What case is a direct object in an accusative infinitive construction in latin?

Welcome to fluther, @yellowpoppy.

Are you speaking of a construction such as this (in English)?

“I know him to be an honest man.”

If so, how does a direct object come into it? I am having trouble thinking of an example where another object would occur in the same sentence. What is your sentence in English?

Thank you Jeruba!

Yes, that is the type of construction I mean. My sentence is: “We promise to give hostages”. So hostages, or obsides, is the direct object of the indirect statement.

That’s not an indirect statement.

We = subject (nominative)
promise = main verb, transitive
to give = infinitive, verbal, direct object of the main verb
hostages = direct object of the infinitive

You do not have a subject in the accusative there. In my sentence, the subject of the infinitive is in the accusative. But your infinitive has no subject.

My Latin is too ancient for me to give you a thorough grammatical analysis in terms of Latin, but that is the breakdown in English, and of course you know that English grammar is based on Latin (although it has strayed far from it by now, on account of the fact that Latin was never really the right model for English in the first place). So there will be a parallel, even if all the particulars don’t match up.

In my opinion, you must start over with a sentence that actually uses the construction you are talking about.

We do have a number of folks here on fluther who are still up on their amo, amas, amat, so when you’re ready they can probably help you more than I. When they drop by, I will certainly defer to them.

Thanks @Jeruba
I see what you are saying. I could translate that sentence without that construction.

Here is another sentence that I do believe is using the indirect statement:

“It is announced that Caesar had defeated the Gauls.”

It = subject
announced= main verb
Caesar=subject of indirect statement(accusative)
defeated=verb of indirect statement(infinitive)
The Gauls=direct object in indirect statement(case?)

This is indeed an indirect statement, but you have your analysis wrong. “It” is not the subject. It is an expletive (placeholder) for the actual subject, which is the “that” clause, a noun phrase:

“That Caesar had defeated the Gauls is announced.”

(Your verbs need sorting out, too: ” is announced…has defeated” or “was announced…had defeated.”)

So this sentence of yours still does not have an accusative noun as the subject of an infinitive. If that’s really what you are after, consider these additional examples:

— I have never known her to take the easy path when there is a hard way.
— We consider you to be the best candidate for the position.
— We hold these truths to be self-evident.
— The judges found his work to be deficient in four major respects.
— I understand your request to mean that you are struggling with your assignment.

Find the commonality in all these constructions (hint: start by finding the infinitive) and build yourself a good old ancient Roman sentence that has the same characteristics. Then come back and we’ll see what we can do.

On further thought . . . I’ll stand by my grammatical analysis of the English sentence, but it is possible that the Latin construction would literally be something more like this: “Announced is, Caesar the-Gauls-to-have-defeated.” If that is the case, you may be right that an accusative and infinitive would be used there. We’re going to need somebody who has taken Latin more recently than 1962, or who at least has kept up with it better, to help with a conclusive analysis.

I’m in Latin 3 but I have no idea what you’re talking about. :( Also are you using the Henle Latin book?

Aha, I have found the answer. Here is a sentence I had in class today:
I did not know that he had decived you.
“that he had decived you” is the indirect part. Both he, the subject, and you, the direct object are put in the accusative in this construction. The only way to differentiate which is which is from context.
Thanks for the help.

@yellowpoppy, was the literal translation of this just as you gave it, or was it literally “I did not know him to have deceived you”? Was there an infinitive involved? (Can we see the sentence in Latin?)

And how would you distinguish that sentence (in Latin) from “I did not know you to have deceived him” as you asked in your original question? In English we do it by word order; in Latin it’s by inflections. So I am curious too.

here’s an example
id sibi maxime formidolosum, (privati hominis nomen supra principem attolli:
frustra studia fori et civilium artium decus in silentium acta, si militarem gloriam
alius occuparet; cetera utcumque facilius dissimulari,) ducis boni imperatoriam
virtutem esse.
it is his greatest fear that (.........) the virtue(acc) of a good man(gen.) is(inf.) imperial.(acc)

the answer simply is: in indirect statement you use an accusative subject and an accusative direct object of the infinitive.

duci = leader.. sorry.. didn’t pay attention.