Re:Carthago delenda est
by askthereception on Sunday July 21, 2019 @04:58AM
(#20490525)
Your example using the verb "see" is not quite right, but a genuine ACI does exist in English: I want him to swim / I expect him to swim.
For another example, in Dutch it happens to work with "see" (zien): "ik zie hem zwemmen" (I see him [to] swim), it doesn't work with want, and with expect, "verwachten", you would have to add "to": "Ik verwacht hem te zwemmen" (I expect him to swim).
Yes, thanks for pointing that out, I was indeed taking the example from German (where "sehen" works with a genuine ACI like Dutch) and put it in English without much thought, particularly without realising that other examples do work in English.
"I see him swimming" is just a present participle, isn't it? Latin has those too and they're different. On the other hand, English has "I believe him to be swimming", and "I told him to swim", although the latter wouldn't be an accusative+infinitive in Latin.
Re:Carthago delenda est
by romaaeterna on Sunday July 21, 2019 @12:01AM
(#20489887)
> Cato's famous phrase, "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", is feared for its grammar
Surely not
Not with your username, no :-)
Re:Carthago delenda est
by contingencies on Sunday July 21, 2019 @12:00AM
(#20489880)
TLDR: It's basically the faux-classicist version of banging on the table.
Now, in Latin, the ACI construction can be done with many verbs, not only "to see" ("I see him swimming") but also with "censeo", or "I opine, think" ("I opine him swimming" - I think he swims.) Next, throw in a cool "Ceterum" = by the way, and combine this with the obligation of the gerundive, and we get:
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam =
"By the way, I think that Carthago is to be eliminated."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_and_infinitive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerundive