. So ambiguity is not the explanation here. As for the second point (the alleged complementary distribution between ablatives and datives of agent), what you say is correct but note that the ablative of agent can appear in some contexts where a "dative of agent" cannot (see latin.stackexchange.com/questions/12844/can-a-dative-of-agent-appear-in-an-ablative-absolute-construction ). Note that you cannot use a dative of agent in a construction like "De provinciis ab iis qui obtinerent retinendis…" (Cic. Ad Fam. 12, 22). Some scholars have said that a dative of agent is not possible there for ambiguity reasons but this functional(ist) explanation is not valid since an example like "De provincia iis qui obtinerent retinenda", where there is no such a clash between ablative "provincia" and dative "iis", would also be ill-formed. So, again, ambiguity is not the explanation here.

@@mitomino I think we have been teaching the gerund and gerundive incorrectly and that error lies in our tendency to translate rather than understand Latin as a language. Our constant references to English is the problem. For example, if the nominative form of the gerund is what we refer to as the infinitive, and the gerund, being a neuter singular noun, it follows that the accusative of the gerund must also be the same "infinitive" form. Then why do we have this "alternate" form for gerunds which only occurs after the preposition ad? I submit that is because it is really the gerundive neuter singular form that is being used and not the accusative gerund form at all. An example: "legere venit" (he comes to read) vs. "ad legendum venit" (he comes for the purpose of reading). The latter is much clearer when we supply the implied pronoun "id", which looks like "ad [id] legendum venit" (he comes for the purpose of reading IT). In other words, the first example is a more general process (he's here to read in general) whereas in the second example it is more specific and contextual (he's here to read it, i.e. some specific text, book, scroll, etc.). In other words, prepositions aren't necessary for gerunds, but most likely for gerundives. Now, when looking at your proposed issues, it is a simple mechanic of the Latin language (and not English!!). First, "persuadeo" is tricky because it uses the dative case to express who is being convinced but here, "multa pollicendo persuadet", is correctly described as using the ablative case. Simply ask, "quomodo persuadet?" and the answer reveals itself: "multa pollicendo persuadet". Using a preposition doesn't make any sense in Latin; the attempt to do so is based on the clunky way barbaric English forms its constructions (He persuades in promising much...). Again, the problem here is relying on English, either consciously or subconsciously. As for the last construction, "vivis non ad deponendam sed ad confirmandam audaciam" there is nothing to be confused about (despite Cicero's attempts to do so with flowery, unnecessary language; why we subject our early Latin students to his writing as some form of standard never made sense to me and probably one of the reasons why our language continues to dry up faster than water in the Sahara - but I digress!). The verb is "vivis" (followed by the negation "non", again, thanks Cicero; probably why he lost his head, he was probably really annoying to be in the presence of!) and "audaciam" is the object/accusative following the preposition "ad", the gerundives within the prepositional phrase are there to further modify the object of "ad", "audaciam". Prepositional phrases give us position; either in real time (spatial/temporal) or regarding abstractions (in relation to where you are to ideas; our terrible political discourse offers insight here - left, center, right, etc.; all of which are incorrect historically and confusing at best). Latin uses "ad" to give us placement; you could live (vivis) in a place (in +ABL) or up to or up against something (ad + ACC). Ambiguity is not even a consideration; Latin is precise here in these instances but it is us non-native speakers that have to follow the examples, not deconstruct them based on what English may or may not do. English wasn't even a thing when Latin was being widely spoken. Hope that helps; if not, I look forward to where I may have erred (errare est humanum: the nominative gerund!) After all, discimus Latine legere legendo... (what if legere is not an infinitive but the accusative gerund of discimus?)

A gerundive: aere ad reliquas reficiendas utebatur, he was using bronze FOR REPAIRING THE REST (of the ships).

A gerund: naves reliquae erant ad navigandum inutiles, the rest of the ships were useless FOR SAILING.

Latin uses the gerundive for this use, not the present participle. Both are -ing words in English though, so confusing!