Breakdown of Aliqui in bibliotheca tacent, alii de auctore disputant.
Questions & Answers about Aliqui in bibliotheca tacent, alii de auctore disputant.
Aliqui means some or some people, and alii means others.
In this sentence, both words are being used substantively—that is, they stand on their own without a noun like homines (people) being stated. Latin often does this when the noun is easy to understand.
So the sentence is basically:
- Aliqui = some people
- alii = other people / others
They are both masculine plural nominative here, because they are the subjects of the two verbs.
They are plural because the sentence is talking about more than one person in each group:
- some people are silent
- other people are discussing the author
Latin marks this clearly with both the subject words and the verb endings:
- aliqui ... tacent = some people are silent
- alii ... disputant = others are discussing
The verb endings -ent and -ant also show third person plural.