What is your plan? is a straightforward question without any assumptions. The problem is that English can express two slightly different things depending on how the subject and predicate are divided. The subject-predicate distinction seems wrong to us, but I think this is a reflection of our own intuition about English more than anything intrinsic to the syntax itself. This is contrary to English grammar, of course, so it throws us through a bit of a loop. But the attraction seems also to require the use of the interrogative adjective rather than the interrogative pronoun proper, hence quod instead of quid in the OP*. For example, you would say quae est voluntas tua and not quid est voluntas tua. Latin tends to attract the gender and number of the interrogative pronoun, as well as other pronouns, into the gender and number of the predicate. The first, which was raised in the OP, has to do with the use of pronouns in copulative sentences. It seems there are two separate questions being addressed in this thread. I don't have much to add, as I generally concur with what Socratidion has already said. All he says is: " Quid praemii erit? means what will there be by way of reward? and is not quite the same as quod praemium erit?". Having turned to Woodcock (sect 77) for elucidation I now find myself going round in circles. Other examples such as quid mulieris and quid turbae seem to suggest there may be something at least in this theory.īut for inanimate things such as a plan, this theory centred on the neutral/peremptory contrast works less well. Both qui homo and quid hominis seem to mean "what kind of man?", but what is the essential difference between the two? I may be stating the obvious (to the more experienced) but I have a suspicion that qui homo, for example, is used in neutral kinds of questions about a man, whereas quid hominis often has a more peremptory or even contemptuous tone. Matthaeus and Socratidion, for me the knottiest part of this whole question is establishing boundaries between the pairs quod consilium/quid consilii, qui homo/quid hominis etc. One of the best sources of information I have found on the differences between quis/qui, and quid/quod is the entry for the word "what" in Arnold and Riddle, A Copious and Critical English Latin Lexicon.Įven this fairly comprehensive explanation leaves us wanting something more definitive, though. Stephanus, your question is a good one, not least because, as Socratidion has demonstrated, there is no concise answer to it. I don't deny that 'quid consilium est' is possible for 'what is the plan', but I suspect it's more common in Latin textbooks than in real Latin. I'm sorry if I haven't been clear, but it's a tricky one to explain, and I'm not even sure myself what the rule is. So, quod consilium est becomes cognosce quod consilium sit. The only exception to this that I've found is 'nomen', where I do find 'quid tibi nomen est' = what is your name.Īnyway, what is true of direct question is true of indirect questions. 'quod illud oppidum est' = what is that town?, where is 'quid oppidum est' = what is a town? (This pattern would be clearer if I included the feminine form 'quae' (adjective): 'quae est ista amentia?' = what is that madness of yours?, but 'quid est amentia' = what is madness?) I don't know whether this is true for all Latin at all times, but just from my reading, I often find questions of the form 'what is.' using the adjective form, unless they are definitions of meanings. The answer appears to be, you write 'quod consilium est', which isn't what you would have chosen if you were looking at the English translation. Are you supposed to write quid consilium est = what is the plan (arguing that 'what' is a pronoun, and consilium is the complement), or quod consilium est = what plan is (arguing that quod is agreeing with consilium)? If you say ' what town is being attacked?' you would say ' quod oppidum oppugnatur?', where quod is agreeing with oppidum.īut there's a fuzzy area when the verb is 'est'. Conversely, 'quod' is an adjective, and agrees with something else in the sentence. If you say 'what is coming?', you would write 'quid venit?'. I don't know exactly where you are with the technical difference between 'quid' and 'quod', but at the risk of telling you what you already know, 'quid' is a pronoun, and should stand on its own, not agreeing with anything.
I've puzzled over something similar, and to be honest I haven't quite worked it out yet, but I have come to the conclusion that it's just a difference between Latin and English idiom.
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