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- "How many universities are in…
"How many universities are in Rome?"
Translation:Quot universitates Romae sunt?
22 Comments
1413
I know that "romae" means "in rome" but another sentence has "in america" and still "in rome" is not accepted here. It's not obvious to me why these two cases would be different. Is "romae" simply a special case, or what?
Short answer: yes, special case.
in Americā takes the Ablative.
Cities and other special words (rus, domus, humus, and a few others) kept the Locative case that disappeared for most other words.
Hence Romae (which will look exactly like the Genitive Case) is locative, but America, though the ending is the same (-a) won't do that because it is not a city, but a larger structure. Therefore, like most other things you will be in, it needs the prep "in" and the noun in the Ablative (here "in Americā")
Thank you for clearing this up - I was wondering why all the sentences used "in America" instead of "America+e" for Locative.
- 695
While I agree that the suggested word order is more natural, I believe Romae can also go at the end of the sentence. Classical Latin word order is quite flexible.
Names of cities use the locative case with no preposition.
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26980452/Latin-for-Duolingo-Locative-Case-and-Geography
In a declarative sentence, the verb usually comes last (subject object verb).
Ego filias habeo. -- I have daughters.
Although the copula often comes in the middle (subject verb complement).
Puer est discipulus. -- The boy is a student.
Usually the verb will come first in a question.
Suntne universitates Romae? -- Are there universities in Rome?
- 1413
The mouseover suggestions give both "quot" and "quid" for "how" but still "quid universitates romae sunt" is not accepted. What is the difference?
"Quid" for "how" is not the most common way to use that. It generally means "what."
Further, "quot" means "how many?" This is why "quid" doesn't work here.
No. English uses two words for "how many/what quantity" but Latin and the Romance languages have a single word for that.
At the sentence level, it's mostly subject object verb, although it's a little flexible and questions often pull the focus words to the front.
At the phrase level, specifiers generally come before the noun. Other adjectives tend to go after the noun, but it's not wrong to put them before. Adverbs always go before the verb. Negations always come right before the thing they negate.
Because we want the plural. How many universities are, not How many university is.
https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/noun/16888/
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/universitas
It's not a matter of being optional. It's a matter of sometimes you must use it, and sometimes you must not use it.
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26980452/Latin-for-Duolingo-Locative-Case-and-Geography
The locative case is the least-used case. It doesn't even show up in many declension charts. It only applies to the names of cities/towns, small islands, and a very small handful of regular nouns, like "domus".
Using the locative means you do not use a preposition.
Here is a plain-English overview of what the cases are and how they work:
Latin cases, in English
Here are the noun and adjective declension charts:
declensions 1-3
declensions 4&5
Adjectives must agree in gender, number, and case with the nouns they modify, but they have their own declensions. Sometimes you get lucky and the adjective just happens to follow the same declension as the noun, but that is not a guarantee.
For good measure, here are the verb conjugation charts:
1st Conjugation
2nd Conjugation
3rd Conjugation
3rd i-stem Conjugation
4th Conjugation
Why does it appear that the preposition "in" is required for "num" but not "quot"?
"Num" vs "quot" has nothing to do with it. Only the names of cities/towns, small islands, and a very small handful of ordinary nouns use the locative case, which does not use a preposition. All other nouns take a preposition and the ablative. Rome is the name of a city, therefore it uses the locative case with no preposition.
This has been explained on this page before.
