Genitive of Value and Price

The traditional “genitive of value and price” is a small but important Classical pattern: magnī faciō means “I value highly,” quantī? asks “at what value?”, and plūris ēmī means “I bought it for more.” The crucial limitation is that Latin normally puts an actual price in the ablative. The genitive is used chiefly for a fixed set of words expressing indefinite or comparative value.

The core division

This distribution is lexical. There is no general rule that “vague price = genitive”: magnō “at a high price” is ablative, while plūris “for more” is genitive. With valuation verbs, intensive permagnī means “very highly,” the superlatives maximī/plūrimī “most highly” and minimī “least” extend the scale, and tantīdem means “at the same value.” The forms must still be learned with the constructions in which Classical authors used them.

Genitive with verbs of valuing

With aestimō “appraise, esteem,” faciō “make, reckon,” pendō “weigh, value,” and sometimes sum “be worth,” the genitive states the degree at which someone or something is valued. It functions adverbially with the predicate rather than naming a possessor.

English uses adverbs (“highly,” “little”), adjectives (“worthless”), or a phrase with “worth.” Latin makes the valuation itself genitive. Magnī is not agreeing with cōnsilium: the neuter noun is nominative/accusative singular, whereas magnī is a frozen substantival genitive of value.

The comparative genitives plūris and minōris are especially common. The thing valued remains in the case required by the verb—here accusative salūtem, glōriam, pecūniam, and fidem. The genitive answers “at how great a value?”

Dismissive idioms

Nihilī or contracted nīlī means “at nothing, worthless.” Floccī, literally “at the value of a tuft of wool,” means “not a straw” and is distinctly (informal) or epistolary.

Price in transactions: usually ablative

With emō “buy,” vēndō “sell,” vēneō “be sold,” and other commercial predicates, the sum paid is normally the ablative of price.

The case is determined by the Latin price relation, not by English “for.” In ducentīs mīlibus sēstertium, mīlibus is ablative as the price; sēstertium is genitive plural after the noun-like numeral “thousands.” A single phrase can therefore contain different case relations nested inside it.

Indefinite magnō, parvō, plūrimō, minimō, and vīlī also behave as ablatives with buying and selling.

The surviving genitives with commercial verbs

The forms tantī, quantī, tantīdem, plūris, and minōris remain genitive even when they express transactional price.

The question uses genitive quantī because that is the idiomatic interrogative of indefinite value; the exact answer uses ablative duōbus talentīs. This minimal contrast is the system in one exchange.

Here plūris is genitive “for more.” There is no productive paradigm in which every adjective can be placed in the genitive for price. Learn this restricted series as a lexical construction.

Value, price, and consequence

Value is an assessment; price is what is given in an exchange. Context can bring them close, but the grammatical tendencies remain useful:

• Epistulam tuam magnī faciō evaluates a letter highly.
• Epistulam decem dēnāriīs ēmī reports its purchase price.
• Quantī eam ēmistī? asks an indefinite question whose answer may be exact.

The same value forms also express degree with interest and rēfert: meā magnī interest “it matters greatly to me.” That impersonal syntax is treated on the genitive with interest and rēfert page.

Parsing and production diagnostics

When you see one of these forms, use this sequence:

1. Find the predicate: valuation, being worth, buying, selling, costing, or exchanging.
2. Separate the thing evaluated from the expression of value. The former is usually the verb’s object or subject; the latter is genitive or ablative.
3. If the price is a number, coin, or concrete sum, expect the ablative.
4. If the form belongs to the established genitive series—magnī, permagnī, parvī, maximī, plūrimī, minimī, tantī, quantī, tantīdem, plūris, or minōris—or is a dismissive form such as nihilī or floccī, check its lexical pattern.
5. Translate only after parsing: “highly,” “for more,” “worth so much,” and “not a straw” may all represent a genitive.

Word order contributes emphasis, not government. Magnī tuam fidem aestimō and tuam fidem magnī aestimō have the same case relations.

Register and historical scope

The main system belongs to ordinary Classical prose. Commercial ablatives occur in comedy, letters, law, and narrative. Floccī and some other metaphorical “worthless object” genitives are (informal) and not a freely expandable list. Later Latin preserves and extends various formulas, but composition in a Classical norm should stay with the securely attested core above.

Common Mistakes

1. Putting an exact price in the genitive

2. Making every indefinite price genitive

3. Changing plūris to agree with the thing bought

4. Assigning the case from English “for”

Key Takeaways

Use the genitive for the established indefinite value series (magnī, permagnī, parvī, maximī, plūrimī, minimī, tantī, quantī, tantīdem, plūris, minōris) and a few dismissive nouns such as nihilī and (informal) floccī. Use the ablative for exact prices and normally for magnō, parvō, plūrimō, minimō, and vīlī with buying or selling. This mixed system is genuinely lexical; memorizing its limited inventory is more accurate than inventing a universal “of value” rule.