158                  THE  WRITING  OF NARRATIVE  LATIN

LESSON  XXXVII

INDIRECT QUESTIONS

201. Indirect questions in Latin include (i) the indirect quo¬
tation of a formal question; (2) subordinate statements imply¬
ing a question that might have given rise to all statements.
The subject of indirect questions is thus much broader in Latin
than in English: for in Latin, not only is the following an
indirect question, he asked where Caesar was going, which is the
quotation form of where is Caesar going? but this also, he told
them where Caesar was going; because to give rise to the state¬
ment, the question where is Caesar going ? is implied, though it
may never have been asked. The verbs of all indirect ques¬
tion clauses are subjunctive by 195, 2; and the word that in¬
troduces them — pronoun, adjective, or adverb — is interroga¬
tive and not relative, as it is regarded in English.

(i) {He asked) why they distrusted their own valor, (rogavit) cur
de sua virtute desperarent; (2) he tells what his plan is, ostendit quid
sui consili sit.

a. Sometimes the same English expression may be translated
indifferently by an indirect question or by a relative clause.
The entire character of the clause and the nature of the word
which introduces it depends in these cases wholly on the presence
or absence of an expressed antecedent. Thus, find out what is
going on among them may be expressed in Latin in two ways,
either quae apud eos gerantur cognoscite, where quae is an in¬
terrogative pronoun, or ea, quae apud eos geruntur, cognoscite,
where quae is identified as a relative by the presence of an
antecedent, ea.

I. Even when the clause is relative, as in the second example,
the verb is often subjunctive as a relative clause of character¬
istic or by attraction.