Latin Grammar FAQ

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is a misnomer --
this is really a QTAMC (Questions That Aroused My Curiosity).
But alas, FAQ is more familiar
and much easier to pronounce than QTAMC.

Questions

1. Idioms

  1. Q1.001: Is the 'iri' in 'celatum iri' (future passive infinitive) a passive infinitive of 'esse'? (see also Q2.001)

Etymology

  1. Q2.001: (followup from Q1.001) Are the future tense forms of esse (to be) cognate to ire (to go)? [Open]

1. Idioms

Q1.001) Celatum iri

Q: Is the iri in the future passive infintive (example: celatum iri) a passive infinitive for esse (to be)? (see also Q2.001)

Vocabulary:  eo (I go), ire (to go).  sum (I am), esse (to be).  celo (I hide), celare (to hide), celatum (to have hidden).

A: No.  In fact, iri is a present passive infinitive form for the intransitive verb eo, ire (to go).  Even though the irregular Latin verb ire (to go) is intransitive, it does have impersonal passive forms -- the word iri happens to be the present passive infinitive.

This construction of a future passive infinitive with 'iri' is a curious idiomatic construction with two counterparts in modern English.

  1. Modern English near future with 'to go':  English does have an idiomatic future tense which is formed using a form of to go followed by an infinitive.
    Example: "I am going to read Tolstoy's War and Peace."
          (meaning:)
    "I will read Tolstoy's War and Peace [in the near future(?)]."
          (but not equivalent to:)
    "I am going someplace [e.g. the library] in order to read Tolstoy's War and Peace."
  2. Modern English deponent forms of 'to go':  Deponent forms are syntactically passive but semantically active.  In other words, a deponent form looks like a passive voice form, but is active voice in meaning.  Even though 'to go' is an intransive verb, it does have passive forms that are active in meaning -- for example, "Joe is gone." means that Joe is not here now with the implication that he left.  (Compare to French: il est allé.)

    (Hmmm.  I wonder what an autocorrecting grammar checker set to filter out passive voice might do with a deponent construction like this...)

The underlying problem is that these forms are idiomatic and thus defy reason.  Perhaps they were inserted into the language by some ancient omniprescient Luddite demigod who wanted to drive modern day computer programmers and mathematicians into fits of madness...

1. Idioms

Q2.001) Ero and ire

Q: (followup from Q1.001) Are the future tense forms of esse (to be) cognate to ire (to go)? [Open]

Mail comments, criticisms, corrections (including misspellings), puzzles and flames to Eric Conrad (econrad@math.ohio-state.edu).
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Last updated: Wed May 24 19:07:21 EDT 2006