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Concepts for the Study of Latin

Nouns and Related Concerns

tiger mosaic, Basilica of Junius Bassus, Rome; photo J. Long 1 August 2006
Don't let confusion seize you.

Elementary Latin textbooks present concepts, patterns, and words of Latin, in a sequence that is intended to build up proficiency at using the language. This website offers explanations about some of the grammatical terms and concepts that come into play when you are learning Latin, supplementing the textbook.

Nouns:

In order to work with nouns in Latin, you need to know not only the noun's meaning but also its gender, case, and number. The activity of generating noun-forms is called declension; the patterns in which different nouns generate their forms are also called declensions.

Cases - sorting out noun-functions:

bump - log
Nouns give things their names. This useful function lets you identify what you are contemplating, not just moon around vaguely. But names alone don't tell you very much. What do the things do? What relationships do they bear to one another? You need to be able to combine the nouns, with other kinds of words, into phrases and sentences that let you state ideas.

In English, conventions of word-order do the biggest part of the job of telling you how the things in the sentence relate to one another: the bump grows on the log states a different idea from the log grows on the bump, and grows log the the bump on is gibberish.

In Latin, words have different endings that tell you how they relate to other words within the sentence, pretty much regardless of word order. tuber in ramo crescit and crescit in ramo tuber state exactly the same idea, though you wouldn't separate ramo from in. To get the log growing on the bump, you'd have to change the forms: in tubere crescit ramus.

The different forms nouns take in Latin in order to show their function in a phrase or sentence are called cases. The term comes from Latin casus, a "falling," with the idea that the noun changes its form slightly but still names the same thing, still remains essentially the same noun, like a stick "falling" down from the vertical. The same image gives rise to the term oblique cases for everthing except the form that's used for the subject, since they're the slanty ones where the stick is tipped part-way.

English uses a special case-form to show possession ("the log's bump"), but mostly relies on other features of language to indicate grammatical function. Latin uses case-forms much more systematically. If you recognize the case in which a word is appearing, and if you know what sorts of functions the cases can perform in a sentence, you're most of the way to understanding what is being said.

The general kinds of function designated by the different case-forms in Latin, and the names of the cases, are as follows:

subject of sentence: the thing a sentence is telling you something about ("The subject is what grammarians call the sentence's topic"; see further in the discussion of predicates);
anything being identified with the subject ("Colorful flowers bloom"; "The flowers are lovely.")
nominative case
"nominative" comes from the Latin word for "name": this case "names" the thing
noun-to-noun relationships English often expresses with the preposition "of", such as possession ("the wisdom of my teacher" ), partition ("many of the students"), description ("a person of interest"), etc.
genitive case
"genitive" comes from the Latin word for "birth": this case puts a noun in a "familial" relationship to another noun
indirect relationships, such as indirect object ("Show me the way;" "Show the way to me.")
dative case
"dative" comes from the Latin word for "give", an easy example of situations involving an indirect object
direct object ("An action directly affects the direct object.");
in Latin, with prepositions indicating dynamic position ("between you and me")
accusative case
"accusative" comes from the Latin word for "call to account", an instance when attention is focused directly on that object
various adverbial ideas, in three main categories:
  • separative ideas ("away from the office," "out of the box," "without trouble," etc.)
  • instrumental ideas ("send the package by rail," "dancing with excitement," etc.)
  • locational ideas ("in a galaxy far, far away," "at the last minute," "under a rock")
ablative case
"ablative" comes from the Latin word for "take away": this case is named for its separative function, but in Latin the form for separative ideas mostly took over instrumental and locational functions too
some Latin nouns, mostly proper names of places, retain a separate locative case for place-where ideas ("at home")
direct address (not really part of the rest of the sentence, but a sort of address-label affixed to it: "Hey, you!")
vocative case
"vocative" comes from the Latin word for "call": this case "calls" the sentence to someone's attention

Declensions - sorting out noun-forms:
tuber in ramo crescit : ramus in tubere crescit
"the bump grows on the log" : "the log grows on the bump"
The subjects of the two sentences, tuber and ramus, are both nominative, but the two nominatives don't have the same endings. They two nouns follow two different patterns for generating their case-forms. Most Latin nouns belong to one or another of five different case-form patterns. The patterns are called declensions, another word that refers to the falling-stick image. Almost without exception (there are just a couple of weird words that get away with stuff), a noun belongs to one and only one declension, and follows its patterns, for life. Therefore, the different declensions make a good way to sort noun-vocabulary, so that you have all the words that decline like ramus (a second-declension masculine, for what it's worth) together in your mind and separate from all the words that decline like tuber (a third-declension neuter).

Gender - sorting out nouns:
Many languages recognize a certain something about nouns, beyond their capacity to name things. It's conventional to refer to this quality as gender, even though it doesn't always or necessarily correlate with obvious examples of beings with gender-differences between them, like female and male people. Also, users of a language frequently speak as if gender inhered in the thing the noun names - but the same thing, and even the same word, can be different grammatical genders in different languages: for example, "auto", meaning a motor-propelled 4-wheeled vehicle a person can drive while sitting inside of it, is neuter in English and German, feminine in French, and masculine in Spanish.

Very nearly almost entirely without exception, a given noun in Latin has one gender and sticks with it all the time. Gender should be learned as a property of the word.

Latin recognizes "natural gender": nouns that name female beings are feminine and nouns that name male beings are masculine. Feminine or else masculine, however, is as much flexibility in reference to the gender of human beings as Latin is equipped to handle: in instances of gender-fluidity, switch back and forth between feminine and masculine genders for the same grammatical number as the number of persons you are discussing (Latin does not do gender-neutral singular "they/them/their"). Many Latin words that wouldn't strike a habitual English-speaker as having a natural gender are masculine or feminine, while many others are neuter. Again, you have to learn the gender as a property of the word.

Gender does not map entirely evenly onto the declension-system, but some general tendencies appear:

first declension second declension third declension fourth declension fifth declension
mostly feminine, except nouns naming people Romans typically assumed would be male, which are masculine, like agricola, "farmer" mostly masculine, except nouns naming woody plants, which are feminine, like fagus, "beech-tree"; additionally, there's a sub-set of neuters masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns all occur mostly masculine, except feminine manus, "hand"; additionally, there's a small sub-set of neuters mostly feminine, except that dies, "day", is usually masculine

Neuter nouns of a given declension (second, third, or fourth) follow the same declension-pattern as the masculine or feminine nouns of that declension, except as covered by the Two Rules of Neuters:

Number - sorting out sorting:
beech
beeches
How many items are you contemplating?

English recognizes the difference between singular (just one) and plural (more than one). The quality in which the difference exists is grammatical number.

Latin mostly distinguishes between just-one, singular, and more-than-one, plural. As English mostly does (though usually not with sheep, for instance), Latin marks a plural with a different ending from the same word in the same case in the singular. Two words in common use in Latin use forms in a grammatical number that means specifically "there's two of them": the dual. (Both words designate "two-ness": the adjectives for "two" and for "both". But the nouns described as being "two" use the same plural form you'd use with a higher number, because only the two dual adjectives use the dual form: una fagus, "one beech-tree", singulars; duae fagi, "two beech-trees", dual + plural; tres fagi, "three beech-trees", plurals).


Adjectives:

The Inescapable Fact of Adjectives, at least as far as Latin is concerned, is that adjectives describe nouns. Therefore, adjectives have the same characteristics as nouns, gender, case, and number, and therefore these links take you back up to the section concerned with nouns. Likewise, the activity of generating adjective-forms is called declension and the patterns in which different adjectives generate their forms are also called declensions. In fact, most adjectives belong to the first-and-second declensions and to the third declension, as the declensions are known among nouns. The following sections discuss concerns specifically of adjectives:

The Agreement of Adjectives:
Adjectives describe nouns. In Latin, an adjective shows which particular noun it's describing by fitting it exactly, like a glove to a hand or a mirror-image to its original, by matching it in all the characteristics that count: for Latin adjectives and nouns, in gender, case, and number.

The noun and the adjective will not necessarily have the same ending, since they may belong to different declensions: una fagus, "one beech-tree" (first-declension feminine nominative singular + second-declension feminine nominative singular). So long as they have the same gender, case, and number, they're good.

The dual number necessitates a trivial exception to this principle: when you've got "two" of something, or are talking about "both" of two things, use the dual of that specialized adjective with the plural of the noun, while gender and case agree as usual: thus for example, duae fagi, "two beech-trees" (first-declension feminine nominative dual + second-declension feminine nominative plural).

Most Latin adjectives belong either to the first-and-second declensions or to the third declension (the few irregular adjectives we'll deal with separately):
first-and-second declension adjectives third declension adjectives
  • The adjective stem is common to all three genders.
  • masculine adjective form = adjective stem + second-declension masculine case/number ending
  • feminine adjective form = adjective stem + first-declension case/number ending
  • neuter adjective form = adjective stem + second-declension neuter case/number ending
  • Recall the Two Rules of Neuters.
  • The adjective stem is common to all three genders.
  • Third-declension adjectives subdivide according to their nominative singular forms:
    • 3-terminations: the masculine, the feminine, and the neuter each has a different form. Get the stem from the feminine and neuter forms (adjective stem + regular third-declension nominative singular endings).
    • 2-terminations: the masculine and the feminine forms are the same; they and the neuter nominative singular consist of the adjective stem + regular third-declension nominative singular endings. Get the stem from these forms.
    • 1-termination: the masculine, feminine, and neuter nominative singular all have the same form. Get the stem from the genitive singular, as you would for a third-declension noun.
  • Past the nominative singular, all third-declension adjective forms consist of the adjective stem + regular third-declension case/number endings for the appropriate gender. (Therefore, with the exception of the nominative singular of 3-termination adjectives, all masculine and feminine forms of third-declension adjectives look alike.)
  • Recall the Two Rules of Neuters.

    Degree of Adjectives:

    Degree is the technical term for how intensely the adjective describes the noun it's talking about.
    The positive degree indicates the adjective describes the noun. the hot weather
    The comparative degree indicates the adjective describes the noun more than something else, or more than an implied standard. the hotter weather
    the more hot weather
    the quite hot weather
    the too-hot weather
    The superlative degree indicates the adjective describes the noun most of all. the hottest weather
    the most hot weather
    the very hot weather
    The phenomenon of degree also affects adverbs.

    Substantive Use of Adjectives:
    Because adjectives describe nouns, it is possible to use an adjective by itself and have it pick up reference to the appropriate noun from context. English occasionally uses this capability, as in, "Will you give me three brown M&Ms for a green?"

    Because in Latin an adjective shows which noun it's describing by having the same gender, case, and number, Latin adjectives can alternatively pick up a generic noun from the gender and number, without strong contextual cues: "red [masculine, nominative, singular]" = "red man"; "yellow [feminine, nominative, singular]" = "yellow woman"; "blue [neuter, nominative, singular]" = "blue thing".

    See further below about substantives.


    Pronouns:

    Pronouns substitute for nouns. Concerns of gender, case, and number are in principle the same for pronouns in Latin as for nouns, and pronouns like nouns generate their case/number forms by declining (they use pronoun-specific forms, though, not the declension-patterns of regular nouns).

    Personal pronouns:
    photo
    Roman nobles in procession, Ara Pacis Augustae, 9 BC, Rome
    • personal pronouns are defined by the fact they tell you which person they refer to, as in "we" (1st), "your" (2nd), "him" (3rd), etc. (the concept of person is discussed more in these pages in connection with verbs)
    • depending which language you're dealing with, personal pronouns may show number, as in "me" (1st-person singular) and "us" (1st-person plural) but not apparently "you" (2nd-person singular) and "you" (2nd-person plural)
    • depending which language you're dealing with, personal pronouns may show case, as in "them" (3rd-person plural object-case) and "their" (3rd-person plural possessive-case) but not apparently "her" (3rd-person singular object-case) and "her" (3rd-person singular possessive-case)
    Because Latin verbs tell you person and number, you don't usually get a separate personal pronoun for the subject:
    "We Roman nobles march in procession" = nobiles Romani procedimus
    Adding a personal pronoun to the subject adds emphasis:
    nos nobiles Romani procedimus = "We Roman nobles OURSELVES march in procession"
    Personal pronouns in the oblique cases are necessary to show grammatical structure, so they don't add any special emphasis:
    "I see you marching in procession, little boy" = te, parve puer, procedentem video
    Latin has separate words, true pronouns, that are used exclusively to indicate person and number in the first and second persons, singular and plural (I/we, you/you). The third person is covered by a weak demonstrative used substantively, "the particular [neuter, nominative, singular]" = "it" (thing, subject), "the particular [feminine, accusative, plural]" = "them" (women, direct object), etc.

    Remember, Latin can use all its adjectives substantively, so they can be used as if they were pronouns too.

    Demonstratives:
    Demonstratives "point out" entities: "point out" is what the Latin word means that the term "demonstrative" comes from.

    Demonstratives are really adjectives, since you can always use them with a noun expressed, as in "That Girl".

    But many English speakers use demonstratives substantively and get into the habit of calling them pronouns, so they're included under this heading. Latin can use all its adjectives substantively, so demonstratives have nothing special going for them in Latin in that regard.

    English distinguishes two different degrees of remoteness with its demonstratives. Latin distinguishes those two and an intermediate degree in between them, and also a weak demonstrative that doesn't designate a level of remoteness for the entity it's pointing out. The weak demonstrative signals only the idea that the entity it marks is being singled out as-opposed-to anything else. The weak demonstrative is most often used substantively, to single out otherwise unmarked entities where English would use the personal pronouns of the third person, but it can be used adjectivally with noun expressed, too.

    Most Present / Least Remote Intermediately Present / Remote Least Present / Most Remote Weak Demonstrative
    "this" / "these" [right here by me] (no idiomatic English equivalent)
    "this/that [over by you]"
    "that" / "those" [way over there by them] (no idiomatic English equivalent)
    "the particular"
    hic, haec, hoc iste, ista, istud ille, illa, illud is, ea, id

    Interrogative pronouns:
    Interrogative pronouns ask for identity: in English, "who"/"whom"/"whose" for people, "what" for things. Latin possesses
    • an interrogative pronoun, used exclusively to substitute for nouns, whose masculine/feminine forms handle people and whose neuter forms handle things
    • an interrogative adjective that asks for identity as the pronoun does ("what"/"which" in English), but is used exclusively with noun expressed; many, but not all, of the forms of the interrogative adjective and the interrogative pronoun are the same for the same gender, case, and number
    • additional interrogative adjectives that ask more specific questions: "of what kind", "how big", etc.

    Indefinite pronouns:
    Williamsburg Bridge
    Sometimes you want to be vague. Latin possesses pronouns and adjectives designating several kinds of indefiniteness.
    when you're just being vague: "something" when you're being vague in the context of a negation: "anything" when you have something specific in mind but don't want to specify: "a certain" when you're being vague generally: "whatever" when you're being vague deferentially: "anything you like" when you want to evoke some other kind of vagueness

    Most, but not all, of the forms are the same for each pronoun-adjective pair.

    • Use the indefinite pronoun when you are using only the indefinite word to designate the entity.
    • Use the indefinite adjective when you are indicating the entity by a word of its own and adding the indefinite word to describe it vaguely.

    Reflexive pronouns:
    Grammatical reflection occurs when an entity within the predicate of a sentence is the same entity as the subject of the sentence.
    • In English, reflection is usually marked by the suffix -self, as in "I see myself" or with some emphasis as in "I see my own reflection", although it is possible to have the same situation without explicit markers, as in "I see me" or "I see my reflection"
    • In Latin, reflection in the first and second persons is handled by the same pronouns as the non-reflexive first-person and second-person personal pronouns. Only the identity of the subject tells you whether the pronoun is being reflexive in that sentence, or not:
      me video = "I see myself" (reflexive) me vides = "You see me" (non-reflexive)
    • In Latin, reflection in the third person, singular and plural, is handled by a special pronoun used only for third-person reflection. Latin therefore escapes the ambiguity English faces with sentence like "he sees his book":
      • librum eius videt = "He [male-person #1] sees his [male-person #2's] book" (non-reflexive)
      • librum suum videt = "He sees his own book" (reflexive)

    Possession and pronouns:
    mine sign
    fortuitous pun
    It's not really terribly perilous, but a few points are worth watching out for.
    • Nouns and adjectives used substantively indicate possession by using the genitive case.
      tela sunt militis = "the weapons are the soldier's"
      tela sunt Romanorum = "the weapons are the Romans'"
    • By rare exception, the true personal pronouns, the first- and second-person ones, and the reflexive pronouns, first, second, and third persons, do not use their genitive case for possession, only for other things the genitive case can do. Other pronouns show possession by the genitive, just as nouns do.
      libros cuiusquam non video = "I don't see anyone's books"
    • Instead, the first- and second-person personal pronouns and the first-, second-, and third-person reflexive pronouns have special adjectives associated with them each that handle possession. The possessive adjective, like any adjective, agrees with what it's describing, that is, the item-possessed, in gender, case, and number.
      tela sunt mea = "the weapons are mine"
      tela sunt sua = "the weapons are his own"

    Relatives:

    When you have an idea in the main sentence to which you want to go back and add an extra clause of information, you need a word like "which" that can pick up reference to the idea in the main sentence, in order to attach them: the relative makes that connection. Most relatives are adjectives.
    • Most often relatives are used substantively, as in "The diagram [which you see here] represents the idea of going back and picking up a loop."
    • But the relative adjective can be used with a noun expressed, as in "Going back and picking up a loop, [which idea you see represented here], metaphorically describes the way a sentence progresses when it includes a relative clause."
    • Latin also includes relative adverbs, such as "The day [when I'll have time for embroidery again] will probably come only after I've gone blind with old age."


    Substantives:

    Anything that has, or appears to have, or has the potential to have, or appears to have the potential to have, some kind of existence is a substantive. The class of substantives includes whatever nouns have the potential to name. The term comes from a Latin word for "exist".

    Substantives can be represented in Latin by

    It's worth noting that abstract ideas like "evanescence" and "solidity" are substantives and that they are different ideas from "the evanescent" and "the solid" referring to rainbow and hills: even when they are used substantively, adjectives always describe something a noun can name (a more accurate way to put it, now that we've got the concept of substantives sketched, than "adjectives describe nouns"), even when the name isn't explicitly stated. A rainbow is [something that is] evanescent and hills are [something that is] solid.
    photo
    Luzaide/Valcarlos, Spain, 2008


    Prepositions:

    the famous lion adventure
    The term preposition comes from Latin words that mean "place in front of", and indeed, a prepositions is usually placed in a sentence shortly ahead of the words to which it relates and which it is said to govern, as in "from Latin words" or "toward the lion".

    What a preposition does is to orient the word or words it governs so that the prepositional phrase they compose describes the relationship in which the sentence is setting the entity to which it attaches the prepositional phrase: "The adventurer walks toward the lion on the hill" sets the adventurer in relationship with the lion and the lion in relationship with the hill.

    Latin prepositions govern either the accusative or the ablative case. A few Latin prepositions can govern both accusatives and ablatives, but they mean different things when they use one case or the other: they describe different relationships. Think in terms of how the idea works that the words are describing, in order to avoid confusion.

    prepositions that govern the ACCUSATIVE prepositions that govern the ABLATIVE
    describe relationships of dynamic placement describe relationships of separation, instrumentality, or static placement
    such as "toward," "into", "opposite," "before", "after" such as
    "away from", "without" "with" "on", "underneath"
    English uses prepositions like "to" or "for" to describe many of the relationships for which Latin uses the dative case, but in Latin it is a function of the dative case itself to indicate these indirect relationships: no prepositions in Latin govern the dative.


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