How can you tell if a verb is deponent or an ablative absolute in Latin?
A deponent verb is simply one that is passive in form but active in meaning, such as “conor, conari, conatus/a/um sum,” meaning try. Since you learn the principle parts and the meaning of each new verb, the very fact that those parts are passive forms when the meaning is active tells you that the verb is deponent. An ablative absolute is simply an independent construction usually involving two or more words in the ablative case. Of course those words must be parts of speech that can be declined (that can HAVE case)–nouns, pronouns, adjectives, participles. “Caesare duce” is an example of an ablative absolute. It can be translated as “with Caesar as leader” or “Caesar being the leader” or “while Caesar was the leader” or “because Caesar was the leader,’ etc. Sometimes you have to figure out from the rest of the sentence which way to translate and ablative absolute is best. So there shouldn’t be any difficulty intelling a deponent verb from an ablative absolute, since they involve diffe
