Heavy Construction
The Allen and Greenough is still under construction;
so some links may not work quite the way you would expect.
Ablative of Degree of Difference.
414.
With Coniparatives and words iniplying
comparison the ablative is need to denote the Degree of Difference:
- quinque innibus passuum distat,
it is five miles distant.
- il milibus passuam circiter duo*bvs
(B. G. v.82), at a distance of about two miles. [For i as an
adverb, see §438.8.]
- aliquot ante annie (Thsc. i. 4),
several years before.
- aliquanta post suspexit (Rep. vi. 9), a while * he looked up.
- multS mtl vigililre icrius (Cat. i. 8), that I watch much more sharply.
- nihilo- erat ipse Cyclsps quam anes
prildentior (Tuse. v.115), the Cyclops himself was not a whit
wiser than the ram.
a. The ablatives qu*. . . eli (hI:),
and quant5... tan*, are used *orrelatively with comparatives, hke the
English the . . . the: - [1][In this phrase the is not the
definite article but a pronominal adverb, being the Anglo-Saxon
thý, the instrumental case of the pronoun thaet,
that. This pronoun is used both as relative (by which, by how much) and as demonstrative (by that, by so much). Thus the
the corresponds exactly to quó
eó.]
-
- qu* minus cupiditiltis, ca plils
anct*ritiltls (Liv. xxiv. 28), the less grsed, the more
weight (by what the less, by that the more).
- quantb erat gravior oppu-gnilti*, tantS
crebriores litterac mitt*bantnr (B. Gi. v.45), the severer
the siege was, the more frequently letters were sent.
NOTE: To this construction are doubtless to be referred all
cases of qu* and el (hOc) with a comparative, even when they have ceased
to be distinctly felt as degree of difference and approach nie Ablative
of
Cause:
-
- eaque me minus paenitet (N. Di. 8), and for that reason I repret less, etc. (by so. much the less I regret).
- hasc e* facillus faciebant, quod
(B. G. iii. 12), this they did the more easily for thts reason,
because, etc. Cf. htc maiore spe, quod
(id. iii. 9).
b. The Ablative of Comparison (§406)
and the Ablative of Degree of Difference are sometimes used toge*her with
the same adjective :
- paul5 minus ducentis (B. C. iii. 28), a little less than two hundred.
- patria, quae mibi viti mei niultb eat canor
(Cat. i. 27), my country, whick is much dearer to me than
l*e.
But the construction with quam is more common.