Declining nouns in -ius and -ium

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jsc01
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Declining nouns in -ius and -ium

Post by jsc01 »

I was wondering if someone could tell me if I am declining these correctly? This is a little confusing.

The book says:
The plural is regular. Note that the -i- of the base is lost only in the genitive singular, and in the vocative of words like filius.
What about the dative and ablative plurals with their -is- endings?

Singular
Nom - praesidium parvum
Gen - praesidi parvi
Acc - praesidium parvum
Dat - praesidio parvo
Abl - praesidio parvo
Voc - praesidium parvum

Plural
Nom - praesidia parva
Gen - praesidiorum parvorum
Acc - praesidia parva
Dat - praesidis parvis
Abl - praesidis parvis
Voc - praesidia parva

Singular
Nom - filius bonus
Gen - fili boni
Acc - filium bonum
Dat - filio bono
Abl - filio bono
Voc - fili boni

Plural
Nom - fili boni
Gen - filiorum bonorum
Acc - filios bonos
Dat - filis bonis
Abl - filis bonis
Voc - fili boni

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

All are fine except Voc. Sing. of Filius bonus. Any masculine -us noun of the second declension has the end -e, i.e Marce = O Marcus. Thus also with 1st/2nd declension masc. adjectives. So combined with the vocative "mi fili" (voc of meus) "bone mi fili" or whatever order for emphasis. And also praesidiis in dat/abl plural, they do retain their i.

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

The loss of the -i- in any case is a Ciceronian feature. You can decide whether you want to do it or not in your own writing, since both were at use during different times, but still within the period of Classical Latin.

As Episcopus said, the vocative of nouns in -ius just drops the us and makes the i long (fili). Be careful though, since this is not the case with the few adjectives that end in -ius: they merely follow the normal pattern of ending in -e. So, the adjective eximius has as its vocative eximie.
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Keesa
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Post by Keesa »

Yes, this definitely has the potential to become confusing...

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

Just accept what D'Ooge says about these (he makes a whole lesson upon this) and you will not need to worry about any minor irregularities (for they are only minor; verbal principal parts for example are far far harder).

jsc01
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Post by jsc01 »

So, how do you tell the difference between nominative pluaral and vocative plural for nouns ending in -ius?

For instance:

filii mali could be wicked sons or O' wicked sons,

fluvii longi could be long rivers or O' long rivers.

It seems abiguous to me. Would you just have to look at the overall context of the phrase to figure it out?

jsc01
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Post by jsc01 »

All are fine except Voc. Sing. of Filius bonus. Any masculine -us noun of the second declension has the end -e, i.e Marce = O Marcus
.

DO'odge p.38 section 89 gives the vocative singular of filius as fili. However, I would say the adjective bona would be in the form bone since it is describing a masculine noun in the vocative singular.

After reviewing it a little more I think that this is a little more correct:

Singular
Nom - praesidium parvum
Gen - praesidi parvi
Acc - praesidium parvum
Dat - praesidio parvo
Abl - praesidio parvo
Voc - praesidium parvum

Plural
Nom - praesidia parva
Gen - praesidiorum parvorum
Acc - praesidia parva
Dat - praesidiis parvis
Abl - praesidiis parvis
Voc - praesidia parva

Singular
Nom - filius bonus
Gen - fili boni
Acc - filium bonum
Dat - filio bono
Abl - filio bono
Voc - fili bone

Plural
Nom - filii boni
Gen - filiorum bonorum
Acc - filios bonos
Dat - filiis bonis
Abl - filiis bonis
Voc - filii boni

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

Yes it's usually easy to tell by context. Obviously fili takes an irregular vocative in a similar way to meus, my - mi. Watch out "Deus" vocative is "Deus".

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

Vocatives are the same in English as nominatives, so it doesn't seem that foreign to me...
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Post by Ulpianus »

You are astute to notice that even with heavy inflection case can be ambiguous. You often cannot determine 'case' (in the sense of the role a noun is playing) from ending alone.

Many 2nd (puer, magister), all (IIRC) neuter and all 3rd, 4th and 5th declension nouns lack distinctive vocatives. To have a distinct vocative turns out to be rather the exception than the rule, and you might find it easier not to bother learning them, or only to learn them when they are both common and distinctive. (That, after all, is what one does with cases such as the locative, and the vocative is hardly common and usually obvious.)

More significantly, since they are more common and cover what more seemingly important semantic distinctions: neuter nouns do not distinguish between nominative and accusative (a pretty fundamental semantic distinction); dative and ablative plurals are invariably the same regardless of gender; the second declension has the same dative and ablative singular; the first and fourth declensions have the same dative and genitive singular (and first declension genitive singular = first declension nominative/vocative plural). Fourth declension singular neuter nouns hardly decline at all, you will be pleased to hear.

All of which goes to show that -- contrary to the neat impression one may get at first, and which the first and second declensions sort of play to -- ending does not invariably enable one to work out what case a noun is. Latin can be ambiguous too. Context and the rest are often important, and occasionally there may be real doubt about how a particular word should be understood.

ingrid70
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Post by ingrid70 »

Ulpianus wrote:You are astute to notice that even with heavy inflection case can be ambiguous. You often cannot determine 'case' (in the sense of the role a noun is playing) from ending alone.
Agreed. The first time I read "Non scholae sed vitae discimus", I thought it meant "We don't learn from the school, but from life."

Ingrid

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