| Review of Latin I Grammar |
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A noun is a word which can name a person, place, animal, thing, event, idea or concept. A noun can be tangible, (e.g. island, picture, wedding, etc) or intangible (happiness, virtue, luxury, etc). A noun can be the subject of a sentence, the predicate nominative, a direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition or subject of an infinitive:.
A predicate word defines or describes the subject to which it is connected by means of a linking verb: to be, to seem, to appear, to become.
Exempli Gratia:
Medea was a witch. Medea is the subject and thus in the nominative case and witch is the predicate noun which describes Medea and thus is also in the nominative case. Remember that the verb to be describes a condition and not an action, hence the reason for a predicate nominative. If you think about it logically, to be can't have a true direct object, so the accusative case would be incorrect.
One can also have a predicate adjective:
Medea was evil. Medea is the subject and thus in the nominative case and evil modifies Medea.
In Latin, noun endings vary according to the function of the noun in the sentence. Nouns also belong to groupings called declensions. There are 5 declensions in Latin. Three were studied last year. The 2nd principal part of a noun (the genitive) indicates the declension to which a noun belongs. For each declension there are 5 singular and 5 plural forms. You have a chart in the back of your book or you can refer to this chart for the case endings:
| Case Name | Case Use | 1st Declension | 2nd Declension | 2nd Declension Neuter | 3rd Declension | 3rd Declension Neuter | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||
| Nominative | Subject/Predicate Nominative | -a | -ae | -us-er | -î | -um | -a | --- | -es | --- | -a |
| Genitive | Possession | -ae | -arum | -î | -orum | --î | -orum | -is | -um | -is | -um |
| Dative | Indirect Object | -ae | -îs | -ô | -îs | -ô | -îs | -i | -ibus | -i | -ibus |
| Accusative | Direct Object/Object of Preposition | -am | -as | -um | -ôs | -um | -a | -em | -es | --- | a |
| Ablative | Object of Preposition | -â | -îs | -ô | -îs | -ô | -îs | -e | -ibus | -e | -ibus |
Study the above chart then complete the matching column exercise about the use of the different cases.
Given is an English passage. You are asked to choose the case you would use for given nouns should you want to rewrite the passage in Latin.
Nouns also have genders which are indicated as m., f. or n. One learns the gender as one of the principal parts of a noun. The genitive indicates the declension to which the noun belongs. Thus when learning the three principal parts of a noun, one learns its family (declension) and its gender. This is very important since any modifying adjectives must agree with the case and gender.
Last year you learned that most 1st declension nouns are feminine. There are some exceptions. Roles that are traditionally those of a man are given masculine gender. Thus farmer-agricola, poet-poeta, charioteer-auriga, pirate-pirata and sailor-nauta.
Practice your knowledge of case endings: write the correct endings for Latin nouns of the first 3 declensions.
Write in the correct endings for the following nouns.
Matching column: given are several Latin nouns with various case endings. Match each one to the case or cases which the ending indicates to be correct.
Bene! If you have successfully completed the previous exercises you understand nouns - in English and in Latin.
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