Indirect Questions & Commands in Latin

1. Indirect Questions/Commands • Tell me again why these aren’t just like indirect statements???

2. What are they? • Indirect questions and indirect commands are about what you would expect them to be, from the names and what you know “indirect speech” means. • An indirect question is a question embedded inside a declarative sentence; an indirect command is a direct order embedded in a declarative sentence.

3. English Examples • Direct question: Catullus says to a girl, “Do you love me?” • Indirect question: “Catullus asked a girl whether she loved him.”

4. More English Examples • Direct command: Caesar tells his soldiers, “Form up ranks!” • Indirect command: “Caesar told his soldiers toform up ranks.”

5. Uhh. . . • From these examples in English, it can be very easy to think that these sentences should be written in Latin with accusative-and-infinitive construction. • However, they’re not. Both of these constructions require a subjunctive subordinate clause. Their construction closely resembles purpose and result clauses.

6. Indirect Question Formation • To create an indirect question in Latin, use the question word that started the original direct question as a conjunction, and then put the whole thing into subjunctive, using the sequence of tenses rules we just learned.

7. Latin Examples • Suppose you start with the question, “Ubi sunt exploratores?” (Where are the scouts?) As an indirect question, this can become: • Caesar rogat ubi exploratores sint. (Caesar asks where the scouts are.) • Caesar rogavit ubi exploratores essent. (Caesar asked where the scouts were.)

8. More Tense Possibilities • Indirect questions can cover the whole range of sequence of tenses without logical problems. So you could just as well write: • Caesar rogabit ubi exploratores sint. (Caesar will ask where the scouts are.) • Caesar rogat ubi exploratores erint. (Caesar asks where the scouts were.) • Caesar rogavit ubi exploratores fuissent. (Caesar asked where the scouts had been.)

9. Yes/No Questions • What if there is no question word that you can use as the conjunction to get into a indirect question? This will happen with yes/no questions. • In this case, use num as your conjunction. In the context of an indirect question, num does not have the negative, leading tone that it does in a direct question.

10. Examples • Starting with “Exploratoresne insidias fugerunt?” (Did the scouts escape the ambush?) • Caesar rogat num exploratores insidias fugierint. (Caesar asks whether the scouts escaped the ambush.) • Caesar rogavit num exploratores insidias fugissent. (Caesar asked whether the scouts [had] escaped the ambush.)

11. End of Indirect Questions

12. Indirect Commands • Indirect commands work much the same way, except that you use ut/ne as the conjunction, not a question word. • Yes, this is the exact same construction as for purpose clauses. However, telling them apart in context is almost always straightforward: in an indirect command, the main verb will always have a meaning relating to giving an order. Vocabulary and grammar work together.

13. Examples • Once again, suppose that Caesar tells his army, “Form up!” (Instruete!) As an indirect command, you could write: • Militibus Caesar imperat ut instruant. (Caesar orders the soldiers to form up.) • Militibus Caesar imperavit ut instruerent. (Caesar ordered the soldiers to form up.) • NB: impero, one of the most common verbs for introducing indirect questions, happens to take the dative. This isn’t a general rule for all indirect questions.

14. Negative Examples • Of course, you can also tell people not to do something. Suppose Ovid tells his girlfriend, “Don’t go to that party!” (Noli ad cenam istamire!) • Ovidius puellam imploravit ne ad cenam istam iret.

15. Logic Strikes Again! • If you think about it, then you may realize that, just like with purpose and result clauses, you would realistically never see a perfect or pluperfect subjunctive in an indirect command. • What is the point of telling people to havealready done something??

16. One Little Wrinkle • Just because this wasn’t confusing enough, there are a small number of verbs that you would logically expect to take indirect commands after them, but which actually DO take accusative-and-infinitive. • This most commonly happens with iubeo (to order) and veto (to forbid). • Since the result is fairly similar to the English equivalent (He tells him to do blah-blah-blah. . .), this is not actually much of a barrier to fluent Latin reading, and we’re not writing original Latin in this class.