Tuesday, March 20, 2007

curious?

I'm just curious about this...

If I wanted to write "thank you for your help" in Latin, would it be something like "ago gratia tibi tuum auxilium," with "tuum auxilium" being in the accusative case? Or am I totally wrong?

~Rachael

4 comments:

E Pluribus Unum said...

I would use a construction that we have not learned yet, the genitive of cause 'auxilii tui.' But you certainly give me pause; let me investigate further.

RaeS said...

Okay. I was just wondering because while studying last night I came across the grammar for chapter 17 (I think it was...) where it talks about the use of the accusative in expressing duration of time - something like "tres horas" translating as "for three hours." So I wondered if the accusative could imply "for" something in other contexts as well, such as "to thank someone for something." Please do let me know what you find out because I'm really quite curious.

And thanks for the info about the genitive case. I don't think I would have guessed that in a million years, but it makes sense that it could be used.

E Pluribus Unum said...

I thought about this again, and another option is to go with propter+ acc. That is

Gratias ago tibi, propter auxilium tuum (because of)....but I would avoid the dative like the plague in this case, simply because the english 'for' has no many functions that are not all covered by the Latin dative. I will keep thinking about this.

RaeS said...

Hmmm... That's very interesting. So could the genitive of cause still be used or would propter + acc. be better (or more correct)?