The Indicative Indirect Question in Latin; Dissertation, University of Chicago (Paperback)

. 1920: ... CHAPTER IV Indeterminate Examples: Indirect Questions Or Relative Clauses I. Clauses Whose Interpretation Is Indifferent 1. Introductory. The relative clause is, in most of its uses,1 quite distinct from the indirect question. A relative clause either modifies some particular word or words, expressed or understood, in the main clause, or else it modifies the main clause as a whole.2 An indirect question, on the other hand, is a direct object3 or a subject, or else is in apposition with some substantive, usually itself an object or a subject.6 A relative clause is an adjectival or adverbiaj clause. An indirect question is a substantive clause. Frequently, however, the two distinct constructions of the indirect question and the substantive with modifying relative clause, perform practically the same function. Compare, for example, Plaut. Amph. 425, Nam quod egomet solus feci, nec quisquam alius adfuit, /In tabernaclo, id quidem hodie numquam poterit dicere, with Pseud. 696, Id tu modo me quid vis facere fac sciam. If, now, the dependent clause is introduced by a connective that is indeterminate in form--e.g., cuius, quae6--, it may result that the clause itself is indeter 1 Just how the two kinds of clauses are related historically, is a matter of conjecture. It is not necessary, for our purpose, to discuss the difficult problem of the origin of the Latin relative clause. For theories concerning its origin, cf., e.g., Paetzolt, De Latini Pronominis Relativi Syntaxi Prisca 13 ff.; Delbruck, Vergl. Syntax, III, 389 ff. ( 183); Kroll, Der lateinische Relativsatz 1 ff. Cf. Deecke, De Usu Pronominis Relativi apud Poetas Veteres Latinos Quaestiones Syntacticae (Gottingen, 1907), 54. 3 E.g., Plaut. Poen 1111: Sed earum nutriz qua sit facie, mi expedi. E.g., Cic. Att. XV, I, 1: Incredibilest quanta me molestia affecerit. 6 E.g., Plaut. Curc. 396: Nam quid id refert mea, an aula quassa cum cinere effossus siet?; Capt. 407: Haec pater...