12/31/92



                              CHAPTER 5

      "First and Second Conjugations: Future Indicative Active;
        Adjectives of the First and Second Declension in -er"


FUTURE TENSE OF FIRST AND SECOND CONJUGATION VERBS

When you want to put an English verb into the future tense, you
use the stem of the verb and put "will" in front of it: "I see"
becomes "I will see"; "They have" becomes "They will have"; etc.
We call the additional word "will" a "helping verb", or, more
learnedly, an "auxiliary verb".  No matter what you call it, the
"will" is modifying the way the listener will understand the
action of the verb "to see" and "to have".  In Latin, the future
tense is formed differently, but it still involves the addition
of something to the stem of the verb.  The formula for forming
the future tense of first and second conjugation verbs in Latin
is this:  "stem + be + personal endings".  The stem of the verb,
you remember, is what's left after you've dropped off the "-re"
of the infinitive (the stem includes the stem vowel).  The "-be-"
is the sign of the future and is attached directly to the stem.
Then you add the normal personal endings you used in the present
tense directly to the tense sign "be".  So let's start to
conjugate the future tense of a first and second conjugation
verb.  Here are the tables. (Don't fill in the conjugated form
just yet.)

I.   FUTURE OF THE FIRST CONJUGATION: laudo, laudare

    STEM   +    TENSE SIGN    +    PERS. END.     =     CONJUGATED
FORM

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________


_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________


II.    FUTURE OF THE SECOND CONJUGATION: moneo, monere

    STEM   +    TENSE SIGN    +    PERS. END.     =     CONJUGATED
FORM

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________


_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________

_________  +    __________    +   _____________   =
_______________


     All this seems quite logical and straight-forward.  But
these is one glitch: the short "-e-" of the tense sign "-be-"
undergoes some radical changes when you start attaching the
personal endings.

     (1)   Before the "-o" of the first person singular, the short
           "-e-" disappears completely, leaving "-bo".
     (2)   Before the "-nt" of the third person plural, it becomes
           a "-u-", leaving the form "-bunt".
     (3)   And before all the other endings, it becomes an "-i-",
           for "-bis", "-bit", "-bimus", and "-bitis".

As you can see, the short "-e-" in fact never stays what it is in
any of these forms.  And you may very well be wondering to
yourself why I'm showing you all this.  Why can't you simply
memorize the future endings as "-bo", "-bis", "-bit", "-bimus",
"-bitis", and "-bunt", without having to look any farther back
into its history.  The answer is you can certainly remember just
the final forms if you wish, but this problem of the short "-e-"
changing to other vowels occurs repeatedly in Latin, and instead
of memorizing by rote each time you come across it, it just seems
easier to learn the rule governing the changes, rather than
encountering the changes each time as unique phenomena.  It's
hard to believe now, but knowing the deeper rules will make your
lives simpler in the future.  Now that you know the rules, go
back and fill in the conjugated forms of the future tense.


FIRST AND SECOND DECLENSION ADJECTIVES IN -ER

Look at this adjective: "stultus, -a, -um".  Do you remember what
this entry is telling you?  An adjective spans the first and
second declensions to get the endings it needs to modify nouns of
different genders.  This entry is telling you that the adjective
for "stupid" (stem: "stult-") uses second declension "-us" type
endings when it modifies masculine nouns, first declension
endings when it modifies feminine nouns, and the "-um" category
of neuter endings of the second declension to modify neuter
nouns.

     Now let's look a little more closely at the second
declension.  It has two parts, you may remember: the section
reserved entirely for neuter nouns -- those ending in "-um" in
the nominative singular -- and the section used by masculine and
feminine nouns (the vast majority are masculine).  There is a
variety of nominative singular endings in this second group:
"-us", "-er", and "-ir".  The nouns which followed the "-us" type
second declension presented two problems: to find the stem, you
simply dropped off the "-us" ending of the nominative case.  But
for the second declension nouns which ended in "-er" in the
nominative singular, you had to be more careful.  For some of
them, the stem was the form of the nominative singular, but for
others the "-e-" of the "-er" dropped out from the stem.  Then
you used the reduced form for all the other cases.  The
dictionary has to tell you which "-er" ending nouns had stem
changes, and it does so in the in second entry for the noun.

                     puer, -i (m)
                     liber, -bri (m)
                     ager, agri (m)


The stem of "puer" is "puer-", the stem of "liber" is "libr-",
the stem of "ager" is "agr-".  Okay, so much by way of review.

     Now look at this word as it appears in the dictionary:
"liber, -a, -um".  What is this?  Is it a noun or an adjective?
You can tell it's an adjective because there is no gender listed
for it. (Remember, an adjective has to be able to change its
gender, so it has no fixed gender, as a noun does.)  An entry for
an adjective has to tell you how it will acquire different
genders -- which declensional pattern it will use to become
masculine, feminine and neuter -- and, you may recall, the first
entry shows you the masculine nominative, the second the feminine
nominative, and the third the neuter nominative.

     So have a look again at this adjective.  The second entry
looks familiar -- it's the nominative singular ending of the
first declension.  This tells you that the adjective "liber"
become feminine by using first declension endings.  The "-um"
should look familiar, too.  That's its neuter ending, telling you
it uses the "-um" endings of the second declension to modify
neuter nouns.  But what's the first entry?  You know that this is
telling you how the adjective becomes masculine, but what about
the "-er".

     You've probably already figured out by now that the
adjective is going to use the second declension endings to modify
masculine nouns, and that it's going to use the "-er" ending in
the nominative singular.  So for "free soul", you would write
"liber animus".  But what is the stem of the adjective?  Remember
that "-er" ending nouns of the second declension often change
their stems when they move out of the nominative singular.  The
dictionary tells you about that in the second entry for the
adjective in the genitive singular.  That is, the dictionary
actually starts declining it for you.  But how will it tell you
whether an adjective in "-er" has a stem change?

     The rule is this.  An adjective in "-er" which changes its
stem (i.e., drops the "-e") will use the changed stem in all
genders and numbers and cases except for the nominative masculine
singular.  So all you need to see to know whether the adjective
is going to change its stem is the next entry -- the feminine
nominative singular -- to know about the stem.  Look at this
entry.

                          M       F      N

                       pulcher, -chra, -chrum

There, do you see it?  The second entry shows you not only how
the adjective becomes feminine, but also that the stem for all
other cases except the masculine nominative singular is
"pulchr-".  Look as this adjective: "noster, nostra, nostrum".
Stem change, right?  Now look at this again: "liber, -a, -um".
There is no stem change since it is not indicated in the second
entry.  So the stem is "liber-" throughout its inflection.  Let's
do a few exercises.  Translate and decline the following.

         beautiful      fatherland           our              son

Nom.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Gen.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Dat.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Acc.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Abl.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Voc.                                   ______________
______________


N/V.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Gen.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Dat.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Acc.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________

Abl.  ______________  ______________   ______________
______________


VOCABULARY PUZZLES

animus, -i (m)            In the singular the word means "soul,
                          spirit", the vapory seat of
                          self-awareness.  But in the plural it
                          often takes on another meaning.  It may
                          mean "courage", like our expression
                          "high spirits", "spirited", as in "The
                          losing team put up a spirited struggle".
                          It happens often in Latin that a word
                          will acquire new meanings in the plural.
                          C.p., the meaning of the English word
                          "manner" in the singular with its
                          meaning in the plural: "manners".

noster, -tra, -trum       This is an adjective which means "our".
                          That is, the adjective agrees with the
                          thing that is "ours".  Therefore, it has
                          a plural form only if the noun it's
                          agreeing with is plural.  Students are
                          often lured into thinking that "noster"
                          will have only plural case endings
                          because "our" is first person plural.
                          Remember, "noster" will have plural
                          cases endings only if it's agreeing with
                          a plural noun: "noster filius" (our son)
                          or "nostri filii" (our sons).

igitur                    Wheelock tells you it's post-positive:
                          it never is the first word in a Latin
                          sentence (and it's usually the second
                          word.)  Despite our tendency to put the
                          English "therefore" at the beginning of
                          the sentence, "igitur" is never first.
                          Remember.

-ne                       We form questions in English by juggling
                          word order around, and by using
                          auxiliary verbs.  But Latin doesn't have
                          that option since word order doesn't
                          work in the same way.  To ask a question
                          in Latin, put "-ne" at the end of the
                          first word of the sentence.  The word to
                          which it is attached becomes the point
                          of inquiry of the question:  "Amasne
                          me?" (Do you love me?), "Mene amas?" (Is
                          it me you love (and not someone else)?)

propter + acc.            As you know, prepositions in Latin take
                          certain cases.  "Propter" takes the
                          accusative case -- always -- and we
                          translate it, "because of".  Don't be
                          thrown off by our English translation.
                          "Propter" does not take the genitive
                          case in Latin.  It takes the accusative.

satis                     When we say "I have enough money", we
                          use "enough" as an adjective modifying
                          "money".  In Latin the word for "enough"
                          is a noun, not an adjective.  Latin
                          follows "satis" with the genitive case,
                          and says in effect "I have enough of
                          money" (Habeo satis pecuniae.) You'll be
                          pleased to know that "satis" does not
                          decline -- it is always "satis".

