Activity 29b

1. Who was combing Aurelia's hair?

Quis is the interrogative pronoun, masc. or fem. singular, thus who. was combing - pectebat is in the imperfect tense, on going action.

2. Cuius crines ancilla pectebat??

The hair of whom, indicating a singular form, thus choose cuius.

3. A certain pig was running through the street.

porcus is masc. sg. nominative case, thus quidam. Note that the qui form is also masc. sg., nominative case and agrees with porcus. Was running, on going action, the pig may still be running, thus the imperfect tense.

4. Porcum quendam in via vidi.

In this case the pig is the direct object of saw and thus in the accusative case. Certain must agree with it, thus certain is in the accusative masc. sg. form. Note that vidi is in the perfect tense, finished action, no one is still seeing the pig. Note also the spelling of quendam, the acc. form of what or whom in the masc. acc. sg. is quem but the m changes to n for pronunciation ease before the d of -dam.

5. Why was the man angry?

Interrogative sentence. A simple sentence which needs no explanation. It was probably included in this exercise to remind you that one can ask questions with words other that quis and quid. If you forgot what cur means, remember when someone is curious, he asks why often.

6. Homo iratus erat quod in luto iacebat.

Again, a reminder that quod can mean what as a relative pronoun or adjective but it can also mean because when used as a conjunction. Note here that the main clause, homo iratus erat, contains no neuter words so there is no antecedent with which quod can agree. Iacebat is again in the imperfect tense to indicate that the poor fellow may still be there.

7. What poet did you see (have you seen) in the street?

Note here that poetam is a masculine word although it looks as if it were feminine because it is in the first declension. Since poetam is masculine, sg. and accusative case, one sees quem as an interrogative adjective which agrees with this noun and thus asks what poet did you see - finished action, thus in the perfect tense. Vid- is the root for the present, perfect, imperfect and pluperfect tenses. One recognizes this form as perfect because of the terminus - isti.

8. Poetam quendam versus recitantem vidi.

In the previous sentence one read that quem modified the masculine poetam. In this sentence, the quem changes to quendam to mean a certain... Check sentence number 4 to see why there is this spelling change if you do not recall the reason. Recitantem means reciting. The verb recito, recitare means to recite. By removing the -re from the infinitive and adding -ns ( nom. sg. forms) or -ntis (gen. sg. forms and root by removing the -is and adding third declension endings) one achieves the present participle form which means -ing in English. Try this by creating the walking dog, of a walking dog, to a walking dog, walking dog as a direct object and with a walking dog. (Answers at the end of this activity.)

9. What woman wants to buy dormice?

As with sentence number 7, the interrogative word is again an adjective. Quae is nominative feminine sg. and can also be feminine and neuter nominative plural. We see that it modifies femina, a fem. sg. nom. form. Note that if one wishes to say who wants to buy... one uses quis and not quae. However in number 7, whom did you see instead of what poet did you see one uses the interrogative pronoun quem, which is the same as the interrogative adjective. Thus, once again, quis, quid are used as the nominative singualur forms and the neuter accusative singular form of an interrogative pronoun and all other forms are the same as the relative pronoun.

10. Quam irata est femina!

Quam is used to mean how as well as being the relative or interrogative pronoun or adjective in the feminine sg. accusative case. If one were to be given the Latin sentence as asked to translate it, one knows that quam means how since there cannot be an accusative case in this sentence. The verb to be cannot take a direct object and there is no preposition in the sentence, so quam must mean how.

Answers to the walking dog

canis ambulans

canis ambulantis

cani ambulanti

canem ambulantem

cane ambulante

(note that one does not use the adjectival third declension -i ending for the present participle even though the participle is an adjective! Try your hand at some other present participle forms.)