Download LATIN GRAMMAR

CHAPTER I
An Overview of How Latin Words Work
(Noun, Verbs, Adjectives and the rest)
1
Nouns
2
Nouns – A Short Introduction
Well, we got through verbs with little difficulty. Now we come to nouns. You can’t have a
proper sentence without some nouns. But what ARE nouns anyway?
A Noun is any person, place or thing, either singular (one of them) or plural (more than
one of them). It is a word that names something !!
Can you think of some nouns in English. Sure you can!
The list almost writes itself
-
Alaska, puppy, senators, Molly, banana, computer, cars, girls,
wishbone, Tylenol, fingernail, tuna, shotgun, Italy, floors,
butter, Houdini, gyroscopes, stars, island, Pepsi, emperor,
etc..........
ALL THESE WORDS ARE NOUNS!!!!
Some Nouns......
vase
(vas)
statue
(statua)
soldiers
(milites)
horses
(equi)
Julius Caesar
( Iulius Caesar )
Noun Cases – What a noun’s job is in a sentence.
OK, so you know what nouns are. But knowing what they are is only part of it! You also have
to know what a noun is doing in a particular sentence, what it’s “grammatical function” is, in
order to make it work in the sentence.
Verbs always have the same function; they tell the action or state of being going on in the sentence.
Nouns, however, can have multiple functions in a sentence. You don’t believe us? OK, we’ll show you,
smarty-pants!
Noun Cases in English
Let’s check out a few examples below in English to prove our point. Let’s examine the word “dog”.
“The dog ate my shoes.”
–
In this sentence, the word “dog” is acting as the subject of the
sentence. A subject lets the reader know who or what is performing
the action of the verb. In English, the subject usually comes right
before the verb, at the beginning of the sentence.
Now let’s change the function of the word “dog” in a new sentence.
3
“I chased the dog.”
-
In this sentence, “dog” is no longer performing the action of the verb
(“chased”), so “dog” is no longer the subject of the sentence. In this
example “dog” is receiving the action of the verb (i.e. it is the dog
that is being chased, NOT the one who IS chasing). In this sentence,
“dog” is the direct object of the sentence. A direct object lets the
reader know who or what is receiving the action of the verb.
There are many different functions or cases that a noun can have in a sentence. You just saw two of
those functions used above; the subject and the direct object. There are 3 other often used
functions of nouns that we will look at briefly in this section : possessives, indirect objects, and
objects of prepositions. There are more functions than that, but these 5 will help get you on your
way and ready you for learning more complex functions later on.
Let’s look at 3 more sentences, all using the English noun “dog” in one of the other noun functions –
possessives, indirect objects, and objects of prepositions.
“He saw the dog‟s toy ”
-
“I gave food to the dog” or
“I gave the dog food”
“They ran with the dog”
In this sentence, the noun “dog” is being used to show “possession”
(i.e. whose toy it is). In English a possessive noun usually has an
apostrophe and an “s” ( ______„s ) , or comes after the word “of” (I
saw the toy of the dog). Sometimes “possessives” don’t refer to an
object actually owned, but can also refer to a quality that something
has ( “The end of the day”, “a day’s journey”, “the distance of the
stars”)
In this sentence, the noun “dog” is referring to the reason why the
action of the verb is being done. The noun “food” is the thing being
given, so it is the “I direct object of the verb. But to whom is this
food being given? It is being given to the dog! This function of a
noun is known as the indirect object. An indirect object answers the
question “to whom/what or for whom/what is the action of the
verb being done?”, and NOT “who is receiving the action of the
verb?”.
-
In this sentence, the noun “dog” is not the subject of the verb, and it
is not a direct or indirect object of the verb. Do you see the word
“with” in front of the word “dog”? The word “with” is what is
known as a preposition. Prepositions are words that help tell the
place, direction and/or time that a verb‟s action is taking place;
together with the Object of the Preposition (which is always a
noun) it makes a Participle Phrase. In this sentence, the participle
phrase “with the dog” tells us where this verb’s activity (“running”)
is taking place – it is taking place with the dog! There are a lot of
prepositions in English, and we are not about to look at them all, but
here is a short list of some commonly used prepositions in English.
Of Place
in
on
at
SOME ENGLISH PREPOSITIONS
Of Direction
at
with
without
across
down
above
beyond
from
toward
Of Time
before at
after during
on
while
4
Noun Cases in Latin
In Latin, nouns also have different jobs to do in a sentence. The can be subjects, direct or indirect objects,
objects of prepositions, and possessives – just like English nouns.
But English nouns are lazy compared to Latin nouns. As we saw in the above pages, English nouns don’t really
change their spelling when they change grammatical jobs (“dog” in English is spelled the same if it is the
subject of the sentence, or the direct object, or the object of a preposition – only when it is a possessive does
it add the “
„s “ or “ s‟ ”).
In Latin a noun changes its ending, or suffix, depending on what job (or grammatical function) it has in a
sentence. That means that unlike English, Latin sentences do not have to have a set word order! In Latin,
the subject could come at the end of the sentence. In Latin, you could put the direct object anywhere you
want! Because it’s the ending of the word, and not its place in a sentence, that gives a noun its function.
“Case” in the study of Latin refers to the different function (and thus different endings) that a noun can have
in a sentence.
Take the English sentence “Dad saw the dog” – we know that “dad” is the subject because the
word comes first in the sentence. We know “dog” is the direct object (or the “d.o.”) because that
word comes right after the verb “saw”. The placement or position of the words tells you their
grammatical function.
But if we turn that same sentence into Latin, we could write it out in a number of ways. In
Latin, nouns are positioned in a sentence to show you what is being emphasized or stressed in
the sentence – an author places what he wants the reader to think the most about closer to
the beginning of the sentence. Look at the examples below:
I.
pater canem vidit
II.
canem pater vidit.
subject d.o. verb
d.o.
III.
-
Dad saw the dog.
-
Dad saw the dog
subject verb
vidit pater canem
verb subject d.o.
(Here, the emphasis is on dad)
(Here, the focus of the sentence is what dad saw, the
dog)
-
Dad saw the dog
(Here the author draws your attention first to the act
of seeing, not to the person seeing {subject} or the thing
being seen {direct object} )
So Latin is much more flexible than English in its sentence
structure – those different endings or “suffixes” tell us what
the nouns’ functions are, so the word order can be changed for
dramatic emphasis!
Well, that’s not so hard now, is it? If there are five different basic noun functions,
then there are only ten different suffixes to remember for any noun, right? If only it
were that simple. But in addition to each case having a different singular and a plural
form, Latin adds a further level of noun complexity that we don’t have in English :
NOUN DECLENSIONS!!!
5
What are Noun Declensions?
Unlike English, Latin divides its nouns into different categories, known as
declensions. Think of declensions as “families” : different types of nouns must
belong to different families. There are five (5) different declensions or
“families”, although the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions are the most common,
with the 4th and 5th declensions much rarer (but include some important
words, as we will see later).
In order to read and understand Latin, you need to know the case
endings of nouns in all 5 declensions. In later chapter we will look at each
declension and their case endings in detail – for now just start to become
aware of the different endings and begin to recognize and identify the
endings when you see them used.
In all standard Latin-English dictionaries, nouns are always listed in two cases; the nominative
(subject) singular case followed by the genitive (possessive) singular case. The reason that
dictionaries give you these two cases for each noun is that this is how you can tell what
declension the noun belongs to (and thus which set of case endings it will use).
Below is a short list of some Latin nouns listed by the DECLENSION (or FAMILY) they belong to.
Each is listed by its NOMINATIVE SINGULAR form, followed by its GENITIVE SINGULAR form.
1st Declension
villa, villae – house
2nd Declension
servus, servi – servant, slave
toga, togae – toga
amicus, amici - friend
canis, canis - dog
poeta, poetae – poet
nuntius, nuntii – messenger
leo, leonis - lion
4th Declension
manus, manus – hand
3rd Declension
mercator, mercatoris - merchant
5th Declension
dies, diei – day
** It will be the genitive case form (specifically it’s suffix or ending) that
determines which family or declension the noun belongs to. We will
look at that in more detail later**
6
Nouns in the Dictionary
When you learn new Latin nouns, you will always have to learn the nominative and genitive singular forms.
It may seem like extra memorizing, but remembering both forms will help you to remember which set of
case endings will be used with that particular noun. Translating from Latin to English will then be much,
much easier for you.
**In Latin, nouns also have another distinction that English nouns don’t
have: noun gender. All Latin nouns are either masculine (signified by an
“m” after the word in a dictionary), feminine (signified by an “f” after the word in a
dictionary) or neuter (signified by an “n” after the word in a dictionary). We will
go into more detail about gender later and how it is used in Latin
grammar, but for now just be aware that the nouns also have a gender,
which you should try to learn when you learn new vocabulary words. **
Here are some examples of Latin nouns (one for each declension), as they would appear in a Latin –
English dictionary:
via , viae (f) – street ; road
1st Declension:
nominative
form
2nd Declension:
gender
English meaning or meanings
genitive
form
gender
English meaning or meanings
manus, manus (f) - hand
nominative
form
5th Declension:
genitive
form
leo, leonis (m) - lion
nominative
form
4th Declension:
English meaning or meanings
servus, servi (m) - slave, servant
nominative
form
3rd Declension:
genitive gender
form
genitive
form
dies, diei
nominative
form
genitive
form
gender
English meaning or meanings
(m) - day
gender
English meaning or meanings
On the following pages you will find a chart of all the case endings (singular and plural) of 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd declension nouns. We will worry about the 4th and 5th declensions later, as they are used
much less often. For now, start studying the following chart and examples.
BONA FORTUNA
GOOD LUCK
7
Latin Noun Cases – A Detailed Chart (with sample sentences)
CASE
How to spot
it in Latin
Nominative
(subject)
Can come first in
a sentence, but
for affect
sometimes comes
at the end
Genitive
(“possession
” or
“quality”)
Dative
(indirect
object)
Accusative
(direct
object*)
(*and sometimes
used as the object
of prepositions)
Ablative
(object of a
preposition)
1st Declension
(or “family”)
2nd Declension
(or “family”)
3rd Declension
(or “family”)
singular:
puella
sing:
servus
sing:
leo
plural:
puellae
plur:
servi
plur:
leones
Comes directly
after the noun it
modifies. Can
modify a noun
of any other
case.
singular:
puellae
sing:
IF there is a I.O.
in your sentence,
it usually comes
after the subject
but before the
D.O.
singular:
puellae
sing:
servo
sing: leoni
plural:
puellis
plur:
servis
plur:
The Latin D.O.
usually comes
right before the
verb (near the
end of the
sentence), but not
always.
singular:
puellam
sing: servum
plural:
puellas
plur:
servos
singular:
puella
sing:
servo
sing: leone
plural:
puellis
plur:
servis
plur: leonibus
Found in
prepositional
phrases using
words like a/ab,
cum, de, e/ex, in,
pro, sine, sub –
can be located
anywhere in a
sentence
plural:
puellarum
servi
plur: servorum
sing: leonis
plur:
leonum
leonibus
sing: leonem
plur:
leones
Examples of the Latin Cases used in sentences
Nominative:
1st
singular:
Declension:
puella in via ambulabat
Genitive:
1st Declension:
singular: ad portum Alexandriae mox pervimus.
(The girl was walking in the street)
plural:
puellae in atrio stabant
(The girls were standing in the atrium)
(We soon arrived at the harbor of Alexandria)
plural:
in turba ancillarum Melissam vidi.
(I saw Melissa in the crowd of slave girls)
8
2nd Declension:
singular: servus in culina laborabat.
2nd Declension:
singular: Quintus casam fabri intravit
(Quintus entered the craftsman’s house)
(The slave was working in the kitchen)
plural:
plural:
servi in horto domini dormiebant
(The slaves were sleeping in the master’s garden).
3rd Declension:
singular:
leo gladiatorem necavit
(Clemens hurried through a multitude of slaves)
3rd Declension
singular: puer Quintum per vias urbis duxit
(The boy led Quintus through the city’s streets)
(The lion killed the gladiator)
plural:
plural:
leones cibum optimum cenaverunt
(The lions dined on the best food)
agmen militum per urbem incedit.
(a column of soldiers is marching through the city)
Dative:
Accusative:
1st Declension:
singular: servus puellae aquam obtulit
1st Declension
singular: servus puellae aquam obtulit
(The slave offered water to the girl)
plural:
Clemens per multitudinem servorum contendit.
(The slave offered water to the girl)
plural:
coquus ancillis cenam paravit
(The cook prepared a meal for the slave girls)
2nd Declension:
singular: dominus servo pecuniam dedit
coquus ancillis cenas parabat
(The cook had prepared meals for the slave girls)
2nd Declension
singular: mercator domino servum vendit
(The master gave money to the slave)
plural:
(The merchant sold a slave to the master)
plural:
dominus servis pecuniam dedit
(The master gave the slaves money)
mercator domino servos vendiit
(The merchant sold slaves to the master)
3rd Declension:
singular:
senator urbi statuam dedit
3rd Declension
singular: faber mercatorem salutavit
(The senator gave the city a statue)
plural:
(The craftsman greeted the merchant)
plural:
servus leonibus cibum dabat
(The slave was giving food to the lions)
faber mercatores salutavit
(The craftsman greeted the merchants)
Ablative: (prepositions are in italics, ablatives are in bold)
1st Declension:
singular: Salvius e villa contendit
(Salvius hurried out of the house)
plural:
de ancillis audire volo
(I want to hear about the slave girls)
2nd Declension
singular: cum amico ambulabam
3rd Declension
singular: sub urbe laboro
(I was walking with a friend)
plural: sine
amicis habitare non possum
(I can’t live without friends)
(I work under the city)
plural:
pro mercatoribus sto.
(I stand in front of the merchants)
9