Download CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I
An Overview of How Latin Words Work
(Noun, Verbs, Adjectives and the rest)
1
Verbs
2
Verbs – A Simple Intro
We all know what verbs are, right? They give ACTION to a sentence, telling you what the
subject of the sentence is DOING, FEELING or THINKING (or, in the case of “is/are”,
its state of being).
Some Verbs...
He fights
(pugnat)
He flees
(fugit)
He works
(laborat)
He drinks
(bibit)
Here are some English sentences below – can you tell me which words in the sentences are verbs?
I. The farmer walks to the store
II. Quintus fears the big dog
III. The father is sick.
** Did you notice something in common with all the verbs above? They all
come right after the subject. (Farmer WALKS, Quintus FEARS, Father
IS). This doesn’t always happen in English, but more often than not it does.
Here are the same three sentences from above; this time they are in
Latin. See how the verb comes at the end of the sentence for numbers
1 and 2, but not in 3.
I.
II.
III.
agricola ad tabernam ambulat
Quintus magnum canem timet
pater est aeger.
**When translating from Latin to English, you will have to rearrange the words in a sentence to make them
sound OK in English. In the first sample sentence, if you translated the sentence word for word it sounds
funny (The farmer to the store walks) in English. You have to change the word order to have it make better
sense.**
3
(and what they mean in plain, simple English)
If you were to study ANY language around the world, from Swahili to Spanish, from English to Estonian,
you would find that you would still use the same grammatical terms to describe how the language
operates. So ALL verbs, in ALL languages, have the following three characteristics (later on you will
learn more of these “characteristics”, but let’s not needlessly complicate things until we have to, eh?).
You will find that as you study Latin, things you learn can be applied to English and other languages you
may go on to learn, both in school and out! Interesting, huh?
Tense, Person & Number
Verb Grammar Term
simplified meaning
When the verb’s action is taking place (happening now,
will happen later, happened in the past, etc...)
Do English verbs have “tenses”? Yes they do! Think about it, things
either happen NOW (English “present tense”), or happened BEFORE
(English “past tense”) , or will happen LATER (English “future tense”).
Who the subject of the verb is. (In Latin the ending,
or suffix, of the verb will tell you who the subject is,
without using any other noun as a subject).
Do English verbs have a “person”? You better believe it! In a page or two
you will see a verb chart comparing an English verb to its Latin
equivalent. You’re English teacher will be so impressed when you know
all this stuff!!
Tells whether the subject of the verb is
singular (one) or plural (more than one)
Do English verbs have a “number”? They sure do! If an English verb has
one subject, it is singular. If there is more than one subject, it is plural.
Think about “she runs” vs. “they run”
**From now on, when we talk about verbs, we will use the terms “Tense, Person and Number”. Just get used to these
terms, because as stated above not only are they used to describe Latin grammar but English (and any other
language you could study) grammar as well! **
4
Tense, Person, Number – The Nuts and Bolts of Verbs
In this introduction, we will look at how Tense, Person and Number work in Latin and in English. You
cannot learn how another language works if you don’t know how your own works. We will examine how
all three of these components come together to give the verb a complete meaning and function in a
sentence.
: In English, a verb changes it’s spelling when the verb’s tense changes. When you are
talking about walking right now (the “Present Tense”), you use “walks”. When you are talking about
walking in the past (the “Past Tense”), you use “walked”. When you are talking about walking in the future
(the “Future Tense”), you use “will walk”. Well, Latin does the same thing!
Let’s look at a chart, comparing the English verb “I love” and its
Latin equivalent, “ego amo”.
English
Latin*
Present Tense
I love
Past (Perfect) Tense
I loved
ego amo
ego amavi
Future Tense
I will love
ego amabo
* You will learn below that in Latin, you actually don’t need a word such as “ego” ( I ) to show who the subject of the verb is. The ending
does that all by itself! Latin rules!!
Luckily, all Latin verbs behave just like the English verb “walk” – meaning that
Latin verbs also change their spelling in different tenses. Just like it is easy to tell
that “walks”, “walked” and “will walk” are all the same verb (“walk”) in English, so
it will be easy in Latin. Just wait and see! Would we lie to you?
&
:
In English, a verb also changes it’s spelling slightly depending on
who the subject of the verb is ( Its “person” and “number” ). To illustrate this, let’s take the present tense of
the English verb “to walk” :
“ Number ”
“ Person ”
singular
plural
1st person
I walk
We walk
2nd person
You walk
You all walk
3rd person
He (or She or It) walks
They walk
5
Did you see the spelling change? Well, I admit it isn’t much of one; only the 3rd person singular form
(when “he”, “she” or “it” is the subject) changed. But it did change! Well, English verbs are a bit lazy
compared to Latin ones as you will soon see – Latin verbs change their endings for every different subject!
Let’s take the same verb in Latin (In Latin, “to walk” is “ambulare”) in the present tense. Again, take note
that Latin verbs change their endings for every different subject! :
* first you must drop the “–re” from the end of verb (this “–re” form is called
the “infinitive form” of the verb – more on that later). Then take that base
and add the appropriate ending or “suffix”. Watch! *
singular
plural
1 person
ambulo
ambulamus
2nd person
ambulas
ambulatis
3rd person
ambulat
ambulant
st
Look at that!! In Latin, you don’t need a separate pronoun to tell you who the subject of a verb is. The
ending (or “suffix”) tells you who the subject is. In fact the Romans only used a separate pronoun as a
verb’s subject if they really, really wanted to emphasize that subject. Most often if there is no specific
subject in the sentence, Latin relies on the verb ending alone to let you know who is the subject.
Let’s compare the English verb “to see” with its Latin equivalent, “videre” in the present tense:
English – singular - Latin
English – plural - Latin
1 person
I see
= video
We see
=
videmus
2nd person
You see
= vides
You all see
=
videtis
3rd person
He/She/It sees
= videt
They see
=
vident
st
Are you beginning to see how this works? You betcha!
6
Verbs in the Latin Dictionary
When you look up a Latin verb in a Latin-English dictionary, it is always written in a certain way. Each verb is
listed in four forms, called the “four principle parts” of a verb. We will go into detail regarding the four
principle parts later; for now just know that this is how all Latin verbs are listed in a dictionary…
The four principle parts of a verb (as found in most Latin dictionaries) are:
1. 1st person singular, present tense form of the verb
2. Infinitive form of the verb
3. 1st person singular perfect (past) tense of the verb
4. Participle form of the verb (a participle is a verb that is acting
like an adjective - the bouncing ball, the running child)
Here’s a list of Latin verbs (as they appear in standard Latin-English dictionaries). See how they are
presented:
laboro,
1st person sing.
present tense
dormio,
1st person sing.
present tense
laborare,
laboravi,
1st person
perfect tense
infinitive
dormire,
dormui,
1st person
perfect tense
infinitive
laboratus
-
works
participle
dormitus – sleeps
participle
respondo, respondere, responsi, responsus – replies, responds
1st person sing.
present tense
sedeo,
1st
person sing.
present tense
1st person
perfect tense
Infinitive
sedere,
Infinitive
sedi,
1st
person
perfect tense
participle
seditus – sits
participle
retineo, retinere, retinui, retentus – keeps, holds back, retains
1st person sing. Infinitive
present tense
1st person
perfect tense
participle
7
Latin Verb Endings (Inflection)
A Basic List to Remember
The following inflected endings tell you who the subject of any verb is. Even when the verb
is in a different tense, as we will see later, you can still tell who the subject is by
memorizing the following information chart:
* Remember to first drop the –re ending from the infinitive before adding a suffix!
Singular
*1st person singular :
(I)
-o, -m, -i
ambulo = I walk,
ambulabam = I was walking
ambulavi = I walked
*2nd person singular :
(you)
-s, -isti
ambulas = you walk
ambulabas = you were walking
ambulavisti = you walked
3rd person singular :
(he, she, it)
-t
ambulat = he/she/it walks
ambulabat = he/she/it was walking
ambulavit = he/she/it walked
Plural
1st person plural :
(we)
-mus
ambulamus = we walk
ambulabamus = we were walking
ambulavimus = we walked
2nd person plural :
(you all)
-tis
ambulatis = you all walk
ambulabatis = you all were walking
ambulavistis = you all walked
3rd person plural :
(they)
-nt
ambulant = They walk
ambulabant = they were walking
ambulaverunt = they walked
8
Practice Time!
Choose the correct form of the Latin verb on the left that has the same person and number
as the English verb on the right (present tense verbs only for right now).
1.
I sleep
-
(dormio, dormis, dormit, dormimus, dormistis, dormiunt)
2.
They praise
-
(laudo, laudas, laudat, laudamus, laudatis, laudant)
3.
We are entering
-
(intro, intras, intrat, intramus, intratis, intrant)
4.
You (plur.) are working
-
(laboro, laboras, laborat, laboramus, laboratis, laborant)
5.
You (sing.) work
-
(laboro, laboras, laborat, laboramus, laboratis, laborant)
6.
He is sleeping
-
(dormio, dormis, dormit, dormimus, dormistis, dormiunt)
7.
She praises
-
(laudo, laudas, laudat, laudamus, laudatis, laudant)
8.
It enters
-
(intro, intras, intrat, intramus, intratis, intrant)
9.
They are sitting
-
(sedeo, sedes, sedet, sedemus, sedetis, sedent)
10.
I am cooking
-
(coquo, coquis, coquit, coquimus, coquitis, coquunt)
Ok, so far so good. While the English sentences above all had pronouns as their subjects, the Latin
verbs didn’t need a separate pronoun – the ending, or suffix, of the verb alone told you what pronoun is
the subject. You will learn the pronouns later, but remember Latin rarely uses a pronoun as the subject
of the sentence. The suffix of the verb does it for you!!
And now for something slightly different… Below you will find some sentences with regular nouns as the
subjects. Your job is still the same; choose the verb form that has the correct person and number for the
sentence. Just think about what pronoun would replace the noun in the sentence and you’ll do fine!
11.
The farmer is working
-
agricola (laboro, laboras, laborat, laboramus, laboratis, laborant)
12.
The girls are sleeping
-
puellae (dormio, dormis, dormit, dormimus, dormistis, dormiunt)
13.
The slaves stand
-
servi (sto, stas, stat, stamus, statis, stant)
14.
The merchant is sitting
-
mercator (sedeo, sedes, sedet, sedemus, sedetis, sedent)
15.
The boy reads
-
puer (lego, legis, legit, legimus, legitis, legunt)
16.
The master is going out
-
dominus (exeo, exis, exit, eximus, exitis, exeunt)
17.
The dog is good
-
canis (sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt) bonus.
18.
The slave and I shout
-
ego et servus (clamo, clamas, clamat, clamamus, clamatis, clamant)
9
Verbs – A Look Ahead
After reading about the basic properties of verbs and after all that practice above, you might be
wondering, “Hey, that wasn’t so tough. How about tell me more about verbs and their functions. I
don’t want to wait until later!”
If so, then this is your lucky page. In addition to Tense, Person and Number, verbs have two other
qualities that are important in determining how a verb is working in a sentence (and thus how the
sentence is working as a whole). Below you will find a quick explanation of these three other
functions: Voice and Mood (we will also take a quick look at ALL six verb tenses that Latin has).
We will go into more detail on these different verb characteristics as we progress through the
Cambridge Latin Course. But we feel that it is important to at least make you aware of their
existence, even if it isn’t time to learn ALL about them yet IN DETAIL.
You will find some English examples below, but none in Latin yet. Let’s being nice and easy, just
learning about these terms first in English. When the time comes, you will get your fill of learning
them in Latin.
A
AC
CR
RA
ASSH
HC
CO
OU
UR
RSSEE IIN
NV
VEER
RB
BSS
Verb Voice – There are two (2) possible “voices” of a verb in Latin (and English). A verb’s “voice”
refers to the subject of the verb and its relation to the action of the verb. Let’s look at
what that means:
I.
Active Voice – this means the subject of the verb is performing the verb’s action
(The dog bites the man ; The boys steal apples)
II.
Passive Voice – this means the subject is being acted upon, NOT performing the
action
(The man is bitten by the dog ; The apples are stolen by the boys)
Verb Mood – There are three (3) different “moods” a verb can have in Latin. A verb’s “mood” refers to
the verb’s relationship to the rest of the sentence, how a verb “feels” about the
sentence.
I.
Indicative Mood – this is the simplest, most common mood. It is used for stating
facts in the main part of a sentence. It’s called “indicative”
because
it “indicates” the main verb in the sentence.
(The soldiers defeated the enemy)
(The writer finished his book)
II.
Subjunctive Mood – this mood of a verb is used when the verb is secondary in the
sentence, usually in a separate clause (a clause is part of a sentence
with a subject and a verb). It usually refers to possibilities,
necessities or intentions. It’s called “subjunctive” because these
verbs are “subjects”, ruled by some other verb in the indicative
mood.
(It was necessary that the soldiers defeat the enemy)
(It was expected that the writer would finish his book)
10
Verb Tense – Well, we already discussed what verb tense is – it refers to when the
verbs action is taking place. But we only briefly glanced at a couple types of
tenses. Now get ready to look at all six. These six tenses can be placed into three
broad categories: present, past, and future.
Present
I.
Present Tense – action is taking place NOW
(I walk/am walking to the store)
Past
I.
Imperfect Tense – action was taking place continually (or over a period of time) in
the past
(I was walking to the store)
II.
Perfect Tense – simple, one-time action completed in the past
(I walked to the store)
III.
Pluperfect Tense – an action that was completed BEFORE another action that also
took place in the past
(I had walked to the store when I saw her standing out in front)
Future
I.
Future Tense – an action that will take place at a later time
(I will walk to the store)
II.
Future Perfect Tense – an action that will be completed in the future
(I will have walked to the store)
Like we said, this is just a short, quick introduction to the basic concepts – we will look
at each Voice, Mood, and Tense in great detail in their own time. But it is better that
you are at least aware of them all before we start studying them closer. For now, all the
verbs you see will be active voice and indicative mood. We will deal with present,
imperfect, and perfect tenses at first, and then expand into more tenses later.
11