Wheelocks Latin Chapter 2

I. NOUNS AND PRONOUNS A) Definitions: Nouns are words which identify persons, places and things. Pronouns are words which stand in place of nouns. EG. "Dexter likes to kill people. He is a monster." Here the word Dexter is a proper noun which refers to a person. He is the pronoun which refers to Dexter once Dexter has already been identified; we use the pronoun instead of the full name so as to avoid tediously repeating the full name. The pronouns are I, you (singular and plural), he, she, it, we, they. B) Grammatical Ideas Just as we conjugate verbs in Latin, so we decline nouns. A declension is a list of all the forms of a particular noun just as a conjugation is a list of the all the forms of a particular verb. We saw with Latin verbs that we have to look very closely at the endings of verbs to figure out how they are functioning in the sentence and how they should be translated; now we should note that it is similar with nouns: their endings are very important in determining how they are functioning in a sentence and how they are to be translated. The function of a noun in a sentence in English is largely determined by its order in the sentence. So in the sentence "The girl loves the poet" you know who is doing the loving (the subject) and who is being loved (the object) because of the word order: the subject comes before the verb and the object comes after the verb. In the sentence "The poet loves the girl" you know that the subject (the one doing the action, or in this case, feeling or expressing the emotion) is now the poet because he comes first in the sentence before the verb; you know the girl is the object (the one receiving the action, or in this case, receiving the emotion) because she comes after the verb. In Latin, the subject or object in a sentence is determined not by word order but by the endings of the noun. When a word is the subject of the sentence it will have one ending; when it is the object it will have a different ending. So in the sentence poeta amat puellam you know that the poet is the subject because the word for poet ends in a; you know the girl is the object because the word for girl ends in -am. Therefore the sentence is translated "The poet loves the girl". But note carefully that puellam amat poeta also means "The poet loves the girl". (Note also that the most "normal" word order would be poeta puellam amat.) The best way to illustrate this perhaps is to look at English pronouns which (unlike nouns) still keep their declensional forms. Take for example the third person plural pronoun "they". When it is the subject of a sentence it takes the form they, when it is the object of a verb it takes the form them. EGs. "They love that poet" and "The poet loves them". (Compare also I, me; she, her; he, him, we, us.) II. FIRST DECLENSION NOUNS A) Declension: A declension of the noun is the full list of forms that a given noun can take (just like the conjugation of a verb is the full list of forms that a given verb can

take). Here is the full declension of the noun poeta. singular plural nominative : poeta poetae genitive: poetae poetrum dative: poetae poets accusative: poetam poets ablative: poet poets vocative: poeta poetae 1. Nominative Case: If a noun is in this case form it indicates that the noun is the subject of the sentence, so to translate into English you place the noun before the verb EG. Poeta amat. The poet loves. Poetae amant. The poets love. 2. Genitive Case: This form most commonly indicates possession, so it is translated using of or with an apostrophe s (or s apostrophe for the plural). Poetae: of the poet, the poets. Poetarum: of the poets or the poets. 3. Dative Case: This form indicates a person or thing (more commonly a person) which is indirectly affected by the action of the verb, usually translated with the prepositions to or for. poetae: to the poet or for the poet; poetis: to the poets or for the poets. 4. Accusative Case: This form indicates that the noun is the direct object of the verb in the sentence and so to translate a noun in this case into English it will be placed after the verb. EG. Puella poetam amat. The girl loves the poet. Puella poetas amat. The girl loves the poets. 5. Ablative Case: This case has a wide variety of uses and is a difficult one to express simply. For now just translate using the preposition by or "with", whichever sounds better. EG. poet: by the poet; poetis: by the poets. 6. Vocative Case: This is used to address someone directly. It will, therefore, often be used with the imperative mood. Eg. Poeta! Voca me! Poet! Call me! Poetae! Vocate me! Poets! Call me! III. AGREEMENT OF ADJECTIVES We will have to spend more time on this topic later, but the fundamental rule of the adjective in Latin is: an adjective agrees with the noun it modifies in number gender and case. For now it is sufficient to note that this means that the ending of an adjective will be the same as that of the noun it modifies. EG. poeta rosas bonas puellis dat. The poet gives good roses to the girls. poeta rosas bonis puellis dat. The poet gives roses to the good girls. IV. VOCABULA As I have said before it is very important to think about what a kind of a word each of the vocabulary words is (that is, noun or verb or adjective or adverb or conjunction etc.). When you look at the items in your vocabulary there is a relatively easy way to determine this: If the vocabulary word is a noun it will have two forms of the word listed (Eg. fama, famae) followed by the letter f. or m. or n. The first form of the noun is the nominative,

singular form (Eg. fama) and the second form (Eg. famae) is the genitive singular form. It is not easy to see why you need these two forms now, but later it will become apparent. The letter following the two forms of the noun identify the gender of the noun: f. means it is feminine; m. means it is masculine and n. means it is neuter. If the vocabulary word is an adjective it will have three forms (Eg. antiquus, antiqua, antiquum); the first form is the masculine, singular, nominative form of the word, the second is the feminine, nominative, singular form of the word and the third is the neuter, singular, nominative form of the word. If the word is a verb it will have four forms (Eg. amo, amare, amavi, amatum). The first form is the first person present indicative active form of the verb (which would be translated here as I love), the second form is the present infinitive active form (which would be translated here as to love); the last two forms are not relevant to us yet, but will be very relevant later. With the verb the four different forms are called principal parts. For the other kinds of words, like conjunctions, interjections and prepositions you can identify them by observing the abbreviation that follows them (Eg. sed conj. or sine prep.). HOMEWORK For Wednesday: Homework: Sententiae Antiquae 1-10, p. 19 of Wheelocks Latin