Download Chapter 11 Notes

Chapter 11 Notes
We have one more case to learn in Latin: the Dative case. In Latin, the dative case is mostly used as the
indirect object.
An easy way to remember what the dative is used for is by its nickname: the to or for case.
Let’s take the sentence below:
Cornelia bakes a cake for Flavia.
In this sentence, Cornelia is our subject, and the cake is the direct object, it receives the action of the
verb. In this sentence, Flavia would be our dative noun because the cake is being baked for her.
Let’s try a couple sentences in English. Tell me which of these are the indirect objects.
I give food to my dog.
Horace runs a race for Aurelia.
You tell a story to Mr. Hagan
Notice that in all of these examples, our indirect object, aka our dative noun, is always translated as to
or for.
Let’s go over the endings then for the dative case.
First Declension Sing.
First Declension Pl.
-ae
-is
Second Declension Sing.
Second Decl. Pl.
-o
-is
Third Decl. Sing
Third Decl. Pl.
-i
-ibus
Notice that a lot of these endings look like the ablative case. For now, a good rule to follow is that if a
noun has an ending that could be dative or ablative, look for a preposition, if you see a preposition, it’s
probably ablative, and if there is no preposition, it’s most likely dative. This will change later in Latin, but
for now it’s a good rule to follow.
One other place you’ll see dative nouns is with compound verbs. Compound verbs are verbs that have a
preposition squished onto the front of them. When these verbs come up, look at the dictionary entry. If
you see next to the verb + dat. it means that the noun that goes with it should be in the dative case, not
the accusative.