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CHAPTER I An Overview of How Latin Words Work (Noun, Verbs, Adjectives and the rest) 1 Adjectives 2 Adjectives – A Short Intro What are adjectives? Well, that’s simple enough to answer: Adjectives are words that describe nouns. What do we mean by that? Let’s look at a regular old noun: Car That doesn’t tell you much about it, does it? What kind of car? What color is it? Is it fast or slow? In order to get more information about this car, you need ADJECTIVES!! A fast car A small car A new car A slow, dented old car A bright shiny car Adjectives in English With the addition of adjectives, we know much more about the car. Adjectives in English are very simple. In English, the adjectives always come right before the nouns they are describing (or “modifying”). Look at those examples above, and think of any combination of noun and adjectives you can: their adjectives always come in before the word they are modifying. Adjectives in Latin Of course, things are different in Latin. Remember how nouns have different cases, depending on what the noun’s function is in a sentence? Well, adjectives have cases too. Don’t groan yet! Adjectives generally use the same endings as nouns do, so that if you know your noun endings (suffixes), you already know your adjective endings (suffixes). Later on we will worry about adjective declensions and gender, and how you choose the correct case and suffix of a adjective. For now, just remember these very simple rules concerning Latin adjectives: 1. Latin adjectives usually* come AFTER the nouns they are describing (or “modifying”). Let’s look at the following list to see what we mean. English Latin A fast dog = A strong man = A dead duck = A loud noise = canis celer vir fortis anas mortuum clamor ingens * there is an exception to this rule. In Latin, adjectives that describe SIZE or QUANTITY (amount) come BEFORE the noun (like our English word order). See the examples below... English Latin A big house magna villa parva avis magnum numerum A small bird A large number 3 A small man (parvus vir) adjectives describing size 2. A strong man (vir fortis) regular adjective Latin adjectives always share the same case and number (and gender, but we’ll worry about that later) as the noun is describing (“modifying”). That means if the noun is the Nominative singular case, then the adjectives that describe it must also be in the Nominative singular case. noun The happy man is working = adj. verb vir laetus laborat Nom. sing. Nom. sing. noun The sad girls are crying = Nom. plur. adj. The small dog is barking = adj. Nom. plur. noun Nom. sing. noun adj. Acc. sing. Acc. sing. noun = adj. Acc. plur. adj. = verb servos tumultuos audimus Acc. plur. They walk with a big dog verb infantem tristem video = We hear the loud slaves verb parvus canis latrat Nom. sing. I see the sad child verb puellae tristae lacrimant noun verb cum magnum canem ambulant Abl. sing. Abl. sing. You will get very used to seeing adjectives in Latin – by the time we formally study them, you will already mostly know how they work! Most people find adjectives fairly easy, but don’t let that frustrate you if you feel overwhelmed. Just be aware of them when they occur and you will get used to how they operate! A rich man (vir divis) A famous old statue (statua antiqua nota) 4