Hi I’m quite new to the language and am teaching myself. I’ve just become familiar with the declension of the pronoun ‘hic haec hoc’. So, having acquired a new skill I was going back over some example sentences in the grammar section of my Collins dictionary and I found the following… decem annis Lacedaimonii non haec confecerunt. With my limited knowledge of the agrement of nouns and adjectives I am unable to make sense of this sentence grammatically. What is haec agreeing with? I’m not sure what number or gender it’s in. I’m pretty sure it’s in the nominative case… but then again. The example was given to highlight the use of the ablative case.
Should I say ‘Salvete’ here as well or, indeed. instead?
Haec can be three things: fem. sg. nominative, neut. pl. nominative, and neut. pl. accusative.
Nominative here is unlikely since that spot is already taken by Lacedaimonii: “The Spartans did not accomplish…”.
That leaves neut. pl. accusative: “The Spartans did not accomplish these”.
Short answer: haec is neuter plural accusative, being used substantively (haec= these things), so it doesn’t need to agree with anything. In your textbook, you can learn about this in the section that deals with demonstrative pronouns. If you’re not using a textbook yet, the Orberg series LLPSI, (Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata) is highly recommended. If you’re just starting out, it’s not surprising that you might not understand everything that’s going on in that sentence. Getting the meaning here involves:
knowing uses of the ablative (spec. ablative of time within which)
substantival use of adjectives (Lacedaemonii)
use of demonstrative pronouns
conjugation of 3rd conjugation (e-stem) verbs, specifically the perfect active forms.