A Latin question about infinitives.?

Question

I'm stuck on this one:

Decide whether the infinitive is used as a direct object, predicate nominative, or subject.

Romam in mea vita videre est meum desiderium. (My desire is to see Rome in my lifetime.)

Answer 1

It's the subject. To see Rome in my lifetime is my desire. The key is that the only time you use the infinitive as a noun is in the nominative. Although the predicate nominative usage would also be in nominative case, typically Latin infinitive used as noun was subject. It definitely may not be an object - that would require a gerund.

Answer 2

In English, it would be the predicate nominative, but I can't swear that's what it is in Latin.  (In English, Rome is one direct object, lifetime is another.  The subject is desire.)

Well, I asked my brother about this and he reached far back in his memory banks to recall his graduate studies in transformational grammar.  This is what he replied (bearing in mind that he is discussing the English translation only, not the Latin original):

Every sentence has a noun phrase ("subject") and a verb phrase ("predicate")...each of which can be broken down still further.  I forget all the nomenclature, but I can use terms from traditional grammar:



The noun phrase is "My desire."



The verb phrase is "is to see Rome in my lifetime."



"to see Rome" is an infinitive phrase; "in my lifetime" is, of course, a prepositional phrase. This prepositional phrase is an adverbial phrase that modifies "to see."



I would say that "to see..." is a predicate nominative.  It is not an object, per se, so I would hesitate to call it a direct object.

Does this add clarity or confusion? :-)