Genesis 41:17

^{Gn 41:17} Narravit ergo Pharao quod viderat: Putabam me stare super ripam fluminis,

Then Pharao told what he had seen: “I was thinking that I was standing on the bank of the river,

Syntax

Main Narrative Clause:
Subject: Pharao — the one performing the action of speaking.
Verb: Narravit — main finite verb “told, related.”
Connector: ergo — coordinating conjunction giving logical consequence with previous context.
Object Clause: quod viderat — content of what Pharaoh told (“what he had seen”), functioning as the direct object of Narravit.

Object Clause Internal Structure (quod viderat):
Relative/Conjunction: quod — introduces the clause referring to the vision just mentioned.
Verb: viderat — pluperfect, “he had seen,” describing prior perception.

Reported First-Person Clause: Putabam me stare super ripam fluminis
Verb: Putabam — finite verb in the first person, introducing a thought or perception.
Infinitive Construction: me stare — accusative + infinitive, expressing the content of the thought (“that I was standing”).
Subject of Infinitive: me — accusative pronoun functioning as logical subject of stare within the infinitive clause.
Infinitive: stare — present active infinitive, “to stand / was standing.”
Prepositional Phrase: super ripam fluminis — indicates location of the standing.
• super — preposition “on, over,” governing the accusative.
• ripam — accusative object of super, “bank, shore.”
• fluminis — genitive dependent on ripam, specifying “bank of the river.”

Morphology

1. Narravit — Lemma: narro; Part of Speech: verb; Form: perfect active indicative third person singular; Function: main verb of the narrative clause describing Pharaoh’s act of relating his dream; Translation: “told” / “related”; Notes: the perfect situates the act as a completed report, often used in narrative sequence to advance the storyline.
2. ergo — Lemma: ergo; Part of Speech: conjunction; Form: simple coordinating conjunction; Function: links this sentence logically to what precedes, marking consequence or continuation; Translation: “therefore,” “so”; Notes: frequently used in narrative to mark a development that follows from previous discourse or events.
3. Pharao — Lemma: Pharao; Part of Speech: proper noun; Form: nominative singular masculine; Function: grammatical subject of Narravit; Translation: “Pharaoh”; Notes: Hebrew royal title adapted as a Latin proper name; here it clearly refers to the Egyptian king in the Joseph narrative.
4. quod — Lemma: quod; Part of Speech: relative pronoun (functionally introducing an object clause); Form: accusative singular neuter; Function: introduces the clause quod viderat, functioning as the internal object of viderat and the overall content-object of Narravit; Translation: “what,” “that which”; Notes: neuter singular often used to summarize a fact or event as a whole, here the entirety of what was seen.
5. viderat — Lemma: video; Part of Speech: verb; Form: pluperfect active indicative third person singular; Function: verbal head of the relative/object clause, indicating prior perception; Translation: “had seen”; Notes: pluperfect marks the vision as anterior to the time when Pharaoh is recounting it, typical for dream reporting in narrative.
6. Putabam — Lemma: puto; Part of Speech: verb; Form: imperfect active indicative first person singular; Function: main verb of the reported first-person clause, introducing the speaker’s subjective perception; Translation: “I was thinking,” “I thought”; Notes: the imperfect highlights an ongoing mental state during the vision rather than a single instantaneous thought.
7. me — Lemma: ego; Part of Speech: personal pronoun; Form: accusative singular first person; Function: logical subject of the infinitive stare in an accusative-with-infinitive construction; Translation: “me,” “myself”; Notes: typical Latin idiom where the accusative pronoun plus infinitive express the content of a mental or verbal action.
8. stare — Lemma: sto; Part of Speech: verb; Form: present active infinitive; Function: infinitive complement of Putabam, expressing what the subject perceived himself to be doing; Translation: “to stand,” contextually “was standing”; Notes: present infinitive in indirect discourse is normally rendered in English as a finite form (“that I was standing”) to preserve idiomatic sense.
9. super — Lemma: super; Part of Speech: preposition; Form: preposition governing the accusative; Function: introduces the prepositional phrase of location modifying stare; Translation: “on,” “over,” “upon”; Notes: with the accusative, super often denotes position on top of or above something, here the river bank.
10. ripam — Lemma: ripa; Part of Speech: noun; Form: accusative singular feminine; Function: object of the preposition super, designating the location of the standing; Translation: “bank,” “shore”; Notes: the accusative after a preposition shows the affected place in prepositional phrases of location or movement.
11. fluminis — Lemma: flumen; Part of Speech: noun; Form: genitive singular neuter; Function: genitive of specification or possession modifying ripam, specifying which bank; Translation: “of the river”; Notes: the genitive tightly links the river to the bank, a common Latin way of forming such locative expressions.