Direct Statements/Subject-Verb Agreement

Collins pp.16-17

Direct statements are just that!  These are sentences that state a fact or make an assertion.

In Latin, these can be one word such as:  Sum.

This means I am.

Or you can say:

Papa est

There is a pope.

"There is" is an idiomatic way of expressing this in English.  In Latin "Papa est" literally translated would be:  Pope is.  And that would be good enough in Latin.  In English though we'd never express this in such a pidgin way.  We'd add in an article and the idiomatic expression:  'there is'.

I am pretty much just restating what Collins writes.

Collins also states that you could possibly translate "Papa est" as He is the Pope.  You would have to see the context of the statement to figure out exactly the best way to express it in English.  So you can be a little bit loose in translating, though my former Latin teacher thought it best, at first, to be literal.  Once you have some confidence, you can begin to work on finessing things.

The last example of a direct statement is the subject - copulative verb-predicate nominative:

Papa est ministri.

The Pope is a servant (or minister.)

Agreement of Subject and Verb:

Just as in English, subjects and verbs have to agree in number.  If the subject is singular than the verb has to reflect that.  For ex.  The boys is happy is not correct.  Why?  Well, the word 'boys' is plural but the verb 'is' doesn't reflect that.  The boys are happy would be correct.

Here are Collins' examples in Latin to show subject-verb agreement:

Deus est.  God exists.  (Deus = Singular, nominative and 'est' = singular, 3rd person)

Puerī sunt servī.  The boys are servants.  (Peurī = nominative, plural, sunt = 3rd person, plural, servī = predicate nominative, plural.)

Puer est servus.  The boy is a servant.  Puer = nominative singular, est = singular, 3rd person, servus = predicate nominative, singular.

Kinds of Sentences

I can't believe it has been an entire month since I last posted.  My daughter got married Oct. 4th and the weeks before the wedding were spent getting ready and the two weeks since the wedding have been spent recuperating!

But now I am back on track.  I hope to post three times this week.  Let's see if I can get back into the swing of things!

P.  15

Collins gives us a basic grammar lesson here on independent clauses.  Sentences are independent clauses - a subject and a verb.  Sentences often have more that in them but a basic sentence like 'the cat meows' is an independent clause.

Independent clauses/sentences take three forms: 1) statement 2) question 3) command/request.

When you make a statement/question/command you can either make a direct one or an indirect one.  Collins gives examples:

Direct statement:  I visited my brother.

Indirect statement:  He said that he had visited his brother.

Direct question:  Why is the sky blue?

Indirect question:  The child asked why the sky is blue.

Direct command:  Get your feet off the sofa!

Indirect command:  His mother told him to get his feet off the sofa.

Now Collins tells us the 7 basic sentence patterns:

1) Subject/Intransitive verb:  (Eng) I am.    (Latin) Sum

2)Subject/Intransitive verb/adverb:  (Eng.) I am here  (Latin) Sum ibi

3)Subject/Transitive verb/direct object:  (Eng.) I see Peter  (Latin) Video Petrum

4)Sub/Transverb/indirect object/direct obj:  (Eng) I give Peter the book.  (Latin) Dō Petrō librum.

5)S/TV/DO/Predicate accusative:  (Eng.) I make Peter the Pope  (Latin) Faciō Petrum papam.

(Or you can use a predicate adjective I make Peter safe (Latin) Faciō Petrum salvum.)

6) Subject/Copulative verb/Predicate nominative/adj:  (Eng) I am Peter/good  (Latin) Sum Petrus/bonus.

7) Subject/passive verb/by + agent:  (Eng) I am praised by Peter  (Latin) Laudor a Petrō

Unit 2 - Second Declension Masculine Nouns

(See Collins pp. 13-14)

So we've learned the 1st declension (usually feminine) that has these endings for the different cases in singular a, ae, ae, am, ā,  and these endings for plural:  ae, ārum, īs, ās, īs.  We should have these thoroughly memorized by now.

Now we are on to the 2nd declension.  These nouns are either masculine or neuter.  The neuter has slightly different endings, so we'll do the masculine first.

Singular
Nominative - us (sometimes r)
Genitive - ī
Dative - ō
Accusative - um
Ablative - ō

Plural
Nominative - ī
Genitive - ōrum
Dative - īs
Accusative - ōs
Ablative - īs

So if you look at the different endings you can find some patterns.  Notice that the acc. sing. always ends in -m; fem. is -ās and masc. is -ōs.  Notice that both the dative plural and the ablative endings are the same, just as in the 1st declension.  Notice that the genitive plural also ends in -rum but has a different vowel in front of it.  Instead of -ārum now it is -ōrum.  Notice that like the 1st declension the genitive singular is the same as the nominative plural.  Why did the Romans do that?  I don't know.  Maybe they were crazy.  Actually, it is pretty easy to tell a sing. gen. from a nom. pl. because of the context and noun-verb agreement.

Let's decline, as Collins does, one noun ending in -us and one noun ending in -r.

Servus (slave)

Singular
N - Servus
G - Servī
D - Servō
Ac - Servum
Ab - Servō

Plural
N - Servī
G - Servōrum
D - Servīs
Ac - Servōs
Ab - Servīs

Now we'll do . . .

Puer (boy)

Singular
N - Puer
G - Puerī
D - Puerō
Ac - Puerum
Ab - Puerō

Plural
N - Puerī
G - Puerōrum
D - Puerīs
Ac - Puerōs
Ab - Puerīs

So as you can see they decline exactly the same way, except for the nominative singular.

Homework:  memorize this the same way you did the 1st declension, by chanting out loud many times:  us, ī, ō, um, ō . . .  ī, ōrum, īs, ōs, īs.

Collins next introduces us to the verb to be.  Verbs are conjugated and nouns are declined.  Remember that!  You will accidentally confuse them or misspeak and call one the other, when you meant just the opposite.  Or you will do that if you are anything like me!

Present tense of the linking or 'copulative' verb to be:

Singular:
1st person - sum (I am)
2nd person - es (you sing. are)
3rd person - est (he, she, it is)

Plural:
1st person - sumus (we are)
2nd person - estis (y'all are)
3rd person - sunt (they are)

These endings reflect typical endings for present tense active indicative* verb conjugations.  The -m ending on sum is a little weird, thus making it an officially irregular verb, but later on you'll learn that in other tenses -m is a common ending to signify 1st person singular.  But we are getting ahead of ourselves!  Here is the paradigm:

Singular:
1st person - ō (I)
2nd person - s (you)
3rd person - st (he, she, it)

Plural:
1st person - mus (we)
2nd person - tis (y'all)
3rd person - nt (they)

Homework:  memorize sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt.  Then if you really want to, memorize the paradigm -ō, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt.  Chant these out loud many times to drill them into your head.

*I will explain what these words mean later.

Finishing up Unit 1

Oh my.  A week has gone by and I have not yet finished this first Unit up.  I am not quite sure how that happened!

Let me do some selected problems in the Exercises on p. 12 and then we'll move on to Unit 2.

The exercises in section I are concerned mostly with using the proper case after a preposition.

1) cōram familiā - in the presence of family (ablative)
2) ad missam - to Mass (accusative)
3) ā missā - from Mass (ablative) (here you can see the difference one little 'd' makes in meaning)
4) cum pāpā - with the pope (ablative)
5) prō ecclēsiā - for or on behalf of the church (ablative)

I'm skipping a few . . .

8.  pāpae ad glōriam; ad glōriam pāpae 

This one is weird because 'papa' which is so masculine takes a feminine ending!

I think both phrases mean the same thing, but in Latin they can be in a different word order.  The first phrase if translated exactly is 'of the pope to glory. ' The second phrase 'to the glory of the pope' makes more sense to us in English, I think.

10.  nātūrā; in nātūrā - here we see the difference between having the ablative form of the verb without any preposition - nātūrā - so this could mean all the of ablative meanings (we just have to pick which one makes sense in the context of the sentence - here we can't tell) from/by/with/in vs. in nātūra which of course comes out and states that we are taking about 'in nature.'

12. in ecclēsiārum terrīs - in the lands of the churches.  here the word for churches is plural genitive and the word for lands is plural ablative.

15.  et vita et aqua - the two 'ets' strung together like that mean 'both life and water.'

16. vita aquaque - with the -que ending though it now means life and water (no idea of 'both')

17.  super terram; super terrā - here again we see the difference between the accusative ending after a preposition and the ablative one.  super terram means over the land while super terrā means about or concerning the land.

20. ecclēsiae prō doctrinīs - on behalf of the doctrines (teachings) of the church.  the word for church is singular genitive and prõ is a preposition meaning on behalf of and takes the ablative - here the word is plural.

II

1.  in behalf of the family of the pope - ok, we need to form two genitives here for the phrases 'of the family' and 'of the pope'

prō familae pāpae

2.  in the presence of the pope - cōram pāpae 

3. without life - sine vitā

4.  at the hour - ad hōram 

5. for the purpose of the glory of the church - I found this one tricky.  To me both glory and church follow 'of' so I thought they should both be in the genitive case.  However, how do we show the case following the preposition then?  Well, I resorted to the answer key which translates the phrase as ad or in gloriam ecclēsiā.  So glory takes the accusative and church takes the genitive here.

Drills on pp. 9 and 10

Unit 1

Drill II

a.  horae - hour - could be genitive (of hour), dative (to/for hour) or nominative plural (hours)

b.  terram - earth - accusative singular

c.  pāpa - pope - nominative singular

d.  ecclesiīs - church - could be plural dative or ablative

e.  vitarum - of lives - plural genitive

f.  aquās - plural accusative - seas

g.  gloria - glory - nominative singular

h.  gratiā - thanks, grace - ablative singular

i.  missīs - masses - either dative or ablative plural

j.  culpae - fault - could be singular genitive or dative or nominative plural

k.  cēnae - dinner - could be singular gentivie or dative or nominative plural

l.  doctrinam - doctrine, teaching - accusative singular

m.  famīliīs - family, household - either dative or ablative plural

n.  naturā - nature - singular ablative

0.  terra - earth - nominative singular

Drill III.

a.  sine pāpā - without the pope

b.  ad gloriam - to glory or ad gloriās - to glories

c.  ā missā or missīs - from the mass or from the masses

d.  dē culpā - concerning the fault or dē culpīs - concerning the faults

e.  ad ecclesiam - to the church or ad ecclesiās - to the churches


I'm a little tired so I plan to check my own work tomorrow morning.

Prepositions - An Overview

(See Collins pp 8 - 10)

Collins introduces us to Latin propositions here.  But first, what is a preposition?  Our old Latin teacher used to say it is anything a squirrel can do to a tree or a bird can do to a cloud.  Meaning a squirrel can run UP a tree, AROUND a tree, maybe INTO the tree (if there is a hole) and then it would be INSIDE the tree.  Same with the cloud imagery - the bird can fly THROUGH the cloud, UNDER  the cloud, ABOVE the cloud.

The official definition of a preposition is:  a word governing and usually preceding a noun or pronoun that expresses a relation to another word or element in the clause. Click here to go to a list of English prepositions.

So what do we mean by 'governing' a noun.  How does a preposition 'govern?'  Well, again in English we don't do a lot of case endings so it is harder to see.  But an example would be:  I stood behind them.  The basic sentence there is:  I stood.  But where did I stand?  Behind (a preposition) them. But why is them not they?  Why the objective ending?  Because it is an object of the proposition.  That's the preposition 'governing' the noun or substantive that follows it.

In Latin we have two cases that follow prepositions.  They are accusative and ablative.

Governing the accusative case - these prepositions often have the idea of motion toward in them.  For example, 'ad' means to, toward, for the purpose of.  It can also mean 'at'

Governing the ablative case - one thing that helps me here is to realize that word ablative begins with the word 'ab' which mean away from or from.  That's the opposite of the accusative which is movement towards something.  So ablative often expresses no motion or motion away from.  However, while that helps a little bit, things get complicated so it is only guideline and not a definitive way of figuring if a preposition is ablative or not.

Apparently, and I didn't know this before, in ecclesiastical Latin they use more prepositions than in classical Latin.  Classical Latin often just puts something in the ablative case and you figure out what is going on from the context.  Church Latin seems to be more specific by sticking in prepositions so you know more exactly the meaning being conveyed.

Ablative of Accompaniment - when using the prepositions 'cum' and 'sine' the noun following (usually a personal noun) will be in the ablative case.

Here are some prepositions in Latin.  Each one is followed by whether it  governs the ablative or accusative case.

ā - (ab, abs - you stick a 'b' on the end if it precedes a noun that begins with a vowel) - prep + abl. = from, away from

ad (prep + acc.) to, toward, for (the purpose of), at

cōram (prep + abl) in the presence of

cum (prep + abl) with

de (prep + abl) from, down from, about, concerning

ē (ex - again you stick an 'x' on the end if it precedes a noun with a vowel) (prep + abl) from, out of

prõ (prep + abl) in front of, in behalf of, instead of, on behalf of

sine (prep + abl) without

There are 2 prepositions that can govern either the accusative or the ablative depending on their meaning.

in (prep + acc) when it means into, onto, against, for (the purpose of)
in (prep + abl) when it means in, on, among, by means of, with

super (prep + acc) when it means above, upon, over
super (prep + abl) when it means about, concerning

The little example that for some reason helps me remember this is:

in urbem amblo  (I walk into the city) (urbem is accusative)
in urbe amblo (I walk in or around the city) (urbe is ablative)

So it is the difference between not being in the city but then walking into it or already being in the city and just walking around it!

So that is an illustration of how changing the case of the govern substantive (noun) can change the idea trying to be conveyed.

Anyway, prepositions become a lot clearer once you start trying to translate them.

Two more words Collins introduces here on p. 10.

et = and - this is its usually meaning.  But it can also act as an intensifying adverb like 'even' or 'too'  If you encounter et . . . . .et (two 'ets' separated by words) that means 'both . . . .and'

-que - this is an enclitic!  What is an enclitic, you might ask?  Well, it has to do with pronunciation.  But here it really means a little ending you tack onto to the end of a word in a sentence to mean 'and'

Here is the Our Father in Latin.

Pater noster, quī es in caelis, sānctificētur nōmen tuum; adveniat rēgnum tuum, fiat voluntās tua, sicut in caelō et in terrā.  Pānem nostrum cotīdiānum* dā  nõbis hodiē, et dimitte nōbīs dēbita nostra, sīcut et nōs dimittimus dēbitōribus nostris, et nē nōs indūcās in tentātiōnem; sed līberā nōs ā malō.  Amen.

Read (and pray!) it to practice pronunciation.  Examine it to see if you see any 1st declension nouns in there in one of their forms or cases.  Do you see an prepositions?

Here is an audio of the Pater Noster.


* Sometimes this is written as quotidianum.

Next up - we'll do some of the exercises at the end of Unit 1

More about First Declension Nouns

(See pp. 7-10 Collins)

Declensions are the patterns that nouns follow, to show what case or job each noun does in a sentence.  Latin is an 'inflected' language which means that unlike English, the role words play in a sentence is determined by endings not word order.  In English we rely heavily on word order, but in Latin you have much more flexibility to move words around (for emphasis or rhyme) because of the morphology (endings).

The first declension is pretty easy to memorize.  First though, a handy dandy way to remember the declensions in a certain order (in Europe I think they have them in a different order and if you study Cambridge Latin, for instance, they don't present the declensions in an easy to memorize way.)  The mnemonic device is to remember the sentence:  No Good Dog Acts Angry.  The first letter of each word in the sentence stands for:

Nominative - subject

Genitive - possessive

Dative - indirect object

Accusative - object

Ablative - object of certain prepositions/adverbial

So we have for the first declension:

Singular
Nominative - a   (life)
Genitive - ae   (of life)
Dative - ae   (to/for life)
Accusative - am   (life)
Ablative - ā   (from/with/in/by life)

Plural
Nominative - ae   (lives)
Genitive - ārum   (of lives)
Dative - īs   (for/to lives)
Accusative - ās   (lives)
Ablative - īs   (from/with/in/by lives)

So to memorize this you should chant : a, ae, ae, am, aaahhh!  Ae, ārum, īs, ās, īs.  I put that aaahhh in there to emphasize that it is a long a.  It helps to clap as you chant and get things into a little rhythm.  Don't feel dumb!  It really makes it easier to remember.

Collins stresses that it is important to associate each form of the noun with the meaning indicated in the parenthesis.

Most of the words in the first declension are considered feminine.  However there are some exceptions to this rule.  Our Latin teacher (and I am not sure where she got this) used another mnemonic device for remembering some common exceptions:  P.A.I.N.  These words are a pain because they are exceptions!  They are pirata, agricola, incola, nauta.  Pirata = pirate, agricola = farmer, incola = inhabitant, and nauta = sailor.  These words follow the 1st declension pattern but are masculine.

Another important thing to know is that you should always note the nominative and the genitive of every noun.  The genitive actually tells you what declension it belongs to.

And finally, when talking about nouns, we need to know that in Latin there are no words like a, an, or the.  Latin just expects you to figure that out yourself.  So when you translate from Latin to English, you, the translator get to decided which article you want to use.

Here are some 1st Declension nouns:

vita, vitae = life
aqua, aquae  = water
cēna, cēnae = dinner
culpa, culpae = fault
doctrīna, doctrīnae = doctrine
ecclesia, ecclesia = church
famīla, famīlia = family or household
glōria, glōriae = glory


grātia, grātiae = grace, thanks
hōra, horae = hour
missa, missae = Mass
nātūra, nātūrae = nature
pāpa, pāpae (this one is masculine!) = pope
terra, terrae = earth, land
vīta, vītae - life


Next time we'll talk about some prepositions.