accusativus cum infinitivo

English

Alternative forms

• ACI (initialism)

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin accūsātīvus cum īnfīnītīvō (literally “accusative [case] with infinitive [mood]”).

Noun

accusativus cum infinitivo (usually uncountable, plural accusativi cum infinitivis)

1. (grammar) A syntactic construction, very common in Classical Latin, in which the subject of a subordinate clause is declined for the accusative case and the verb is conjugated for the infinitive mood, used chiefly to express indirect statements.
   • 1972, Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös Nominatae: Sectio Classica, volume I, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, page 9:

     A historico-typological analysis of Greek and Latin infinitival structures, and that of Greek and Latin accusativi cum infinitivis, and nominativi cum infinitivis does not only mean the clearer understanding of the syntactical system of the languages concerned, but it can also elucidate the emergence and the development of these structures.

   • ibidem, page 11:

     Thus we must differentiate between the accusativi cum infinitivis after the two groups of verbs already on account of this, although this has not been thought necessary by anybody so far.

   • 1982, Haiim B. Rosén, East and West: Selected Writings in Linguistics, part one: General and Indo-European Linguistics, Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, →ISBN (10), →ISBN (13), page 427:

     In all these occurrences, after the clause ἔδοξεν tῲ dήμῳ (lʿ m ṣdnm tm), we find a nominal clause without a verbal subject; in these instances the accusativi cum infinitivis which give the detailed content of the decree are to be seen […]

   • ibidem, page 428:

     Not only are all the verbs in the infinitive, since these sentences are, from a syntactical point of view, accusativi cum infinitivis, but also the continuation of the sentence comes in the words ʿ ṭrt ḥrṣ after a long parenthesis; both of these constructions are completely foreign to the nature of Semitic paratactic syntax.

Translations

accusative–infinitive construction used to express indirect statements

• Icelandic: þolfall með nafnhætti n
• Serbo-Croatian: akuzativ s infinitivom

See also

• nominativus cum infinitivo

Further reading

• Accusative and infinitive on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Exceptional case-marking on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Small clause on Wikipedia.Wikipedia