this car that car these cars those carsThe words "this", "these", "that", and "those" are obviously telling you a little something more about "car" or "cars". They are indicating the relative spacial location "car" or "cars" have to the speaker. When we say "this car" or the plural "these cars", we are referring to the car or cars which are nearby: "this car right here"; "these cars right here". For the most part, when we say "that car" or "those cars", we mean cars which are some distance from us: "that car over there", or "those cars over there". It would sound odd for someone to say "that car right here" or "these cars way over there". So the words "this", "these", "that", and "those", are telling us more about the words they're attached to; that is, they qualify or modify their nouns. And we call words which modify other nouns "adjectives".
As you know, in English adjectives hardly ever change their form to "agree" with the thing they're modifying.
"tall tree" and "tall trees" "bad boys" and "bad girls"This is different from Latin adjectives, which must change endings to show the different numbers, genders, and cases of the nouns they modify. But look again at the adjectives "this" and "that". When the nouns they modify become plural, the adjective itself changes form: from "this" to "these"; from "that" to "those". These two are the only adjectives in English which actually change their forms to match a grammatical feature of the nouns they're modifying. They have slightly different forms to indicate a change in number of the nouns they modify.
So, these words are adjectives, since they qualify nouns, and since their main purpose is to "point out" the nouns, we call them "demonstrative adjectives" because they "point out" or "point to" (Latin "demonstrare"). This is very important to remember: these words are "demonstrative adjectives".
STEM: ill-
MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER N/V. _______________ _______________ _______________ Gen. _______________ _______________ _______________ Dat. _______________ _______________ _______________ Acc. _______________ _______________ _______________ Abl. _______________ _______________ _______________ N/V. _______________ _______________ _______________ Gen. _______________ _______________ _______________ Dat. _______________ _______________ _______________ Acc. _______________ _______________ _______________ Abl. _______________ _______________ _______________As you can see, the inflection of the demonstrative adjective "ille" is quite recognizable after the nominative, genitive and dative singulars. With some more time, however, you'll become well-acquainted with the irregulars forms "-ius" and "-i" of genitive and dative singulars. All the demonstrative adjectives and pronouns in Latin use these alternative genitive and dative singular endings, as do some adjectives. In fact, we call this declensional pattern the "heteroclite" declension, because it seems to be borrowing the genitive and dative singular forms from somewhere else.
Let's turn now to the demonstrative adjective for "this". The stem is "h-", and it follows the pattern set by "ille": unusual nominatives, alternative endings for the genitive and dative singulars. But there are four additional things to note about its declension:
STEM: h- (or hu-)
MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER N/V. _______________ _______________ _______________ Gen. _______________ _______________ _______________ Dat. _______________ _______________ _______________ Acc. _______________ _______________ _______________ Abl. _______________ _______________ _______________ N/V. _______________ _______________ _______________ Gen. _______________ _______________ _______________ Dat. _______________ _______________ _______________ Acc. _______________ _______________ _______________ Abl. _______________ _______________ _______________Finally, there exists in Latin a demonstrative adjective that has no real translation into English, though we can readily recognize its meaning. It can only be rendered into English by an inflection of the voice, one implying contempt, disdain, or outrage. Read this exchange:
X: "Did you see the movie I was telling you about?" Y: "What movie?" X: "You know, the one about mass killing, torture, moral outrages and general profligacy. The one you said no one in his right mind ought to see?" Y: "Oh, that movie".The final "that" in this dialogue corresponds to the Latin demonstrative adjective "iste, ista, istud". There is nothing complicated about the declension of "iste"; It uses the alternative genitive and dative singular endings "-ius" and "-i", and the neuter nominative and accusative singular is "-ud" (like "illud"). Aside from that, it uses the standard first and second declension endings.
STEM: ist-
MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER N/V. _______________ _______________ _______________ Gen. _______________ _______________ _______________ Dat. _______________ _______________ _______________ Acc. _______________ _______________ _______________ Abl. _______________ _______________ _______________ N/V. _______________ _______________ _______________ Gen. _______________ _______________ _______________ Dat. _______________ _______________ _______________ Acc. _______________ _______________ _______________ Abl. _______________ _______________ _______________
huic consilio (dative) hoc consilio (ablative)Write out the number, gender and case the following nouns are in:
NUMBER GENDER CASE 1. illae civitates __________ __________ __________ 2. illas civitates __________ __________ __________ 3. isti puero __________ __________ __________ 4. isto puero __________ __________ __________ 5. illi amores __________ __________ __________ 6. illos amores __________ __________ __________
alius, -a, -ud "other" alter, -a, -um "the other" nullus, -a, -um "no, none" solus, -a, -um "sole, alone" totus, -a, -um "whole; entire" ullus, -a, -um "any" unus, -a, -um "one"Judged by their dictionary entries alone, these adjective look deceptively normal. They appear to be the standard variety adjectives of the first and second declensions. But their genitive and dative singulars are not the standard kind. Watch this declension of the expression "the other man alone":
Nom. alter vir solus Gen. alterius viri solius Dat. alteri viro soli Acc. alterum virum solum Abl. altero viro solo
Masculine Feminine Neuter N/V. alius alia aliud Gen. alterius alterius alterius Dat. alii alii alii Acc. alium aliam aliud Abl. alio alia alio etc.
"It just missed her". "She has a most interesting way of speaking". "Does he have it"?As you can see, the underlined words are referring you to something or someone which has already been mentioned sometime before, so to recall them we only have to use a sign marker or abbreviation. The word or idea which the pronoun is replacing is called the "antecedent" (an te CEE dent). In additional to replacing their antecedents, pronouns also tell you a little something about the nature of the antecedent. For example, in the first sentence, you can tell that the antecedent of "it" is singular and inanimate; the antecedent of "her" is singular and feminine and animate. This is an important rule to remember about pronouns: "Pronouns get their number and gender from their antecedents".
Let's look at the English third person pronouns. We divide the third person pronoun into two groups -- those which refer to animate objects (mainly humans) and those which refer to inanimate objects. Our third person pronoun observes the distinction between the genders masculine and feminine of animate things in the singular; in the plural, however, they make no distinctions among gender or animate and inanimate.
Singular Masculine Feminine Neuter Nom. he she it Pos. his her its Obj. him her it Plural Nom. they Pos. their Obj. themLatin pronouns are much more observant of the gender of their antecedents -- as they would likely be, because of the importance of grammatical gender in Latin. Consequently by looking at the forms of the demonstrative pronouns "hic", "ille", or "iste", you can tell much more about their antecedents. This makes constructions in Latin much more flexible. Look at this sentence. "Non poteram haec videre". How would you translate the "haec?" You can tell that it is neuter, accusative plural from its form and from the way it's being used in the sentence. (It's the direct object of the verb "videre".) So its antecedent is neuter in gender, and plural. So what's our plural, accusative third person pronoun? It's "them". So this sentence would be translated "I was not able to see them". In English, you see, this sentence could mean that I am looking at men, women, or rocks, since the pronoun only tells us that the antecedent is plural. But Latin also tells us the gender of the antecedent, so it can be much more specific. Now let's look at a pronoun with a little more context.
"Civitas est magna, sed non possum hanc videre". (The city is large, but I can't see it.)Remember that a pronoun gets its number and gender from its antecedent, but it gets its case from the way it's being used grammatically in the sentence. The antecedent of "hanc" is "civitas"; they are both singular and feminine. But "hanc" is accusative because of the way it's being used: it's the direct object of the verb "videre". We would translate this into English: "The city is large, but I don't see it". Notice that even though the pronoun in Latin is feminine in gender -- "hanc" -- we don't translate it "her", because we use "she", "her", and "her" only for things which are biologically female. Unlike Latin, our nouns don't have grammatical gender. Now try this: "Est bona femina, et hanc amamus". (She is a good woman, and we love her.) This time, since the antecedent is biologically feminine, we would translate "hanc" with our feminine pronoun: "She is a kind woman and we love her". You'll have to take a little care when you translate the pronouns into English: you'll use our pronouns "he" and "she", and so on, only when the antecedent of the Latin pronouns are biologically masculine or feminine. Otherwise you'll use our neuter "it", "its", "it", and "them".
One final thing to remember about the demonstratives "hic", "ille", and "iste". They all three show much more emphasis than does our simple "he, she, it", but we have no way to translate that extra bit over into English. Latin has a weaker third person demonstrative which is equivalent to our "he, she, it" -- you'll learn it later -- but for now you'll be translating "hic", "ille", and "iste", as if they were equivalent to "he, she, it". It's just something we can't get over into English very easily. Try a few short exercises. Translate into Latin.
1. Your (sing.) books are good, and we love them [use a form of "hic".] ____________________________________________________________ 2. Your (sing.) book is good, and we love it [use "ille".] ____________________________________________________________ 3. The danger is great, and I fear ["timeo"] it [use "iste".] ____________________________________________________________ 4. The dangers are great, and I fear them [use "iste".] ____________________________________________________________ 5. She is your [pl.] daughter, and we are giving her [use "hic"] the money. ____________________________________________________________ 6. They are your [pl.] daughters, and we are giving them [use "ille"] the money. ____________________________________________________________VOCABULARY PUZZLES
locus, -i (m) Something a little unusual happens to "locus" in the plural. In the singular, "locus" means either a physical place or a place in a book (a passage in literature). As "loci, -orum (m)" it means only passages in literature. To say "places" as in physical places (regions), Latin use a neuter derivative from "locus": "loca, -orum (n)". So "locus" actually has two different forms in the plural, each with different meanings: "loci" means "passages"; "loca" means "regions". enim Like "igitur", "enim" is postpositive. in + acc./abl. Like "sub" + accusative or ablative, "in" will take its noun either in the accusative or the ablative case. When it takes the accusative in means motion into; with the ablative it shows only position, with no motion into involved. You can keep these two straight by translating "in" + accusative always as "into". Say "in" for "in" + ablative. nunc It's the temporal "now", not the logical "now". "Nunc" would be a translation for "Now it's raining", not for "Now it's time to end this chapter".12/31/92