94175986 harris complete latin grammar

5/21/2018 94175986 Harris Complete Latin Grammar

1/68

Preface

As you open this web file, you may well be wondering to yourself: "Why one more book of LatinGrammar...?" which is altogether not an unlegitimate uestion. Let me try to answer succinctly:

! hae obsered that in in our new global society there is a unfounded belief that if you describe eachsegment of a machine or a pro#ect or an operation in fine detail, the cumulation of many detailed statementswill add up to an understanding of "the whole". ! beliee there is a logical error in this approach. $he firstsentence of Aristotle%s &ichomachean 'thics emphasi(es the importance )if not oerall alue* of the mostgeneral approach, which is something we often fail to recogni(e in our preference for the ultimate e+actnessin discrete analysis.

Latin "grammarbooks" are constructed as series of lessons, each incorporating a welldefined, small area tobe learned before going on. !t is not surprising that students who hae gone through all the "lessons" usuallyhae no sense of the linguistic outline of the language as a working system. -ut at the other end of thespectrum a anual like that of Allen / Greenough, ed. 0%1oge l234 )out of print5* or een better the large6ale with its e+cellent e+amples )also 17* , offers a mass of microarticles on eery aspect of Latingrammar, but no way to see the forest for the trees

$his 7ro#ect has two purposes:

a* $o delier an "architectonic iew" of the Latin linguistic system, with a sense of what the parts mean andwhere they fit into a working linguistic whole.

b* At the same time to present a rational e+planation of the indiidual components as they are described)paradigms and all*, in the belief that we know enough about practical linguistics at this time to reamp the8lassical traditionalese #argon and talk about Latin as a languagesystem which was uite satisfactory forwell oer a millennium of aried communications.

9tudents need to know fact and detail, and at the same time where it is all going to fit in, what the whole willook like. $his is a problem in many of the modern science studies, where microdetail can lose the oerallsense of pattern. !t is in this spirit that the present pro#ect on the Latin Language is undertaken, with the hopthat those who hae gone through the first stage of learning the basic forms and configuration, will now beable to reiew what they hae studied in an enlightening fashion, and receie some mentoring adice onhow to proceed toward a fast and effectie reading knowledge of Latin. Latinists hae for centuries poredoer paragraphs with -iblical deotion, we now need techniue for reading ancient books as lie literature,and to do this we need some new tooling. 7erhaps this 7ro#ect will offer some of these tools.

$he purpose of this monograph is to proide a clear and uncluttered description of the Latin language as itwas used in ancient times. $he author feels it is important to strip away as much of the descriptie technical#argon which has adhered to Latin as seems reasonable, and furthermore to describe eery feature of thelanguage simply, succinctly, and in plain 'nglish. 9ome amplification is necessary but the adancing studen

;


2/68

will find reference grammar books on eery library list. All the ariants, rules and e+ceptions, and e+amplesof syntactic usage are important later, but for the beginner we want to set forth the outlines clearly. &eitherthe #argon of the ancient grammarians, nor the inoled terminology of modern structuralists seem suitablefor our purposes, so we will go it alone with a new map in a ery old and enerable territory.

At the start, that important uestion: Why study Latin? Arguments pro and con are long and tedious, ! shalltry to dig down to bedrock as directly as possible?

! beliee there are only two real reasons for learning Latin. ergil in Latin is the real >ergil, een if read slowly and painfully, while the 'nglish is uiteanother kind of book, and incidentally a much weaker one. 6aing taught >ergil in Latin for many years, !alternately laugh and sigh when ! look )briefly* into the translations. 9ome things are simply not conertibleto another form and format, and the high Art of writing is one of these.

9econd, there is another uite different reason: $he social documentary approach. $erence said long ago thanothing human was uninteresting to him, and now that we hae a in our historical studies a deeloped senseof social releance, we find fascinating information about that elusie fellow an in all ancientdocuments. $he human condition two thousand years ago was similar to our world, but ery different and iis the arying formula for the degree of difference which makes social studies in ancient society fascinating'erything from inscriptions on stone, 8icero%s personal letters, the noelistic portrayal of $rimalchio at hisinsane dinner party, the rising of a new and ery nerous 8hristian consciousness these are all fascinatingparts of the rare material which comprises human history. 'specially interesting now is the social history ofthe masses, the populus minutus as they were called by the =omans.

&ow, if high art and social studies are the two good reasons for the study of Latin, then what are the bad oruestionable ones?

"Latin teaches you 'nglish." !t may do so, but if you want to study 'nglish, study 'nglish, and you willcome out ahead.


3/68

catalogs under the category of 8urious Linguistic =ubbish. -ut as archaeologists know, rubbish often has alonger life than art, and some people still unknowingly follow inera%s thread.

"Latin is still basic learning, like the three =%s, and in a day of applied studies, like cooking, driing, drugabuse awareness, and personality deelopment, Latin as proen learning must be real and aluable." -ut thiis #ust a reaction, a backward moement toward something less bad....and it is fortified by America%s newestneurosis: &19$ALG!A. &ostalgia for old clothes, old trinkets, een old, poorly designed and madefurniture, old anything for your closet of 8ollectibles. And you can put in good old Latin too, if it amusesyou.

&one of these bad reasons for studying Latin is completely without point, the mind from seeing the tworeally important reasons for doing this serious and arduous course of study.

Let me recap for emphasis the alid reasons, which ! beliee, are:

l* $he study of high art, carefully constructed prose and brilliant poetry from the ancient world.

@* $he detailed study of an and his thin web of recent history, on the personal rather than political leel, interms of the web of 6istory.

!f you concentrate on these aspects of Latin study, you will find rich rewards, which ! beliee willremunerate you for the hard work you will hae to put in to get a decent reading knowledge of the Latinlanguage.


4/68

Background

;* Latin is of the !ndo'uropean family of languages, a group which spread rapidly across 'urope and southinto !ndia some time after the last glaciation, retreated some ;B,333 years ago. !ndic, !ranian, Greek, 8eltic,Germanic, -altic and 9laonic as the ma#or groups, and a number of other branches such as Armenian and6ittite, stem from the original, now lost, parent speech which we call !ndo'uropean. !n 'urope only-asue, 'truscan, 6ungarian and


5/68

The Idea of Latin Grammar

Latin, in common with its !ndo'uropean congeners, is an inflected language, which basically means that"roots" or basic units of form with standardi(ed meaning are e+tended and further defined by grammaticalsyllables fused onto them for e+tended meaning. 9o a Latin word typically has these sections:

=11$, which may be a noun, like "woman, patience, war" etc. and fused with this will be otherelements, such as nounendings, denoting "how many", or ideas like "of, to, from" and whether theconcept is an actie actor, or acted upon.

>'=- endings, denoting time of the action, whether it is now, in the future, or in arious aspects ofthe past as well as the number of people inoled, and whether they are !Cus, youCyouall, orhe)she*Cthey.

&1F&9 generally denote things, erbs actions, but more important is the formal fact that they haespeciali(ed structure and endings, in short look and work entirely differently from erbs. 9ome erbare fabricated from nouns, and ice ersa, but the process of identification is simple and you willunderstand the differences between them when you see the ariety of their actual forms, what theLinguist calls their "morphology".

Let us take a few e+amples:

&1F&9: $he word "amatoribus" originally starts with the erb root ama meaning "loe", but our startingpoint is the noun amator "loer")the dictionary form*. erbs usually do notnote se+, nouns often do, but not always. 9e+ or gender is noted in other ways, to be sure, but not directlyand formally in the Latin nounerb structure.

B


6/68

We hae thus noted the e+istence of the two ma#or grammatical classifications of words, the &1F&9 andthe >'=-9. -eside these are seeral other classes of words:

A0'8$!>'9 are basically nouns in most of their forms, that is they look like nouns, but they accompanynouns and tell us something about the nouns they modify. 9o ir bonus means "a good man", actually "mangood" and the second word is descriptie, hence an ad#ectie. )&ote that Latin does not use articles with itsnouns, like the 'nglish word "the". 8onenient as it seems to us, the =omans seemed to manage perfectlywell without it*.

7=1&1F&9 include the group "he, she, it, they, that one, this one here" etc. $hey are an odd class inthemseles, sometimes being written like nouns, sometimes by their own pattern )dating back to !ndo'uropean times*, $hey are often called irregular in the manuals, which means that they will be difficult toremember. -ut they are uite common in use, so one #ust has to learn them on their own terms.

7A=$!8!7L'9 hae nounad#ectie endings grafted onto erb roots, sometimes used descriptiely asad#ecties. or sometimes as nouns. $hey correspond to the 'nglish words ending in "ing" when useddescriptiely, as "running, dancing" etc. )-ut do not confuse these with the 'nglish nouns like "running", asin the phrase "=unning is healthy", which is a Latin Gerund5* 7articiples compare with the "running nose"and the "oerflowing cup". As an e+ample: seuentes "following plural sub#ect", as in "following theherd", but also in many cases the allied nounidea of "followers". !n short participles are erbal ad#ecties,sometimes used as erbal nouns.

!&'9 are much like 'nglish "to loe" "to hear" etc. $hey go along with erbs but often are used inspecial constructions to denote uoted or hearsay information )!ndirect 0iscourse, which is complicated, ofwhich more later*. !nfinities can be used as nouns, as "to hear is good", although this use is not common,since there is a great plenty of abstract nouns which do the same thing more clearly.

7='


7/68

regular 8lassical authors. =emember that the Latin we hae is the result of four centuries of "purificationand standardi(ation" by generations of schoolmamsters in the period of the 'mpire before E33 A.0.. !n theanuscripts and !nscriptions are hundreds of ariants which stem from common usage, e.g. "dait" for dediin a E th c. !nscr., or the list of "wrong forms" in the standardi(ingAppendi+ 7robi.-ut the Latin we learn ischool is the "standardi(ed" ersion, #ust as our school


8/68

The Noun System

&1F&9, across the board, hae three orientations, e+pressed, as we noted before, by fusedon endings.$hese functions are:

;. G'&0'=C9'H: )masculine, feminine and neuter*, applies basically to men women and things, but igreatly e+tended into "grammatical se+uality", so that some classes of things fall uite arbitrarily intse+classes. ost of these arbitrary se+connections must simply be learned by e+perience, as inmost other !ndo'uropean and modern 'uropean languages.

@. &F-'= , or the distinction between singular and plural. )9ome languages hae a "dual" categoryof which Latin has only estiges, e.g. ambo, duo, where the long o is an !ndo'uropean dual.*

. 8A9' )the traditional term, and conenient* is actually syntactical relationship of the noun to othererbal elements in the sentence. $he cases in Latin are si+ in the singular form, and an eual numberin the plural. $hey are gien here in the traditional order )so that you can use standard grammaticalreference books*:

o a* 9F-'8$ )traditional &ominatie so named by the old =oman schoolmasters in Latin*.

$his means the word is the actor or doer in the sentence, and corresponds to the first of theregular three element seuence )sub#ecterbob#ect* which 'nglish adopted a thousand yearago after the loss of its inherited caseendings. 9o in the phrase "6enry kicks


9/68

present when used with the preposition cum "with"5 $here is nothing straightforward aboutthis case5

!n outline then, to make it a bit more clear, we hae something like this:

9!&GFLA= 7LF=AL&ominatie 9ub#ect 9ub#ectGenitie 7ossessie 7ossessie0atie "toCfor" "toCfor"Accusatie 1b#ect 1b#ectAblatie "fromCbyCin" "fromCbyCin">ocatie "hey there"9eeral things desere one more word. $he >ocatie e+ists only in the singular of masculine 8lass !! nounswhich you will see below, so generally you will hae fie cases in the singular rather than si+. And in theplural of all classes )see below* the 0atie and Ablatie plurals hae one form, hence plurals will hae onlyfour case forms. Asymmetry in language is normal, although some languages like $urkish hae crystallineregularity....


10/68

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative nauta nautae

Genitive nautae nautarum

Dative nautae nautis

Accusative nautam nautas

A!lative naut$ nautis

See the exhaustiveList of asculine nouns in the


11/68

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative vir viri

Genitive viri virorum

Dative viro viris

Accusative virum viros

A!lative viro viris

!n some 0ecl. !! nouns the nominatie ends in r, historically by loss of the owel in a protoform irus ,)cf. Lithuanian yras* by consolidation of rs )not acceptable as a sound in Latin* as r, giing ir "man"5

-ut the other forms are normal, e.g. gen.sg. iri.

See7articularities of the 9econd 0eclension.

The Third Declension

$here are many stemtypes in this third declension, some ending in p, others in a guttural as g or c,dentals in t or d. $he $hird 0eclension is in a sense a catchall for arious stemtypes, and can be eryconfusing. !t can hae words of seeral genders. -ut it is the similarity of the endings which binds all thesedisparate words together. =emember a word belongs to a gien 0eclension class, there are no differences inmeaning other than appearance and gender in the fie noun classes.

6ere are some typical e+amples in the $hird 0eclension:

CLASS: Noun III Declension, asc. "(ing"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative re) reges

Genitive regis regum

Dative regi *i+ long regi!us

Accusative regem reges-regis

A!lative rege regi!us

CLASS: Noun III Declension, asc. "sol'ier"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative miles milites

Genitive militis militum

Dative militi militi!us

Accusative militem milites

A!lative milite militi!us

CLASS: Noun III Declension, asc "lea'er"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative 'u) 'uces

Genitive 'ucis 'ucum

Dative 'uci 'uci!usAccusative 'ucem 'uces

A!lative 'uce 'uci!us

CLASS: Noun III Declension, Neut. "ea'"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative caut caita

Genitive caitis caitum

Dative caiti caiti!us

Accusative caut caita

A!lative caite caiti!us

;;
http://z/users/ricardo/Grammar/Latin-Declension_2nd.html#Particularitieshttp://z/users/ricardo/Grammar/Latin-Declension_2nd.html#Particularities


12/68

CLASS: Noun III Declension, asc. "&ater"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative ater atres

Genitive atris atrum

Dative atri atri!us

Accusative atrem atres

A!lative atre atri!us

CLASS: Noun III Declension, Neut. "!o'/"

SINGULAR PLURALNominative corus corora

Genitive cororis cororum

Dative corori corori!us

Accusative corus corora

A!lative corore corori!us

CLASS: Noun III Declension, asc. "&ire" *i+stem

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative ignis ignes

Genitive ignis ignium

Dative igni igni!us

Accusative ignem ignis-es

A!lative igni-e igni!us

CLASS: Noun lll Declension, Fem. "cit/"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative ur!s ur!es

Genitive ur!is ur!ium

Dative ur!i ur!i!us

Accusative ur!em ur!is-es

A!lative ur!e ur!i!us

!n this $hird 0eclension there are also many irregular paradigms. Let me note a few of the more commonones here. $he best way to get the gist of these is to look up in your dictionary these nominatie forms, andobsere carefully the genitie which is always gien. $his genitie gies the clue to the formation of most othe other forms. -asically you hae to learn these irregulars by e+perience and use:

bos : bois caro : caronis domus : domMs. iter : itineris ni+ : niis os : ossis sene+ : senis sus : suis is : )pl. ires*.

Seemore on theparticularities of the rd declensiion.

The Fourth Declension

$he


13/68

8onfusing, but in te+ts the conte+t almost always makes the use uite clear.)$he circumfle+ accent oersome owels indicates that they are long, since this electronic format lacks the macron*.

CLASS: Noun I0 Declension, asc. "la(e"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative lacus lac1s

Genitive lac1s lacuum

Dative lacui lacu!us

Accusative lacum lac1s

A!lative lac1 lacu!us

CLASS: Noun I0 Declension, Fem. "an'"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative manus man1s

Genitive man1s manuum

Dative manui-u mani!us

Accusative manum man1s

A!lative man1 mani!us

$he common word for "house" domus is


14/68

Genitive 'iei 'ierum

Dative 'iei 'ie!us

Accusative 'iem 'ies

A!lative 'ie 'ie!us

See 7articularities of the 0eclensions.

An Ecursus on !"o#el Length!

$his is a good point to discuss something which we hae been aoiding, the fact that some owels are"long" while others are "short".

$he long owels are marked with a macron aboe in dictionaries and in highschool te+tbooks, but wereneer marked by the =omans in their manuscripts, no do we note them in printed Latin te+ts. !n the old daysstudents were drilled for knowledge of the longs and shorts, in Germany it was traditional to hae thestudent make hand motions to indicate longs, but this was a poor substitute for proper pronunciation in the

classroom. 8uriously many Latin teacher don%t like to read Latin aloud, thus missing the pleasure of hearingthe nuances of poetry and also engraining the ocabulary in the students% minds.


15/68

The Ad$ecti%e and Ad%er&

The Ad$ecti%es

Ad#ecties are descriptie words which attach themseles to nouns and tell us something more about theirnature. All ad#ecties are in form really nouns, that is they hae the same endings as nouns by and large, andthey fall into two classes:

'lass I( Ad$ecti%es &ased on Declensions I and II

FE)ININE

CLASS: A'2ective % Declension, Fem. "goo'"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative !ona !onae

Genitive !onae !onarum

Dative !onae !onis

Accusative !onam !onas

A!lative !ona. !onis

)AS'*LINE CLASS: A'2ective %I Declension, asc. "goo'"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative !onus !oniGenitive !oni !onorum

Dative !ono !onis

Accusative !onum !onos

A!lative !ono !onis

NE*TE+ CLASS: A'2ective II Declension, Neut. "goo'"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative !onum !ona

Genitive . .

Dative . .

Accusative !onum !ona

A!lative . .

)$he unlisted neuter forms are e+actly the same as the asc.*

'lass II( Ad$ecti%es &ased on Declensions III

any ad#ecties fall into this second ad#ectie class, based on noun 8lass !!!. 9ince there is such a arianceof stems and appearances, ! will gie a few e+amples:

CLASS: AD34C5I04 III Declension, "!rave"

SINGULAR PLURAL

;B


16/68

Nominative &ortis *&orte &ortes *&ortia

Genitive &ortis &ortium

Dative &orti &orti!us

Accusative &ortem *&orte &ortes *&ortia

A!lative &orte &orti!us

)$he bracketed forms are neuters, the others are asc.


17/68

;. An ad#ectie must "agree" i.e. hae parallel structure in its endings, with the noun it goes with, inrespect to se+Cgender )masc. fem. neut.*

@. An ad#ectie must "agree" in &umber, i.e. singular or plural. -ut this does not apply to the &oun0eclension concinnity, they are all euals in terms of agreement.

. An ad#ectie must match in 8ase, as listed in the description of noun and ad#ectie forms, i.e.sub#ect, possessie, tofor )datie*, 1b#ect, Ablatie and the rare >ocatie when it occurs.

$his sounds complicated but the idea is simple: !f you are going to use tag endings to identify functions, youtag alike things which intellectually go together in the phrase or sentence. 6ence bonorum consiliorum "ofgood counsels", arce $ulli "6ey, arcus $ullius", malae sententiae "eil thoughts" these pairs makeperfect sense. $hey are grammatically "matched pairs".

)A sharp eye might notice that in the phrase arce $ulli, something is wrong, because it might well haebeen arce $ullie. A subrule states that masculine names in ius hae a >ocatie ending simply in i,probably as a condensation of a historical $ullie which does not occur.*

! mention the aboe e+ample here to adise you that ! am not going to note unusual e+ceptions and rareforms for you at this stage of our introduction. We are trying to get the general features firmly grasped, andyou can learn the e+ceptions later. Nou will find a list of all the e+ceptions you are likely to find in astandard grammar )Allen / Greenough...*. =emember that although Latin is by and large standardi(ed)although it can seem irregular* there are many e+ceptions to rules which are in themseles the rule in earlyLatin, common parlance Latin , >ulgar Latin )which is not "ulgar"*, 8hurch Latin, edieal Latin,9cholastic Latin, and een =enaissance Latin. !t is no surprise to find the 7erfect "dait" for dedit in a late!nscription.

The !Grades! of Ad$ecti%es

Ad#ecties hae three grades )this scaling is called the 8omparison of Ad#ecties traditionally*, as follows:

;* $he base or regular ad#ectial form, which we hae been discussing aboe.

@* $he "comparing" stage, which is similar to 'nglish "more" when there is something real or implied tocompare the word to, i.e. "this tree is taller than that". -ut it is important to note that if no comparison ispresent, this form is like 'nglish "rather...", this "this tree is rather tall....". !t is this second use )withoutcomparison* which confuses the student most.

!n form this class follows class !! Ad#ecties, with no distinction between masculine and feminine forms )onthe left in the following e+amples*, while neuter endings are in brackets.

&ote that the Acc. 7l. always ends in es ) but 0ecl. !!! nouns hae alternate forms: long isCes*.

CLASS: Comarative a'2. "!raver",

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative &ortior *+ius &ortiores *+iora

Genitive &ortioris &ortiorum

Dative &ortiori &ortiori!us

Accusative &ortiorem *+ius &ortiores *+iora

A!lative &ortiore &ortiori!us

;K


18/68

!n this case the comparatie forms are based on the regular wordstem, fort .CLASS: Comarative A'2. "goo'-!etter" !onus melior

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative melior *+ius meliores *+iora

Genitive melioris meliorum

Dative meliori meliori!us

Accusative meliorem *+ius meliores *+iora

A!lative meliore. meliori!us

-ut in this case, as often in commonly used words, the comparatie is based on entirely different stem, infact it is a different word "suppleted" to go into that linguistic space. $his should be no surprise to speakersof 'nglish who are well accustomed to "goodCbetter", let along "goCwent" and many other similar oddities.

$here is a group of uite common words which are irregular, and which you will hae to learn by e+periencas you read. Who could eer guess that "good, better, best" would be in Latin bonus....melior....optimus...?)-ut look back at the 'nglish... goodCbetter*.

A list of the most commonly seen comparaties )with the superlaties, discussed below* is:

!onus melior otimus

malus eior essimusmagnus maior ma)imus

arvus minor minimus

multus lus lurimus

multi lures lurimi *o& ersons

ne6uam *in'ecl. ne6uior ne6uissimus

&rugi *in'ecl. &rugior &rugissimus

A few words are found in 8omparatie and 9uperlatie without a "positie", namely:ocior ocissimus "swift" and the common potior potissimus "powerful".

* $he "most" stage, somewhat gaudily titled the "superlatie" in traditionalese grammar, is much easier todeal with since it is uite regular in its forms:

!n form it regularly follows class !


19/68

arvus minor minimus

multus lus lurimus

multi lures lurimi *o& ersons

ne6uam *in'ecl. ne6uior ne6uissimus

&rugi *in'ecl. &rugior &rugissimus

The Ad%er&s

Aderbs are basically ad#ectial forms which are matched up with erbs, rather than nouns. $hey "modify",that is, they e+plain and further deelop a erbal concept, hence they "go with" the erb and were so namedby the =oman grammarians: pro O erbum "near or beside the erb", a neat term in fact. -ut aderbs do notgrammatically agree with the erb they match, nor are they fused on so as to become one word with theerb. Aderbs hae one, fi+ed form, hence they are easy to deal with for an 'nglish speaker, since they areanalogous to 'nglish aderbs, which also hae a single, fi+ed form. Aderbs are listed in the dictionaries as"undecl." or undeclined, fi+ed forms.

;* $he most common class of aderbs ends in e, and is deried from 0ecl. !C!! Ad#ectial formation:

-eside the Ad#ectie bellus bella bellum "pretty" we hae the Ad. belle "nicely, cutely"

)$his last word "bell" is not the word for "war", which is identical. Latin has the same identity problems aseery language, cf. 'nglish lead )the erb form: to lead etc.* as well as lead "plumbum, the metallicelement". *

-eside bona bonus bonum we would e+pect bone, but we get bene, the owel phonetically shifted by use.-ut the basic rule stands: Ad#ecties in "us a, um" make an aderb in e, and this includes the "most" m o9uperlatie grade in issimus a um, which make aderbs by the same rule: issime. "most....ly"

@* Ad#ecties which normally occur in our 8lass !! Ad#ecties )like 8lass !!! nouns* regularly take the

ending ter, which makes an aderb #ust as well, and with no difference in meaning from the aboe.

9o fortis "brae" gies fortiter "braely". $his class is common and pretty regular, no special problems

* -ut if you want to make an aderb from a "more" )comparatie* ad#ectial form, you don%t use this terending, but use instead the comparatie neuter form #ust as it stands.

9o from the grade normal ad#. tristis "sad", you make the "more" comparatie up as tristior "sadder or rathersad", and then the aderb will be the same as the neuter singular in ius:

tristius "rather sadly, or more sadly".

-ut this can also be a straight neuter ad#ectial form going with some neuter noun in the sentence, so inreading you might consider both options. Authors, then as now, are usually conscious of ambialencies, andcommon sense usually cuts the Gordian knot.

E* Ad#ecties in the "most" or superlatie grade will always be of the 8lass ! C!! Ad#ecties with a us umendings, whether regular or irregular and so will use the simple and easily recogni(able Aderb ending e,used in the first group listed aboe. $he root and the appearance of the word may change but the ending wil#ust as you e+pect: e.

;2


20/68

B* Within the formal class of aderbs is a bagful of words which are #ust plain rootwords with no formal taending. 1ne might mention cras "tomorrow", mane "early in the A", tot "so many", as well as the sentencconnectors enim "indeed." uippe "to be sure )sarcastic*", autem "on the other hand" and many more. Noulook each up in a dictionary, each is a word with a meaning, and that%s all there is to it.

@3


21/68

The Pronouns

$he pronouns were so named by the =oman schoolmasters because they were in a way nouns, and yet theywere not nouns, but stood "for nouns", hence were called in Latin: pro nomine "for a noun" . -ut the realdifference is not really conceptual, it is totally practical. $he pronouns hae a bewildering array of oddforms, blind ends and complete non seuiturs. $hey are indeed another class of declension, a class untothemseles, and the best way ! can introduce you to them is to ask you to read carefully the descriptionsbelow and the e+amples. Look oer the forms, try to see some order in their array, and then restudy mycomments in this section. Nou can learn them by rote or by heart, but in fact you will see them so freuentlyas soon as you get to reading a real te+t, that you will find they are less of a problem than you might think atfirst sight.

;* $he pronouns as a class coer a ariety of concepts:

a* $he personal words, "!, you, he, she, they." $hese are ery ancient forms and clearly go back to the !ndo'uropean stage of linguistic deelopment. ! could e+plain them to you in terms of 6istorical Linguistics, buthe e+planation would be more complicated than the phenomenon, which is complicated enough already. !fyou wonder why the word ego "me" switches root in the plural to nos "us", compare the 'nglish, and notethat "we" can be either !nclusie or '+clusie, which really are ery different ideas.

!n form we find une+pected and irregular &ominatie 9ingulars, the Genitie 9ing. in ius, the 0atie9ingular in i, which formsoccur only here. $he rest is pretty reasonable and follows the standard nounformations. )!f interested in the historical background of the pronouns, consult 8 0 -uck%s 8omparatieGrammar of Greek and Latin for a full treatment in terms of 6istorical Linguistics.*

CLASS: Personal Pronoun ego

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative ego nos

Genitive mei nostrum

Dative mii no!is

Accusative me nos

A!lative me no!is

1f course "we" is not really the "plural" of "me", despite enander%s "What is a friend? Another '."5 $heconcepts are really different and uite naturally the wordstems are also different.

CLASS: Personal Pronouns tu

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative tu vos

Genitive tui vestrum

Dative ti!i vo!is

Accusative te vos

A!lative te vo!is

@;


22/68

$here is also a =efle+ie 7ronouns , se "...self" which is in common use:

CLASS: Noun Declension,

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative *ise isa isum Same as sg. &or lur.

Genitive sui

Dative si!i

Accusative se

A!lative se

b* $he "who" words follow a different pattern.


23/68

Genitive unius

Dative uni

Accusative unum

A!lative uno

d* $here is a special set of words used for persons, usually called $he 0emonstratie 7ronouns, since theypoint at )demonstrare* a person actiely. $hey are:

is ic ille iste

!s )fem. ea, and the neuter id*, "heCsheCit" is rather colorless much like 'nglish "he, she, it". !t merely refersand has no special emphasis.

)Where only two forms are gien below, they are ascC


24/68

e* A do(en additional words are made up from the ui, uis, uid base, and you you will find these in astandard grammar all listed together. $hey are uite specific in meaning )"anyone, whosoeer, is there any?any.. .you please, who in the world, anybody at all, whoeer you wish, each one." -est learn these as youcome across them in a te+t, rather than try to memori(e them first.

$he problem is that these words all look pretty much alike, and it is difficult for the beginner to rememberwhich is which. 1nly practice and e+tensie reading helps this uandary, although ! would urge you tosingle out uisue "each one" as essentially different from the others in meaning, and absolutelyunguessable unless you know it for sure. Puisue hoc sciat bene "let each person know this pointwell"....maybe memori(e that. -ut the forms are merely uis O ue, Gen 9g. cuius O ue, etc. $he forms areno trouble, it is the meaning that is so different from the rest of thse "who" words.

$he "refle+ie" pronoun, ipse "himself, herself, itself...." follows the patterns of ille fairly closely, as doesthe common pronoun idem "the same.." which is shortened from an original isdem, so it follows that idemwill hae the forms of is ea id, with a final dem tacked on.

CLASS: Pronoun ise "..sel&"

SINGULAR PLURAL

Nominative ise isa isum isi isae isaGenitive isius isorum isarum

Dative isi isis

Accusative isum isam isum isos isas isa

A!lative iso isa isis

f* $he pronoun root u is found in many other Latin words, e.g. uo )where C how*, ubi, from uobhi)where, when*, ua )in what direction* .

-ut with a different sense we hae uam "than", which is used in comparisons much like the 'nglish "than")$his is an alternate to the regular way of making a comparison, using the "comparatie" form of thead#ectie with the Ablatie for the compared item.* Look these oer carefully.

ake special note of uam "than" as used with ad#ectial comparatie forms, continuing the case of thecompared pair:

6ic est altior uam ille "he is taller than the other one", a ery different use from the comparatie #oinedwith an "ablatie of comparison" as in:ille est altior arco "he is taller than arcus".-ut the meanings of these two entirely different constructions are the same.

@E


25/68

Brief +e%ie# of the Noun, Ad$ecti%e and Pronouns

At this point you should stop and try to picture in your mind what we hae been discussing , since only whais ionstantly aailable in your memorybank is going to be useful in reading. 9ooner or later the followingstatements should become pellucidly apparent to you, on a moment%s notice.

$he danger at this point is to adopt terminology for which the concepts are not completely clear, and there isthat other danger of doubling all the data, the word itself and its parsingterminology. 7arsing orgrammatical identification is a techniue for when you get into trouble, but not for eeryday reading use.

$here are words as a carrier of meaning, but for each word a set of grammatical )parsing* terms whichdefine the word. 6oweer the word also has a meaning aside from the terminology. !t was precisely on thisground that Aristotle faulted 7lato%s theory of ideas on the ground that it doubled all the entries: the thing,and the idea for the thing.

1ne danger is clear: ergleichende Grammatik.....usw.l23E, but this becomes a different discipline in its ownright as Linguistics.

&1F&9 hae functions as follows:

9ingular and 7lural. 8ases:

;* 9ub#ect@* 7ossessie* $ofor

@B


26/68

E* 1b#ectB* Ablatie )from in with* 4* >ocatie )estigially*.$hese cases can also be called:

9ub#ect, 7ossessie, !ndirect 1b#ect, 0irect 1b#ect, Ablatie, and )when it occurs* >ocatie.

1r in traditional terms, to suit you or your conseratie teacher or grammar book, we can call them:

&ominatie, Genitie, 0atie, Accusatie, Ablatie, and >ocatie

A0'8$!>'9 hae two upstaged or intensified forms:

a* $he "more" form )comparatie always with ior following noun 8lass !!! but with a neuter sub#.Cob#.singular ius. )$here are irregular phenomena in this group, a word to the wise...*

b* $he "most" form )9uperlatie* in issimus a um, or a phonetic simplification of this, followingAd#ectie 8lass ! )or noun 8lasses ! !! and !!!.

A0>'=-9 are formed from ad#ecties either:

a* Adding Re" to a 8lass ! ad#ectie

b* Adding ter to a 8lass !! ad#ectie

c* Going the way of all roots, and simply using a word without ending, which means for all purposes findinga dictionary item, not a form class.

When aderbs are upstaged to the 8omparatie state, they do this:

a* $hey use a form in ius which is the neuter of the comparable stage of the ad#ectie. '.g. tristius "modesadly, rather sadly"

b* $hey use the regular e common to 8lass ! ad#ecties stuck onto the issimus of the "most" superlatiegrade, or whateer phonetic ariant has sei(ed upon it with deterioration of the ss. 9o fortissime, butacerrime.

7=1&1F& is a general term coering words for" you me him", as well as "we and they", and also "this onehere, that one oer there, who, who? and whoeer" and artious other words which are found in thisheterogeneous class. Words in this group are ery much used, and ery irregular, but it is not as desperate asit seems. 8onstant use confers practice, and the irregularities seem to smooth out with e+perience. 8onsult adictionary carefully for &om. and Gen. sg. forms which outline the paradigm fairly well, but do not

@4


27/68

e+pecting to "master" it all. 6old your breath until you get into reading some Latin prose, when the words inthis class will crop up like dandelions in spring. Nou W!LL recogni(e them.

@K


28/68

The Forms of the Latin "er&

>erbs are the heart of Latin stylistics. Latin uses erbs in a ariety of ways, while 'nglish of the presenttime, especially in America and specifically in science and te+tbook writing, e+presses itself largely in nounconcepts. 1ne might well suspect that the only lie erbs in 'nglish are those which #oin nouns to theirmodifiers, and this produces often a stiff and unyielding te+tbook style.

&ot so Latin, which understands the flow and motility of erbal ideas, and with a relatiely full arsenal oferbal modifications, faces the world erbally...... actiely, as it turns out. $he clearest proof of thisdifference in the languages appears when you try to translate 'nglish into Latin, a reealing intellectuale+ercise. ocatie a erbal message is being addressed to someone.!n all these cases it is not the identity which is being considered, but the relationship of the person or thing tan action, which acts upon it, pushes it around, locates !t, or remoes it. !n this sense we might well definenouns, in addition to their basic root meanings, as haing certain basic kinds of functional relationships.

>'=-9 A=' 0!


29/68

schoolmasters gae them, presumably because they indicated something rather than implied ituncertainly. $he terms !ndicatie and 9ub#unctie are used in grammars, howeer we shouldunderstand the !ndicatie as the factual base, but the 9ub#unctie as an indicator of conditionalitychanged from the base forms of the !ndicatie.

$his conditionalCsub#unctie split is not unlike the 8onditional in =omance languages, although there aresome differences in usage. 8onditional states of action are not entirely familiar to 'nglish.


30/68

$echnicalities on terminology, for when you need them:

$he time seuences are called $enses.

$he actieCpassie differentiation is called >oice.

$he factualCconditional diision is called ode )specifically the !ndicatie mode s. 9ub#unctie mode inthe grammar manuals*.

$he endings which tell who did the action are called 7erson.

$he terms 9ingular and 7lural in their normal senses are formally called &umber.

9ince there are three persons with two numbers, si+ actie tenses and si+ passie tenses, along with fourconditional actie tenses and four passies, and furthermore the erbs are congregated into four basic8lasses )8on#ugations*, you can see that there are many forms to be learned, in fact a eritable multitude.)8alculate the number yourself, you may be be shocked ...?*

-ut there are many internal resemblances, many forms are generated uite automatically out of simpleprinciples, and een the comple+ ones are often seen as deelopments of a few handfuls of ideas. )1n theother hand there are irregular erbs, and uite a list of irrational patternchanges, so the number of forms tobe learned goes up again. 1n the other hand, your brain is more than adeuate for recogni(ing myriad factand detail.* Language is a uniersal human inention which works efficiently with the braincapacity of aminimally functioning member of a society. 9o after all, in learning a new and comple+ language system,there is really little to fear5

'on$ugations

!n the erb the four main classes )8on#ugations* show real similarities, with only a few striking differences.$he e+amples of the four classes are all laid out in one "paradigm" below, so you can see similarities anddifferences at a glance. Learning the erb as a whole, you will see a fairly uniform system of e+pression, ansince your task is recognition, not recall, learning the Latin erb is not as hard as it might seem.

1n the other hand, 'nglish speakers regularly get into trouble by grasping at the root, assuming a clearbasic meaning as in 'nglish, and often they try to guess the comple+ additie structure of the endings)inflection* the erb by intuition. =emember this ery important point:

Words in Latin are compounded out of arious meaningful components, and nowhere is this more essentialto grasp than in the erbal system.

At this point we are going to present you with a tableau of the Latin erb, listing one form for each functionin all four classes )or 8on#ugations*, starting with the basic !ndicatie or factual erb )in the actie oice ormode* and in the present tense.

The Present Tense

3


31/68

Present 5ense, Active, In'icative

I II II I0

amo moneo 'uco au'io

amas mones 'ucis au'is

amat monet 'ucit au'it

amamus monemus 'ucitis au'imus

amatis monetis 'ucitis au'itis amant monent 'ucunt au'iunt

$here are seeral important differences among these four 8lasses of 8on#ugations )classes* of the Latinerb:

: root in i.

$hese characteristic root owels will appear later in other forms, which is why ! mention them at this pointas a matter of definition.

;


32/68

$his is a conenient point to stop for a moment as try to make some general obserations on what we haebeen watching in the 7resent and !mperfect tenses.

+t

P% % +mus = +tis > +nt

!n the present classes only the owel before the endings change in fact that owel "belongs" to the root andwont change at all. And the only difference in the endingsystem between present and imperfect, again in alclasses, is that the present ; sg. is o, while the !mperfect ; sg. is m.

$he sure sign of an imperfect tense in any class is ba inserted between the root and the ending. )&ote that iis specifically ba, since there is another use resered for bi in the


33/68

can accept this as another irregularity, or think, as ! do, that it is actually a present ; sg. sub#unctie)conditional* borrowed into this category because of the nearrelationship of conditionality and futurity:

audiam "!%d bear", audies "you%ll hear"&ote a similar acillation in 'nglish "! shall" beside "you will". $eachers in grade school see all sorts ofsubtle differences in meaning, but the populace uses the forms both ways, apparently without much sense ofdifference.

The Perfect Tense

&ow we approach the 7ast tenses as such, $he 7erfect 9ystem, so called after the Latin terminology"7erfect", since perfectum in Latin means "completely done, or finished". $here is nothing perfect about thitense, sporting a handful of odd irregularities, which actually are traces of a more ancient stage of thelanguage.

I II III I0

amavi monui 'u)i au'ivi

amavisti monuisti 'u)isti au'ivisti

amavit monuit 'u)i au'ivit amavimus monuimus 'u)imus au'ivimus

amavistis monuistis 'u)istis au'ivistis

amaverunt-+ere monuerunt-+ere 'u)erunt-+ere au'iverunt-+ere

6ere is a disconcerting situation in regard to the endings:

$he familiar oCm ; sg ending has been replaced by i $he s of the @ sg has been e+tended somehow and is now isti $he t remains, as does the mus of the ; st plural. -ut the old tis of the @ plural is conerted to istis )presumably by analogy with the isti of the @ sg

which seems strange, but is reasonable enough since language loes analogy* $he plural erunt would gie us a nice parallel with preious forms we hae been seeing, but the

alternate form ere looks like nothing else belonging to the perfect. !n fact, is is a lookalike for aninfinitie, which you will be seeing soon enough, so note it well now. Nou will trip oer this as soonas you begin to read, ! am sure.

$his one tense, the 7erfect, is odd and irregular and it is ancient in origin, but fortunately no other tense inthe erb system is like it. 7robably best memori(e it right off, know it cold, and try to recall in which way itis different from the other tenses.

The Plu-erfect Tense

$he ne+t tense, going backwards in time still further, is the "ore $han 7erfect", which is precisely what th7luperfect or %plus uam perfectum %actually means. 9ome 'nglish grammars use the term 7ast7erfect, butthis doesn%t really say anything , so we might as well accede to the $raditionalists and call this tense the7luperfect. =emember that it refers to past time before the 7erfect, and is pretty much the same as 'nglish"he had loed, he had warned, he had led, he had heard". $here should be no trouble with the meaning, andthe forms are straightforward too:

I II III I0

amaveram monueram 'u)eram au'iveram

amaveras monueras 'u)eras au'iveras


34/68

amaverat monuerat 'u)erat au'iverat

amaveramus monueramus 'u)eramus au'iveramus

amaveratis monueratis 'u)eratis au'iveratis

amaverant monuerant 'u)erant au'iverant

$he endings of the 7luperfect obtain in all classes, nothing could be more direct. $he signature syllable ofthis tense, right before the endings is always era, and there are no irregularities. 'nough said, and we canpass on to the last tense in the actie erb series, the


35/68

8lass !l! can add s as sign of the 7erfect, an ancient !ndo'uropean practice, as seen in the s or sigmaticaorists in Greek . any !ndo'uropean languages go this path, while the or u of the first two classes isprobably a Latin inention. &ote that + as in du+i is a graphemic representation of ducsi.

-ut other words in this class make their perfects in others ways. Let take a few of the common types:

iungo "#oin, yoke.." perf. iun+i

$his is nothing more than the s fused with the g of the stem, and written as the compound letter + whicis gCk O s.

venio "come" *sort +e+ v;ni *long +e+

&acio "'o" &;ci

6ere we hae a prime e+ample of an ancient !ndo 'uropean "ablaut" process )the German term is used inlinguistics as more conenient than >owel Gradation*, a owelchange system, which uses differentiationbetween long and short owels to signal grammatical change. !t can also change the owel color as eCo, inthe grammatical use of Ablaut shifting.

-ut also note comple+ perfect formations like tundo "beat", with its perfect: tutudi

$his shows two features:


36/68

The Infiniti%es

$he !nfinities are a handful of fi+ed forms like 'nglish "to........"

$he !nfinitie is a form of the erb which seems to hae been stripped of almost eerything thatcharacteri(es a erb: !t lacks person identification, it lacks the singularCplural distinction, its time seuence ery restricted since it has only a present and a past form, but it does at least hae a real actie as well as apassie distinction. !t knows nothing of being factual or conditional )sub#unctie*, in fact it is ery a erypoor e+cuse for a erb5 )!n its actie forms, present and past, the infinitie was historically a datie singularin the noun group.*

1n the other hand the !nfinitie is easy enough for an 'nglish speaker to understand, since in one of its moscommon uses it is translated as "to...." :

amare "to love"

monere "to 8arn"

'ucere "to lea'"

au'ire "to ear".

When you see an infinitie first think or 'nglish "to...." and you will be started on the right track. -ut thereare some differences too:

!n 'nglish we say "! wantto do something....", but this is not the infinitie in Latin, where you must, afteideas of wanting, wishing, desiring etc. say something like "! want that you should )conditional* do

something", with ut O the 9ub#unctie. We are dealing with a purposie statement, and clauses of purposeare not infinities )what they are we will get to soon enough...*.

After erbs which say something, think something, maintain and claim something, and others of similarmentalCerbal character, an infinitie is used in the natural seuence of ideas, in a clause which we call!ndirect 0iscourse:

8lamat eum iniustum fuisse... is literally "he yells that he )someone else* was un#ust", and immediately wenote that we hae dropped the prototypical "to..." )which ! said aboe infinities had*, and we slipped in anine+plicable "that" for our 'nglish translation. !n other words we turned our infinitie into a "that"introduced )subordinate* statement clause. Why did we hae to do this?

Well, the alternatie in 'nglish would hae been: "6e yells him to hae been un#ust", which is pigeon'nglish at best. 9o here again the seemingly similar 'nglish "to" is not always the euialent of a Latininfinitie.

"$o do or to die...." ? !n fact this is perfect Latin. =ephrased the infinitie can be understood to be a noun inthe sub#ect case. 0ulce et decorum pro patria mori, said 6orace, meaning "9weet and right to die for yourcountry", a notion which is being uestioned after >ietnam for the first time in our history.

4


37/68

)1=! is an infinitie, it is the sub#ect obiously, and it is considered neuter, as the two words dulce 8lass!!! neuter, and decorum 8lass !! neuter, show.*

9o here is the infinitie in another guise: &euter substitute for a sub#ect case noun, which would be a eryodd idea e+cept for the fact that 'nglish does it too.

$he forms of the !nfinitie as noted, are not many:

I II III I0

Pres. amare monere 'ucere au'ire

Per&. amavisse monuisse 'u)isse au'ivisse

$hat is pretty straightforward, the present forms hae an ending re in all classes, the past forms takewhateer stem the erb had in its 7erfect tense, and add the easily recogni(able syllable isse to it. eaningis clear too: "$o loe" is the present, "to hae loed" is the past.

Eam-le:

Amaisse bene est, melius amare "!t is good to hae loed, better to be in loe%.

&ote ! translated bene "well" as "good" which is an ad#ectie ad#ecties amplifying an infinitie are alwaysaderbs, because of the erbal core of the infinitie concept, a minor detail.

&ow these forms also e+ist in the 7assie, which we hae not shown you yet, but since it is conenient toput down the passie infinities here on this page, here they are:

)We will go back and to the rest of the erb in the passies after our e+cursus on infinities and participles.*

I II III I0

Pres. amari moneri 'uci au'iri

Per&. amatum esse monitus esse 'uctus esse au'itus esse

$he present passie infinities thus hae an ending ri in three of the classes, but 8lass !!! duci isgrammatically circumcised, and fails to show the infinitiecharacteristic r sound. !t doesn%t look like apassie infinitie at all, so note it ery carefully, because it will fool you time and again, especially since inthis case it e+actly resembles the tofor )datie* singular of a noun form, duci "to the leader", from du+ "il0uce". any irregular forms are pu((ling, this one is like a chameleon.

$he past passie infinities are new looking, but they are easy to spot. $hey use the present infinitie esse"to be" as a separate word #oined with , or actually following the perfect passie participle of the erb. $hetwo together make a "periphrastic" e+cuse for a past passie infinitie, which Latin did not originally hae.We hae a right to call this periphrastic, which in Greek means "round about talking" and is a uite accurateif obscure term for this form. 8lumsy as a three barreled shotgun, these forms are actually much used, andone gets used to them, noting that they are passie infinities, &1$ past participles with a erb "to be"floating around in their wake.

K


38/68

The Partici-les

7articiples, are ad#ecties with regular nounCad#ectie endings in a pattern now familiar to you, e+cept forthe fact that they use as their stem not normal noun roots, but the root of a erb. $hey are erb roots withnoun endings, and the Latin word for participle )particeps "taking part, sharing"* refers precisely to this.$hey correspond pretty much to the 'nglish participles in ing: loing, warning, leading, hearing.

$he Latin word "participle", from partem and capio, means "taking part, sharing", and this is the term the=omans used for this class of words. !t is uite logical as a description, since 7articiples do share the root ofthe erb and the endings of the noun. Another way of thinking about them would be to call them erbalnounCad#ecties, and this is #ust about how they work.

'+amples: if we take the root ama, from the erb amo, infinitie amare and put onto it a set of 8lass !!!speciali(ed endings with a t suffi+, we get:

The Present Acti%e Partici-le

Masculine / Feminine NeuterSing. subj. amans amans

poss. amantis to-for amanti obj. amantem amans abl. amante

Plur. subj. amantes amantiaPoss. amantum

to-for amanti!us obj. amantes amantia

With 8lass !!! nouns, masculine and feminine are not usually distinguished, and the neuters are separateonly in the forms we hae gien )sub#Cob#*, and they show no sub#ectCob#ect differentiation, althoughsingular and plural are distinguished. &ow if you hae a careful eye, you may think to yourself that you ha

discoered an omission in the aboe tabulation... Where is the ablatie plural? ! left it out on purpose, toremind you that in all plurals of all noun classes, the tofor 0aties and the Ablaties hae e+actly the sameform. $his may seem like pedagogic trickery at this point, but remember that when you are reading Latinte+ts, awareness of this identity must stay in some far corner of your mind:

amantibus can mean all of the following: "to the loers, for the loers, on the loers, from theloers".

9implification now aoids complication later.... such is the nature of language.

D


39/68

Nou notice that in the aboe paragraph ! translated amantibus as "loers", whereas you e+pected theparticiple to mean "loing", as in an 'nglish participle. Again a special caution is in order:

!n Latin any ad#ectie and eually any participle can be translated as an ad#ectie, but if the situationreuires, for e+ample if no conenient noun is around for it to attach itself to, it not only can but will betranslated as a noun. 9o 1id%s infamous line: 1mnis amans militat. . . which F9$ be translated "eeryloer is a soldier", proceeding with arms and strategy to confrontation and in the end... seduction. )Noucould also translate the phrase "eery loing one militates", which like many another academic phrase,would be correct but senseless.*

$he point here is that there are many oerlaps between noun and ad#ectie, as we saw before, and thisapplies also to participles. !t may come as a surprise that participles can hae forms working in a timeseuence, since 'nglish has only a present participle )in ing*. Latin has three other forms, twostraightforward and one elusie:

The Perfect Passi%e Partici-le

!n the 7erfect tense, there is a corresponding participle, which is found only in the passie. )A perfect actieparticiple is conceiable, Greek actually has #ust such a form, but in Latin there is none....neer ask why.*-ut we hae in Latin a 7erfect 7assie 7articiple )so listed in the traditional grammars or 777*, which ismuch simpler than its regal sounding title implies:

amatus is simply "loed )of a masculine*",amata "loed )of a feminine*" and so forth.$here are no problems of semantics, and the forms are made up in a correspondingly simple manner:

I II III I0

ama+tus moni+tus 'uc+tus au'i+tus

!n other words the present infinitie form without its characteristic re can in a general way be consideredthe form on which the 777 )perfect passie participle*, with regular endings tus ta tum, will be grafted.$wo e+ceptions:

An older 8lass !! monetus has been phonetically switched into monitus and the 8lass !!! form ducere getshortened to duc before getting its 777 graft, )ductus* since the short e of the third class is weak to beginwith and often disappears.

The Future Acti%e Partici-le

$he ne+t form, the ' 7articiple is easy to make up, you #ust take whateer you had in theaboe 777 class, and insert into it the syllable ru, as follows:

777 amatus gies, with this additional ru : amaturus, which is deeloped like the 777 )following 8lass !Ad#ecties*. -ut when we turn to the meaning, two problems come up immediately:

2


40/68

;* Amaturus is a future participle, and there is nothing like it in 'nglish. We don%t hae a form or semanticcategory for the idea "about to loe...", so there will be some pu((lement in translating.

@* Amaturus, which was so easily made up out of a passie perfect participle, participle, is not passie, butactie. -ut it has a "passie look", which causes problems..5

9o what does it actually mean? Amaturus sum means "! am about to loe", or possibly "beinggoingtoloe" if you can grasp that phrase. $he fact is that it is used in Latin fairly often, you will probably first thinit is a 777, and when you do identify it )as future actie participle* you will find you hae no familiarlinguistic niche in which to put it. Watch this one, it will desere attention.

1ne familiar e+ample might help: orituri te salutamus,"those about to die salute you..." the phrase calledout by the gladiators to the emperor before entering the 8oliseum arena. =emember the phrase and youremember the


41/68

$his one refers not to time, as the others do, but to "oughtness", the kind of thing which one is bound to do,one should do, one has to do. !n 'nglish we put such structures into the supplementary erb phrase: "Noureally 961FL0 do this....%, in Latin we hae a preference for doing it the other way around with aspeciali(ed participialCad#ectial ending:

"$his is a thing which )which* ought to be done...", is in Latin:hoc est gerundum.

9ince gero is 8lass !!! like duco, we take the root ger and add the longish endings undus )masc.* unda


42/68

The Gerund

&ow if the "gerundie" is a speciali(ed erbal ad#ectie implying "oughtness", the "gerund" will be a erbanoun, actually the neuter singular form of this class used as a noun. 1ccasionally you will find this neuterused as a noun, but ery occasionally, as in 6orace%s poetical phrase "why will you persist in destroying thissweet young boy "amando?", that is by loing him. $he gerund becomes a noun, in fact is an ad#ectie in th

neuter sering as an abstract noun, and amandum is not far different from the common noun amor, amoris"loe". $he only problem is that when you see this rarish form, you may think it is the more commongerundie, and since there is little distinction of form, you can be fooled. Qeep it in the back of your mind.

The Su-ines

A few more ery rare nounCerb forms e+ist, and ! will dedicate #ust one sentence to each:

;* $he 9upine )a ridiculous term meaning flat on your back, perhaps from ama(ement at the rarity of theform* ending in tum looks like a 777, perfect passie participle, in the neuter singular, but it is an obsoleteinfinitie type historically, and used rarely.)8ompare 9anskrit "gantum" %to go%, or Latin%s obsolete sisterlanguage 1scan "e(um" esse.*

@* $he 9upine in u is found rarely and only in heightened poetical usage. $his 9upine in u, is deried asif it were the ablatie of a 8lass !> noun formed on the stembasis of a 777. !t is used only in phrases like"mirabile dictu " remarkable in the saying, "horribile isu" "awful in the beholding, i.e. " awful to behold"$ranslating as an 'nglish infinitie will do the trick once you are secure in your recognition of e+istence ofthe 9upine inu. )! hae for many years called it priately the "9oupbone in u", and as a result my studenthae neer forgotten it een once.*

E@


43/68

The Im-erati%e

$his is the last group of minor erbal dependents, along with infinities, and participles, which we must deawith. !mperare in Latin means "gie an order", and !mperaties do #ust that. $hey look like this:

I II II IVSingular ama mone 'uc au'iPlural amate monete 'ucite au'ite

$hus the imperatie singular can be defined as the infinitie, as it were, without its final re, and this seresas the singular form in 8lasses ! !! and !>.

-ut remember the disappearing owel in the 777 ductus instead of ducitus? !t is #ust the same here, theimperatie in 8lass !!! is a brutal duc "lead on5".

$he plurals hae an ending te which might remind you of the normal @ plural actie form te, but it isdifferent, and resered for this imperatie use. >enite enite ad -ethlehem is of course type !>, from thecommon and irregular erb enio )not from a eno as if 8lass !!! like duco*.

$here are passie forms for the imperatie, but they are so rare and infreuent in use that ! don%t think ! haeto list them here.


44/68

reading, which is after all the cru+ of your learning Latin. 9o ! held the passie back.... !f you wondered,that%s why, 1Q?

;t should be easy to define the passie as an actie turned backwards, and sometimes that is e+actly what itis. 8atullus has a line about some young loers mutuis animis amant, amantur "with mutual minds theyloe )and* are loed." $hese plural present passie words are as simple and direct as the poet%s perception inthat loely 8atullan "sonnet" 7oem SEB.

-ut in a second class of words, the 0eponents )like reor "! think"* the passie function is not clear. We aredealing with a middle lee actually a iddle >oicel between actie and passie, wh#ich is not unlike=omanic language refle+ie erbs, although there are differences. 9o we translate these 0eponents as if thewere actie in meaning, despite the passie forms.

!n this class of the "0eponents", we hae passie erbs which are e+clusiely passie, that is they show noforms which would be an actie counterpart. We usually translate these erbs as acties, such as utor "use",fungor "make use of", fruor "en#oy", escor "feed )of an animal, like German fressen*". -ut part of this isout own simplistic eagerness to do direct word for word translation. $hese erbs really hae something of amiddle function, and utor really means" ! make for myself some use of....something", fruor " ! take formyself pleasure in...", and if we take the trouble to see these deponents in this light, we see e+actly why theytake an ablatie direct ob#ect rather than the usual ob#ect )accusatie* case. Ftor cultello means "! make formyself some use of something with )ablatie* a penknife"., fruor is really "! take for myself some pleasurewith ..."

oice inoling the doerand his interests.

1r as the 7roerb goes, "suum cuiue", "to each his own )way*,

&ow to the forms. Nou will see immediately that the present, imperfect and future are similar to the basicactie forms, but are for the most part e+tended by an r or some r based configuration, which is the notefor passieness. -ut the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect passie are made up in uite a different way:Nou take the past participle )777* and put after it )as separate word, not fused* a form of the erb esse "tobe" actually the present of esse for the perfect passie, the imperfect "eram" for the pluperfect passie, andthe future "ero" for the future perfect passie.

!t%s simpler than the preious sentence implies, but you will hae to know the forms of the irregular butterribly common erb "be". Nou hae seen it already but, best memori(e it firmly right now.

PR4S4N5 IP4RF4C5 FU5UR4 P4RF4C5

Sg. sum eram ero &ui

es eras eris &uisti

est erat erit &uit

Pl. sumus eramus erimus &uimmus

EE


45/68

estis eratis eritis &uistis

sunt erant erunt &uerunt-ere

Present Stem Passi%es in the Indicati%e

The Present Passi%e Indicati%e

I II III I0

Sg. amor moneor 'ucor au'ior

amaris moneris 'uceris au'ieris

amatur monetur 'ucitur au'itur

Pl. amamur monemur 'ucimur au'imur

amamini monemini 'ucimini au'imini

amantur monentur 'ucuntur au'iuntur

&ote that the @ sg forms in ris hae a commonly used byform in ere, which is especially confusing since looks like an infinitie )or een the byform of the plural perfect.*

9ome things desere special attention:


46/68

I II III I0

Sg. ama!ar mone!ar 'uce!ar au'ie!ar

ama!aris mone!aris 'uce!aris au'ie!aris

ama!atur mone!atur 'uce!atur au'ie!atur

Pl. ama!amur mone!amur 'uce!amur au'ie!amur

ama!amini mone!amini 'uce!amini au'ie!amini

ama!antur mone!antur 'uce!antur au'ie!antur

The Future Passi%e Indicati%e

I II III I0

Sg. ama!or mone!or 'ucar au'iar

ama!eris mone!eris 'uceris au'ieris

ama!itur mone!itur 'ucetur au'ietur

Pl. ama!imur mone!imur 'ucemur au'iemur

ama!imini mone!imini 'ucemini au'iemini

ama!untur mone!untur 'ucentur au'ientur

'omments(


47/68

)has been loed*5 $he only acceptable meaning is past: "he was loed, he has been loed". 7lease note thiscarefully: $he right meaning is &1$ #ust what the two words say.

ust s o the ne+t formthe 7luperfect 7assie amatus erat is not "he was loed, but "he had been loed". Andthge


48/68

The Acti%e Su&$uncti%e


49/68

The Present Su&$uncti%e

I II III I0

Sg. amem moneam 'ucam au'iam

ames mones 'ucas au'ias

amet moneat 'ucat au'iat

Pl. amemus moneamus 'ucamus au'iamus

ametis moneatis 'ucatis au'iatis

ament moneant 'ucant au'iant

$he pattern of the forms is not immediately apparent, but perhaps we can simplify it thus:

!n general the sign of the present conditional is the owel a where you would not normally hae it.

!n 8lass !!! the owel a is right after the root, in 8lasses !! and !> it is added to the root owel.

-ut in 8lass !, which always has a root ending in the owel a already, the owel is changed to e. to showa difference. $hus:

I II III I0

+e+ e+a+ +a+ +i+a+7erhaps the most basic way of recogni(ing a present 8onditional is noting that it looks like a regularindicatie present, but something went wrong with the last owel a rule of thumb to be used only in caseof desperation but it works.

The Im-erfect Su&$uncti%e

$he !mperfect is easier to recogni(e:

Add to the infinitie the personal endings, and you get:

I II III I0

Sg. amarem monerem 'ucerem au'irem

amares moneres 'uceres au'ires

amaret moneret 'uceret au'iret

Pl. amaremus moneremus 'uceremus au'iremus

amaretis moneretis 'uceretis au'iretis

amarent monerent 'ucerent au'irent

$his is possibly the easiest tense to grasp in the Latin erbal system, one rule for all classes and noariations.

&ote: $here is no


50/68

Sg. amaverim monuerim 'u)erim au'iverim

amaveris monueris 'u)eris au'iveris

amaverit monuerit 'u)erit au'iverit

Pl. amaverimus monuerimus 'u)erimus au'iverimus

amaveritis monueritis 'u)eritis au'iveritis

amaverint monuerint 'u)erint au'iverint

8ompare this group with the


51/68

The Passi%e Su&$uncti%e

And of course there must e+ist a set of passie sub#unctie conditional forms, which we might as well facehere:

The Present Passi%e Su&$uncti%e

I II III I0

Sg. amer monear 'ucar au'iar

ameris monearis 'ucaris au'iaris

ametur moneatur 'ucatur au'iatur

Pl. amemur moneamur 'ucamur au'iamur

amemini moneamini 'ucamini au'iamini

amentur moneantur 'ucantur au'iantur

The Im-erfect Passi%e Su&$uncti%e

I II III I0

Sg. amarer monerer 'ucerer au'irer

ameris monereris 'ucereris au'ireris

amaretur moneretur 'uceretur au'iretur

Pl. amaremur moneremur 'uceremur au'iremur

amaremini moneremini 'uceremini au'iremini amarentur monerentur 'ucerentur au'irentur

&ow again, recall that the 7erfect conditional and pluperfect conditional will be compound forms, using theperfect passie participle or 777, to be followed by the conditional of the erb "to be" , the ery commonand irregular child of an irregular parent. ! think ! should gie you at this point #ust an outline of these7erfect 7assie compound formations, which are simple, regular, and found a great deal in actual writtenLatin.

The Perfect Passi%e Su&$uncti%eP&. Pass. amatus sim...

P&. Pass. amatus essem...

$hese compound passie forms use the 9ub#unctie of esse, so ! might as well gie you these unusual formshere. $hey actually derie from an ancient !ndo'uropean 1ptatie, as retained in Greek and 9anskrit, andfossili(ed in the 9ub#. of the erb olo elim "! would wish". =are5PRESENT SU!UN"TIVE #F esse $be$Sg. sim sis sit

Pl. simus sitis sint

The Plu-erfect Passi%e Su&$uncti%e

B;


52/68

8ompare here again the 7erfect 7assie 9ub#unctie and that of the 7luperfect:P&. Pass. amatus sim...

P&. Pass. amatus essem...

$his uses the !mperfect 9ub#unctie of esse as follows:PRESENT SU!UN"TIVE #F esse $be$Sg. essem esses esset

Pl. essemus essetis essent

&ote that the second element is a separate word, not fused on. $he forms sim, sis, sit etc. are atypical asconditional, because they are obsolete forms left oer from an old !ndo 'uropean optatie, which perishedin Latin e+cept here and in a few other scattered forms )elim etc. from olo "! wish" for e+ample*.

-ut essem, esses, esset is straight from the regular rule: !nfinitie )esse* plus personal endings, #ust as it issupposed to be.

B@


53/68

'onditions #ith the Su&$uncti%e

&ow we can turn to something more interesting and difficult, the meaning and use of the 9ub#unctie in therealm of 8onditionality and Fnreality. 9ince we are dealing with the meanings of a group of erbal formswhich define arious stages of unreality, we must be prepared to stretch our mind a bit in grasping them,and ! am not going to try to simplify the nature of the unreal, since this would be a ery unreasonable kindof falsification, unattuned to conditionality as a thought process.

with a short e owel.

)9uch ariations point to nonoriginality in the reconstructed parent language, and we might well wonder if!' had a future category at all. &ote een in 'nglish the phrase "! am going down town", where the presentis used to clearly indicate something that lies in the future, and only a nonnatie speaker will assume thatthe person is going down town at that ery moment.*

9ection S is more difficult to grasp. !t refers to the merest possibility of something being so, #ust purepossibility and the shadowing forth of an idea. "!f the sky should fall down" thinks 8hicken Little in the oldstory book......and it is a fanciful idea, no more. "!f it should #ust happen to rain" says the little man in the

B


54/68

Ari(ona summer heat, "! suppose we would #ust stand here and break out laughing". $he idea is possible, thoccurrence of the fact is really not possible. We can think of it, that is the role of this present conditional,supposition, and pure supposition only.

$urning to the ne+t group, 8lass SE, the imperfect conditional )which again ! remind you is not imperfecttimeoriented*, we find we hae something a little more tangible. 1ften cause and effect enter, somethinglike 'ngl. "!f ! should do this sort of thing, then ! would not be surprised if the police picked me up."Actually no 'nglish speaker would say that, although he would know what the sentence means he wouldsay "!f ! did that, ! guess the police would pick me up", the difference being the fact the 'nglish speakersprefer to state situations, een problematical ones, in terms of fact. 6ence the indicatie past tense "did" ismore natural to mnodern 'nglish speakers , and the traditional present conditional "if ! should do...", or thephrase "if it be true...", would seem a little pretentious or literary.

$hink of this class as haing some elements of cause and possible effect, with ideas couchable in the words"should....would", or "should....might". -etter define "might" as a bit more hypothetical )somehow* than"may" which is technically present tense, and more openended, hence 8lass S@.

$his is not easy to follow in 'nglish, but for a Latin speaker it was not only natural, but necessary. $oconfuse leels of possibility is to confuse eerything important in life. ! think we are not dealing with coertsubleties of Latin as much as the deficiencies in out sense of conditionality, which we hae come to acceptas normal in 'nglish.

$he ne+t class of the perfect conditional, SB, does not hae as distinct a flaor or meaning of its own, and !really cannot put words on it at this point. !t is still conditional, it e+presses "shouldness" as well as theimperfect conditional but it rather fits into stylistic conditional structures as an automatic or mandatoryelement, rather than sporting a distinctie meaning of its own. ! don%t like to be so absolute about a formwhich concerns itself with the unreal, but ! suggest that we let this class go for the moment, and study it latewhen we get into reading documents written by natie Latin speakers, and see from performance what thecore of meaning is )or better: may be...*.

!n many cases, when dealing with language, only e+perience and time will tell. =eading a geuine te+t oftenmakes the unclear grammatical statement more understandable, and ! think that applies here.

-ut with S4, the last class in our continuum, the so called pluperfect conditional, we hae no ualms aboutbeing too direct. $he meaning is clear as glass, and only a little strange in that is shoots right off the rightside of the graph, and while looking conditional, tells us about something that could hae, but mostemphatically 0!0&%$ happen. $he traditional terms for this conditional )$he 8ontrary $o


55/68

Let us try transforming a single phrase through the conditional classes as outlined, and since we are writingfor an American audience, what better way to inole us all, than discuss money?

;*"!f ! hae money, you hae money )being my friend*."

9imple statement of fact )regular indicatie erb form*, factuality leel is stated as high, een if he has torenege later.

@*"!f ! get rich )clear future meaning*, !%ll for sure get out of this dump of a college."


56/68

!t is #ust as wrongheaded as making a formulation of music of 'ighteenth 8entury common 6armony, thendefining all the rules and practices, and finally #ustifying the whole matter by citing o(art%s usage in detailto proe that the formulation was right. $ruth is o(art personally eoled a comple+ style, consciously andunconsciously that style eoled into his life work, which when analy(ed a century later it sered as thebasis for an academic statement of 'ighteenth 8entury 8ommon 6armony. 1nly one element wassuppressed: $hat is all came from the mind of a musical genius, who worked at a pace and leel ofcomple+ity which in his time defied e+act analysis. $he analytical music study starts out at a later date ouof his work, it couldn%t be the other way around. usical analysis and linguistic analysis )grammar* arehistorical statements of what eoled by itself as a liing human occupation. $he manuals do not write therules for operation, the operation writes the rules5

! belabor the point for a reason. !t is ery important how you approach something, and ! want you toapproach the Latin conditional sentence structures which can be ery comple+, as eidences of humanmeaning, not as a system of rules which are automatic and arbitrary, or so comple+ and regulatory as to defycomprehension.

!n practical terms, when you see a conditional form, translate it as some sort of condition in 'nglish, een ifit makes the 'nglish rough and oddlooking. Fse the concepts "may" and "might" and "should" and "would"and "would hae" appropriately, wheneer you see conditionals, and you will come out within a stone%sthrow of the sense of what you are reading.

Later, when you hae accrued some reasonable e+perience in reading Latin te+ts, it will be useful toe+amine the formal grammatical statements, which will then do you no harm. ust so it is not harmful tostudy 7iston%s or 9essions detailed books on usic 6armony, but only after you hae heard a lot of music.-ut to read them first as preface to hearing o(art%s G minor 9ymphony is impossible and witless.

A note on modern Linguistics: 9ince the beginning of this century new schools of Linguistics haeeoled, which hae reolutioni(ed the way the world thinks about language. odern language teachingmethods hae changed greatly in the last fifty years. $he old methods of teaching Greek and Latin withfi+ed ideas about eery detail which you are learning, assuming that they will be fi+ed clearly andpermanently in your mind, are totally obsolete. When you learn to comprehend or read a language, you facechaos which must be reduced to some sort of linguistic order. !n the case of an ancient language, you mustread documents which come from ancient authors e+tensiely, until you can begin to read them in theoriginal, without translating. !t is #ust the way you would proceed if you would hope to read


57/68

The .rgani/ation of 0ords

Fp to this point we %hae been e+amining the basic and regular forms of Latin words, erbs, ad#ecties,nouns, pronouns, infinities, participles, and imperaties. $hese collectiely forms a body which we maycall the "works" of Latin, what the philologist calls the morphology. ! hae gien you a basic set of ideasabout their use, but there are larger structures in which the elements you hae studied are combinedaccording to preset standards, whether basic or stylistic. ! am calling this broad class of information1rgani(ation.

1rgani(ation corresponds to the traditional term 9ynta+ )which is only the Greek schoolmaster%s wordssyn"together" and ta+is, "placing", so it corresponds closely with the term organi(ation, which ! prefer asmeaning something to you already. $he term "synta+" always calls to my mind the remark of the pitcher ofthe 8lassic baseball world, 0i((y 0ean, who asked, when he heard about synta+, whether they were reallyserious about putting a ta+ on that yet )sin ta+*.

Latin has a style of its own. !t tends to employ erbconcepts heaily, whereas in 'nglish especially in thepresent century we seem to faor nouns strongly. 1ften our te+tbooks are written in a style which uses onlyeuationary erbs, and the formula of whole series of sentences can be no more inoled than:

5is........is ......... so an' so *Pre'ication

3oe ..an'...enr/...an' ar/ 8ent..an' te/ 'i'...*Strung on....

$he =omans did not talk like that because they do not think like that. Latin sentence structure is unusuallyaried, as it can well afford to be in a language where worditems are tagged as to function by "endings",and artistic mi+ing of the words in a comple+ sentence is considered a mark of intelligence and artistry,rather than confusion. 'nglish uses word order to determine grammatical function, as noted aboe, and thesimplicity of our basic structure, which puts sub#ect first, erb ne+t, and ob#ect after that, is neat enough inits way, but by no means the only way humans think. 'nglish itself would not hae gone this route if it hadnot lost its noun and erb endings a thousand years ago as the result of a heay stress accent on the firstsyllable of eery word.

With its free style word order, as it appears to us, Latin is initially confusing, and the natural thing for an

'nglish speaker to do is scan through the sentence for sub#ect, then locate the erb, identify the ob#ect, andfinally round up all the straggling parts of speech and fit them in somehow all together. $his is completelywrong, it not only preents you from perceiing how =omans thought, but it actually preents you fromlearning to read. !f you are going to read, you must take the words as they come, since only in that order dothey represent the author%s mental processes, let alone style.

$here are some e+tremely comple+ sentence structures which the poets deelop in the Augustan period. ! amthinking of 6orace%s odes, -ook !, SB, where the order of the words in the first stan(a seem to be duplicatingalmost as if it were a painting, the positions of two loers flounced on a bed of rose petals, mutually

BK


58/68

entwined, the girl euipoised at the fulcrum of the sentence. $his is a fine poem indeed, but a certain kind ofhigh art which would probably hae been incomprehensible to a =oman in the street. A sentence in a8iceronian oration which rolls itself out selfconsciously oer a full page of small type may seem outlandishto one accustomed to the terse and stripped utterances of American presidential candidates for thirty yearsnow. -ut an American a century ago would hae had a good ear for the 8ongressional =ecord, which is8iceronian almost to a fault. $imes and tastes change, and we must try not to #udge =omans by our currentsense of stylistics.

&ot that all =omans were longwinded, #ust note 8aesar%s military 8ommentaries, which are intended as anantidote to the erbal cornucopia, and are as terse and crisp as any general%s style could eer be. 1nly if youread him slowly with a grammatical pedant for a teacher by your side, will you think him tedious andboring. 8aesar is the clearest e+ample of =oman stylistic simplicity, and well worth looking into, once youhae deeloped enough speed to read right along with the General.

Latin has a relatiely small ocabulary, with less that four thousand words in general, current use. Greek hathree times that number, modern 'nglish prescribes ;3,333 for a college student, B3,333 for a teacher, andthere are half a million words aailable one way or another. 1ne reason that Latin ocabulary is so small isthe loss of probably ninety percent of written output )the


59/68

George decided to go to the store, and put on his boots, adjusted his greatcoat, went down the stairs, andout into the street. He waited for the bus a while, and soon found himself traveling down Oak Street. He

decided to get off at the shopping center and have a look at the new records. He bought one, and started for

home again...$he =oman, if he could hae been induced to reproduce something so banal, would possibly hae done itthis way:George, having decided to go to the store, when he had put on his boots and adjusted his toga, having donedown the stairs and proceeding into the street to await a public char, thought to himself while riding down

Via ppia, whether he should inspect the bookstores, or go to the baths, which last having been done, he

returned home.-oth e+amples are somewhat oerstated, but the general sense of a careful comparison will be that 'nglishruns things along one after the other, while Latin subordinates things to others with a ariety of speciali(edclauses. $hese can be comple+ in structure, and at times hard to follow, but they do represent a way ofthinking, a hierarchy of organi(ed statements which stand in some sort of order of importance. $his is abasic characteristic of Latin style, and you must go halfway to deal with it if you are going to read Latinintelligently. A people with the organi(ational talents of the =omans, )witness only the ast system of roadsthe hospitals, the system of law, the military, and the table of organi(ation of 0iocletian which becamefossili(ed in the presentday 8atholic 8hurch* why should such a people not demonstrate order,organi(ation, and a regular system of subordination in their spoken and written style?

!f the manners of a culture seem foreign, its written documents will be foreign eually. And recall that whenwe study Latin we are looking for the interesting differences, not the familiar threads which run throughwhat we like to claim as our proprietary academic sub#ect: We

94175986 harris complete latin grammar

Documents