Lingua Latina, Familia Romana, p8

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi all,

Just started my wonderful red book.
Lingua Latina, Familia Romana, p8
I was going along well so far, until one of the notes in the margin confused me.
Just in case you guys have a different edition, I will try to be very precise with what I have trouble with.

In the margin, it shows:

Graecus -a -um

Romanus -a -um
< Roma

Then, in the text, it shows examples like:

Sparta est oppidum Graecum. Sparta et Delphi oppida Graeca sunt.
Tusculum non oppidum Graecum, sed oppidum Romanum est. Tusculum et Brundisium sunt oppida Romana.

My confusion stems from the fact that before this stage, what the margin has shown the endings in order of ‘singular, plural’.

eg
-a, -ae
Corsica insula est;
Corsica et Sardinia insulae sunt.

However, with the example “Sparta est oppidum Graecum” it is the other way around…

I would begin to wonder if this then is not a mistake in the book, to show Graecus, -a, -um
and not the other way around… (Graecus, -um, -a )
But I assume I must have a misunderstanding over what the content in the margin actually means in this case.

What does it mean?

Thanks in advance!

2

This is not a mistake. In the first instance, what you are seeing is the singular & plural forms of a noun (the name); whereas in the second, what you see are the 3 genders of an adjective (masculine, feminine and neuter).

3

hey… thanks to wheellock, i’ve sussed it out.

This seems to be the standard way of describing adjectives.

  1. In the singular
  2. In the first 2 declensions (masculine, feminine ,neuter).

So, when they show (Roman) Romanus -a, -um
they mean:

masculine feminine neuter
--------------|-------------|----------------
Romanus | Romana | Romanum

Examples to show this are as follows:

Masculine:
Tiberis fluvius Romanus est.
Caesar Romanus est

Feminine:
Sardinia insula Romana est.

Neuter:
Tusculum oppidum Romanum est.


Please someone correct me if i’ve got the wrong idea!

4

hehe… hey thanks..
must have just posted before I did my second post. But wow! Fast reply!
Thanks! This is a great community!

5

I have never seen any Lingua Latina book, but wouldn’t the book show the nominative and genitive singular of nouns, rather than nominative singular and plural?

6

I am new to Latin, and not particularly old hat at learning new languages either, but;

I think that form which is shown in the margin of Lingua Latina, which was confusing me, is the same form you will find in the Latin/English dictionary (at least, my dictionary).

Look it up! I’m sure you will find the same form as here for the adjectives Roman, and Greek.
Graecus -a -um
Romanus -a -um

And then (as I look it up now myself) I notice that at the front of the dictionary, it gives you an explanation of this. I should have looked there first!

Ok, I have read it now… and it confuses me a little.

Partly, It agrees with what you said Kasper!
And to some smaller degree agrees with how I thought it to be working..

And then it contradicts it too…
Here is what my dictionary says:

Adjectives of three endings, whether of the first and second or of the third declension, are shown with three endings; 
adjectives with a single ending are shown in the nominative, followed by the genitive ending, e.g.,

curv us - a -um   adj curved
simil is -is -e       adj similar
dilig ens -entis    adj careful; diligent

What confuses me now, is that as so far as I have read,
in the case where it is NOT showing nominative , genitive,
it should have been showing
second declension (masculine) , first declension (feminine), second declension (neuter).

That in itself is a little confusing. Partly since I don’t really understand what a ‘declension’ really is… (have to read more about the concept), and how you can legally have two forms of one declension (the masculine and the neuter in the second declension). And how a declension does not map directly one to one to a gender… eg wheellock says that the “first declension is almost always feminine.” And so what is it when it is not feminine? And how do you form it? Just like the masculine or neuter in the second declension?? And if so, why isn’t it considered a second declension adjective??

I was initially expecting declension per gender! Obviously I have the idea wrong. Especially since I read now that there are 5 of them!

summary:
So anyway, my dictionary says it is showing the first 3 declensions, whereas, it seems to be agreeing with my lingua latina, and showing only the first two declensions. What’s going on?

7

The first and second declensions comprise all the nouns you will be learning in Lingua Latina for the first several chapters: those ending in -us, -a, and -um. Nouns like Roma and insula that end in -a are in the first declension; nouns that end in -us or -um, like oppidum and fluvius, are in the second declension. Three endings that fit into two declensions. They are grouped in this way because nouns in the same declension decline similarly: hence the word ‘declension’. Thus, -us and -um nouns have more in common with each other than -a nouns, which is why they are placed in the same declension. You will understand the reasoning behind these groupings as you learn further noun endings.

As a general rule, -a nouns of the first declension are feminine, -us nouns of the second declension are masculine, and -um nouns of the second declension are neuter. Adjectives are cited with all three endings because in Latin an adjective must agree with its noun in case, gender, and number, and so can be formed with any of the noun endings. All the adjectives you will learn for some time are formed with the first- and second-declension endings, which together cover all three genders. You will get into third-declension adjectives, which use quite different patterns, later.

Declension refers to the patterns by which a noun forms its endings, and does not correspond directly to grammatical gender. So though most of the -a nouns that are in the first declension are feminine, some are not: for example, pirata, ‘pirate’, is masculine, of the first declension. There are even some second-declension nouns in -us that are feminine … but don’t worry about that.

8

hmm.. thanks for the reply, Twpsyn.

So, where my dictionary says it shows the “adjectives of three endings, whether of the first and second or of the third declension”, and gives as example:

curv us - a -um
Question 1
are the endings here showing the different endings by gender only (regardless of declension)? Specifically, is it in the order masculine (us), feminine (-a), neuter (-um) ?

Second Question
And does a first declension feminine noun decline in the same way that a first declension masculine noun declines?
your example of Pirata, for example.

Third Question
And if it does, then… how exactly does it show its gramatical gender ??
In other words, how does the word ‘Pirata’ which looks and acts like a feminine noun, show gramatically that it is actually a masculine noun ?

Thanks again for the reply! Very helpful!

9

Yes.

Yes.

Ah, that’s the beauty of it: by being coupled with an adjective. A large pirate is pirata magnus, genitive piratae magni, and so on. Another example could be the noun pinus, “a pine tree”, which is feminine and of the second declension: pinus magna “a large pine”, genitive pini magnae.

10

The first several chapters are introducing the cases little by little.

The marginal notes (actually in the margin of the page, sometimes with small illustrations) of chapter 1 give only the nominative singular and plural of the noun.

Glancing through the chapters I see that nouns in the marginal notes are presented in the standard format from chapter 10 onwards.

11

The endings in that example are according to gender, yes, but the adjective’s declension is determined by the gender.

-us is masculine and is declined like a second declension masculine noun.
-a is feminine and is declined like a first declension noun.
-um is neuter and is declined like a second declension neuter noun.

Adjectives of this type, indicated by -us, -a, -um, are called first and second declension adjectives, following either the first declension if feminine, or the second declension, if masculine or neuter.

Yes, as the other poster said.

If you see the noun alone and don’t know its gender you may not be able to guess. The vast majority of first declension nouns (ending in -a in the nominative singular ) are feminine although a few, often with masculine sense, are masculine, e.g. agricola, farmer, is masculine.

If you see the noun with a first and second declension adjective, the adjective in many cases would show the gender.

agricola bonus - good farmer (-us indicates it is masculine)

agricola is declined as a first declension noun, but its adjective, bonus, is declined like a second declension masculine, because it is masculine.

lingua bona - good language (-a indicates it is feminine)

lingua is declined as a first declension noun and its adjective, bona, is declined like a first declension, because it is feminine.

I hope this gives you the general idea.

12

Yes, thank you to all who replied!
I can go on with much more understanding now.
Latin is fun to learn, with such a history behind it. But it makes it even more fun when one is helped by alone within a community such as this, with people so willing to help others out!
Thanks again!