Talk:dormire

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Removal of passive voice in conjugation[edit]

The passive voice was removed in the conjugation for Latin "dormire" for the following reasons: (1) what could the passive voice of "dormire" mean? Would "dormior, dormiris, dormitur, dormimur, dormimini, dormiuntur" mean "I am being slept, you are being slept, he/she/it is being slept, we are being slept, you (all) are being slept, they are being slept". It seems that "dormire" is intransitive, even though it has a fourth principal part. (2) "Google test": Searching the words "dormimur", "dormimini", and "dormiuntur" on the web yields zero results, suggesting that these verb forms don't exist at all. On the other hand, searches of the words "laudamur", "laudamini", "laudantur", "videmur", "videmini", "videntur" on the web do yield leads to Latin texts. Searching "dormitur" does produce a lead but only to a text in which it is used as a noun meaning "dormitory". --AugPi 00:38, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dormire is an intransitive verb, so it shouldn't have a passive voice in the first place. -- Random Scrub


This is entirely untrue, 'dormitur' used in an impersonal sense was used in Latin literature, as a specific example "Magnis opibus dormitur in Urbe" in line 235 of Juvenal's 3rd Satire. Means something like 'it is slept in the city with great wealth', more idomatically 'one sleeps in the city [only] with great wealth'. -- Different Scrub