12/31/92

                              CHAPTER 4

"Neuters of the Second Declension; Summary of Adjectives;
Present Indicative of Sum;
Predicate Nouns and Adjectives"

Despite its lengthy title, you'll find that much of this chapter
only adds incrementally to concepts you've already learned.  That's
the way it's going to be for most of these chapters.  Now that
you've learned the basics, the details will be much easier for you
to grasp.


NEUTERS OF THE SECOND DECLENSION

The second declension is the pattern of cases ending which has an
"-o-" for its thematic vowel.  The nominative singular has three
possible forms -- "-us", "-er", and "-ir".  Sometimes nouns which
end in "-er" in the nominative undergo a stem change from the
nominative to the genitive singular.  To find the real stem of the
noun, you simply drop off the genitive ending "-i" from the second
entry in the dictionary.  Finally, you may remember that the vast
majority of nouns ending in "-us", "-er", and "-ir" in the
nominative singular are masculine.

     What you learned in the last chapter was not the whole story
on the second declension.  The second declension is divided into
two parts: the part you know, and a set of endings which you're
going to learn now.  This second part contains only neuter nouns.
This is important to remember.  Unlike the first declension and the
first part of the second, whose nouns could be either feminine or
masculine, all nouns which follow this second part of the second
declension are neuter.  Next, the endings of this pattern are
nearly identical to those of the second declension you already
know.  The differences are that (1) the nominative singular ending
is always "-um"; (2) the stem is found by dropping off nominative
"-um" ending and there is never a stem change; (3) the neuter
nominative and accusative plural endings are "-a".  You don't have
to worry about the vocative singular; it's the same as the
nominative singular.  Remember, the only place in Latin where the
vocative differs from the nominative is in the singular of "-us"
ending second declension nouns and adjectives.

     A dictionary entry for a noun of this type will look like
this:  "x"um, -i (n) (where "x" is the stem).  Since there is never
a stem change, the second entry only gives you the genitive
singular ending so that you can see the declension of the noun.
The "-um" of the nominative singular and then the "-i" in the
genitive tell you that the noun is a neuter noun of the second
declension, and that it therefore fits into the subcategory of the
second declension.  Here are some examples for you to decline and
a second declension noun of the "us" type for comparison:

         numerus, -i (m)   periculum, -i (n)     consilium, -ii (n)

Nom.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Gen.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Dat.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Acc.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Abl.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Voc.     ______________


N/V.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Gen.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Dat.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Acc.     ______________     _______________        _______________

Abl.     ______________     _______________        _______________

     There are a couple of hard and fast rules pertaining to the
inflection of all neuter nouns, no matter which declension they
belong to, which you may want to commit to memory: (1) the
nominative and accusative forms of neuters nouns are always like
each other, and (2) the nominative plural -- and hence neuter
plural because of rule (1) -- is always a short "-a".


ADJECTIVES

You recall that adjectives are words which modify nouns, and that
in Latin an adjective must agree with the noun it's modifying.  By
"agreeing", we mean it must have the same number, gender, and case.
An adjective acquires number and case by declining through a
declension -- just like nouns -- but how does an adjective change
gender?  An adjective changes gender by using different
declensional patterns.  If an adjective needs to modify a feminine
noun, it uses endings from the first declension; if it has to
modify a masculine noun, it uses the second declension endings
which are used by "-us" and "-er" ending nouns.  So how do you
imagine will an adjective modify a neuter noun?  Let's look at a
dictionary entry for a typical adjective: "magnus, -a, -um".

     The first entry, as you recall, tells you which declension the
adjective uses to modify a masculine noun.  It tells you by giving
you the nominative singular ending of the declension it uses.  The
second entry is the nominative singular ending of the declension
the adjective uses to modify a feminine noun. The third entry is
the nominative singular of the declension the adjective uses to
modify a neuter noun.

     So how does the adjective "magnus, -a, -um" modify a neuter
noun?  It uses the "-um" neuter endings of the second declension,
so "magnus", when it's modifying a neuter noun, will follow the
same pattern as a noun like "periculum, -i (n).  Write out all the
possible forms of the adjective "great".  (Check your work against
Wheelock, p. 18.)

                          "magnus, -a, -um"

            MASCULINE            FEMININE              NEUTER

Nom.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Gen.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Dat.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Acc.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Abl.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Voc.     _______________


N/V.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Gen.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Dat.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Acc.     _______________      _______________      _______________

Abl.     _______________      _______________      _______________


THE VERB "TO BE"

     As in most languages, the verb "to be" in Latin is irregular
-- i.e., it doesn't follow the normal pattern of conjugation of
other verbs.  Wheelock says it's best just to memorize the forms by
sheer effort and rote.  That's a perfectly acceptable suggestion.
But the verb is actually much more regular than it may first
appear.  If you wish, you may try to follow my discussion about the
verb to get a glimpse behind its seemingly bizarre appearance.  If
not, just memorize the forms outright and skip over the paragraphs
in between the lines of asterisks.

              ****************************************

     For those of you going on with me, let's recall a couple of
things.  A verb conjugates by adding personal endings to the stem
of the verb.  You find the stem of the verb by dropping of the
"-re" ending of the infinitive, and what you're left with is the
stem.  The final vowel of the stem tells you the conjugation of the
verb: "-a-" for a first conjugation, "-e-" for the second
conjugation, etc.  So let's have a look at the infinitive of the
verb "to be" to find its stem.  The infinitive is "esse".  What
kind of an infinitive is this?

     We need to back up a little.  Although you were told
otherwise, the real infinitive ending of a Latin verb is not "-re"
at all, but "-se".  Why does the "-se" become "-re"?  It's an
invariable rule of Latin pronunciation that an "-s-" which is
caught between two vowels  -- we call it "intervocalic" -- turns
into a "-r-".  So the reason "laudare" is not "laudase" is that the
original intervocalic "-s-" became an "-r-".  So let's look again
at the infinitive for the verb "to be":  "esse".  If we drop off
the infinitive ending "-se", we're left with the stem "es-" for the
verb.  But the stem has no final vowel.  For this reason we call
"esse" an "athematic verb", because its stem ends in a consonant,
not a vowel, as other verbs do.  To conjugate the verb, we should
therefore add the personal endings directly to the final "-s" of
the stem.  This is what the formula should be (don't fill in the
conjugated form yet).

         STEM     +       PERSONAL ENDING     =     CONJUGATED FORM

1st       es      +             m             =     _______________

2nd       es      +              s            =     _______________

3rd       es      +              t            =     _______________


1st       es      +             mus           =     _______________

2nd       es      +             tis           =     _______________

3rd       es      +             nt            =     _______________

     Try to pronounce the final form for the first person singular
"esm".  Do you hear how you're automatically inserting a "u" sound
to make the word pronounceable?  It sounds like "esum".  Try to
pronounce "esmus".  The same thing happens between the "s" and the
"m".  You almost have to insert a "u".  Now pronounce "esnt".  Same
thing, right?  This is what happened to these forms.  Over time, a
"u" sound became a part of the conjugation of the verb, and the
initial "e-" of the stem of all the forms with this "u" was lost.
(I can't account for that.)  Write out the resulting forms.  Now
look at the remaining forms.  Is there any trouble adding an "s" or
a "t" to the final "s-" of the stem?  No.  In fact, in the second
person singular, the "s" of the personal ending just gets swallowed
up by the "s" of the stem: "es + s = es".  Where there was no
complication in pronouncing the forms, the "e-" of the stem stayed.
Now write out the remaining forms of "to be" in Latin.

              ****************************************

     As with other Latin verbs, the basic form of "to be" is
considered to be the first person singular, and that's how the verb
will be listed in the dictionary, followed by the infinitive: "sum,
esse".  So when I want to refer to the Latin verb "to be", I'll say
the verb "sum".  You can also see why it's going to be important to
memorize all these forms well.  You can't look up "estis" or "es".
You must reduce these conjugated forms to a form that will appear
in the dictionary: you must know that these forms are from "sum".

THE SENTENCE: SUBJECT AND PREDICATE

We divide sentences into two parts: the subject, which is what's
being talked about, and the predicate, what's being said about the
subject.  Basically, the subject is the subject of the verb, and
the predicate is the verb and everything after it.  For example, in
the sentence "Latin drives me crazy because it has so many forms",
"Latin" is the subject, and everything else is the predicate.  Of
course, the full story of subject and predicate is more involved
than this, but this will get us by for now.

PREDICATE NOMINATIVES, TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE VERBS

In Latin the subject of a verb is in the nominative case.  You know
that.  So it may seem to follow that, if the subject of the verb is
the subject of the sentence, that the nominative case should be
entirely limited to the subject of the sentence.  That is, we
shouldn't expect there ever to be a noun in the nominative case in
the predicate.  Nouns in the nominative case should be the subject
of verbs, and the subject of verbs is in the subject clause of the
sentence, not in the predicate.  But we do find nouns in the
nominative in the predicate.  When we do, we call them, logically
enough, "predicate nominatives".  How does it happen that a
nominative case shows up in the predicate, after the verb?

     We divided verbs into two broad classes: verbs which transfer
action and energy from the subject to something else (the object),
and verbs in which there is no movement of energy from one place to
another.  Consider this sentence: "George kicked the ball".  Here
George expended energy -- he kicked -- and this energy was
immediately applied to an object -- the ball -- which was changed
as a result of what George did to it.  We call a verb like this a
"transitive" verb and the object affected by it the direct object.
In Latin, the direct object of a transitive verb is put into the
accusative case.  Now look at this sentence: "The river is wide".
Is the river doing anything in this sentence to anything else?
Does the verb "is" imply that the subject is acting on something
else?  No.  There is no movement of activity from the subject to
something else.  Verbs like this are called "intransitive" and
don't take direct objects.  In Latin that means they are not
followed by an accusative case.  Some more examples of this: "The
dog was running away", "We'll all laugh", "The clown didn't seem
very happy".

     Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a verb in English is
transitive or intransitive.  A rule of thumb is this.  Ask
yourself, "Can I 'x' something?" (where "x" is the verb you're
investigating).  If the answer is "yes" then the verb is
transitive; if "no" then it's intransitive.  "Can I see something?"
Yes; therefore the verb "to see" is transitive.  "Can I fall
something?"  No; therefore "to fall" is intransitive.


THE COPULATIVE VERB "SUM"

The verb "to be" is obviously an intransitive verb -- there is no
movement of energy from the subject to an object -- but it has an
interesting additional property.  What are we actually doing when
we use the verb "to be?"  We are in effect modifying the subject
with something in the predicate. In the sentence "The river is
wide", "river" is the subject and "wide" is an adjective in the
predicate that is modifying "river".  Even though it's on the other
side of the verb and in the predicate, it's directly tied to the
subject.  In Latin, therefore, what case would "wide" be in?  Think
of it this way.  "Wide" is an adjective, and it's modifying the
"river", even though it's in the predicate.  Adjectives in Latin
must agree in number, gender and case with the nouns they modify,
so "wide" has to be in the nominative case.  It's modifying
"river", right?  What the verb "to be" does is to tie or link the
subject directly to something in the predicate, and for that reason
we call the verb "to be" a "linking" or "copulative" verb.  This
principle has a special application in Latin, which has a full case
system.  When the verb "sum" links the subject with an adjective in
the predicate, the adjective agrees with the subject.

     Donum     est magnum.      Dona    sunt  magna.

     nominative    =            nominative    nominative=nominative
     neuter     =  neuter       neuter    =   neuter
     singular   =  singular     plural    =   plural

     When "sum" links the subject with a noun in the predicate,
however, we have a bit of a problem.  Nouns have fixed gender, so
the noun in the predicate can't agree with the subject noun in
quite the same way an adjective can.  A noun in the predicate has
its own gender which it cannot change.  But a noun in the predicate
which is tied to the subject by "sum", will agree with the subject
in case.  Think of the verb "sum" as an equal sign, with the same
case on both sides.

                Mea vita est    bellum (war).
                nominative      =nominative
                feminine  ~     neuter
                singular  =     singular


VOCABULARY PUZZLES

Look at these two dictionary listings:

                1.   bellum, -i (n) "war"
                2.   bellus, -a, -um "beautiful"

The first is an entry for a noun, the second an entry for an
adjective.  What are the differences?  An entry for a noun starts
with the nominative singular form, then it gives you the genitive
singular.  It actually starts to decline the noun for you so that
you can tell the noun's declension and whether the noun has any
stem changes you should be worried about.  The final entry is the
gender, since nouns have fixed gender which you must be given.  For
a noun, therefore you must be given (1) the nominative form, (2)
the stem, (3) the declension, and (4) the gender.

     An entry for an adjective, by contrast, has different
information to convey.  For an adjective, you must know which
declension it'll use to modify nouns of different gender, and
that's what the "-us, -a, -um" is telling you.  But there is an
important omission from the adjective listing.  There is no gender
specified, and how could there be, adjectives change their gender.
As you'll see later, this is the one sure sign that a word you're
looking at is an adjective: if it has declension endings listed but
no gender.

     You may also be concerned that, given the similar appearance
of these two words, you may mix them up in your sentences.
Certainly there will be some overlap of the two forms.  For
example, "bella" is a possible form of the noun "bellum" and the
adjective "bellus, -a, -um".  But there are also many forms which
"bellus, -a, -um" can have which "bellum, -i (n)" can never have.
For example, "bellarum" can't possibly come from a second
declension neuter noun.  Neither can "bellae", "bellas", "bellos",
"bella", and some others.  If you see "bell- something" in your
text, first ask yourself whether the case ending is a possible form
from the neuter noun for war.  If not, then it's from the adjective
for "pretty".  In the instances where the forms do overlap, you'll
have to let context and your good judgment tell you which it is.

