12/31/92

                              CHAPTER 2

         "Cases; First Declension; Agreement of Adjectives"


CASES AND INFLECTION

Consider the following sentence: "The girl saw the dog".  How can
you tell that this sentence does not mean that the dog is seeing
the girl?  The answer is obvious to an English speaker.  "Girl"
comes before the verb, and "dog" comes after it, and this
arrangement tells us that the "girl" is performing the action of
verb, and the "dog" is receiving the action.  We say that the one
who is performing the action of the verb is the "subject" of the
verb.  So "girl" is the "subject" of "saw".  The dog, however, is
the "object" of the verb, since it's the object of the action.
And in English, we generally show these functions -- subject and
object -- by position relative to the verb.  The subject of the
verb tends to come before the verb, the object tends to come
after it.

     But position isn't the only way we show which word is the
subject and object of a verb.  Now consider this sentence: "Him I
like, them I despise".  Obviously this sentence has an usual
arrangement for rhetorical purposes, but how can you tell who is
doing what to whom?  Even though English grammar shows
grammatical relationship between words in a sentence mainly by
position, in many instances a change in the word itself provides
you additional help.  The word "him", although it comes first in
the sentence, is not the subject because its form -- "him"
instead of "he" -- is not the one used to indicate that it's the
subject of the verb.  We use the form "he" to show that.
Furthermore, the word "I" is the form we use when the first
person is subject of the verb.  Hence, the words "he" and "I"
change their forms as their grammatical function in the sentence
changes.  The change in form of a word to show grammatical
functions is called "inflection".

The English personal pronouns change quite a lot to show you how
they're 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             object
Second Person Pronoun
                          you             subject
                          your            possessor
                          you             object


                          he,she,it       subject
                          his,her,its     possessor
                          him,her,it      object
Third Person Pronoun
                          they            subject
                          their           possessor
                          them            object

     This inflection (change of form to show grammatical
function) in the pronouns is very useful for helping us to
understand each other -- although, as you can see, the second
person pronoun "you, etc" doesn't inflect nearly so much as the
first and third.  The plural forms are even identical to the
singular forms.  We can still get by.

     In English, inflection is rather limited, and we rely on
position mainly to tell us what the words in the sentence are
doing to each other.  The only grammatical functions that involve
a change in form for all nouns is the possessive case and the
plural forms, where we attach an "-s" to the end of the word.
(In written English we even include an apostrophe "'" mark to
help us see the difference between a pluralized noun and a noun
that's in the possessive case.)  For example

            SINGULAR                          PLURAL

     apple           subject         apples          subject
     apple's         possessor       apples'         possessor
     apple           object          apples          object

Watch how we combine position with inflection in English to make
sense to one another.  As you can see, position is the principal
guide.

     "These apples' [plural, possessor] cores are hard, but
     apples [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,
     discretely 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 of
words to show grammatical relationship are called "inflected"
languages.  English, though it has some inflection, is not an
inflected language.  Latin, however, is an inflected language,
because it relies almost entirely on changes in the words
themselves to indicate their grammatical function in a sentence.

     The different grammatical functions a word can have in a
sentence is called "case".  In English there are three
recognizable different cases, that is grammatical functions, a
word can have: the subjective case, the possessive case, and the
objective case.  So we say there are three cases in English.  In
Latin there are six difference cases.  Here are the Latin cases.
(Don't try to memorize them all at once here.  Just read through
the list; there will be plenty of time to firm up your
familiarity 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: "by", "with")
           Vocative       (Direct Address)

We'll look at the way these cases are used in Latin in the next
part of these notes, although some of them won't be difficult at
all: the nominative, genitive, and accusative cases are almost
the same as their English counterparts.  The ablative, dative and
vocative will need some explanation.  Before then, however, let's
look at how a Latin noun inflects to show all these different
cases.

     Let's look at some English pronouns which inflect to show
the three different cases.  Do you remember "they, their, them?"
The pronoun is inflecting through its different cases, but we can
definitely spot a pattern of similarity among the three forms.
There is a definite root of the word.  The root (that is, the
part of the word that contains the meaning of the word) is "the-"
to which then the endings "-y", "-ir" and "-m".  So we could say
that the word is inflecting by adding certain case endings to a
stem.  The stem contains the core of the meaning of the word, and
the endings merely inflect or alter its grammar.

     This is precisely how Latin nouns show their different
cases: they add additional letters to the end of the basic form
of the word.  This basic form that does not change throughout its
inflection is called the "stem".  There are, consequently, two
parts of a Latin word that you must note: the stem and the case
ending.  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 (2) whether
the noun is singular or plural.  Let's watch a the Latin noun
"puella" (girl) as it inflects through its different cases:

                SINGULAR        APPROXIMATE ENGLISH TRANSLATION

NOMINATIVE      puella                 girl
GENITIVE        puellae                of the girl
DATIVE          puellae                to/for the girl
ACCUSATIVE      puellam                girl
ABLATIVE        puella                 by/with the girl
VOCATIVE        puella                 girl

                PLURAL

NOMINATIVE      puellae                girls
GENITIVE        puellarum              of the girls
DATIVE          puellis                to/for the girls
ACCUSATIVE      puellas                girls
ABLATIVE        puellis                by/with the girls
VOCATIVE        puellae                girls

     The stem of the Latin word is clearly visible.  It's
"puell-" to which different endings are being attached.  The
endings are:

             SINGULAR                PLURAL

NOMINATIVE      -a                     -ae
GENITIVE        -ae                    -arum
DATIVE          -ae                    -is
ACCUSATIVE      -am                    -as
ABLATIVE        -a                     -is
VOCATIVE        -a                     -ae

     There are many other nouns in Latin which follow this same
pattern of case endings when they inflect.  This pattern of
endings is called the "first declension" (deh CLEN shion) and you
can see the strong presence of an "-a-".  There are four other
declensional patterns in Latin, but a noun will belong to only
one of them.  Hence we can say that "puella" is a first
declension noun.  The other declensions are called, not
surprisingly, the second, third, fourth and fifth declension, and
are distinguished form one another in part by the thematic, or
characteristic, vowel that appears in its endings.


REVIEW

This is a lot of information to absorb in one sitting. Stop now
for a while, then read through this review statement before
starting on the next section of this chapter.

A language whose nouns show their grammatical function in the
sentence by changes in the noun itself, and not by position, is
called an inflected language.  The different grammatical
functions a language recognizes are called cases.  In English,
there are three cases.  They are the subjective, the possessive,
and the objective.   In Latin there are six cases.  They are the
nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative and vocative
cases.  A Latin noun has two parts which you must note: it has a
stem, which contains the noun's basic meaning and its gender; and
it also has a case ending which tells you the noun's case and its
number.  A pattern of endings which are added to the end of a
noun to show its grammatical function is called a declension.
Each noun in Latin belongs to one declension.  The declensions
are called the first, second, third, fourth and fifth
declensions.


THE FIRST DECLENSION

Let's have a look at another first declension noun: "pecuni-"
(money).

SINGULAR

     STEM  +    CASE ENDING          =    INFLECTED FORM

N/V. pecuni     +        -a           =   _______________

GEN. pecuni     +        -ae          =   _______________

DAT. pecuni     +        -ae          =   _______________

ACC. pecuni     +        -am          =   _______________

ABL. pecuni     +        -a           =   _______________

PLURAL

     STEM       +    CASE ENDING      =   INFLECTED FORM

N/V. pecuni     +        -ae          =   _______________

GEN. pecuni     +        -arum        =   _______________

DAT. pecuni     +        -is          =   _______________

ACC. pecuni     +        -as          =   _______________

ABL. pecuni     +        -is          =   _______________

Let's try a few more paradigms.  Decline the noun "patri-"
(fatherland) and vit-" (life).

SINGULAR
                  patri-                     vit-

     N/V.     _______________           _______________

     GEN.     _______________           _______________

     DAT.     _______________           _______________

     ACC.     _______________           _______________

     ABL.     _______________           _______________

                               PLURAL

     N/V.     _______________           _______________

     GEN.     _______________           _______________

     DAT.     _______________           _______________

     ACC.     _______________           _______________

     ABL.     _______________           _______________


GENDER

All Latin nouns possess what is called "gender".  That is, a noun
will be masculine, feminine, or neuter.  Don't confuse this kind of
grammatical gender with biological gender.  There is nothing
biologically feminine about nouns which are grammatically feminine,
nothing biologically masculine about nouns which are grammatically
masculine, and nothing biologically neuter about nouns which are
grammatically neuter.  It's just that nouns have a feature which we
call gender by convention.  And this is a feature which cannot
change in a noun.  A noun may change its case or number, but a noun
will never change its gender.  This is a fixed feature, and you
must be told what gender a noun is when you look it up in the
dictionary.  This is important to remember, because although the
vast majority of first declensions nouns are feminine, not all of
them are.  You must memorize the gender of each noun as you would
learn its meaning.


DICTIONARY CONVENTIONS FOR GENDER AND DECLENSION

The dictionary therefore must tell you many things about a noun
you're looking up -- and you must know how the dictionary tells you
what you need to know.  Latin dictionaries follow the following
conventions for listing nouns.

     (1)  The first entry in the dictionary is the noun in the
          nominative case.
     (2)  The second entry is the genitive singular ending.  This
          is essential, because many of the declensions have
          identical nominative singular endings.  There is no way
          to be certain, therefore, to which declension a noun
          belongs simply by looking at the nominative singular.
          But in all declensions, the genitive singular endings are
          different.  The genitive singular ending of the first
          declension is "-ae", that of the second declension is
          "-i", that of the third is "-is", that of the fourth is
          "-us", and that of the fifth is "-ei"  If you know the
          genitive singular of a noun you know what declension the
          noun follows.  Another reason you must have the genitive
          singular form given to you is that the stem of the noun
          is often not visible in the nominative singular.
          Sometimes the stem changes slightly from the nominative
          to the other forms.  Again, you cannot predict what kind
          of stem change will occur simply by looking at the
          nominative.  But you will be able to see it in the
          genitive singular. (This kind of stem change never occurs
          in the first declension, but it does in the second and
          the third.)
     (3)  The last entry is the gender of the noun, which cannot be
          deduced even if you know everything else about the noun.
          You must be given it.

Put all this together, and typical dictionary entries for first
declension noun will look like this:

                     patria, -ae (f)
                     pecunia, -ae (f)
                     poeta, -ae (m)
                     agricola, -ae (m)

Now look up the following nouns in your dictionary and write out
the grammatical information you are given.

ENGLISH         FULL ENTRY         DECLENSION     STEM

band     _________________________    _____    __________

brother  _________________________    _____    __________

care     _________________________    _____    __________

city     _________________________    _____    __________

day      _________________________    _____    __________

dread    _________________________    _____    __________


TRANSLATION OF THE CASES

What I'm going to give you now is just the bare outline of how
these cases can be translated into English.  There will be plenty
of time for further refinement in the future -- and we'll have to
do some refinement -- but for the time being, these guide lines
will get you well on your way.


NOMINATIVE CASE

A noun in the nominative case is often the subject of a verb.  For
example, in the English sentence "The tree fell on my car", the
"tree" is in the nominative case because it's the subject of the
verb "fell".  If this were a Latin sentence, the word tree would be
in the nominative case form.  The rule of thumb for now is that if
you see a noun in the nominative case, try to translate it as the
subject of the verb in its sentence.


GENITIVE CASE

This case shows that one noun belongs to another noun.  The noun
which is the owner is put into the genitive case.  Like this in
English: "The car's door is open".  "Door" is the nominative case
because it's the thing which is open -- it's the subject of the
verb "is" -- and the door belongs to the car, so "car's" is put
into the genitive case.  So for now, every time you see the
genitive case, translate the noun with the English preposition "of"
or use the genitive marker "'s".  For example, if "portae" is in
the genitive case, translate it either as "the door's" or "of the
door".


DATIVE CASE

The dative case shows that a noun is indirectly affected by the
action of the sentence.  Take for example, in the English sentence
"George gave the ball to the girl". George is the subject of "give"
and the thing George is giving is the "ball".  So the thing most
directly affected by George's action is the ball.  It's the direct
recipient of the action.  But George then gave the ball to the
girl, so the girl is also being affected, but only indirectly.
Therefore, the girl is the "indirect object" of the action of the
sentence.  English can also indicate the indirect object simply by
position: by putting the indirect object before the direct object.
Like this: George gave the girl the ball.  In Latin, the word for
"girl" would be in the dative case, and so would have the dative
case ending of the declension to which the word "girl" belongs.  So
the form would be "puellae".  Again, a rough rule of thumb: when
you see the dative case, try to translate it with the prepositions
"to" or "for" and see which of the two makes the most sense.


ACCUSATIVE CASE

The noun which is directly affected by the action of a verb is put
into the accusative case.  In English we call this case the "direct
object" which is a little more descriptive of its function.  It's
the direct object of some action.  In the example above, the "ball"
is in the accusative case because it's the direct object of
George's action of giving.  In Latin, therefore, the word for ball
would have the characteristic accusative case ending attached to
its stem.  The accusative case is also used after some
prepositions, but we'll look at that later.


ABLATIVE CASE

The ablative case is rather complicated.  Let's just say for now
that when you see a noun in the ablative case, translate it by
using the prepositions "with" or "by".  We'll study the various
meanings of the ablative case separately in later chapters.


VOCATIVE CASE

If you want to call someone or something by name to get some
attention, then you use the vocative case.  "Dog, get out of the
house!"  "Dog" is in the vocative case.  The form of the vocative
case -- that is, the ending you attach to the stem to form the case
-- is almost always identical to the nominative form of the word.
For that reason, the nominative and vocative forms are often listed
together in a declensional pattern, instead of being given separate
listings.  The vocative case is very easily distinguished from the
nominative case, though, because a noun in the vocative is always
set off from the rest of the sentence with commas and is often
preceded by in the interjection "O" -- the Latin equivalent of our
"hey":  "O puellae, date poetae rosas" (Hey girls, give roses to
the poet.)

So let's put all this together into a chart you can use when you're
translating a Latin sentence.  The sooner you've memorized this
guidelines, the easier it'll be for you to work through Latin
sentences:

                 THE CASES

     Nominative  the subject of a verb
     Genitive             use "of" or "-'s" ("-s'") for the plural
     Dative      use "to" or "for", or put the noun before the
                 direct object
     Accusative  the direct object of a verb or object of a
                 preposition
     Ablative             use the prepositions "with" or "for"
     Vocative             use the English "hey" or "Oh"


AGREEMENT OF ADJECTIVES AND NOUNS

An adjective is a word which modifies or qualifies a noun.  "A red
leaf:" "leaf" is the noun and "red" is telling you something more
about it.  That's pretty simple.  To indicate which noun an
adjective is modify we use position in English: i.e., we put the
adjective right next to the noun.

     "A red leaf with a brown stem fell off the tall tree onto the
     flat ground".

There is no question about which adjectives are modifying which
nouns.  No one, except perhaps a deconstructionist, would think the
author is trying to say that the ground is red or that the stem is
flat.  Position makes this clear.  In Latin, however, where
position is not so important, adjectives have to be put together
with their nouns differently.  Instead of using position, Latin
adjectives take on some of the characteristics of the nouns they're
modifying: i.e., they undergo changes to match the noun they're
modifying.

     So what properties do nouns have in a Latin sentence.  Well,
they have case -- they have to have case to work in the sentence --
and they have number (singular or plural) and they have gender
(masculine, feminine, or neuter).  Remember this about gender: a
noun can change its number and case, but it can only have one
gender; it cannot change its gender.  So each noun has number,
gender, and case.   An adjective has to be able to acquire the
number, gender, and case of the noun it's modifying.  So how does
it do that?  It does it by declining.  And in this respect it
resembles a noun: nouns decline to get different numbers and cases;
so do adjectives.  But there is an important difference.  Latin
nouns are either masculine, feminine or neuter, and they can never
change their gender.  The noun "porta, -ae (f)" is forever
feminine.  The noun "poeta, -ae (m)" is forever masculine, etc.
But for adjectives to be useful, they have to be able to become any
one of the three genders; i.e., adjectives have to be able to be
masculine, feminine or neuter to match the gender of the noun
they're modifying.  And how do they do that?  They accomplish this
by using endings from different declensions (and you'll learn these
other declension in the next couple of chapters).  So here are two
critical differences between adjectives and nouns: (1) each
adjective can have any of the three genders, but each noun can have
only one gender; (2) each noun will belong only to one declension,
but adjectives can span declensions.  You'll see much more of this
later, but for now you need to know that adjectives use endings of
the first declension to become feminine, and, therefore, to modify
nouns which are feminine in gender.  So try this.  Decline the
expression "big rose":

                   magna                     rosa

     N/V.     _______________           _______________

     GEN.     _______________           _______________

     DAT.     _______________           _______________

     ACC.     _______________           _______________

     ABL.     _______________           _______________


     N/V.     _______________           _______________

     GEN.     _______________           _______________

     DAT.     _______________           _______________

     ACC.     _______________           _______________

     ABL.     _______________           _______________


     Now look at these endings for the adjective and the noun.
They look alike, don't they.  But this is dangerously deceptive.
Get this in your head: agreement means same number, gender, and
case, not look-alike endings, even though in this limited example
and in all the examples in this chapter they do look alike.
Consider this problem.  The noun for poet is a masculine noun in
the first declension: "poeta, -ae (m)".  Now, for an adjective to
agree with it, it must have the same number, gender and case.
Right?  But adjectives with first declension endings are masculine.
So, will the endings of an adjective modifying the noun "poeta" be
the same as those as "poeta".  I.e., will the pattern for "great
poet" look like this?

                              SINGULAR
                     magna                poeta

     N/V.            magna                poeta
     GEN.            magnae               poetae
     DAT.            magnae               poetae
     ACC.            magnam               poetam
     ABL.            magna                poeta
                               PLURAL

     N/V.            magnae               poetae
     GEN.            magnarum             poetarum
     DAT.            magnis               poetis
     ACC.            magnas               poetas
     ABL.            magnis               poetis

     The answer is "no", because the forms "magna, magnae" etc. are
feminine in gender because adjectives use first declension endings
to become feminine in gender but the noun "poeta" is masculine.
Therefore the adjective will have to use endings from another
declension and the forms will not look alike.  You'll see all this
in the next two chapters.  But remember: agreement means having the
same number, gender, and case, not having the same endings.  Okay?


VOCABULARY PUZZLES

tua, mea  The words "tua", which means "your" and "mea", which
          means "my" are the first and second person singular
          possessive adjectives, and they consequently must "agree"
          in number, gender and case with whatever is being
          possessed.  "tu-" and "me-" are the stems of the word,
          and the "-a" is the adjectival suffix.  What causes
          students concern is that they can't quite bring
          themselves to make the adjectival suffix of the singular
          possessive adjectives plural.  For example, they balk at
          "meae rosae" (my roses), because they assume somehow that
          the entire word "me-" must become plural.  This isn't
          necessary.  Think of it this way: the "me-" or "tu-" part
          of these words refer you to the person doing the
          possessing, the adjectival suffix refers to whatever is
          being possessed.

