Hello,
I am a secondary education teacher and I teach ancient Greek and Latin. I have a grammar book where I read that all 3rd declension nouns with genitive in -ium have or had stem ending in -i:
e.g.: puppis, puppium
ars [*older nominative: artis], artium.
Also, all neutral nouns have gen. -ium: mare, marium.
Last, there are some analogical formations in -ium: urbs, urbium.
My question: do I have to memorise all nouns with gen. ending -ium, or there's a rule I can use so as to guess when gen. ending is -ium?
Genitive -ium
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Genitive -ium
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
- seneca2008
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Re: Genitive -ium
I hope you find this helpful from from Kennedy's latin primer:
The following rule with regard to the form of the Genitive Plural may be given for practical convenience:
Nouns with a syllable more in the Genitive Singular than in the Nominative Singular (Imparisyllabic Nouns) have Genitive Plural in -um.
Nouns with the same number of syllables in the Nominative Singular and Genitive Singular (Parisyllabic Nouns) have Genitive Plural in -ium.
The chief exceptions to this rule are the following:
(a) Imparisyllabic Nouns which have Genitive Plural in -ium are: glīs, līs, mās, mūs, nox, and Nouns of one syllable of which the Nominative Singular ends in -ns, -rs, -bs, -ps, -rx, -Ix; and neuters in -al, -ar.*
Often also: fraus, rēn, lār, dōs, Nouns of two syllables with Nominative Singular ending in -ns, -rs, and most Nouns in -ās (gen. -ātis). These last and Nouns in -ns are especially variable. Horace writes both parentum and parentium, but the latter is rare.
(b) Parisyllabic Nouns which have Genitive Plural in -um are: canis, iuvenis, senex, sēdēs, pater, māter, frāter, accipiter.f
Sometimes also: apis, mēnsis, vatēs, volucris.
*Nouns of one syllable, of which the Stem has two Consonants before i-, are only apparently Imparisyllabic because the Nom. Sing. originally ended in -is (46), and of some both forms are found; e.g. orbs and orbs. Similarly, neuters in -al, -ar originally ended -āle, āre (47).
fPater, mater, frâter, accipiter, are only apparently Parisyllabic because the e of the Nom. Sing, does not appear in the other cases.
The following rule with regard to the form of the Genitive Plural may be given for practical convenience:
Nouns with a syllable more in the Genitive Singular than in the Nominative Singular (Imparisyllabic Nouns) have Genitive Plural in -um.
Nouns with the same number of syllables in the Nominative Singular and Genitive Singular (Parisyllabic Nouns) have Genitive Plural in -ium.
The chief exceptions to this rule are the following:
(a) Imparisyllabic Nouns which have Genitive Plural in -ium are: glīs, līs, mās, mūs, nox, and Nouns of one syllable of which the Nominative Singular ends in -ns, -rs, -bs, -ps, -rx, -Ix; and neuters in -al, -ar.*
Often also: fraus, rēn, lār, dōs, Nouns of two syllables with Nominative Singular ending in -ns, -rs, and most Nouns in -ās (gen. -ātis). These last and Nouns in -ns are especially variable. Horace writes both parentum and parentium, but the latter is rare.
(b) Parisyllabic Nouns which have Genitive Plural in -um are: canis, iuvenis, senex, sēdēs, pater, māter, frāter, accipiter.f
Sometimes also: apis, mēnsis, vatēs, volucris.
*Nouns of one syllable, of which the Stem has two Consonants before i-, are only apparently Imparisyllabic because the Nom. Sing. originally ended in -is (46), and of some both forms are found; e.g. orbs and orbs. Similarly, neuters in -al, -ar originally ended -āle, āre (47).
fPater, mater, frâter, accipiter, are only apparently Parisyllabic because the e of the Nom. Sing, does not appear in the other cases.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.
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Re: Genitive -ium
Not all neuter names have genitive in -ium: flumen, fluminis -> fluminUM.
- seneca2008
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Re: Genitive -ium
I think you mean neuter "nouns" rather than "names" and that part of TeacherPan's post is wrong.Not all neuter names have genitive in -ium: flumen, fluminis -> fluminUM.
But the example of flūmen flūminis confirms the rule of thumb in my post. The genitive flūminis has three syllables compared to the the nominative flūmen's two. So flūmen is Imparisyllabic and so the predicted genitive is flūminum.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.
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Re: Genitive -ium
Of course, my mistake.seneca2008 wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 10:39 pm I think you mean neuter "nouns" rather than "names" and that part of TeacherPan's post is wrong.
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Re: Genitive -ium
To add to what seneca has written, it's important to remember that i-stems and mixed i-stems will also often behave differently in cases other than the genitive plural.TeacherPan wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 6:46 am where I read that all 3rd declension nouns with genitive in -ium have or had stem ending in -i:
For instance, some may have an acc. sing. in -im, an abl. sing. in -i and/or an acc. pl. in -is – or show variation between -i- and -e- in some or all of these cases.