Impersonal and personal passivization of Latin infinitive constructions

The structure Accusativus cum Infinitivo (AcI) has been observed in a number of languages, amongst them Latin. Morphologically it consists of an NPacc and a VPinf . In Latin however, a finer distinction has to be drawn, as was already noticed by Bolkestein (1976) who differentiates “between actual accusative cum infinitive clauses and constructions existing of an object-noun in the accusative caseform and a complementary infinitive”(1976:263). This syntactical distinction was not drawn by the classical grammarians (cf. Woodcock (1959), Ernout and Thomas (1951), Meillet and Vendryès (1924), Leumann, Hoffmann, and Szantyr (1965)). Even relatively recent authors such as Cann (1983) – although aware of the difference – sometimes confuse the structures. (1) illustrates the A+I-variety and (2) the AcI: