![]() ![]() 26 videtis ut senectus sit operosa et semper agens aliquid et moliens 'You see how old age is laborious and always doing and contriving something.' Here agens and moliens, although they are parallel to the adjective operosa, describe senectus with reference to an activity in which it is engaged as well as to a quality it possesses. It then forms with esse what is almost equivalent to a compound tense of the verb: Cic. "A participle can be predicated with part of esse without losing its verbal characteristics. This example is commented on by Woodcock (1959: 79) in his A New Latin Syntax as follows: Videtis ut senectus sit operosa et semper agens aliquid et moliens (Cic. the presence of a direct object ( aliquid), the participles here cannot be used in their comparative and superlative forms, etc.). More relevant to this issue is the existence of examples like the following one from Cicero, where verbal behavior is indeed involved (cf. At least, Joonas's invented examples of copular constructions with verbal present participles like faciens est or dicens sum, which, in my opinion, are ungrammatical in Classical Latin (but see brianpck's comment above on the Latin of the Vulgate) seem to point to a different phenomenon, to a more interesting one or to a less obvious one. I understand that the OP was not really asking for this well-known fact, i.e., the adjectival usage of Latin present participles and their expected compatibility with esse. Ubii, quorum fuit civitas ampla atque florens (Caes. Examples like semper appetentes gloriae fuistis are indeed very frequent in Classical Latin and their adjectival nature is indisputable. These examples are not so different from typical ones like the following one from Caesar, where the adjectival behavior of florens is obvious. their compatibility with comparative and superlative degrees, etc.). ![]() One can apply the typical tests to them in order to show their adjectival status (e.g. It is not correct to say, as blagae does, that these examples "occur sporadically". ![]() I think that the four examples from Ovid given by blagae are not quite relevant to the question raised by the OP: all of them can be argued to show a clearly adjectival behavior and are not infrequent at all in Classical Latin. ![]()
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