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RELATIVE PRONOUNS:  Introduction

Relative pronouns are pronouns which relate to another noun in the sentence.  They refer to the antecedent, the noun the relative pronoun relates to.  For this introduction, only the nominative case relative pronouns will be explained.

Relative pronouns:   QUI = who (masculine), which        QUAE = who (feminine), which        QUOD = which (neuter)

These relative pronouns are used as subjects in their own clause.  The gender and number are determined by the antecedent.  They are the SAME as the antecedent.

Generally, but not always, the relative clause goes from the relative pronoun to the next verb.

EG:  The man who is calling me is my father.   Vir qui me vocat pater meus est.
“Who is calling me” is the relative clause.  Qui is masculine and singular because man is masculine and singular.
It is used as the subject of its own clause.

EG:  The woman who buys the food is a servant.   Femina quae cibum emit ancilla est.
“Who buys the food” is the relative clause.  Quae is feminine and singular because woman is feminine and singular.
It is used as the subject of its own clause.

EG:  The wave which was huge destroys the shore.  Unda quae ingens est oram delet.
“Which was large” is the relative clause.  Quae is feminine and singular because wave (unda) is feminine and singular.
It is used as the subject of its own clause.   Notice that quae is translated which in English even though it is feminine in Latin.
In English all inanimate objects are neuter.

Review of all case endings.  Got ‘em memorized yet?:

ae

2nd Declension Neuter words:  caelum, bellum, consilium, verbum, imperium, periculum, saxum

3rd Declension Neuter:  These words are listed in the glossary:  litus, litoris, N (the nom Sing, the Gen Sing, the Gender) Memento: The base of 3rd Declension words often changes.  litus to litor-is, just like it does for other 3rd declension words:  comes, comit-is.

3rd Declension Neuter I-stems:  There on only a handful of these words.  The one that is used most often is mare, maris.  Memorize the special endings for this noun.

Neuter adjectives:  Adjectives can also take neuter endings.  In the glossary:  adjectives are listed with the endings -us, -a, um.  (bonus, a, um.)  This indicates that the adjective can take 1st and 2nd declension endings, masculine, feminine and neuter.

In addition, 3rd declension adjectives can take 3rd declension masculine, feminine and neuter endings.  3rd declension adjectives are listed  like this in the glossary:  omnis, omne.  Omnis is the nominative singular of the the Masculine and feminine and omn-e is the nominative singular for the neuter.  Memorize the endings in the chart below.

Genitive of Possession:  The Genitive case shows possession.  In English, Possession is shown by “of” or an apostrophe.

English examples:

Latin:  Latin shows possession by using the genitive case.  The owner or possessor is in the genitive case.  The genitive generally follows the word it goes with.  However, to avoid confusion, do not put the genitive between two nouns.

Latin Examples:  Sometimes the genitive may be before the noun and sometimes after the noun.

• princeps urbis = the prince of the city, the city’s prince
• mater Horatiae = the mother of Horatia, Horatia’s mother
• ager Flacci = the field of Flaccus = Flaccus’ field
• canes puerorum = the dogs of the boys, the boys’ dogs
• Specto hortum puellarum = I see the garden of the girls., I see the girls’ garden.
• silla magistri = the teacher’s seat,  the seat of the teacher.
• terra regum = the land of the kings, the kings’ land
• Laudamus equos virorum  =  We praise the men’s horses.

General rule:

• If the genitive noun ends in -arum or -orum or um, use an s apostrophe (s’)
• If the genitive noun ends in -i or -ae or is, use an apostrophe s (‘s)

Partitive Genitive:  The genitive is used for phrases where only part of the whole is mentioned:  Many of the men, all of the Trojans, a few of the women.  These use the preposition “of” but do not show possession.  They usually involve some sort of quantity.  These take the genitive case.

E.G.:  multi virorum,  omnes troianorum, paucae feminarum.

Adverbs: Adverbs are formed various ways in Latin.

For “malus” type adjectives:  change us to e

malus    male (badly)
territus    territe (frighteningly)
miser    misere (miserably)
iratus    irate (angrily)
laetus    laete (happily)
fessus    fesse  (tiredly)

From 3^rd declension adjectives:  add iter or ter to the base:

fortis    fortiter (bravely)
celer    celeriter  (swift)
diligens    diligenter (diligently)

BUT:  The adverb of 3rd declension adjectives may also be the same as the neuter:  forte, celere, incolume

Other adverbs must be memorized: Sic, bene, huc, hic, iterum, diu, statim, iam, saepe, tandem. subito

Imperatives:

Imperatives is a mood that gives a command.  (Remember that mood shows the attitude of the speaker.)  In  English, this is the mood you need to use if you are going to use a one word sentence.  For Example:  Wait!     Stop!     Listen!     Great Latin scholars will be confused that there needs to be a subject for a sentence.  The subject of an imperative is you (understood), meaning that the subject is implied.  Since you is the subject of imperatives, then they are all 2nd person.

Learn these endings for Imperatives:

Things to observe:
1. The singular imperatives is formed simply dropping the -RE from the infinitive.
2. The negative imperatives are formed by using the imperatives of the irregular verb “nolo” (noli and nolite) and adding the infinitive.

3rd declension:  Many nouns belong to the 3rd declension.

The nominative singular is different for each word.  urbs, navis, rex, pater.

All nouns and including 3rd declension nouns are listed in the vocabulary with the nominative singular, genitive singular and gender.  We have not had the genitive yet, but get to know it.  The Latin Scholars have deduced that this is the best way to list vocabulary in the glossary.  The genitive case singular ending is different for each declension so this is the only sure fire way to know which of 5 declension a word belongs to.  For 3rd declension the BASE is also very important.  When declining a 3rd declension noun, use the nominative singular form once and then use the base of the genitive singular for the other forms.

Genitive Plural is sometimes -um and sometimes -ium.  When do you use which ending?  Well there are 3 simple rules.  If any one of these rules fit, then the ending is -ium.

Rule 1:  If the Nominative singular and the genitive singular have the same number of syllables.  Like:  navis, navis;  hostis, hostis;   caedes, caedis
Rule 2:  If the genitive singular BASE (drop -is) ends in double consonants.  Like:  urbs, urbis;  pars, partis;   mons, montis;  hostis, hostis
Rule 3:  If it is a 3rd Declension adjective.

Sometimes the Ablative singular is an -i.    This ending is only used for 3rd declension adjectives:   tristis, omnis, fortis  etc.

Irregular Verbs:

Infinitives:  an infinitive is the essence of the verb.  It is the verbiness of the verb.  It is called an infinitive because it is a verb without a personal verb ending.  (In-not   fin-end).  They are used as nouns and most of the time like direct objects following certain verbs.  Certain verbs lend themselves to infinitive compliments.  (A compliment is something that fills out the idea of the verb.)

Verbs which probably will have an infinitve after them:   posse:  to be able to,   cupio:  I desire to,      iubeo: I order ___ to,     paro:  I prepare to,      debeo:  I ought to,     constituo:  I decide to,     oro:  to beg ___ to,     amo:  I like to,      volo:  I wish to,         nolo:  I don’t want to

Formation of infinitives:

Important:  2nd conjugation infinitives have a long mark over the E.  The long mark indicates that it is 2nd conjugation.  (You only have two long marks to remember so it is not overly burdensome to remember that the long mark goes on this infinitive.)  The 3rd conjugation does not have a long mark.

Complimentary Infinitive Examples:
Puellae cupiunt vendere lanam.  The girls desire to buy wool.
Mater parat ad tabernam procedere.  The mother prepares to proceed to the shop.
Flaccus Quintum dormire iubet.  Flaccus orders Quintus to sleep.

Vocative case:  Vocative case is used for direct address.  Direct Address is when a person is named or called in a sentence.  These are always set of by commas.  In the first and third declension there is not change.  In the 2nd conjugation:  if the word or name ends in -ius, drop the -us.  EG:  Tiberius becomes Tiberi;  Octavius becomes Octavi.    If the word ends in -us, drop the us and add -e.  Flaccus  becomes Flacce;  colonus becomes colone;  Quintus becomes Quinte.

Examples:

Quinte, Cur dormis?   Quintus, why are you sleeping?  (Quintus becomes Quinte.)
Flaccus dicit, “Scintilla, Fessus sum.”  Flaccus says, “Scintilla, I am tired.”  (Scintilla has not changed.)

Verbs Present Tense:  Present tense indicates that a verb is happening now.

Now we will see how verbs are fully conjugated (written out) in the present tense.

A verb ENDING indicates what the subject is and indicates person (1, 2, 3) and number (Sing and plural)  The front part of the verb indicates the meaning and the ending indicates the person, number, tense, voice and mood.  As you know already, verbs share endings but different conjugations have different vows.

Notice:  the personal endings are the same for each conjugation:  o, s, t, mus, tis, nt.  Only the vowel changes.  Cave:  the i in 3rd and 4th conjugations changes to a u in 3rd plural.

Notice that the order of the subjects is always the same.  (memorize this now)  Singular:  I, you, he, she, or it    Plural:  We, you, they.

Personal endings always correspond to subjects:   o=I,    s=You,    t=he, she, or it,    mus=we,    tis=you,      nt=they

The Subject of a verb does not have to be mentioned in Latin.  -s always indicates You  and -mus always indicates We.  In english we always need to state the subject but not in Latin.

There are also two ways to translate a Latin verb:  dormimus = we sleep or we are sleeping.
You do not have to translate:  we are sending as sumus mittimus.  “Are” in English is a sort of helping verb.  mittimus is enough!  English is much more difficult than Latin.

Ablative Case:  Ablative case is used for many things, but mostly for object of prepositions:  We already used Accusative case to indicate objects of prepositions, but there are two handfulls of prepositions whose object is in the Ablative case:

Ablative Endings:   1st declension:  -A (a with a long mark) and -is        2nd declesnion:     -o (singular)  and -is (plural)

The SIDSPACE prepositions take the Ablative case:   Sub, In, De, Sine, Pro, A/ab, Cum, and E/ex.  The object of these prepositions will take the Ablative case.  In when it means IN takes Ablative and when it means INTO takes the Accusative case.

Verbs:  Singular and plural:  Verbs can be singular or plural depending on how many subjects there are.

Nouns also can be singular or plural.  The ending indicates whether it is Singular of plural.

Agreement of Subjects and verbs:  Just like in English, subjects and verbs must agree.  If a subject is plural, the verb must be plural; if the subject is singular, the verb must be singular.

Examples:  Pullae fabulam narrant.  The girls tell a story.      Coloni vident pueros.  The farmers see the boys.    Notice in each sentence the plural subject has a plural ending and therefore a plural verb.

Ille and Illa:  Ille (He) and Illa (She) are often used to indicate a change of subject in the sentence.  If no subject is stated, then the subject is the same as the previous sentence.  If ille and illa are used it indicates that the subject has changed without explicitly renaming the subject.  Pop quiz time:  What is the name for a word that replaces a noun?   Don’t look yet:  It is a pronoun.