Verb endings

I'm sure you've noticed by now that Latin has a whole disconcerting fleet of endings. Endings for nouns, adjectives, verbs, everything. Any properly transitive verb has 134 possible forms. This seems really daunting. The truth is that you really only need four, yes four, to deal with the most common forms: 3rd person singular and plural. All tenses, voices and moods.

	Singular	Plural
Active	-t	-nt
Passive	-tur	-ntur

This will get you about 85% of the way home. And yes, I'm aware that there is more to the ending than the chart. This is meant to be quick and dirty. Of course, you'll want to get all the way there, but sometimes quick and dirty is what you need.

	Main	Passive	Perfect
1st S	-o/-m	-r	-i
2nd S	-s	-ris	-isti
3rd S	-t	-tur	-it
1st P	-mus	-mur	-imus
2nd P	-tis	-mini	-istis
3rd P	-nt	-ntur	-erunt

Obviously there are a few more wrinkles, but this will allow you to get to person and number immediately in only 19 endings. What's cool about this setup is that the perfect tense immediately announces itself with it's odd endings (32%). This is good. It means you now know tense for nearly 1/3 of all verbs. If you know the -ba- signal for the imperfect (13%), you can almost (but not quite) assume the rest is present tense (40%). (Of course I'm making some pretty free assumptions here, they aren't necessarily true. I'm trying to show you how easy this can be.)

So here's the upshot: Four endings get you nearly everything you need to know about a verb. Four.

Note: All percentages drawn from a most excellent book, though not really meant for students as much as teachers. Distler, Paul. Teach the Latin, I Pray You. 

Latin Adjectives, part 4

Now for the quiz. Or maybe you need to study! Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Highlight the blank areas after the work answer for the answer.

1. One of these things doesn't matter. Case, number, gender, declension. Which?

Answer:  Declension.

2. One of these noun/adjective pairs doesn't match. Which one?

illi viri
omnis oppidis
diebus longis
Answer: omnis oppidis

3. You look up an adjective in the dictionary. You find this:

fortis, -e – adj – strong, brave

What declension endings do you use?

Answer: 3rd declension

4. Using the adjective, match it with the bold word in the sample sentence.

fortis, -e – adj – strong, brave

Sample sentence: Puer parvus cibum ad mulierem iacit.

Answer: fortem

5. You look up another adjective in thedictionary. You find this:

miser, -era, -erum – adj – poor

What declension endings do you use?

Answer: 1st/2nd declension

6. One of these ablative noun/adjective pairs is wrong. Which one

mari lato
igne omne
viro forti
muliere callida
Answer: igne omne

7. What's the problem with #6?

Answer: 3rd declension adjectives use i-stem endings, and the ablative case singular goes one further and uses -i as its ending.

How did you do?

Latin resources

This is a re-post from my other blog, Dead Linguist. I think you'll find these videos useful. I hope.

1. The introduction



2. A bit of history

3. Resources for beginners

3 1/2. Resources for not-so-beginners

4. Sample of real Latin

Latin Adjectives, part 3

Last time we looked at how adjective/noun pairs do not care about agreeing in declension.  This time, I want to talk a little bit about 3rd declension adjectives. They can be a little tricky.

The first think you need to know is this: they are all 3rd declension i-stem. But with one added surprise. This is really important. Important enough to merit a declension chart. So here it is.

	Nom	Gen	Dat	Acc	Abl
M/F sing	omnis	omnis	omni	omem	omni
N sing	omne			omne
M/F pl	omnes	omnium	omnibus	omnes	omnibus
N pl	omnia			omnia

See how in the ablative singular it is omni, instead of the omne we might expect? Why is that? I don't know but, it isn't a problem. This pattern makes the 3rd declension adjectives just a shade more like the 2nd declension.

The one last thing that is tricky about 3rd declension adjectives is the number of nominative singular forms each has.

If the pattern is -is, -e, then you have a two nominative adjective. Genitive is the same as the first nominative, as you see in the chart. If the pattern is -er, -ris, -re, it is three nominatives. Like the 2nd declension -er adjectives, sometimes they keep the e. Sometimes not. The English derivative will usually help keep you on track with the e. If the adjective looks like a noun, you have one nominative for all three genders. It is very typical for these to end with an -x. To show examples:

omnis, -e — 2 nominative singular forms. See the -is, -e?
acer, -cris, -cre — 3 nominative singular forms. See how the 1st one looks a little like a 2nd declension adjective?
loquax, -cis — 1 nominative singular form. See the -x, -cis?

Next time, a quiz.

Latin Adjectives, part 2

Last time we looked at how declension doesn't matter to noun-adjective agreement in Latin. What matters for Latin adjectives is case, number and gender. The reason this problem pops up is that many textbooks—rightly, I should add—teach the two types of adjectives separately. Usually 1st/2nd declension adjectives first and 3rd declension adjectives second.

For whatever reason, some students want this to happen:

civis Romanis   or   civus Romanus

After all, both words end in -is, right? (Yet another reason students should learn macrons, then the -is of the 3rd declension and the -īs of the 1st/2nd declension look different. But I digress.) Here is what really happens:

civis Romanus

They are this way, because they need to agree in case (nominative), number (singular) and gender (masculine). So not this:

animalibus magnibus

But this:

animalibus magnis

Case, number, gender. Let the declension of the adjective follow the dictionary listing. I bring this up, because 3rd declension adjectives aren't just 3rd declension. They're also i-stem (which I should cover in a post some time). Why? All 3rd declension adjectives are i-stem. So we can't say:

cive forte

Because cive is ablative, singular, masculine and forte is nominative, singular and neuter. Talk about a mismatch. This is the right way:

cive forti

Even though it doesn't look quite right, it is. Remember that adjectives pick up the extra -i in the ablative singular.

Next time, the ugliness of the 3rd declension adjective.