Chapter 345Allen and Greenough's Latin GrammarDickinson CollegeChristopher Francese
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Partitive Genitive
The Genitive is used to denote Quality, but only when the quality is modified by an adjective:—
vir summae virtūtis
,
a man of the highest courage.
[But not
vir virtūtis
.]
māgnae
est dēlīberātiōnis
,
it is an affair of great deliberation.māgnī
formīca
labōris(Hor. S. 1.1.33)
,
the ant
[a creature]
of great toil.
ille autem
suī iūdicī(Nep. Att. 9)
,
but he
[a man]
of independent
(his own)
judgment.
Compare Ablative of Quality (§
415
). In expressions of quality, the genitive or the ablative may often be used indifferently: as,
praestantī prūdentiā
vir
,
a man of surpassing wisdom;maximī animī homō
,
a man of the greatest courage.
In classic prose, however, the genitive of quality is much less common than the ablative; it is practically confined to expressions of measure or number, to a phrase with
êius
, and to nouns modified by
māgnus
,
maximus
,
summus
, or
tantus
. In general the Genitive is used rather of
essential
, the Ablative of
special
or
incidental
characteristics.
The genitive of quality is found in the adjective phrases
êius modī
,
cûius modī
(equivalent to
tālis
,
such;quālis
,
of what sort
):—
êius modī
sunt tempestātēs cōnsecūtae, utī
;
(
B. G. 3.29
),
such storms followed
,
that
, etc.
The genitive of quality, with numerals, is used to define measures of
length
,
depth
, etc. (
Genitive of Measure
):—
fossa trium pedum
,
a trench of three feet
[in depth].
mūrus sēdecim pedum
,
a wall of sixteen feet
[high].
For the Genitive of Quality used to express
indefinite value
, see §
417
.