chapter 2 wheelock - uplift education · nominative (subject) fama famae genitive (possession)...

11 12 Intro to Latin # _____ Nomen: ____________________ Classis:

Chapter 2 – Wheelock

Things you will know / understand by the end of this chapter:

Name the cases of a Latin noun and identify the basic uses or grammatical

functions of each case in a sentence.

Recognize and form the base of a 1st declension noun.

Form and translate first declension nouns and adjectives.

State the rules for adjective/noun agreement and verb/subject agreement.

Explain what is meant by noun and adjective gender.

Describe the usual positioning of an adjective.

Forms Summary:

1st Declension: fama, famae

case: function: singular: plural: words added:

Nominative (subject) fama famae

Genitive (possession) famae famarum of

Dative (indirect object) famae famis to / for

Accusative (direct object) famam famas

Ablative (object of a preposition) fama famis

Vocative (direct address) fama famae

Chapter 2 -


Chapter 2 Lesson, Part 1 - Noun Cases and Their Functions:

A noun is a person, place, thing or idea - which we know from English and a noun is the

same thing in Latin! (This is really too easy so far!) In English, nouns have different

functions: They can be subjects, can show possession, can be indirect objects, direct

objects and objects of prepositions and finally, can be used for directly addressing

someone or something. Guess what? It is the same in Latin.

All nouns have function, that is, each noun is doing something specific within the

sentence. For instance, in English, we know what the subject of a sentence is because it

is one of the first words in a sentence and generally comes before the verb (it is what

performs the action of the verb). Possession is generally shown by adding the ending ’s

(or just ’) to the end of a noun. Indirect objects often follow the verb and come before the

direct object. The direct object generally comes after the verb in a sentence (and receives

the action of the verb). The object of a prepositions follows a preposition. Direct address

is usually set off by commas and is more often than not at the beginning of a sentence.

We know what function (subject, direct object, etc.) each noun has in English by its

position in a sentence. Word order is critical in English.

Now here comes the tricky part! In fact, for some, the following is one of the most

difficult concepts to master in Latin, but once you get it down, you’ve got it made.

(Conversely, if you don’t get it down – well, your ship will probably go down instead!

So, pay close attention and ask as many questions as you need to get a full grasp of the

following concept.)

In Latin, we know the function (subject, direct object, etc.) of a noun by the ending

placed on the noun itself. Latin does have a general word order, but the word order is

not nearly as important as the ending on each noun. It is somewhat similar to English -

When you are sick and you need to get well, you look for someone with “Dr.” at the

beginning of his name. When you need to borrow some P.E. equipment at school, you

know you need to contact someone with “Coach” at the beginning of his name. And

when you see “Mrs.” in front of Kennedy then you know that I’m married. Dr., Coach,

and Mrs. before someone’s name tells you what that person’s function is. In Latin, we

put endings on our nouns to signify what each word is doing in the sentence.

I know this sounds a bit intimidating at first, but you will get used to it. The better

understanding that you have of English grammar the easier this will be for you.

However, even if you are rusty in this area, you will improve quite a bit after taking

Latin. That is one of the great benefits of taking Latin – you will become more proficient

in English! So, what are the different cases used for the various functions (subject, direct

object, etc.) of nouns? Here they are:

Chapter 2 -


Chapter 2 Lesson (cont.)

Nominative subject

Genitive possession

Dative indirect object

Accusative direct object (and later on, object of preposition)

Ablative object of preposition

Vocative direct address

You do need to memorize the Latin names for the cases in order because we will be using

them a lot. I mean, we will be using them practically EVERY day. Here is a sentence

that can help you to memorize the order. Never Get Dates ACting ABnormal – Very

true! You must also memorize what function each case is used for. Just in case I haven’t

made it clear, I’ll restate it. It is imperative (in other words, a command) that you

memorize / know what the names of the cases are and what function each has.

Everything you do in Latin from this day forward will draw upon this and your success

depends on it. Here is a sentence with containing all of the cases:

Susan, Bob just gave Mrs. Kennedy’s book to Joe in the hall.

Susan (vocative / direct address), Bob (nominative / subject) just gave Mrs. Kennedy’s

(genitive / possession) book (accusative / direct object) to Joe (dative / indirect object) in

the hall (ablative / object of a preposition).

Part 2 – Recognize and form the base of a 1st declension noun

Now let’s look at the Latin nouns themselves. In this chapter, we will be learning 1st

declension nouns. (Recall that with verbs and their endings, we use the word

“conjugation”. With nouns and their endings, we use the word “declension”. Basically,

they both refer to the specific group a word belongs to, which set of endings are used and

how the endings are added onto that word.)

First declension nouns in your vocabulary look like this:

puella, puellae and porta, portae

Do you see what they have in common? The first form ends in “a” and the second form

ends in “ae”. When you see this combination “-a, -ae” it will always be a noun that

belongs to the first declension.

Chapter 2 -



Now, we need to find out what the endings are, but first we need a base to add them to.

To get the base with ALL nouns (that means there are no exceptions – cool, huh?!) you

remove the ending from the second word as it is listed in the vocabulary. The first

word listed in the vocabulary is the nominative form and the second form is the genitive

form. So we can say that the base is found by taking the ending off of the genitive form.

In first declension, this means removing or dropping the “ae” from the 2nd

form, that is,

the genitive.

puella, puellae Therefore, the base is PUELL.

Part 3: - Forming and translating 1st declension nouns & adjectives

Simple enough! But now comes the fun part … the endings! There are a lot of them

because not only are there 6 cases, but we need to have singular and plural. It is a lot to

swallow at first, but we will use them so much that you will get them down with time.

But, of course, you must make the effort to memorize them so that they come

naturally to you.

Here they (1st Declension Noun endings) are!

Singular Plural

N a ae

G ae arum

D ae is

Ac am as

Ab a is

V a ae

The best way to memorize them is to do three things: 1) Look at them while 2) saying

them aloud and 3) write them out for practice. This is triple-strength memory. It is the

most efficient way to get anything memorized. Finally, you must do this several times a

day everyday for it to work well. My advice – put in the time now and you will have

much less worry and grief trying to cram it in later (which actually doesn’t qualify as

learning something anyway!) Give me your best effort – I know you can do it!

Now that you have the endings, let’s put it together:

Let’s take puella, puellae: N puella puellae

1. Remove “ae” from the 2nd

form. G puellae puellarum

2. Write the base down 12 times. D puellae puellis

3. Add the case endings. Ac puellam puellas

Ab puella puellis

V puella puellae

Chapter 2 -



Now you know how to decline the word, but you’re bound to be wondering how to

translate it, right? First, an important point: In Latin, we do not use the articles “a, an,

the”. Spanish and French both use articles “el, la, le, etc.” There isn’t a need for them in

Latin, however, since they are understood. Isn’t Latin much more efficient?! When you

translate into English, you will need to remember to add “a, an, the” as needed so that it

makes good sense in English. For the nominative, accusative, ablative & vocative, you

translate the Latin word into English and add articles only as needed. For the genitive

however, you will need to add the word “of” (plus an article, if needed) and the

word. For the dative, you will need to add the word “to” or “for” (plus an article, if

needed) and the word.

Here is a summary in chart form:

N (article*) + word

G of + (article*) + word

D to, for + (article*) + word

Ac (article*) + word

Ab (article*) + word

V word

*Articles (a, an, the) are to be added to the English translation as needed to make sense.

Part 4 – Adjective / Noun Agreement & Subject / Verb Agreement

It is important at this point out that adjectives, which modify (or describe) nouns, must

agree with the nouns that they modify. Let’s look at the following sentence:

Successful Sam turned the failing business around.

Sam is the subject of the sentence and is therefore in the nominative case. Since

“successful” modifies or describes Sam, it must also be in the nominative. “Business” is

the direct object of the sentence and is therefore in the accusative case. Since “failing”

modifies business, then it must be put in the accusative case also. A further point, both

“Sam” and “business” are singular (that is, there is only one Sam and only one business)

so the adjectives that modify them must also be singular.

A very important concept to remember:

An adjective agrees with the noun it modifies (or describes) in three ways:

GENDER (masculine, feminine or neuter), CASE (nominative, genitive, etc.)

& NUMBER (singular or plural).

Chapter 2 -



While we are on the topic of agreement, let’s review (from chapter 1) and state the rule

for subject/verb agreement:

A verb agrees with its subject in number. The subject and the verb in any given

sentence must both be singular or they must both be plural. You cannot have a

singular subject with a plural verb (or vice-versa) – that would result in a disagreement.

(Since disagreements are unpleasant – let’s try to avoid them!)

The latter two (case & number) have just been explained, let’s move onto gender!

Part 5 – Gender of nouns and adjectives

Latin nouns, just like French and Spanish nouns, have gender. In the English language,

we are not used to having to deal with this. In everyday life though we do. The uniform

dress code is very gender dependant. You boys would not be caught dead wearing those

beautiful plaid skirts, would you?! Well, just as boys would object to having a skirt put

on them (we’re not in Scotland, laddies and lassies, are we?), nouns that are masculine

object to having feminine adjectives put on them and vice-versa. This means that we

must have feminine, masculine and neuter adjectives to go with feminine, masculine and

neuter nouns. Everything needs to match up just right. This should not be a totally new

concept to you since your French and Spanish classes no doubt have touched on this

concept already. The great thing about Latin is that this whole idea of gender and

agreement will become clearer to you and you will have a better understanding of your

other foreign language.

The next questions become “How do we tell which gender a noun is?” and “How do we

put adjectives into the three different genders?”

For now, we will focus mainly on feminine. First declension nouns are always

feminine, except when they denote an occupation. When 1st declension nouns denote

and occupation, they are masculine. In the English language way of thinking, we do

not see a door as being masculine, feminine or neuter – it’s just a dumb old door and

you’ve got to use it to get in or out of a room. You will have to adjust your way of

thinking while reading & writing Latin. The word for door in Latin is porta, portae and

belongs to the 1st declension and is not an occupation, therefore it is most definitely

feminine. Since Latin is the parent language of both French and Spanish, you will see

that many of the qualities of this language have been passed down to them. About

occupations, one of the vocabulary words for this chapter is nauta, nautae (sailor). Sailor

is the name of an occupation and is therefore masculine. There aren’t very many of these

and they are fairly easy to spot. The majority of 1st declension nouns are going to be

feminine, so when in doubt - go with the majority and you will be right a majority of the

time!

Chapter 2 -



Let’s talk about those adjectives. How do we make an adjective feminine, masculine or

neuter? In this chapter, we will only discuss how to make them feminine. (Ladies go

first, right? The masculine adjectives are left holding the door open and will enter in

chapter 3.)

It is really quite simple when you think about it. To make an adjective feminine, you just

put 1st declension, feminine endings on them! So, at least for now, adjectives will have

the same exact ending as the noun they modify has. If we want to say “a good gate” in

Latin, we will say “porta bona” in the nominative, “portae bonae” in the genitive and so

on.

Part 6 – Positioning of the Adjective

An adjective is usually placed after the noun it modifies. The thought behind this is that

the noun is much more important than the adjective. Knowing who is absent in a class is

much more important than knowing whether that person is tall or short. Sometimes

however, adjectives come first, especially when adjectives denote size or number, or

when the words “this” and “that” are used. Here is an example: You know you will have

a teacher for Math every year, right? So what is important to you in this case is: Will I

have THIS teacher or THAT teacher?

Chapter 2 -


Chapter 2 STUDY GUIDE:

Know the forms on the title page which are explained in more detail in the lesson.

Know the names & functions of the cases

Memorize the endings for & be able to translate 1st declension

(See pages 2 – 6 of the lesson)

Know all the vocabulary from chapter 1 & 2. The words are listed on your dictionary

page for each chapter and you have made flashcards.

(Practice your flashcards 3 times every day: morning, afternoon, evening)

Learn from your mistakes:

Correct your quizzes and have me check over them if needed, especially if you failed

any. Spend extra memory time on the ones you missed.

Pay close attention to the translations A & B corrections in class – make sure you correct

your papers carefully. Ask questions about things you don’t understand during class.

Study them and figure out where you went wrong. I will base the test translations on

these.

Correct the vocabulary test and spend extra memory time on the ones you missed.

Ask questions about things you don’t understand during class. Study them and figure out

where you went wrong.

All of the VOCABULARY TESTS have the same basic format: I WILL GIVE

YOU THE LATIN WORD AND YOU WILL HAVE TO WRITE IN THE

ENGLISH DEFINITION. They are CUMULATIVE, meaning that there will

always be vocabulary from all previous chapters, as well as this one.

All of the FULL TESTS have the same basic format: VOCABULARY, FORMS

(NOUNS/ADJECTIVES & VERBS) & TRANSLATIONS. They are

CUMULATIVE, meaning that there will always be vocabulary, forms & etc. from

all previous chapters, as well as this one.

Chapter 2 –

chapter 2 wheelock - uplift education · nominative (subject) fama famae genitive (possession)...

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