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- "Where do your sons study?"
"Where do your sons study?"
Translation:Ubi student filii tui?
14 Comments
By curiosity, I wondered if there were some kind of subject-verb inversion in Latin, to indicate a question, despite of the free order.
If we consider the SOV as the most common way, there's indeed a kind of inversion.
Affirmative (most common)
Caesar inimicum superavit. (Caesar defeated the enemy.)
Turning this sentence into a question (subject-verb inversion to add the "-ne" suffix)
Superavitne Caesar inimicum? (Did Caesar defeat the enemy?)
I think it only works for the yes/no question generated by the -ne suffix.
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Yes. In fact, that is what I put because that is how I was taught, and it is an acceptable answer. "Ubi" indicates that it is a question, so the verb can either be before or after the object.
Searching for how questions are formed revealed the following results: 9- Asking a Question Lesson Latin has three ways of turning a statement into a question. The first way is to place the key word at the start of the sentence and add –ne, so that: Marcus in civitate habitat (Marcus lives in the city) becomes: habitatne Marcus in civitate? (Does Marcus live in the city?) If you want to alter the emphasis of the question, simply attach -ne to a different word and place that at the beginning of the sentence, for example: Marcusne habitat in civitate? (Is it Marcus who lives in the city?) The second way is used when a ‘yes’ answer is expected. Simply place nonne at the start of the sentence: nonne Roma optima civitas est in mundo? (Surely Rome is the best city in the world? / Rome is the best city in the world, isn’t it?) Thirdly, if you expect a ‘no’ answer, begin the sentence with num: num putas barbaros victuros esse? (Surely you don’t think the barbarians will win? / You don’t think the barbarians will win, do you?) http://mylanguages.org/latin_grammar.php
The question word comes first, then the focus of the question.
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/33856526?comment_id=37494237