Among Latin’s many verb forms, the supine, causes students quite a lot of confusion. In this article, I will explain in detail what the supine is, its meaning and how and when it is used.
I’ve noticed a lot of people struggling to get when they should use the supine I or the present infinitive, but it’s easy to tell apart with the following questions:
Infinitive - “what do you [head verb]?”
Supine - “why do you [head verb]?”
So for example, “I want to sleep”:
What do you want? To sleep. - OK, infinitive: dormire uolo.
Why do you want? - this sound like rubbish so no supine here.
Doing the same with “I go to sleep”:
What do you go? - this sounds like rubbish, so the infinitive doesn’t work here.
Why do you go? - to sleep - OK, supine time: dormitum eo.
The key here is that the infinitive - unlike the supine - is simply filling as the direct object of another verb. You could replace it with a noun in the accusative, and the other verb would be happy; in the meantime the supine is doing something else, as the text says it’s all about “purpose”.
Romance speakers: be warned that Classical Latin barely used verbs of movement as auxiliaries, that’s mostly an innovation from Late Latin. That’s why we spam infinitives where Classical would use the supine instead.
I’ve noticed a lot of people struggling to get when they should use the supine I or the present infinitive, but it’s easy to tell apart with the following questions:
So for example, “I want to sleep”:
Why do you want?- this sound like rubbish so no supine here.Doing the same with “I go to sleep”:
What do you go?- this sounds like rubbish, so the infinitive doesn’t work here.The key here is that the infinitive - unlike the supine - is simply filling as the direct object of another verb. You could replace it with a noun in the accusative, and the other verb would be happy; in the meantime the supine is doing something else, as the text says it’s all about “purpose”.
Romance speakers: be warned that Classical Latin barely used verbs of movement as auxiliaries, that’s mostly an innovation from Late Latin. That’s why we spam infinitives where Classical would use the supine instead.