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uncoincident
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Question

Post by uncoincident »

:twisted:
How can you tell whether a noun or adjective is neuter or not?
For example -- flumen, and templum ?
my teacher didn't really say anything when I asked.

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

Great question! :twisted:
Last edited by benissimus on Wed Nov 23, 2005 3:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

bellum paxque
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Post by bellum paxque »

1) Memorize the genders of nouns.
2) Adjectives don't have genders per se - they assume the gender of the noun they happen to be modifying.
3) Pay close attention to the context of the sentence.

An example: Lux beata super me fulgebit.
(The blessed light will shine over me.)

Supposing you haven't memorized the gender of lux (light), you can still infer it from beata, which is using the feminine singular nominative ending. Of course, this is often difficult unless you understand the entire sentence, since beata might be a different case or gender in a different context.

For example: Sanctus Petrus beata dicebat.
(St. Peter was saying blessed things.)
Here beata is neuter plural accusative.

Ipsa hora beata venit.
(She herself came/comes in a blessed hour.)
Here beata is feminine singular ablative.

-David

Episcopus
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Re: Question

Post by Episcopus »

uncoincident wrote:my teacher didn't kiss me when I asked. :x
Why are you being gay?

~E

Democritus
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Re: Question

Post by Democritus »

uncoincident wrote:How can you tell whether a noun or adjective is neuter or not?
For example -- flumen, and templum ?
my teacher didn't really say anything when I asked.
You can't really tell for sure, just by looking at the noun on its own. Sometimes you can figure it out using clues in the sentence. As b.p. pointed out, if you see a noun + adjective together, sometimes you can work out what the gender must be.

Many neuter nouns follow similar patterns. Many neuter nouns look like flumen, fluminis or tempus -oris or genus -eris. For example, maybe you never learned the noun acumen, acuminis, but you can guess that it is neuter without looking it up, since it is just like lumen, flumen, carmen and limen.

On the other hand, some nouns are likely to be some other gender. Nouns like gravitas -atis or civitas -atis are feminine. The same is true of words like origo -inis and virgo -inis.

But lots of words don't obviously fit into any nice pattern. Plus, if your vocabulary is still small, then the patterns themselves might be hard to see. So it is tricky.

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Deudeditus
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Re: Question

Post by Deudeditus »

Episcopus wrote:
Why aren't you being gay?[/quote]

... :?

:)

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