Learn Latin2.docx

1、Learn Latin 2 CHAPTER 2 Cases; First Declension; Agreement of AdjectivesCASES AND INFLECTIONConsider the following sentence: The girl saw the dog. How canyou tell that this sentence does not mean that the dog is seeingthe girl? The answer is obvious to an English speaker. Girlcomes before the verb,

2、and dog comes after it, and thisarrangement tells us that the girl is performing the action ofverb, and the dog is receiving the action. We say that the onewho is performing the action of the verb is the subject of theverb. So girl is the subject of saw. The dog, however, isthe object of the verb, s

3、ince its the object of the action.And in English, we generally show these functions - subject andobject - by position relative to the verb. The subject of theverb tends to come before the verb, the object tends to comeafter it. But position isnt the only way we show which word is thesubject and obje

4、ct of a verb. Now consider this sentence: Him Ilike, them I despise. Obviously this sentence has an usualarrangement for rhetorical purposes, but how can you tell who isdoing what to whom? Even though English grammar showsgrammatical relationship between words in a sentence mainly byposition, in man

5、y instances a change in the word itself providesyou additional help. The word him, although it comes first inthe sentence, is not the subject because its form - himinstead of he - is not the one used to indicate that its thesubject of the verb. We use the form he to show that.Furthermore, the word I

6、 is the form we use when the firstperson is subject of the verb. Hence, the words he and Ichange their forms as their grammatical function in the sentencechanges. The change in form of a word to show grammaticalfunctions is called inflection.The English personal pronouns change quite a lot to show y

7、ou howtheyre 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 objectSecond Person Pronoun you subject your possessor you object he

8、,she,it subject his,her,its possessor him,her,it objectThird Person Pronoun they subject their possessor them object This inflection (change of form to show grammaticalfunction) in the pronouns is very useful for helping us tounderstand each other - although, as you can see, the secondperson pronoun

9、 you, etc doesnt inflect nearly so much as thefirst and third. The plural forms are even identical to thesingular forms. We can still get by. In English, inflection is rather limited, and we rely onposition mainly to tell us what the words in the sentence aredoing to each other. The only grammatical

10、 functions that involvea change in form for all nouns is the possessive case and theplural forms, where we attach an -s to the end of the word.(In written English we even include an apostrophe mark tohelp us see the difference between a pluralized noun and a nounthats in the possessive case.) For ex

11、ample SINGULAR PLURAL apple subject apples subject apples possessor apples possessor apple object apples objectWatch how we combine position with inflection in English to makesense to one another. As you can see, position is the principalguide. These apples plural, possessor cores are hard, but appl

12、es 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, d

13、iscretely 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 ofwords to show grammatical relationship are called inflectedlanguages. English, tho

14、ugh it has some inflection, is not aninflected language. Latin, however, is an inflected language,because it relies almost entirely on changes in the wordsthemselves to indicate their grammatical function in a sentence. The different grammatical functions a word can have in asentence is called case.

15、 In English there are threerecognizable different cases, that is grammatical functions, aword can have: the subjective case, the possessive case, and theobjective case. So we say there are three cases in English. InLatin there are six difference cases. Here are the Latin cases.(Dont try to memorize

16、them all at once here. Just read throughthe list; there will be plenty of time to firm up yourfamiliarity 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:

17、by, with) Vocative (Direct Address)Well look at the way these cases are used in Latin in the nextpart of these notes, although some of them wont be difficult atall: the nominative, genitive, and accusative cases are almostthe same as their English counterparts. The ablative, dative andvocative will

18、need some explanation. Before then, however, letslook at how a Latin noun inflects to show all these differentcases. Lets look at some English pronouns which inflect to showthe three different cases. Do you remember they, their, them?The pronoun is inflecting through its different cases, but we cand

19、efinitely spot a pattern of similarity among the three forms.There is a definite root of the word. The root (that is, thepart of the word that contains the meaning of the word) is the-to which then the endings -y, -ir and -m. So we could saythat the word is inflecting by adding certain case endings

20、to astem. The stem contains the core of the meaning of the word, andthe endings merely inflect or alter its grammar. This is precisely how Latin nouns show their differentcases: they add additional letters to the end of the basic formof the word. This basic form that does not change throughout itsin

21、flection is called the stem. There are, consequently, twoparts of a Latin word that you must note: the stem and the caseending. 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 (

22、2) whetherthe noun is singular or plural. Lets watch a the Latin nounpuella (girl) as it inflects through its different cases: SINGULAR APPROXIMATE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONNOMINATIVE puella girlGENITIVE puellae of the girlDATIVE puellae to/for the girlACCUSATIVE puellam girlABLATIVE puella by/with the gi

23、rlVOCATIVE puella girl PLURALNOMINATIVE puellae girlsGENITIVE puellarum of the girlsDATIVE puellis to/for the girlsACCUSATIVE puellas girlsABLATIVE puellis by/with the girlsVOCATIVE puellae girls The stem of the Latin word is clearly visible. Itspuell- to which different endings are being attached.

24、Theendings are: SINGULAR PLURALNOMINATIVE -a -aeGENITIVE -ae -arumDATIVE -ae -isACCUSATIVE -am -asABLATIVE -a -isVOCATIVE -a -ae There are many other nouns in Latin which follow this samepattern of case endings when they inflect. This pattern ofendings is called the first declension (deh CLEN shion)

25、 and youcan see the strong presence of an -a-. There are four otherdeclensional patterns in Latin, but a noun will belong to onlyone of them. Hence we can say that puella is a firstdeclension noun. The other declensions are called, notsurprisingly, the second, third, fourth and fifth declension, and

26、are distinguished form one another in part by the thematic, orcharacteristic, vowel that appears in its endings.REVIEWThis is a lot of information to absorb in one sitting. Stop nowfor a while, then read through this review statement beforestarting on the next section of this chapter.A language whos

27、e nouns show their grammatical function in thesentence by changes in the noun itself, and not by position, iscalled an inflected language. The different grammaticalfunctions a language recognizes are called cases. In English,there are three cases. They are the subjective, the possessive,and the obje

28、ctive. In Latin there are six cases. They are thenominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative and vocativecases. A Latin noun has two parts which you must note: it has astem, which contains the nouns basic meaning and its gender; andit also has a case ending which tells you the nouns case and

29、itsnumber. A pattern of endings which are added to the end of anoun to show its grammatical function is called a declension.Each noun in Latin belongs to one declension. The declensionsare called the first, second, third, fourth and fifthdeclensions.THE FIRST DECLENSIONLets have a look at another fi

30、rst declension noun: pecuni-(money).SINGULAR STEM + CASE ENDING = INFLECTED FORMN/V. pecuni + -a = _GEN. pecuni + -ae = _DAT. pecuni + -ae = _ACC. pecuni + -am = _ABL. pecuni + -a = _PLURAL STEM + CASE ENDING = INFLECTED FORMN/V. pecuni + -ae = _GEN. pecuni + -arum = _DAT. pecuni + -is = _ACC. pecuni + -as = _ABL. pecuni + -is = _Lets try a few more paradigms. Decline the noun patri-(fatherland) and vit- (life).SINGULAR patri- vit- N/V. _ _ GEN. _ _ DAT. _ _ ACC. _ _