Post by callaina on Jun 12, 2023 22:47:05 GMT
The Latin class that I am teaching is using Eleanor Dickey's Learn Latin from the Romans. When she first introduces subjunctives in Chapter 13, she writes the following (see her footnote that I've reproduced below as well):
"One use of the present subjunctive is to express wishes or suggestions; subjunctives with this meaning are usually translated with "let's" (in the first person plural), or with "may" before the subject (in other forms), and the construction is known as a hortatory subjunctive.1 Thus videamus can mean "let's see", videas can mean "may you see" (not "you may see"), and videat can mean "may he see" (not "he may see.")
1 Different scholars use different terminology for the hortatory subjunctive: "jussive" and "optative" are also found. According to some classifications these three terms apply to slightly different uses of the present subjunctive: when it is a command (e.g. "let there be light") it is called jussive, when it is a wish (e.g. "may the gods be propitious") it is called optative, and when it is an exhortation (a first-persn plural command, e.g. "let's go") it is hortatory. But there are also other ways of using these terms.
This all just feels...wrong to me. I get that she's trying to reduce confusion and focus on meaning rather than terminology, but to call second and third person subjunctives "hortatory" seems so incongruent with the actual meaning of hortor; they're not hortatory (well, I suppose in certain contexts they could be, but not all contexts). If she wanted an umbrella term, why didn't she just pick "optative"?
Thoughts?
"One use of the present subjunctive is to express wishes or suggestions; subjunctives with this meaning are usually translated with "let's" (in the first person plural), or with "may" before the subject (in other forms), and the construction is known as a hortatory subjunctive.1 Thus videamus can mean "let's see", videas can mean "may you see" (not "you may see"), and videat can mean "may he see" (not "he may see.")
1 Different scholars use different terminology for the hortatory subjunctive: "jussive" and "optative" are also found. According to some classifications these three terms apply to slightly different uses of the present subjunctive: when it is a command (e.g. "let there be light") it is called jussive, when it is a wish (e.g. "may the gods be propitious") it is called optative, and when it is an exhortation (a first-persn plural command, e.g. "let's go") it is hortatory. But there are also other ways of using these terms.
This all just feels...wrong to me. I get that she's trying to reduce confusion and focus on meaning rather than terminology, but to call second and third person subjunctives "hortatory" seems so incongruent with the actual meaning of hortor; they're not hortatory (well, I suppose in certain contexts they could be, but not all contexts). If she wanted an umbrella term, why didn't she just pick "optative"?
Thoughts?
