Genitive with Verbs of Remembering and Forgetting | Latin Grammar

Classical meminī “remember” and oblīvīscor “forget” can govern either a genitive or an accusative. The choice is not a free stylistic alternation: the accusative typically presents a person, thing, or experience retained or lost from memory, while the genitive presents someone or something kept in mind, heeded, or deliberately dismissed. Pronoun type and established idiom also matter.

First recognize the verbs

Meminī is morphologically perfect but has present meaning: meminī “I remember,” not “I remembered.” Its pluperfect memineram supplies an ordinary past, and future-perfect-shaped meminerō an ordinary future. The unmarked imperative is mementō singular and mementōte plural. See the full paradigm on the meminī reference page.

Oblīvīscor, oblīvīscī, oblītus sum is deponent. Its perfect participle oblītus has active meaning: “having forgotten” or “forgetful of.” Reminīscor “call to mind, recollect” is (formal) and (literary) and comparatively rare.

Verb and construal	Usual complement	Core idea	Register
meminī, literal recollection	accusative	retain a known person, fact, event, or experience in memory	ordinary Classical usage
meminī, mindful recollection	genitive	keep someone or something in mind, often with concern or obligation	ordinary Classical usage
oblīvīscor, loss of memory	accusative	forget a whole remembered item or experience	ordinary Classical usage
oblīvīscor, disregard	genitive	put aside, neglect, or cease attending to	ordinary Classical usage
reminīscor	same tendency	recall versus be mindful of	(formal), (literary), rare
recordor	normally accusative; dē + ablative also	recollect, call to mind	ordinary Classical usage

Accusative: recollecting an experienced whole

The accusative is natural when the object is treated as the thing directly retained, recalled, or erased from memory—especially a person once known, a scene witnessed, words learned, or an entire event.

Meminī illum diem quō prīmum Rōmam vēnī.

I remember the day when I first came to Rome.

Avum tuum meminī; saepe in forō colloquēbāmur.

I remember your grandfather; we often talked in the forum.

The second sentence means that the speaker personally remembers the grandfather as an acquaintance. A classical contrast is Utinam avum tuum meminissēs!—“If only you could remember your grandfather!”—said where such firsthand memory is impossible.

Omnia verba quae magister dīxit meminimus.

We remember all the words the teacher said.

Tōtam causam oblītus est et eadem iterum rogāvit.

He forgot the whole case and asked the same things again.

Neuter pronouns and substantivized neuter adjectives are regularly accusative: hoc meminī “I remember this,” omnia meminit “he remembers everything,” quid oblītus es? “what have you forgotten?” This lexical tendency is more useful than trying to force an abstract semantic distinction onto every token.

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Use the accusative as the safe Classical choice for a remembered scene, statement, event, or thing taken as a complete memory: illum diem, omnia, tōtam causam. It is not “more direct” because English lacks cases; it is the attested government of these Latin verbs in this construal.

Genitive: keeping something in mind

The genitive commonly presents the object as a concern, obligation, interest, warning, or consideration that remains before the mind. With oblīvīscor, the reverse idea is often “disregard, dismiss from consideration.”

Mementō meī, cum Rōmam vēneris.

Remember me when you reach Rome.

Dux salūtis mīlitum meminit neque temere proelium committit.

The commander keeps his soldiers’ safety in mind and does not rashly join battle.

Oblīvīscere iniūriārum; amīcitiam renovēmus.

Put the wrongs out of mind; let us renew our friendship.

In the last example, iniūriārum need not mean that the hearer literally loses all memory. The command is to stop dwelling on the injuries. That difference in construal explains why an English translation with the same verb “forget” can conceal two Latin constructions.

Abstract nouns are often genitive because they naturally express a principle or concern to be borne in mind:

Hūmānae īnfīrmitātis meminī, itaque hostī victō parcō.

I remember human frailty, and so I spare the defeated enemy.

The traditional accusative-versus-genitive distinction is a strong tendency, not a mathematical test. Authors can present the same referent as a remembered whole in one context and as an active concern in another. Parse the case actually written, then infer the author’s construal.

Personal and reflexive pronouns

The personal/reflexive objects are regularly genitive: meī, tuī, suī, nostrī, vestrī. These are object genitives, so use nostrī and vestrī, not the partitive forms nostrum and vestrum.

Mementō nostrī, etiam sī diū aberis.

Remember us, even if you will be away for a long time.

Suī oblītus, omnibus aliīs cōnsulere cōnābātur.

Forgetful of himself, he was trying to look after everyone else.

This pronoun pattern overrides a learner’s temptation to choose the accusative mechanically because English “remember” is transitive.

Meminī meaning “mention”

In (formal) expository or historical prose, meminī can mean “make mention of.” It then takes the genitive.

Hic est legātus cuius suprā meminimus.

This is the envoy whom we mentioned above.

The genitive relative cuius depends on meminimus. English treats “whom” as the object of “mentioned,” but Latin preserves its own lexical government.

Do not extend the rule to every memory verb

Recordor, recordārī normally takes an accusative of a thing recalled. With a person or topic it may use dē + ablative. Its isolated genitive examples do not make the genitive productive in Classical composition.

Recordāre cōnsēnsum illum theātrī.

Recall that remarkable agreement of the audience in the theater.

Dē tē saepe recordor, praesertim cum veterēs epistulās legō.

I often think back to you, especially when I read the old letters.

Likewise, verbs of reminding form their own construction: admoneō tē perīculī “I remind you of the danger” has accusative person tē and genitive thing perīculī, while dē perīculō is also common. Do not merge “remember” and “remind” merely because English builds both from the same root.

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Lexical government belongs to the Latin verb, not to its English gloss. Learn meminī/oblīvīscor with their genitive–accusative contrast, recordor with accusative or dē + ablative, and admoneō with accusative person plus genitive thing.

A practical decision path

Identify the exact verb and its form; do not mistake perfect-shaped meminī for past time.
If the complement is meī, tuī, suī, nostrī, or vestrī, parse it as the regular genitive pronoun object.
If it is hoc, illud, quid, or omnia, expect the accusative.
For a concrete memory or experienced whole, choose the accusative.
For mindfulness, heed, disregard, an abstract concern, or “mention,” choose the genitive.
Treat context as decisive where the semantic tendencies overlap.

Common Mistakes

1. Using an accusative personal pronoun for “keep in mind”

❌ Meminī tē.

Poor for the intended ‘I keep you in mind’: personal pronouns are regularly genitive in that construal. An accusative can instead present a person as someone literally remembered from experience.

✅ Meminī tuī.

I remember you / I keep you in mind.

2. Using the partitive pronoun form

❌ Mementō nostrum.

Incorrect here—nostrum is the partitive form, as in “one of us.”

✅ Mementō nostrī.

Remember us.

3. Putting a remembered event in the genitive by rote

❌ Meminī illīus diem quō Rōmam vēnī.

Incorrect—the adjective and noun do not even agree, and a day experienced as a whole normally takes the accusative.

✅ Meminī illum diem quō Rōmam vēnī.

I remember the day when I came to Rome.

4. Extending meminī’s government to recordor

❌ Recordāre illīus diēī.

Poor Classical default—recordor normally takes the accusative of the thing recalled.

✅ Recordāre illum diem.

Recall that day.

Key Takeaways

With meminī and oblīvīscor, the accusative usually presents a remembered or forgotten whole; the genitive presents something kept in mind or disregarded. Personal/reflexive pronouns are regularly genitive, neuter pronouns regularly accusative, and “mention” takes the genitive. These are interacting tendencies and lexical facts, not a case chosen from English word order.

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