Adjective agreement

[mariek]

<br />So far in my exercises, the speaker "I" have been male. So "I am happy" is aeger sum.<br /><br />Does the adjective change if the speaker is female?<br /><br />A man says, "aeger sum."<br /><br />A woman says, "aegra sum." ???<br /><br />

[Magistra]

That's right. An adjective agrees in case, number and gender with what it describes.<br /><br />Magistra

[benissimus]

Of course! A similar comparison in English would be that women rarely say "I am handsome" and men even more rarely say "I am pretty." Usually, that is...

[Moerus]

Yes, an adjective agrees with his subject in case, gender, number. <br /><br />In English it's diffucult to see that. <br />It's easier in French; <br /><br />he is happy = il est heureux.<br />she is happy = elle est heureuse.<br /><br />Also in Latin; <br /><br />I am happy = laetus sum (masculinum)<br />I am happy = laeta sum (femininum)<br /><br />You see, the Latin tells us a little more than the English! <br />We all should talk Latin at home, it woulsd be easier! <br /><br />Aeger = ill<br />laetus / alacer = happy.<br /><br />The adjective also agrees when it is an apposition ect. <br />It's not only when it's a predicate. <br />For exemple; <br />magister laetus <br />magistra laeta.<br />

[Milito]

[quote author=Moerus link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2774 date=1060078184]<br />You see, the Latin tells us a little more than the English! <br />We all should talk Latin at home, it woulsd be easier! <br />[/quote]<br /><br />Something tells me that the cat wouldn't listen any better in Latin than he does in English....<br /><br />But you're right, it is a lot easier to be more precise in Latin than in English.<br /><br />Kilmeny

[Moerus]

I learnd my dog some things in Latin and he obeys!<br /><br />Like sede, veni, noli latrare etc. <br /><br />Just for fun, we should all try this!

[Episcopus]

[quote author=Moerus link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2790 date=1060091415]<br />I learnd my dog some things in Latin and he obeys!<br /><br /><br />[/quote]<br /><br />hah awesome ;D

[mariek]

[quote author=Moerus link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2774 date=1060078184]<br />In English it's diffucult to see that.<br />It's easier in French; [/quote]<br /><br />Yes, I was thinking along the same lines which is how I came up with this question. I probably missed the section where BLD mentions this, or perhaps he mentions this in the future.<br /><br />In English, in 3rd person singular, you still get an idea of whether the person being refered to is male or female with "he" and "she".<br /><br />Interestingly enough, in Chinese, the pronoun for "he" and "she" are exactly the same, so you don't know the gender of the person being referred to. <br /><br />

<br />Aeger = ill<br />laetus / alacer = happy.

<br /><br />Oops. I somehow got into this rut last night (it was almost 1AM and my brain was shutting down!) thinking that aeger was the word for happy. <br />

We all should talk Latin at home, it woulsd be easier!

<br /><br />I was walking through a park on Sunday where I saw some dogs and I thought about how neat it would be to have a dog and train it to respond to commands in Latin. Do you think that would be too confusing for the dog? <br />

[mariek]

[quote author=Moerus link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2790 date=1060091415]<br />I learnd my dog some things in Latin and he obeys!<br />Like sede, veni, noli latrare etc.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Cool! And your dog obeys? Does he still respond to English commands? <br />

[Moerus]

he stil responds to dutch commands, we speak dutch here. Thats why i make as many faults in my english!

[benissimus]

I like your "faults." They are often not so much wrong as Latinized

[mariek]

<br />I wonder if adjective agreement would confuse dogs?<br /><br />You would say is the male dog: pulcher es!<br /><br />You would say to the female dog: pulchra es!<br /><br />

[benissimus]

An interesting concept. I would imagine that they only are noticing "pulcher es" as basic sound patterns: harsh-vowel-harsh-vowel-liquid vowel-liquid. Something like that...

[bingley]

Interestingly enough, in Chinese, the pronoun for "he" and "she" are exactly the same, so you don't know the gender of the person being referred to. <br />

<br /><br />Same in Indonesian. Dia serves for he or she. You can only refer to brother or sister with a clumsy circumlocution. Siblings are normally differentiated by age: kakak older sibling, adik younger sibling.

[mariek]

[quote author=bingley link=board=3;threadid=366;start=0#2890 date=1060129267]<br />Same in Indonesian. Dia serves for he or she. You can only refer to brother or sister with a clumsy circumlocution. Siblings are normally differentiated by age: kakak older sibling, adik younger sibling. [/quote]<br /><br />It sounds like Indonesian is similar to Chinese in many respects. The Chinese have specific words to refer to older/younger sibblings/cousins/aunts/uncles/etc on your mother's/father's side. It gets really complicated, but there is less ambiguity about how you're related to someone.<br /><br />In Chinese, you use the same adjective for male or female, no such thing as gender agreement. (Gotta stay on topic ). Is it similar in Indonesian?<br /><br />

[bingley]

No gender agreement to worry about, no cases, no tenses, no subjunctive or optative. Bliss. ;D

[Moerus]

<br />Same in Indonesian. Dia serves for he or she. You can only refer to brother or sister with a clumsy circumlocution. Siblings are normally differentiated by age: kakak older sibling, adik younger sibling. <br /><br /><br />In Latin we have something like that too with names of animals, when there is only one word (with one grammatical gender) for indicating the female and the male. <br />exemple; <br /><br />aquila is always a femininum, but it's also used to indicate a male. So when you really want to make the difference, tyou can say; aquila femina or aquila mas.<br />bos mas or bos femina (but here we usually use vacca).<br /><br />The words mas and femina are appositions here. <br />Sometimes there are two words, one for each gender: <br />gallus -gallina ...

[Episcopus]

[quote author=bingley link=board=3;threadid=366;start=15#2896 date=1060138540]<br />No gender agreement to worry about, no cases, no tenses, no subjunctive or optative. Bliss. ;D<br />[/quote]<br /><br /> Is that even a language? <br />How refers-one to past events? ???

[bingley]

You just say when it happened. No change in the verb.<br /><br />Without a context you often don't know whether an event is past present or future.<br /><br />Bom (a bomb) diledakkan (passive of the transitive verb meledakkan to explode something) di (in) Jakarta. <br /><br />If I feel it necessary to mention it was a past event:<br /><br />Tadi/Kemarin Bom diledakkan di Jakarta (earlier today/yesterday)<br /><br />Roughly equivalent of the English present perfect:<br /><br />Bom baru/pernah diledakkan di Jakarta. (has just/has ever)<br /><br />Saya is I, me, my depending on word order in the sentence.<br /><br />

[Episcopus]

That is really strange yet rather awesome

[benissimus]

A lot of people on the internet speak that way for convenience, so it doesn't seem totally bizarre to me to hear "A bomb explode in Jakarta" as a tenseless sentence. Now I'm wondering if it's because the people speaking like this are second language English speakers...