As brianpck points out, in 'nominativus cum infinitivo' constructions the passive verb is not always third-person neuter, as we would expect if the infinitive were the subject of the clause. This interpretation seems to be supported by patterns of verb agreement. I would interpret this the same way as the corresponding English sentences 'Hercules wants/seems/is said to be strong': i.e., the grammatical subject is really 'Hercules' rather than the infinitive. The first exception listed is 'Hercules fortis esse vult/videtur/dicitur' with 'Hercules' and 'fortis' in the nominative. However, as far as I can tell, none of the exceptions seem to apply in this case.Īnd in fact, my current understanding is that in the structure generally referred to as the 'nominativus cum infinitivo', the nominative noun does not actually form a constituent with the infinitive rather, the infinitive plays the role of a complement (not subject) of some other verb in the clause, and the nominative noun (not the infinitive) is the syntactic subject of that other verb. (If I understand the grammar right, it's an example of an accusative subject ( eos) and complement ( miseros) with esse as a subjective infinitive I might have switched the complement and subject) I don't think Nominative + Subjective Infinitive is a thingĪnother discussion on that site mentions some exceptions to the general tendency for the subject of an infinitive to be in accusative. (Example of accusative subject of esse as a subjective infinitive I extended the quotation to add the end of the sentence using the Packard Humanities Institute Latin Texts)Ĭic.TuscI,9: necesse est enim miseros esse eos qui centum milibusĪnnorum ante occiderunt, vel potius omnis, quicumque nati sunt. (Example of accusative subject of a subjective infinitive) inv.II,171: Nam aliter dicere solemus: 'Necesse est Casilinenses se dedere Hannibali' aliter autem: 'Necesse est Casilinum venire in Hannibalis potestatem'. However, other people also seem to have been uncertain about this matter brianpck linked in the comments to where the user Bitmap provided the following examples:Ĭic. So it seems to me 'Hominem esse me delectat' would be correct. Listy Filologické / Folia Philologica, 109(1), 1–10. Accusativus cum infinitivo in the structural-typological approach. It is known that the Romans are very brave ('Te' is the subject, and 'beatum' is the predicative complement.)Īnother example where esse is said to be a subjective infinitive taking an accusative subject and complement: Horton Spragge, says that a subjective infinitive takes an accusative subject, and gives an example using 'esse':

Thanks to commenters for clarifying this!)Īccusative + Subjective Infinitive seems to be grammatical (Originally the question title mentioned 'subject of esse', but I corrected it to 'complement of esse'. This question arose in connection to this recent question. I would prefer to see examples in classical literature, but also discussions from grammars are welcome. My intuition suggests that the nominative is the way to go, but I feel very unsure.Ĭomparing with accusativus cum infinitivo suggests that it might be the accusative instead, but then there is also the related nominativus cum infinitivo construction… I have two options, analogous to the previous ones: Or, for another example, consider 'To be a Finn is to sing'. That is, which one of the following is better:

When translating this to Latin, should the 'human' be nominative ( homo) or accusative ( hominem)?

The complete English sentence would be something like 'To be a human pleases me'. There are undoubtedly several ways to phrase that in Latin, but I want to do it so that it the subject is 'to be a human'. Suppose I want to say something like 'I like being a human'.

Esse latin endings