Heavy Construction

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396.

Some verbs of asking and teaching may take two accusatives, one of the Person (direct object), and the other of the Thing (secondary object):

NOTE: This construction is found in classical authors with óró, poscó, reposcó, rogó, interrogó, flágitó, doceó.

a. Some verbs of asking take the ablative of the person with a preposition instead of the accusative. So, always, peti (ab), quaeró (ex, ab, dé); usually poscó (ab), flágitó (ab), postuló (ab), and occasionaily others:

b. With the passive of some verbs of asking or teaching, the person or the thing may be used as subject (cf. c. N. 2): Caesar sententiam rogátus est, Caesar was asked his opinion.

NOTE: The accusative of the thing may be retained with the passive of rogó, and of verbs of teaching, and occasionally with a few other verbs: -

But with most verbs of asking in prose the accusative of the thing becomes the subject nominative, and the accusative of the person is put in the ablative with a preposition: as, - né postulautur quidem vírés á senectúte (Cat. M. 34), strength is not even expected of an old man (asked from old age).

c. The verb céló, conceal, may take two accusatives, and the usually intransitive lateó, lie hid, an accusative of the person:

NOTE 1: The accusative of the person with lateó is late or poetical (§388. C. N.1).

NOTE 2: All the double constructions indicated in § 306 arise from the wavering meaning of the verbs. Thus doceó means both to show a thing, and to instruct a person; céló to keep a person in the dark, and to hide a thing; rogó, to question a person, and to ask a question or a thing. Thus either accusative may be regarded as the direct object, and so become the subject of the passive (cf. b above), but for convenience the accusative of the thing is usually called secondary.