Grammar Latin Camp - Weebly

Introduction | Henle in a Hurry

Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs Ītaliam, fātō profugus, Lāvīniaque vēnit

lītora, multum ille et terrīs iactātus et altō vī superum saevae memorem Iūnōnis ob īram;

multa quoque et bellō passūs, dum conderet urbem, inferretque deōs Latiō, genus unde Latīnum, Albānīque patrēs, atque altae moenia Rōmae.

Wars and a man I sing---an exile driven on by Fate, he was the first to flee the coast of Troy,

destined to reach Lavinian shores and Italian soil, yet many blows he took on land and sea from the gods above---

thanks to cruel Juno’s relentless rage---and many losses he bore in battle too, before he could found a city,

bring his gods to Latium, the source of the Latin race, the Alban lords and the high walls of Rome.

(Translation Robert Fagles)

Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae.

Et in Iesum Christum, Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum,

qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine,

passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, descendit ad infernos,

tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad caelos,

sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis,

inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos.

Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam,

sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum,

carnis resurrectionem, vitam aeternam.

Amen.

Introduction | Henle in a Hurry

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is believed to be the oldest language common to nearly every Western language. We don’t have any primary sources of PIE, but linguists have traced commonalities of all these languages back to a parent language they call Proto-Indo-European. All of these “trees” (this is a much-simplified version) came from PIE and have it as their common ancestor. Latin is the parent language of all the Romance languages (called “Romance” not because of boy-meets-girl-and-falls-in-love, but because they are descended from Latin, which was Roman). However, trace the origins of Modern English. It is not a Romance language. Where did English originate? English is a Germanic language, and as such, approximately 60-65% of our words have Germanic origins. The rest have come into English through assimilation or influence; Latin and Ancient Greek make up about 15-20% of our vocabulary. In a sense, all of the modern Romance languages are modern Latin, but with the unique regional accents and linguistic influences of the peoples who absorbed the Latin language. How did Latin come into English? Well, let’s start with French. The Latin we have came through French. Let’s quickly try to trace the historical events that may have caused this mingling. Now we can start learning some of the grammar we need to know to be successful at reading and interacting with Latin, which is a beautiful and artistic language in its own right, worthy to be treated like any other foreign language. It is still spoken today by many people around the world; there is poetry written in Latin, as well as epic works of fiction, theology, science, philosophy, mathematics, hymnody, Scripture . . . it’s not a dead language, as some may say. Give it a chance, and it may surprise you how much fun it can be to interact in their own language with authors who lived 2,000 years ago!

Inflection | Henle in a Hurry

What is inflection?

Conjugate the verb “to see” in the present tense. Did the spelling of the verb change at all? What about the pronoun (I, you, he . . .)? What happened? The spelling of the verb only changed in the 3rd person singular (“he sees”), but the pronoun completely changed between each person and number: I, you, he, we, you, they. That’s more than just one letter! When the same root word changes its spelling to show the job the word plays in the sentence, this is called inflection. English is not considered an inflected language, even though we do have some inflection. Think about it. If you use “dog” in a sentence, you spell it the same way whether it’s the subject, direct object, or the object of a preposition. “The dog is barking. I love my dog. I give my dog treats.” Latin, however, is an inflected language. Every noun and adjective changes its spelling depending on the job the word is playing in the sentence. In Latin, a noun that is the subject of a sentence will have one ending; if it shows possession, it has a different ending, and so on. It looks complicated, but after drilling it for a while, it will become much more approachable. This gives Latin a great flexibility that English does not have. You may hear people tell you “Word order doesn’t matter in Latin.” I want to be more precise than that. Let’s instead think of it as “Word order does matter in Latin, just not the same way it does in English.” Consider the following sentences:

1. Marcus loves Julia. 2. Julia loves Marcus.

Those two sentences mean completely different things, don’t they? When we move words around in English, the meanings change. Here is the first sentence above, in Latin:

Marcus Juliam amat. Juliam Marcus amat. Amat Juliam Marcus.

These sentences all say the same thing as Sentence #1 above, but with some small differences. (I’ll explain that later.) Here’s the fun part: When I read the first group of Latin sentences, my eye moves across the sentence and I immediately know that Marcus is the subject of the sentence; Juliam is the direct object, and amat is the verb, no matter where the words are in the sentence. Even if I’m not sure what the words mean, I know there is a subject, verb, and direct object. No guesswork! (At least not yet!)

Cases | Henle in a Hurry

What are Cases?

When you’re studying Latin, you will often hear the word case associated with nouns and adjectives (and a few other forms as well, but not for quite a while yet). What exactly are cases? Parse this English sentence for me.

The judge gave the award to the best gymnast.

Judge is the of the sentence; award is the , gave is a , and gymnast is the .

We don’t use the term “case” very often in English; it comes up in more advanced grammar classes. However, let’s look at a couple of the words from the sentence above. Judge is the subject of the sentence. We could, therefore, say that judge is in the subjective case because it is the subject. Award is the direct object; therefore, it is in the objective case. These labels, subjective and objective, give us a clue as to what each word is doing in the sentence. Latin has six different cases (actually seven, but we’ll only talk about five of them now; the sixth will come up in your grammar in a few weeks), and all of these cases together cover every possible role a Latin noun or adjective could play in a sentence. It’s important to remember that we will learn the basics today, but almost as soon as you get started on your Henle lessons, you will add more definitions to this list. Learn the names of these cases in the order given below, and be sure you can spell them!

nominative genitive dative

accusative ablative

Here are the cases paired with their jobs as far as we know right now:

• The nominative case is the subject of the sentence. • The genitive case is a limiter; it’s adjectival and sometimes shows possession. • The dative case is often the indirect object. • The accusative case is often the direct object.

• The ablative case is often the object of a preposition.

All of the cases except the nominative are referred to as the oblique cases. All of the oblique cases have other jobs besides what is listed here. The nominative, however, is always the subject.


Latin Cases

Case Usage in a sentence

nominative (nom or N)

subject of a sentence

genitive (gen or G)

possession (lots of other stuff)

dative (dat or D)

indirect object (lots of other stuff)

accusative (acc)

direct object (object of a preposition) (other stuff)

ablative (abl)

object of a preposition (lots of other stuff)

vocative (voc or V)*

noun/adjective of direct address

*The vocative case is often omitted from Latin noun charts, and for good reason. It’s super-simple! The

vocative case is identical to the nominative case, with three tiny exceptions.

Keywords

Keywords are very important! What is a keyword? I’m so glad you asked! A keyword is a word in English that we add in order to help us identify the job of the Latin word. Romans didn’t like to use any extra words. Latin is what we call economical; it saves energy when speaking and space when writing by only using as many words as absolutely necessary. We often have many more words in the English translation of a Latin sentence. When we translate the (1) case, we put the word(s) (2) in front of it in English.

(1) nominative (2) none (1) genitive (2) “of” (1) dative (2) “to/for” (1) accusative (2) no extra word (1) ablative (2) “by/with/from”

For example, if I read a Latin sentence and I see the word dog in the genitive, I may translate it “of the dog.” If it’s in the dative, I may translate it “to the dog” or “for the dog,” whichever makes more sense. If it’s in the ablative, I may translate it “by the dog,” “with the dog,” or “from the dog,” depending on which makes the most sense.


Let’s review the noun cases with their jobs in a sentence.

For example: I say “nominative” You say “subject” I say “genitive” You say “possessive” I say “dative” You say “indirect object” I say “accusative” You say “direct object” I say “ablative” You say “object of the preposition” I say “subject” You say “nominative” I say “possessive” You say “genitive” I say “indirect object” You say “dative” I say “direct object” You say “accusative” I say “object of the preposition” You say “ablative”

Latin Cases Practice

Let’s parse these sentences quickly in English, then decide what case you would use in Latin for each noun if you were to translate these sentences.

1. Marcus writes a story.

Marcus: story:

2. Marcus takes Julia’s money (the money of Sally).

Marcus: Julia: money:

3. Romans love honey and nuts.

Romans: honey: nuts:

4. The Gauls give the Romans swords.

Gauls: Romans: swords: If you are having a hard time identifying the cases of the words in the English sentences, make sure you find some sentences at home and practice parsing them. (We’ll go over them quickly now, but please review if you’re not sure.)

Nouns | Henle in a Hurry

Latin Nouns: Gender

Latin nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. There’s a reason you have to know the gender of all your nouns. Please learn them when you learn the vocabulary. This is one benefit of Henle; the text forces you to learn the gender rules. So, since you’ll know the rules, go ahead and apply the rules when you learn your vocabulary. Except for people, there isn’t a reason why a particular gender is assigned to a noun in Latin. There are patterns which you will learn in Henle, but they aren’t reasons. Tables aren’t inherently feminine, but the word for table, mensa, is a feminine word. If you have a hard time remembering the gender rules, you could make a copy of them and keep them in your notebook to reference when you’re learning vocabulary. I usually write m., f., or n. after each vocabulary word when the gender is not immediately obvious. For the rest, I rely on knowing the rules and then remembering the word by repetition. Natural Gender: In Latin, nouns that denote masculine people are always masculine; feminine people, feminine. For example: mater mother feminine pater father masculine soror sister feminine frater brother masculine Some that are not immediately obvious today but were obvious to Romans: imperator emperor masculine agricola farmer masculine pirata pirate masculine

nauta sailor masculine When you’re trying to decide the gender of a Latin noun, always start with natural gender (which only applies to humans). If natural gender doesn’t apply, move down your list of gender rules. When you learn Latin nouns, you must learn both the nominative and genitive forms. This is because the genitive form contains the pure stem of the noun. This is most important in the 3rd declension, but it is a good exercise from the very beginning to always learn the nominative

and genitive forms. Vocabulary lists will always give the nominative, genitive (in that order) when the declension is not obvious! Make use of this tool and always. learn. both. forms. Nouns in Latin fulfill the same roles as English nouns. The fun part about Latin nouns, however, is because the endings tell you what role the nouns are playing in the sentence, you may put them (almost) anywhere you desire! Let’s look at some simple sentences.


Marcus Juliam amat. MARCUS loves Julia. (It’s Marcus who loves Julia.)

Juliam Marcus amat. Marcus loves JULIA. (He loves Julia, not someone else.) Amat Juliam Marcus. Marcus LOVES Julia. (He loves her, not just likes her, and it’s Julia he loves, not someone else. See how much fun you can have even with simple sentences? Typically the beginning and the end of the sentence contain the most emphasis. If you want to make a point, put the most important word at the beginning. Because Latin was primarily spoken, the listener had to hold the entire sentence in limbo in his head until the sentence was completed.

Latin Nouns: Declining

How do we put this together? To decline any Latin noun, you must know two things: the nominative singular and the genitive

singular form of the noun. This is because all Latin nouns are built off of the stem, which is found in its pure form in the genitive singular. Now do you see why it is so important to memorize both the nominative form (also called the lexical or dictionary form) and the genitive form? This is where it is easy to get overwhelmed. If you haven’t been in CC for long and don’t have all

of the charts memorized, you’ll be okay. You’ll need to learn those as you go, but find a way to sing or chant them and they’ll be in your head in no time! You may need to look at your charts a lot at the beginning, but as you progress, try hard not to use them every time and soon they’ll be second nature.

What is a Declension?

So, we’ve talked about inflection, or changing the spelling of a word to change the role it plays in a sentence. But how do you know which endings to use for which words? Imagine you are a linguist and you have access to a time machine. You travel back to ancient Rome and listen to the hustle and bustle of the city and the spoken language. You realize you’ve got a long road ahead of you to learn Latin. As you listen and write thousands of words down, you start to find a pattern. You realize that all the words that are singular direct objects have endings that are spelled a certain way---am, um, or em. Words used as a possessive have endings spelled a certain way---ae, i, is, ūs, and eī. Why not take all the words whose endings are spelled the same way and put them together into one category? That way, if you know the category a word belongs in, you know how to spell it! These categories (I call them “buckets”), or patterns of noun endings, are called declensions. Imagine five buckets sitting on a table, labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. You have a stack of Latin nouns in front of you and you want to sort them into buckets. We sort them by looking at the ending of the genitive

singular form. That form will always tell you which bucket (declension) that noun belongs in.


If the genitive singular ends in (*) , it belongs to the (*|*) declension. (*) ae (*|*) first (*) i (*|*) second (*) is (*|*) third (*) ūs* (*|*) fourth (*) ei (*|*) fifth When you are asked to identify noun forms in Henle, it is a good practice to identify it completely. Always give the dictionary form*, declension, gender, case, and number. We are only going to spend time in this camp using the first three declensions.** You can learn the 4th and 5th on your own. The reasoning behind this is that for adjectives, you only use the first three declensions, and we will need to spend a lot of time on adjectives. *Dictionary or lexical form is the term used for the nominative singular form of a noun. Because there are six cases + singular and plural form for each case, if there were an entry for every inflected form, the dictionary would be too large to carry! As a result, lexicographers agreed to only list the dictionary form for the entry. **Since you will be using the the 4th declension in Henle, take time to make sure to mark the macron (long mark) on the genitive singular to show the difference between the nominative singular –us and the genitive singular –ūs. This and the –ā on the 1st declension ablative singular are the only places you need to worry about the long mark in nouns and adjectives.

1st Declension

mostly feminine

There are some masculine words in the 1st declension: nauta, pirata, agricola, and poeta are a few The genitive singular always ends in –ae.

Case Singular Plural nominative

a

ae

genitive

ae

arum

dative

ae

is

accusative

am

as

ablative

ā

is


2nd Declension

mostly masculine and neuter (there are some feminine words in the 2nd declension but not many) The genitive singular always ends in –i, pronounced like a long e in English.

Masculine Neuter

Case Singular Plural Singular Plural nominative

us

i

um

a

genitive

i

orum

i

orum

dative

o

is

o

is

accusative

um

os

um

a

ablative

o

is

o

is

Hint: The nominative and accusative neuter singular endings always match, and the nominative and accusative plural neuter endings are always a.

3rd Declension

masculine, feminine, and neuter

The genitive singular always ends in –is.

Masculine/Feminine Neuter

Case Singular Plural Singular Plural nominative

-----

es

-----

a

genitive

is

(i)um*

is

(i)um*

dative

i

ibus

i

ibus

accusative

em

es

-----

a

ablative

e

ibus

e

ibus

*3rd declension i-stem nouns are nouns of the 3rd declension (see what I did there?) whose genitive plural contains an i before the –um ending (partium instead of the expected partum, for example).


The rule for these is simple with just a few exceptions. It’s not necessary to learn all the “weird” exceptions in Henle until you run into one of those words. I’ll include the necessary ones below. Rules for a 3rd declension i-stem noun:

1) the nominative and genitive singular have the same number of syllables; 2) the stem of the noun ends in two consonants. So,

Rule 1: civis, civis civium Rule 2: pars, partis partium

But: mater, matris matrum; pater, patris patrum; frater, fratris fratrum Double-check yourself when you’re learning the vocabulary. Besides helping you memorize, you will hopefully also come to recognize an incorrect form. It’s happened to me several times when I have been typing these very pages. I’ve had brain blocks and inadvertently created a weird form, thinking, “That just doesn’t look right.” Trust your instinct as you go; you’ll get better at it the more frequently you encounter a word. The exercises assigned in CC for Latin seem excessive, but they will produce mastery.

Prepositions | Henle in a Hurry

Prepositions

Prepositions serve the same function in Latin as they do in English. They are fixed forms; prepositions do not inflect and they never change their spelling. They do not belong to a

declension. Just as in English, it is necessary to have a preposition and an object of the preposition. Find the prepositional phrase, the preposition, and the object of the preposition in the following sentence.

The cat chases the mouse under the table.

Because an object of the preposition must be a noun (or adjective acting as a noun), the object of

the preposition will inflect. The good news is they are only found in two cases---the accusative and the ablative. We say that prepositions “govern” a particular case; when a preposition is followed by an object in a certain case, it has a particular meaning. For example, the Latin preposition in means in or on when it is followed by (governs) the ablative case. When it governs the accusative case, it means into (and a few other things). Here is a mnemonic you can commit to memory that may help you at the beginning.

S I D P. S P A C E Sid P. Space is an astronaut. The letters in his name each stand for a preposition and are the most common Latin prepositions that govern the ablative case. It’s not a complete list, but it’s quite helpful. The trick is to know the preposition each letter stands for. If a preposition is not in his

name, it most likely governs the accusative case. The letters stand for sine, in, de, prae, sub, pro, ab, cum, and e/ex. When you see prepositions in your vocabulary, you will have the preposition followed by the governed case. When you’re going from English to Latin, you must inflect the object of the preposition into that case in order for the preposition to mean what you want it to mean. Practice will help you learn prepositions thoroughly. I can’t possibly emphasize enough to you how important it is to learn. those. charts. Have them next to you at the start, but honestly, by October or so, you should make it a goal not to reference any of your noun charts. (Of course, there is always scaling, but that is a reasonable goal.) I can give you lots of drill/review game ideas to help you drill those endings. In Units One and Two, you encounter six prepositions: in, post, propter, cum, and pro. Sid P. Space is very helpful for this list! in + acc, propter, and post are not in Sid P. Space, so you know they govern the accusative.

Practice | Henle in a Hurry

Declension Practice Drill

Here’s an example of how you can drill your declension endings. Set a timer for an amount of time less than what you think you need to finish the page. Choose a declension, and when you start, fill in as many blanks as you can. Stop when the timer goes off. Check them (I’ve made several variations with their answer keys for you), and mark the time at the top of the page. Do this several times a week, and see if your number correct divided by the number completed approaches 1 (that would be every blank filled in correctly) AND your time comes down. The real practice page has 50 blanks. It benefits you the most not to skip around on the page. Fill them in as you come to them.

Declension:

1. nom. sg. _________

2. gen. pl. _________

3. abl. sg. _________

4. acc. pl. _________

5. nom. pl. _________

6. nom. pl. _________

7. abl. pl. _________

8. acc. sg. _________

9. gen. sg. _________

10. dat. sg. _________

11. dat. pl. _________

12. gen. pl. _________

13. dat. sg. _________

14. abl. sg. _________

15. acc. sg. _________

Practice Sentences

1. Amīcī Deī Chrīstiānōs laudant. 2. Chrīstiānī Fīlium Deī laudant. 3. Glōriam Deī vident. 4. Deus terram videt. Nautās et servōs videt. Now let’s try to put these English sentences into Latin. 1. God praises the glory of Christ. 2. The servants of the sailor see the province. 3. The sailors see the forests of the land. 4. Mary gave (dedit) the land to the sailors on account of their victory.

Adjectives | Henle in a Hurry

Adjectives

Here’s where the wheels sometimes come off, and whatever you’re driving runs into the ditch. It

doesn’t have to be complicated; it’s simply a matter of three steps to figure out adjective forms. They’re not any harder than nouns if you’ve learned your charts! An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun by describing, qualifying, or limiting. Hmm . . . see that “limiting” definition? We’ve learned that the genitive case is a limiting case, and therefore is an adjectival case. Put that in your back pocket, and we’ll pull it out later. Adjectives do not have a

meaning apart from the word they modify. This is why we have to connect them grammatically. Anywho, be sure you are comfortable identifying adjectives in English. If you’re not fresh on adjectives, Chart L from Essentials of the English Language will help you out. Some review . . . 1. Each Latin noun belongs to one (“bucket”).

2. Nouns cannot change their (“bucket”).

3. Adjectives are modifiers for what part(s) of speech?

4. So, what do you think adjectives might do in Latin that they don’t do in English? (Think about

what they are companions to and how that part of speech behaves in Latin.)

Okay, that’s the hard part! Because adjectives are “linked” with nouns as a modifier, they will behave just like nouns. They inflect, or decline, just like nouns do. Now, in order for the adjective to modify the noun, it must agree with that noun in gender, case, and number.

But wait! You may already be asking if a noun could agree with any gender (3) in any case (5) in any number (2), that makes 3 X 5 X 2 = 30 possibilities for every adjective! Hey, this is classical education! I had to find a way to work math into Latin. However . . .

DON’T PANIC!

Why not? Because you’ve already learned ALL THE FORMS. If you know your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declension noun charts, you know all the endings (with three teeny tiny exceptions) for adjectives!! Yay, you! If you haven’t had a chance to learn them all yet, it’s okay. Just tell yourself as you’re going that these endings work for both nouns and adjectives! See why it’s super important to learn the declension charts? Especiallissimo the first three declensions! Let’s get started with adjectives. There are two categories of Latin adjectives: the first category is what we call “2-1-2” adjectives, and the second category is 3rd declension adjectives. Remember way back at the beginning of today, I exhorted you always to recite the gender in the order “masculine, feminine, neuter”? There was a reason for that in addition to making answering questions and parsing easier on both you and your teacher! A “2-1-2” adjective in Latin is an


adjective that has a 2nd declension form for the masculine; a 1st declension form for the feminine; and a 2nd declension form for the neuter. What does this mean? If you were to look up the word “good” in a vocabulary list (called a vocabulary entry), you’d see this: bonus, -a, -um.

While nouns are listed in vocabulary as nominative, genitive, adjectives are listed masculine, feminine, neuter. This is super-important to know!

Now, let’s say you want to use bonus to modify some nouns. Let’s choose one of each gender, just to demonstrate how this works. Before we start, I’m going to tell you something very important:

The #1 most confusing, most often-missed, most often-hated part of adjectives:

Please, please, please, please, please:

DON’T LOOK FOR ENDINGS THAT “MATCH!”

Masculine Feminine Neuter

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

nom us i nom a ae nom um a gen i orum gen ae arum gen i orum dat o is dat ae is dat o is acc um os acc am as acc um a abl o is abl ā is abl o is

For 2-1-2 adjectives, if you need to modify a masculine word, you use the first chart; a feminine word, the second chart; a neuter word, the last chart.

Do these charts look familiar to you? They should! What are they?

I’m going to demonstrate how to choose the correct form of an adjective for you. Then we’ll practice. Choose the correct form of bonus, bona, bonum to modify each noun below.

servus, victoria, bellum 1. What is the gender, case, and number of servus? 2. Choose that form of bonus, bona, bonum. 3. What is the gender, case, and number of victoria? 4. Choose that form of bonus, bona, bonum. 5. What is the gender, case, and number of bellum? 6. Choose that form of bonus, bona, bonum. Try it with servorum, victoriam, and bella.


Adjective Placement

Latin adjectives can come before or after the word they modify. However, there are some general rules.

1) Adjectives of quantity (how large? how long? how high? how many? magnus, multus) usually come before their nouns.

2) Adjectives of quality (what kind? bonus, malus, pulcher) usually come after their nouns, and describe more inherent qualities.

Practice

Give the proper form of bonus, -a, um that agrees in gender, case, and number with the following nouns. What do you ask yourself every time you’re putting an adjective with a noun in Latin, or trying to decide which word is being modified? If you use these steps every time, adjectives will be a lot easier for you.

1. What is the gender, case, and number of the noun? (Write these three things down or hold them in your head.)

2. Then forget the noun (put the spelling out of your head!). 3. Go to the correct chart depending on the gender you need. 4. Find the correct case and number, and put that ending on the adjective.

Here are some “easier” ones to practice with.

gloria victoriarum portas provinciae (you don’t have to know which case this is, any of the three will be correct) filios amici (you don’t have to know which case this is, any of the two will be correct) bello (this is bellum, belli, war; either possible case will be correct)

Let’s try “of the good sailors”; I’ll walk you through it. 1. What is the Latin case for of the sailors? 2. What gender is it? 3. What number is sailors? 4. How do we say of the sailors? Now, forget the noun and go to your adjective chart. Find the correct gender, case, and number to modify sailors. Hint again: If you can “forget” the way the noun is spelled once you’ve decided on gender, case, and number, you won’t get confused when you go to find the correct form of the adjective.


Let’s practice forms to modify nouns from all three declensions. Remember, the declension of the noun does not have any effect on the declension of the adjective. The adjectives have their own

buckets that they live in.

I’ll give you the noun in Latin and you give me the correct form of bonus, -a, -um to modify that Latin noun. Break into teams and do these together. Be prepared to tell me the gender, case, and number of the noun, and why you chose 1st or 2nd declension for the adjective form.

1. terra 2. silvas 3. victoriarum 4. portā 5. Gallum 6. terrae (nominative plural) 7. provinciis (dative plural) 8. servo (dative singular) 9. nautas 10. nautae (genitive singular) 11. nautarum 12. nautis (ablative plural) 13. nautā 14. bellum (nominative singular) 15. caelis (dative plural)

Now here are some trickier ones. Here we go! Give me the proper form of bonus, -a, -um to modify the given nouns.

1. lex (feminine nominative singular) 2. lucibus (feminine dative plural) 3. hominis (masculine genitive singular) 4. imperatoribus (masculine ablative plural)

Try a handful more of these (if we have time). Use the correct form of magnus, -a, -um (great, large) to modify the following Latin nouns. Magnus will come before the noun it modifies.

1. nautarum (masculine genitive plural) 2. provinciis (feminine ablative plural) 3. luce (feminine ablative singular) 4. imperatori (masculine dative singular) 5. victoriae (feminine nominative plural) 6. duces (masculine accusative plural) 7. veritatem (feminine accusative singular) 8. legibus (feminine dative plural) Whew! It got more complicated quickly, but keep in mind if you ask yourself those two separate questions every time, things will go more smoothly for you.


3rd Declension Adjectives

There is a family of Latin adjectives that are words in the 3rd declension. These are words that decline like gravis, grave. In this case, the second word is not the genitive, it’s the neuter form. It just works that way. All 3rd declension adjectives decline exactly like 3rd declension nouns except for

three places.

Masculine/Feminine

Neuter

Singular Plural Singular Plural

nom blank es nom blank ia

gen is ium gen is ium

dat i ibus dat i ibus acc em es acc blank ia

abl i ibus abl i ibus There are three categories of 3rd declension adjectives, but you’ll only cover one this year: 2-termination 3rd Declension adjectives. These adjectives have the forms gravis, gravis, grave. That means the masculine form uses gravis, the feminine form uses gravis, and the neuter uses grave. They are all i-stem. Remember the three changes! (–e to –i in the ablative singular; –ia in the neuter nom. and acc. plural instead of –a.)

Masculine/Feminine

Neuter

Singular Plural Singular Plural

nom gravis graves nom grave gravia

gen gravis gravium gen gravis gravium

dat gravi gravibus dat gravi gravibus acc gravem graves acc grave gravia

abl gravi gravibus abl gravi gravibus

Verbs | Henle in a Hurry

Latin Verbs

A verb is shows an action, state of being, or links two words together. Latin does not use helping verbs, so we’ll leave that out of the definition for now. Latin is an inflected language. English inflects sometimes, but not nearly as much as Latin does. For instance, think about the 1st person personal pronoun I. In English, we say “I love you,” but if I am the recipient of the love, I become the direct object, and we say “You love me.” The spelling change from I to me is called inflection. In Latin, the endings of all verbs, nouns, and adjectives change depending on the job of the word in a phrase. A subject will have a different ending than a direct object. So, in Latin, it is very important not only to read the beginning of the word, but to look at the ending as well. Word order does not determine the meaning of the word. Let’s look at the verb ambulō. When ambulō has the long ō on the end, it means “I walk,” “I am walking,” or “I do walk.” Those are the three ways we can translate a present tense verb into English from Latin. In your vocabulary, you have verbs that end in –t and –nt: orat, “he/she/it prays,” and orant, “they pray.”

When a verb ends with a –t, it means “he, she, or it verbs, is verbing, or does verb.”

When a verb ends in the letters –nt, it means “they verb.”

For example, ambulant ends in an –nt and means “they walk, they are walking, or they do walk.”

These endings in Latin represent personal pronouns. There are three persons in Latin just as in English, and each person has a singular and plural.

Singular Plural

First Person I we

Second Person you you all

Third Person he, she, it they

In English, we have to place these pronouns before a verb in order to know what the verb means. “I run across the street”; “You eat ice cream.” If we said “eat ice cream,” and it wasn’t a command, we wouldn’t know the subject of the sentence. In Latin, that personal pronoun is placed on the end of the verb. Personal pronouns exist in Latin but they are not nearly as common as in English.


Now, let’s fill in the rest of the chart above with the 1st and 2nd person personal endings.

Singular Latin Personal Ending Plural Latin Personal Ending

1st Person I -o or -m we -mus

2nd Person you -s you all -tis

3rd Person he, she, it -t they -nt

Notice that the 1st person singular can end in either –o or –m. This is important! We’ll talk about when it’s –o or –m soon. Find a rhythm and chant the endings. Say them rather then spell them. It’s easier to recall them this way.

Conjugations

Just like nouns, Latin verbs change their endings depending on the role they’re playing in the sentence. When we inflect Latin nouns and adjectives, we call that declining. When we inflect Latin verbs, we call that conjugating. Remember how we put nouns into different buckets depending on how they were spelled? Latin verbs do the same thing. Nouns are put into declensions based on their genitive singular ending. Verbs are put into conjugations based on the last three letters of the

infinitive. Let’s go ahead and look at the four Latin conjugations and their infinitive forms using laudo, moneo, mitto, and audio as our four model verbs. We’ll define infinitives later. The infinitive form of laudo is laudare. The infinitive form of moneo is monēre. The infinitive form of mitto is mittere. The infinitive form of audio is audire. This is how we decide which conjugation a Latin verb belongs to. As with nouns, the conjugation a verb belongs in determines its spelling. All Latin verbs whose infinitive ends in –are are first conjugation. All Latin verbs whose infinitive ends in –ēre are second conjugation. All Latin verbs whose infinitive ends in –ere are third conjugation. All Latin verbs whose infinitive ends in –ire are fourth conjugation. If you come across a verb whose infinitive does not fit one of these patterns, we do not assign it a conjugation and we have to memorize it. For example, the verb sum, “I am,” is irregular. Its infinitive is esse. You simply have to memorize it, there’s no way to guess what the forms will be based on the infinitive.

Principal Parts

The principal parts in Latin (and in English, too!) are the forms of the verb that give you the building blocks you need to conjugate the verb in any person, number, tense, voice, or mood. Guess what? You have to memorize all the principal parts when you’re learning your vocabulary, just like you do in English. I prefer to have my students memorize them from the very beginning (for example, do, dare, dedi, datum for “I give”), but it’s completely up to you whether or not you want to do extra


work at the front end. Here is a chart of the principal parts for our model verbs. We’ll only use the 1st principal part for now and we’ll make observations about the 2nd principal part.

1st Conjugation

1st principal part 2nd principal part 3rd principal part 4th principal part 1st person singular present, active, indicative

infinitive 1st person singular, perfect, active, indicative

perfect passive participle/supine

I praise to praise I praised praised laudo laudare laudavi laudatum

2nd Conjugation




I warn to warn I warned warned moneo monēre monui monitum

3rd Conjugation




I send to send I sent sent mitto mittere misi missum

4th Conjugation




I hear to hear I heard heard audio audire audivi auditum


Here are the basic parts of the verb. Let’s get comfortable with these now. Some books differ on what they call the stem; I prefer to always designate the stem as the part of the word that never

changes spelling. The conjugating vowel is the letter in the infinitive that tells you which conjugation a verb belongs to. Once you know the four principal parts and the conjugation, you have everything you need to conjugate that verb completely. Let’s talk about the first three tenses in general, then we’ll practice each conjugation specifically. The present system of verbs in Latin is made up of the present, the imperfect, and the future. That sounds weird, I know. Those all happen at different times, why would they all be part of the present

system? It’s because these three tenses are built off of the 1st principal part, which is the present

tense.

Present Tense (Active Voice, Indicative Mood)

(For now, all our tenses will be in the active voice and indicative mood. Outside of the indicative mood, things change a lot, but we’re not messing with that now.)

The present tense can be translated three different ways: I verb, I am verbing, and I do verb. These three translations are saying different things. I’m not sure we’ll have time to dip our toes into aspect, so for now, we’ll translate in a very straightforward way. As you become more advanced in Latin and encounter different contexts, you will need to make a choice between these three possibilities when translating. The present tense is built off of the 1st principal part of the verb and receives a conjugating vowel + the following personal endings:


1st Person I -o we -mus




Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense can be translated three different ways: I was verbing, I used to verb, and I kept

verbing. These three translations are saying different things. The imperfect tense is built off of the 1st principal part of the verb and receives a conjugating vowel + the tense infix (ba) + the following personal endings:


1st Person I -m we -mus



What’s a tense infix? It’s also called the tense sign. We’ll talk about that later when we learn how to conjugate. (Spoiler: it’s a letter or letters that you put inside the verb before the endings that tell you what tense it is!)

Future Tense

The future tense is translated I shall verb.

The future tense is built off of the 1st principal part of the verb and the first two conjugations receive a conjugating vowel + tense infix (bi) + the following personal endings. The third and fourth conjugations do not have a tense infix, but still use these personal endings.


1st Person I -o (1st and 2nd conjugations)

-m (3rd & 4th conjugations)

we -mus




1st and 2nd Conjugations: Present, Imperfect, and Future Tenses

The 1st and 2nd conjugations are very straightforward in Latin. Let’s learn how to conjugate these verbs in the present tense. Present Tense

Consider laudo, laudare, laudavi, laudatum. From now on, in your textbook, you may see the verb followed by (1). This means that it is a regular 1st conjugation verb, and the principal parts follow the pattern you see in laudo. The present tense is translated I praise, I am praising, I do praise. The present tense of the 1st conjugation is formed by

1) taking the stem of the infinitive form, 2) adding the conjugating vowel a, 3) adding the personal endings after the a.

Singular Plural

1st Person laudo* laudāmus

2nd Person laudas laudātis

3rd Person laudat laudant

*In pure terms, the a is still there, but in aō the long ō swallows the a, and it disappears. The 2nd conjugation is formed the same way, except the conjugating vowel is an e. moneo, monēre = I warn, admonish. *Here, the long ō does not swallow the ē, so it gets to stay.

Singular Plural

1st Person moneo* monēmus

2nd Person mones monētis

3rd Person monet monent

Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense is translated I was praising, I used to praise, I kept praising. Sometimes the inceptive is used, I began praising. The imperfect tense of the 1st conjugation is formed by:

1) taking the stem of the infinitive form 2) adding the conjugating vowel a 3) adding the tense infix –ba– after the a 4) adding the personal endings after –ba–, using m for the 1st person singular


Singular Plural

1st Person laudābam laudābāmus

2nd Person laudābas laudābātis

3rd Person laudābat laudābant

The imperfect of the 2nd conjugation is formed the same way, except the conjugating vowel is an e.

Singular Plural

1st Person monbēbam monēbāmus

2nd Person monēbas monēbātis

3rd Person monēbat monēbant

Future Tense

The future tense is translated I shall praise. The future tense of the 1st conjugation is formed by:

1) taking the stem of the infinitive form 2) adding the conjugating vowel a 3) adding the tense infix –bi– after the a 4) adding the personal endings after –bi–

Singular Plural

1st Person laudābō laudābimus

2nd Person laudābis laudābitis

3rd Person laudābit laudābunt

Here, the combination of the i in the 1st person singular and 3rd person plural does funny things, and you have to remember that pattern. Seriously, learn the “baby talk” future chant (bo, bi, bi, bi, bi, bu) and you’ll be just peachy.

The future of the 2nd conjugation is formed the same way, except the conjugating vowel is an e.


Singular Plural

1st Person monēbo monēbīmus

2nd Person monēbis monēbītis

3rd Person monēbit monēbunt

3rd and 4th Conjugations: Present, Imperfect, and Future Tenses

Things get a little dicier with the 3rd and 4th conjugations. Their present and imperfect forms are regular, but the future is quite different from the 1st and 2nd.

Present Tense

Consider mitto, mittere, misi, missum. The present tense is translated I send, I am sending, I do send. The present tense of the third conjugation is identical to the second, except the conjugating vowel is an i. The i disappears in the first person singular, and there is also a u in the 3rd person plural.

Singular Plural

1st Person mitto mittimus

2nd Person mittis mittitis

3rd Person mittit mittunt

The present tense of the 4th conjugation is the same except the i stays all the way through.

Singular Plural

1st Person audio audīmus

2nd Person audīs audītis

3rd Person audit audiunt

Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense is translated I was sending, I used to send, I kept sending. The imperfect tense of the 3rd conjugation is predictable.


Singular Plural

1st Person mittēbam mittēbēmus

2nd Person mittēbās mittēbētis

3rd Person mittēbat mittēbant

The imperfect of the 4th conjugation is identical, except the i stays all the way through.

Singular Plural

1st Person audiēbam audiēbēmus

2nd Person audiēbas audiēbātis

3rd Person audiēbat audiēbant

Future Tense

The future tense is translated I shall send. The 3rd conjugation future tense does not have a tense infix. Rather, it is conjugated by

1) taking the stem of the infinitive form 2) adding the conjugating vowel e, except for the 1st person singular where it is an a. 3) adding the personal endings after the conjugating vowel, using –m for the 1st person

singular. The 3rd person plural is –ent, not –unt.

Singular Plural

1st Person mittam mittēmus

2nd Person mittēs mittētis

3rd Person mittet mittent

The 4th conjugation is formed the same way, except the i stays all the way through.

Singular Plural

1st Person audiam audiēmus

2nd Person audiēs audiētis

3rd Person audiet audient


**Just so you have another reason to get extremely frustrated with me, there is another category of verbs that is not introduced in Henle First Year (as far as I can tell). They are called “3rd conjugation –io,” and while you may get nervous, they’re actually very predictable. 3rd –io verbs are conjugated exactly like the 4th conjugation. The only reason it is in the

3rd conjugation and not the 4th is . . . because . . . you guessed it! The infinitive ends in –ere, so that makes it a 3rd conjugation verb. However, they look identical to the 4th conjugation. (See the master verb chart I’ve included in this packet.)

Addendum: Perfect System

In Challenge A, the last grammar you encounter is the perfect system. Why is it called the perfect

system? Because it couldn’t be any better, so it’s perfect the way it is? In language, perfect means “finished, completed.” The perfect tense is a completed tense. It is also the 3rd principal part of a Latin verb. Therefore, the perfect system is built off of the perfect principal part. The tenses in the perfect system are the perfect, the pluperfect, and the future perfect. We remember them in that order. They are all tenses that must be completed with reference to the time of the sentence. The perfect is not always past time, but it is always finished. Perfect (present) She has finished cleaning her room. Perfect (past) She finished cleaned her room. Pluperfect (always past) She had finished cleaning her room. Future perfect (always future) She will have finished cleaning her room. Latin doesn’t use helping verbs; the ending on the verb serves that purpose as well as context. The personal endings for the perfect are different from the other endings you’ve learned.


1st Person I -i we -imus

2nd Person you -isti you all -istis

3rd Person he, she, it -it they -erunt

Forming the perfect system is very formulaic.


Perfect Tense, All Conjugations

To form the perfect tense of all four conjugations, take the 3rd principal part and change the endings according to the chart above. You do not need to change any conjugating vowels; everything is ready to go. Let’s look at amo, amare, amavi, amatum. The 3rd principal part is amavi, which is “I loved.” All you have to do is replace the “i” with the other endings.

Singular Plural

1st Person amavī amavimus

2nd Person amavisti amavistis

3rd Person amavit amavērunt

Pluperfect Tense, All Conjugations

Pluperfect means “more than perfect,” which means it happens in the past before another past tense verb. “I had cleaned my room already when Mom came home.” To form the pluperfect tense of all four conjugations, take the 3rd principal part and drop the –i, then add the imperfect of sum.

Singular Plural

1st Person amaveram amaverāmus

2nd Person amaverās amaverātis

3rd Person amaverat amaverant

Future Perfect Tense, All Conjugations

The future perfect is completed, but in the future. “I will have cleaned my room by the time Mom comes (will come) home.” The cleaning will be completed, but in the future, and before Mom comes home. To form the future perfect tense of all four conjugations, take the 3rd principal part and drop the –i, then add the future of sum with one small change in the 3rd person plural.

Singular Plural

1st Person amavero amaverimus

2nd Person amaveris amaveritis

3rd Person amaverit amaverint

You have now completed all the possible active indicative verb tenses! WHOO HOO!


(Optional Advanced)

Tense and Aspect (Form)

In English, we have learned that in order to express time (more commonly called “tense”), we inflect the relevant principal part and add helping verbs where needed to express the time in which the verb occurs. As a result, English has a distinct verb form for nearly every verb tense (in the indicative mood). In Latin, each verb comprises a tense (in the indicative mood, this means time, or when the verb occurs), and aspect (which roughly lines up with EEL’s “form” on Verb Chart C). Unlike English, Latin, which is a language of skilled and insistent economy, does not have a unique verb form for every combination of tense and aspect. Latin does not use helping verbs. Contextual understanding is required in order to render Latin verb forms into correct English. “Tense” refers to time (only in the indicative mood; in the subjunctive, this gets a lot trickier). “Aspect” refers to the form or type of action of the verb. Is it punctiliar (simple); ongoing, progressive, or habitual (imperfective); or finished (perfective)?

**I’m using the term “action” to describe the purpose of a verb, but I understand there is not

always an action attached to a verb; it’s the easiest way to generalize.**

Simple states a fact; you are not concerned with how long the action took, how often it happened, or whether it is finished or not. It simply is, was, or will be. This is the simple aspect.

I walk. He falls in the hole.

I ate a hot dog. The girl will run the race.

None of these actions has any duration attached to it; we don’t know how often I eat hot dogs, how long I am walking, or whether the girl will run a race once, or every week. We don’t care; the simple aspect simply communicates the fact of the action. Imperfective describes an ongoing (continuous) or habitual action; this can be in the past, present, or future. For an imperfective aspect in the present time, Latin uses the present tense. For an imperfective aspect in the past, Latin uses the imperfect tense. For the imperfective aspect in the future, Latin uses the future tense.

I was running the marathon (when I got lost) . . . She walked her dog every Tuesday. (This one is trickier; I’ll explain why.)

I am singing the song. He will be carving the pumpkin when you get home.

Each of these verbs describes an action that, regardless of when it occurs on the timeline from your point of view, is progressive or habitual. Students sometimes say that you always translate a Latin imperfect with an –ing ending in English, but this is not correct. In the active voice, if the verb is understood to be habitual, we use the simple past principle part in English, not the –ing form; we


can also add “used to” in front of the verb (She walked her dog every Tuesday. She used to walk her dog every Tuesday.). Perfective describes a completed action, whether past, present, or future. This is by far the most difficult aspect to explain. For this aspect (“perfect” is from the verb meaning to finish; in grammatical terms, perfect does not mean without flaw; rather, it means something is finished), the referred action must have been completed in reference to where the main verb of the sentence rests on the timeline. In the past tense, Latin uses the pluperfect for this aspect. The pluperfect is always translated as a past tense verb, but it shares the perfective aspect with other tenses.

(a) I had sung the song three times before she came home. (b) I have read this article three times already; now she is asking me to read it again.

(c) She will have finished her homework by the time you leave for the airport.

In sentence (a), the main verb (came) happens in the past, so had sung has to be a verb that is completed before the main verb; thus putting it in the past-past. Latin would use the pluperfect here. In sentence (b), the main verb (is asking) happens in the present, so the perfective aspect must render a verb that is finished before the main verb. In sentence (c), the main verb (leave) happens in the future, so the perfect aspect must render a verb that will be finished before the main verb, but still occurs in the future.

Latin Tenses and Aspect (canto, I sing)

Aspect Tense

Past Present Future Imperfective cantabam

(imperfect tense, imperfective aspect)

“I was singing”

canto (present tense,

imperfective aspect) “I am singing”

cantabo (future tense,

imperfective aspect) “I will be singing”

Simple cantavi

(perfect tense, simple aspect)

“I sang”

canto (present tense, simple aspect)

“I sing”

cantabo (future tense, simple

aspect) “I will sing”

Perfective cantaveram

(pluperfect tense, perfective aspect)

“I had sung”

cantavi (perfect tense,

perfective aspect) “I have sung”

cantavero (future perfect tense,

perfective aspect) “I will have sung”

**Remember, aspect and tense are different terms.**

In the EEL Chart C, there is a “perfect progressive” form in English. There is no independent perfect progressive form in Latin; one of the tenses above would be used with sequence of tenses and context would help you render the translation.

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