CHAPTER 2
"Cases; First Declension; Agreement of Adjectives"
CASES AND INFLECTION
Consider the following sentence: "The girl saw the dog". How can you tell
that this sentence does not mean that the dog is seeing the girl? The answer
is obvious to an English speaker. "Girl" comes before the verb, and "dog"
comes after it, and this arrangement tells us that the "girl" is performing
the action of verb, and the "dog" is receiving the action. We say that
the one who is performing the action of the verb is the "subject" of the
verb. So "girl" is the "subject" of "saw". The dog, however, is the "object"
of the verb, since it's the object of the action. And in English, we generally
show these functions -- subject and object -- by position relative to the
verb. The subject of the verb tends to come before the verb, the object
tends to come after it.
But position isn't the only way we show which word is the subject and
object of a verb. Now consider this sentence: "Him I like, them I despise".
Obviously this sentence has an usual arrangement for rhetorical purposes,
but how can you tell who is doing what to whom? Even though English grammar
shows grammatical relationship between words in a sentence mainly by position,
in many instances a change in the word itself provides you additional help.
The word "him", although it comes first in the sentence, is not the subject
because its form -- "him" instead of "he" -- is not the one used to indicate
that it's the subject of the verb. We use the form "he" to show that. Furthermore,
the word "I" is the form we use when the first person is subject of the
verb. Hence, the words "he" and "I" change their forms as their grammatical
function in the sentence changes. The change in form of a word to show
grammatical functions is called "inflection".
The English personal pronouns change quite a lot to show you how they're
being used in the sentence. Watch.
FORM FUNCTION
I subject
my possessor (it owns
something
me object (something is
being done to it)
First Person Pronoun
we subject
our possessor
us object
you subject
your possessor
you object
Second Person Pronoun
you subject
your possessor
you object
he,she,it subject
his,her,its possessor
him,her,it object
Third Person Pronoun
they subject
their possessor
them object
This inflection (change of form to show grammatical function) in the pronouns
is very useful for helping us to understand each other -- although, as
you can see, the second person pronoun "you, etc" doesn't inflect nearly
so much as the first and third. The plural forms are even identical to
the singular forms. We can still get by.
In English, inflection is rather limited, and we rely on position mainly
to tell us what the words in the sentence are doing to each other. The
only grammatical functions that involve a change in form for all nouns
is the possessive case and the plural forms, where we attach an "-s" to
the end of the word. (In written English we even include an apostrophe
"'" mark to help us see the difference between a pluralized noun and a
noun that's in the possessive case.) For example
SINGULAR PLURAL
apple subject apples subject
apple's possessor apples' possessor
apple object apples object
Watch how we combine position with inflection in English to make sense
to one another. As you can see, position is the principal guide.
"These apples' [plural, possessor] cores are hard, but apples
[plural, subject] are usually soft. When you [singular, subject] buy apples
[plural, object], you [singular, subject] should first pick up each apple
[object, singular] and bounce it [singular, object] off the floor several
times. Then check its [singular, possessor] skin. If it [singular, subject]
is bruised, discretely put it [singular, object] back with the other apples
[plural, object], making certain that no one [singular, subject] is watching
you [singular, object]".
Unlike English, languages which rely primarily on inflection of words to
show grammatical relationship are called "inflected" languages. English,
though it has some inflection, is not an inflected language. Latin, however,
is an inflected language, because it relies almost entirely on changes
in the words themselves to indicate their grammatical function in a sentence.
The different grammatical functions a word can have in a sentence is
called "case". In English there are three recognizable different cases,
that is grammatical functions, a word can have: the subjective case, the
possessive case, and the objective case. So we say there are three cases
in English. In Latin there are six difference cases. Here are the Latin
cases. (Don't try to memorize them all at once here. Just read through
the list; there will be plenty of time to firm up your familiarity of them.)
LATIN APPROXIMATE ENGLISH EQUIVALENT
Nominative (Subjective)
Genitive (Possessive Case)
Dative (Object of words like "to" or "for")
Accusative (Objective Case)
Ablative (Adverbial Usages: "by", "with")
Vocative (Direct Address)
We'll look at the way these cases are used in Latin in the next part of
these notes, although some of them won't be difficult at all: the nominative,
genitive, and accusative cases are almost the same as their English counterparts.
The ablative, dative and vocative will need some explanation. Before then,
however, let's look at how a Latin noun inflects to show all these different
cases.
Let's look at some English pronouns which inflect to show the three
different cases. Do you remember "they, their, them?" The pronoun is inflecting
through its different cases, but we can definitely spot a pattern of similarity
among the three forms. There is a definite root of the word. The root (that
is, the part of the word that contains the meaning of the word) is "the-"
to which then the endings "-y", "-ir" and "-m". So we could say that the
word is inflecting by adding certain case endings to a stem. The stem contains
the core of the meaning of the word, and the endings merely inflect or
alter its grammar.
This is precisely how Latin nouns show their different cases: they add
additional letters to the end of the basic form of the word. This basic
form that does not change throughout its inflection is called the "stem".
There are, consequently, two parts of a Latin word that you must note:
the stem and the case ending. The stem contains the meaning of the word
and its gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter). The case ending will tell
you (1) how the noun is being used in its sentence, and (2) whether the
noun is singular or plural. Let's watch a the Latin noun "puella" (girl)
as it inflects through its different cases:
SINGULAR APPROXIMATE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
NOMINATIVE puella girl
GENITIVE puellae of the girl
DATIVE puellae to/for the girl
ACCUSATIVE puellam girl
ABLATIVE puella by/with the girl
VOCATIVE puella girl
PLURAL
NOMINATIVE puellae girls
GENITIVE puellarum of the girls
DATIVE puellis to/for the girls
ACCUSATIVE puellas girls
ABLATIVE puellis by/with the girls
VOCATIVE puellae girls
The stem of the Latin word is clearly visible. It's "puell-" to which different
endings are being attached. The endings are:
SINGULAR PLURAL
NOMINATIVE -a -ae
GENITIVE -ae -arum
DATIVE -ae -is
ACCUSATIVE -am -as
ABLATIVE -a -is
VOCATIVE -a -ae
There are many other nouns in Latin which follow this same pattern of case
endings when they inflect. This pattern of endings is called the "first
declension" (deh CLEN shion) and you can see the strong presence of an
"-a-". There are four other declensional patterns in Latin, but a noun
will belong to only one of them. Hence we can say that "puella" is a first
declension noun. The other declensions are called, not surprisingly, the
second, third, fourth and fifth declension, and are distinguished form
one another in part by the thematic, or characteristic, vowel that appears
in its endings.
REVIEW
This is a lot of information to absorb in one sitting. Stop now for a while,
then read through this review statement before starting on the next section
of this chapter.
A language whose nouns show their grammatical function in the sentence
by changes in the noun itself, and not by position, is called an inflected
language. The different grammatical functions a language recognizes are
called cases. In English, there are three cases. They are the subjective,
the possessive, and the objective. In Latin there are six cases. They are
the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative and vocative cases.
A Latin noun has two parts which you must note: it has a stem, which contains
the noun's basic meaning and its gender; and it also has a case ending
which tells you the noun's case and its number. A pattern of endings which
are added to the end of a noun to show its grammatical function is called
a declension. Each noun in Latin belongs to one declension. The declensions
are called the first, second, third, fourth and fifth declensions.
THE FIRST DECLENSION
Let's have a look at another first declension noun: "pecuni-" (money).
SINGULAR
STEM + CASE ENDING = INFLECTED FORM
N/V. pecuni + -a = _______________
GEN. pecuni + -ae = _______________
DAT. pecuni + -ae = _______________
ACC. pecuni + -am = _______________
ABL. pecuni + -a = _______________
PLURAL
STEM + CASE ENDING = INFLECTED FORM
N/V. pecuni + -ae = _______________
GEN. pecuni + -arum = _______________
DAT. pecuni + -is = _______________
ACC. pecuni + -as = _______________
ABL. pecuni + -is = _______________
Let's try a few more paradigms. Decline the noun "patri-" (fatherland)
and vit-" (life).
SINGULAR
patri- vit-
N/V. _______________ _______________
GEN. _______________ _______________
DAT. _______________ _______________
ACC. _______________ _______________
ABL. _______________ _______________
PLURAL
N/V. _______________ _______________
GEN. _______________ _______________
DAT. _______________ _______________
ACC. _______________ _______________
ABL. _______________ _______________
GENDER
All Latin nouns possess what is called "gender". That is, a noun will be
masculine, feminine, or neuter. Don't confuse this kind of grammatical
gender with biological gender. There is nothing biologically feminine about
nouns which are grammatically feminine, nothing biologically masculine
about nouns which are grammatically masculine, and nothing biologically
neuter about nouns which are grammatically neuter. It's just that nouns
have a feature which we call gender by convention. And this is a feature
which cannot change in a noun. A noun may change its case or number, but
a noun will never change its gender. This is a fixed feature, and you must
be told what gender a noun is when you look it up in the dictionary. This
is important to remember, because although the vast majority of first declensions
nouns are feminine, not all of them are. You must memorize the gender of
each noun as you would learn its meaning.
DICTIONARY CONVENTIONS FOR GENDER AND DECLENSION
The dictionary therefore must tell you many things about a noun you're
looking up -- and you must know how the dictionary tells you what you need
to know. Latin dictionaries follow the following conventions for listing
nouns.
-
The first entry in the dictionary is the noun in the nominative case.
-
The second entry is the genitive singular ending. This is essential, because
many of the declensions have identical nominative singular endings. There
is no way to be certain, therefore, to which declension a noun belongs
simply by looking at the nominative singular. But in all declensions, the
genitive singular endings are different. The genitive singular ending of
the first declension is "-ae", that of the second declension is "-i", that
of the third is "-is", that of the fourth is "-us", and that of the fifth
is "-ei" If you know the genitive singular of a noun you know what declension
the noun follows. Another reason you must have the genitive singular form
given to you is that the stem of the noun is often not visible in the nominative
singular. Sometimes the stem changes slightly from the nominative to the
other forms. Again, you cannot predict what kind of stem change will occur
simply by looking at the nominative. But you will be able to see it in
the genitive singular. (This kind of stem change never occurs in the first
declension, but it does in the second and the third.)
-
The last entry is the gender of the noun, which cannot be deduced even
if you know everything else about the noun. You must be given it.
Put all this together, and typical dictionary entries for first declension
noun will look like this:
patria, -ae (f)
pecunia, -ae (f)
poeta, -ae (m)
agricola, -ae (m)
Now look up the following nouns in your dictionary and write out the grammatical
information you are given.
ENGLISH FULL ENTRY DECLENSION STEM
band _________________________ _____ __________
brother _________________________ _____ __________
care _________________________ _____ __________
city _________________________ _____ __________
day _________________________ _____ __________
dread _________________________ _____ __________
TRANSLATION OF THE CASES
What I'm going to give you now is just the bare outline of how these cases
can be translated into English. There will be plenty of time for further
refinement in the future -- and we'll have to do some refinement -- but
for the time being, these guide lines will get you well on your way.
-
NOMINATIVE CASE
-
A noun in the nominative case is often the subject of a verb. For example,
in the English sentence "The tree fell on my car", the "tree" is in the
nominative case because it's the subject of the verb "fell". If this were
a Latin sentence, the word tree would be in the nominative case form. The
rule of thumb for now is that if you see a noun in the nominative case,
try to translate it as the subject of the verb in its sentence.
-
GENITIVE CASE
-
This case shows that one noun belongs to another noun. The noun which is
the owner is put into the genitive case. Like this in English: "The car's
door is open". "Door" is the nominative case because it's the thing which
is open -- it's the subject of the verb "is" -- and the door belongs to
the car, so "car's" is put into the genitive case. So for now, every time
you see the genitive case, translate the noun with the English preposition
"of" or use the genitive marker "'s". For example, if "portae" is in the
genitive case, translate it either as "the door's" or "of the door".
-
DATIVE CASE
-
The dative case shows that a noun is indirectly affected by the action
of the sentence. Take for example, in the English sentence "George gave
the ball to the girl". George is the subject of "give" and the thing George
is giving is the "ball". So the thing most directly affected by George's
action is the ball. It's the direct recipient of the action. But George
then gave the ball to the girl, so the girl is also being affected, but
only indirectly. Therefore, the girl is the "indirect object" of the action
of the sentence. English can also indicate the indirect object simply by
position: by putting the indirect object before the direct object. Like
this: George gave the girl the ball. In Latin, the word for "girl" would
be in the dative case, and so would have the dative case ending of the
declension to which the word "girl" belongs. So the form would be "puellae".
Again, a rough rule of thumb: when you see the dative case, try to translate
it with the prepositions "to" or "for" and see which of the two makes the
most sense.
-
ACCUSATIVE CASE
-
The noun which is directly affected by the action of a verb is put into
the accusative case. In English we call this case the "direct object" which
is a little more descriptive of its function. It's the direct object of
some action. In the example above, the "ball" is in the accusative case
because it's the direct object of George's action of giving. In Latin,
therefore, the word for ball would have the characteristic accusative case
ending attached to its stem. The accusative case is also used after some
prepositions, but we'll look at that later.
-
ABLATIVE CASE
-
The ablative case is rather complicated. Let's just say for now that when
you see a noun in the ablative case, translate it by using the prepositions
"with" or "by". We'll study the various meanings of the ablative case separately
in later chapters.
-
VOCATIVE CASE
-
If you want to call someone or something by name to get some attention,
then you use the vocative case. "Dog, get out of the house!" "Dog" is in
the vocative case. The form of the vocative case -- that is, the ending
you attach to the stem to form the case -- is almost always identical to
the nominative form of the word. For that reason, the nominative and vocative
forms are often listed together in a declensional pattern, instead of being
given separate listings. The vocative case is very easily distinguished
from the nominative case, though, because a noun in the vocative is always
set off from the rest of the sentence with commas and is often preceded
by in the interjection "O" -- the Latin equivalent of our "hey": "O puellae,
date poetae rosas" (Hey girls, give roses to the poet.)
So let's put all this together into a chart you can use when you're translating
a Latin sentence. The sooner you've memorized this guidelines, the easier
it'll be for you to work through Latin sentences:
THE CASES
Nominative the subject of a verb
Genitive use "of" or "-'s" ("-s'") for the plural
Dative use "to" or "for", or put the noun before the
direct object
Accusative the direct object of a verb or object of a
preposition
Ablative use the prepositions "with" or "for"
Vocative use the English "hey" or "Oh"
Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this mouse? Everything
is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can
talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying.' So she began: `O Mouse,
do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about
here, O Mouse!'
(Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she
had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her
brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!'
The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink
with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.
`Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I daresay it's
a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.' (For, with all her
knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything
had happened.) So she began again: `Ou est ma chatte?' (Where
is my cat?) which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book.
The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver
all over with fright. `Oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice hastily,
afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. `I quite forgot you
didn't like cats.' |
AGREEMENT OF ADJECTIVES AND NOUNS
An adjective is a word which modifies or qualifies a noun. "A red leaf:"
"leaf" is the noun and "red" is telling you something more about it. That's
pretty simple. To indicate which noun an adjective is modify we use position
in English: i.e., we put the adjective right next to the noun.
"A red leaf with a brown stem fell off the tall tree onto the
flat ground".
There is no question about which adjectives are modifying which nouns.
No one, except perhaps a deconstructionist, would think the author is trying
to say that the ground is red or that the stem is flat. Position makes
this clear. In Latin, however, where position is not so important, adjectives
have to be put together with their nouns differently. Instead of using
position, Latin adjectives take on some of the characteristics of the nouns
they're modifying: i.e., they undergo changes to match the noun they're
modifying.
So what properties do nouns have in a Latin sentence. Well, they have
case -- they have to have case to work in the sentence -- and they have
number (singular or plural) and they have gender (masculine, feminine,
or neuter). Remember this about gender: a noun can change its number and
case, but it can only have one gender; it cannot change its gender. So
each noun has number, gender, and case. An adjective has to be able to
acquire the number, gender, and case of the noun it's modifying. So how
does it do that? It does it by declining. And in this respect it resembles
a noun: nouns decline to get different numbers and cases; so do adjectives.
But there is an important difference. Latin nouns are either masculine,
feminine or neuter, and they can never change their gender. The noun "porta,
-ae (f)" is forever feminine. The noun "poeta, -ae (m)" is forever masculine,
etc. But for adjectives to be useful, they have to be able to become any
one of the three genders; i.e., adjectives have to be able to be masculine,
feminine or neuter to match the gender of the noun they're modifying. And
how do they do that? They accomplish this by using endings from different
declensions (and you'll learn these other declension in the next couple
of chapters). So here are two critical differences between adjectives and
nouns: (1) each adjective can have any of the three genders, but each noun
can have only one gender; (2) each noun will belong only to one declension,
but adjectives can span declensions. You'll see much more of this later,
but for now you need to know that adjectives use endings of the first declension
to become feminine, and, therefore, to modify nouns which are feminine
in gender. So try this. Decline the expression "big rose":
magna rosa
N/V. _______________ _______________
GEN. _______________ _______________
DAT. _______________ _______________
ACC. _______________ _______________
ABL. _______________ _______________
N/V. _______________ _______________
GEN. _______________ _______________
DAT. _______________ _______________
ACC. _______________ _______________
ABL. _______________ _______________
Now look at these endings for the adjective and the noun. They look alike,
don't they. But this is dangerously deceptive. Get this in your head: agreement
means same number, gender, and case, not look-alike endings, even though
in this limited example and in all the examples in this chapter they do
look alike. Consider this problem. The noun for poet is a masculine noun
in the first declension: "poeta, -ae (m)". Now, for an adjective to agree
with it, it must have the same number, gender and case. Right? But adjectives
with first declension endings are masculine. So, will the endings of an
adjective modifying the noun "poeta" be the same as those as "poeta". I.e.,
will the pattern for "great poet" look like this?
SINGULAR
magna poeta
N/V. magna poeta
GEN. magnae poetae
DAT. magnae poetae
ACC. magnam poetam
ABL. magna poeta
PLURAL
N/V. magnae poetae
GEN. magnarum poetarum
DAT. magnis poetis
ACC. magnas poetas
ABL. magnis poetis
The answer is "no", because the forms "magna, magnae" etc. are feminine
in gender because adjectives use first declension endings to become feminine
in gender but the noun "poeta" is masculine. Therefore the adjective will
have to use endings from another declension and the forms will not look
alike. You'll see all this in the next two chapters. But remember: agreement
means having the same number, gender, and case, not having the same endings.
Okay?
VOCABULARY PUZZLES
tua, mea The words "tua", which means "your" and "mea", which
means "my" are the first and second person singular
possessive adjectives, and they consequently must "agree"
in number, gender and case with whatever is being
possessed. "tu-" and "me-" are the stems of the word,
and the "-a" is the adjectival suffix. What causes
students concern is that they can't quite bring
themselves to make the adjectival suffix of the singular
possessive adjectives plural. For example, they balk at
"meae rosae" (my roses), because they assume somehow that
the entire word "me-" must become plural. This isn't
necessary. Think of it this way: the "me-" or "tu-" part
of these words refer you to the person doing the
possessing, the adjectival suffix refers to whatever is
being possessed.
12/31/92