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- "We come from Rome."
"We come from Rome."
Translation:Nos Roma venimus.
10 Comments
917
Since Roma is a city it can make use of the locative case. Nouns that can use the locative drop the preposition in place from where (what is used here vs. ab urbe) and place to where (Romam vs. ad urbem) constructions.
- 668
Roma is not the locative (the locative is Romae), it is the ablative. So I do not see why Ab Rome is wrong. Maybe it's an exception like domo (from home) not (ab domo). But I do not know this exception and I also can't find it in a dictionary.
- 668
It seems that locations like cities and small islands (also "domo" and "rure" ), who have a locative, use also an Abl. (Ablativus separativus) without preposition to discribe from where something/ someone is.
That's right, and the same group of words (city/town/small island NAMES, and domus and rus) use the accusative case for "motion towards" without the preposition ad.
Roma (abl): from Rome. Romae (loc): in Rome. Romam (accus): to Rome.
Edit: It's not a rule for PLACE NAMES per se; rather, for NAMES of cities/towns/small islands (only big enough for one town or city). Names of countries, continents, and large islands (like Sicilia and Crēta) use prepositions.
Did that apply to all place names in the ancient world, or just most of them?
Ab before vowels (and the letter h), a before consonants. Ab urbe (from the city) but a villa (from the country house). Two forms of the same preposition (there's also the form abs ).
(But no preposition needed in this sentence, since it's "from ROME," and "Rome" is the NAME of a city/town/small island; these don't use prepositions for the directions TO and FROM, or for the location IN.)
Oh so it's as simple as the rules of "a" vs "an" in English, that boils things down a lot, thank you!
Yes, that is my understanding! (Though where "abs", as in "abs te," fits in, other than for euphony, I really don't know.)
