Week 5

March 9, 2022
Stage 4

Overview

We reviewed the first five weeks of grammar, watched Hermogenes, enacted in basilica, reviewed our translations of mercator et iudex, and learned about adjectives and the verb esse or to be. I'll review the last two here.

Adjectives

As we learned or reviewed in Week 1, an adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun. We've encountered a variety of adjectives already like laetus, īrātus, magnus, and perterritus, but never in much depth. Let's change that.

There are two categories of adjectives in Latin: those that decline in first and second declension, and those that decline in the third declension. All adjectives must agree with the nouns or pronouns they describe in case, number, and gender, so this distinction allows adjectives to get different forms for those different situations.

laetus for example is in the first and second declension category. In the nominative singular, if the noun it describes is masculine, it is laetus; if feminine, it is laeta; and if neuter, it is laetum; declining in each case accordingly.

We haven't learned any adjectives in the third declension yet, but they will decline as all third declension nouns do except they will take an ending of -e in the nominative and accusative neuter plurals. I'll rehash that if and when it eventually comes up.

The key takeaway though is that adjectives must agree with the nouns or pronouns they describe in case, number, and gender.

esse — to be

esse is one of the only irregular verbs in Latin, and it does not belong to any particular conjugation. Instead, you'll need to learn its forms in its own right (like you have to English actually). The chart on the right gives the forms of esse in the same present (active indicative) tense we studied last week. esse is what linguists call a copular verb, which essentially means that both its subject and object will take the nominative case.

Homework

Your assignments are as follows:

Vocabulary: List 5
Enjoy your spring break and catch up on any stories, vocabulary, or grammar you might be behind on! See the review packet I gave you in our session on the right.

NUCALLS Latin 1 Midterm Review.pdf

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