"I" or "me"?

[birdeen's call]

I suspected as much. But I thought just nom. and acc. were sufficient for the analogy. (I imagine most native speakers of English would have little idea of what genitive, dative, instrumental and locative are - I remember having trouble understanding what a locative was when first introduced to the idea in Latin class; though English does flirt with it in spellings like 'Marseilles' and 'Lyons - where the French don't have an s [but what do they know about it? ])

b

Well, if I were to say what the idea of the locative is I would be in a lot of trouble. I don't know if there's a general idea of the locative, at least in Polish. And I think the fact that I know no non-native speaker of Polish who has mastered Polish grammatical cases might be a clue that there isn't. It's a complete mess.

PS: Actually, I do know a Belarussian who uses Polish cases correctly. But other Slavs I know do make mistakes.

 

[5jj]

Off-topic

I remember having trouble understanding what a locative was when first introduced to the idea in Latin class...

With the knowledge that I now have of grammar, and of how writers on grammar can twist things to suit their purposes, I have a sneaking feeling that the locative case in the Latin of the time of Cicero and Cesar was a little like the subjunctive mood in modern BrE. It had been one of the features of the language, and may well have still been real for some people; for most people it existed only in fossilised phrases.

 

[birdeen's call]

Off-topicWith the knowledge that I now have of grammar, and of how writers on grammar can twist things to suit their purposes, I have a sneaking feeling that the locative case in the Latin of the time of Cicero and Cesar was a little like the subjunctive mood in modern BrE. It had been one of the features of the language, and may well have still been real for some people; for most people it existed only in fossilised phrases.

That's interesting. Do you have any sources about this? I would think that at that time the Latin noun-case system was still doing well, even in common parlance.

 

[5jj]

. Do you have any sources about this?
None at all - it's just a suspicion. Unfortunately my own knowledge of Latin and Latin grammar is now far too rusty for me to investigate.

I would think that at that time the Latin noun-case system was still doing well, even in common parlance.

There is no doubt of that. I just wonder if, by this time, people were working on a de facto six-case system, with a few forms - particularly names of places - that were 'exceptions'.


ps. I think if anybody is interested in following this up, we need to start a new thread here; Other Languages

 

[BobK]

That's interesting. Do you have any sources about this? I would think that at that time the Latin noun-case system was still doing well, even in common parlance.

Note: maybe more information than general readers may want; should maybe have been a PM

The words 'at the time' are problematic, but by the middle of the first millennium AD there seem to have been - in Iberia, Italia and Gaul - only one and a bit cases. (I say 'and a bit' because the more commonly used case was - as scholars would call it - the accusative (though the common -m ending tended to be dropped - as was beginning to happen much earlier [see Gerhard Rohlfs' Sermo Vulgaris Latinum, which shows this -m being dropped in graffiti and monumental engravings at Pompeii, and Elcock The Romance Languages. Elcock points to the few pairs (like copain/compagnon, gars/garçon, pois (as in porpoise - or 'pig-fish')/poisson) that show that at least a vestigial two-case system throws up fossils in French.

So scholars of Vulgar Latin use the convention of quoting the accusative singular, but with the -M in brackets. It's more probable that Portuguese cão and chão derived from CANE(M) and PLANU(M) (all caps - don't ask why;-)) than from canis and planus, although Classical Latin scholars will defend the nominative to the death!

b

PS Just seen 5jj's suggestion; consider my wrist slapped.