Latin grammar

Latin, like all other ancient Indo-European languages, is highly inflectional, which allows for very flexible word order. As such, Latin is rather archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In Latin there are five declensions of nouns and four conjugations of verbs. Latin does not have articles and draws no distinction between, for example, a girl and the girl; the same word, puella, represents both. Latin syntax is generally Subject Object Verb, though variations in poetry are common. Latin is right-branching, uses prepositions, and usually places adjectives after their nouns. Latin is also pro-drop and verb-framed.

Verbs

Detailed information and conjugation tables can be found at Latin conjugation.

Verbs are one of the trickiest areas of Latin for students since they are quite complex, with numerous conjugated forms per verb. Verbs have three moods (indicative, imperative, and subjunctive), two voices (active and passive), as well as three persons (first, second and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated in six main tenses (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect), with complement of moods for the present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect. In addition, infinitives and participles exist for the present, perfect, and future tenses.

Conjugating is the process of inflecting verbs; a set of conjugated forms of the same word is called a conjugation. Latin verbs are divided into four different conjugations by their infinitives: -āre verbs, -ēre verbs, -ere verbs and -īre verbs.

There are six tenses (Latin: tempus) in Latin. They are:

• Present (Latin: praesens), describes actions happening at the time of speaking: The slave carries the wine jar home.
• Imperfect (Latin: imperfectum), describes actions continuing in the past: The slave was carrying the wine jar home.
• Future (Latin: futurum simplex), describes actions taking place in the future: The slave will carry the wine jar home.
• Perfect (Latin: perfectum), describes actions completed by the present: The slave carried (or has carried) the wine jar home.
• Pluperfect (Latin: plusquamperfectum), describes actions occurring before another past action: The slave had carried the wine jar home.
• Future Perfect (Latin: futurum exactum), describes actions that will be completed some time in the future: By tomorrow, the slave will have carried the wine jar home.

There are three moods (Latin: modus):

• Indicative (Latin: indicativus), which states facts: That slave is carrying a wine jar.
• Subjunctive or Conjunctive (Latin: coniunctivus), which is used for possibilities, intentions, necessities, statements contrary to fact, etc: The slave should (or ought to) carry the wine jar home
• Imperative (Latin: imperativus), used for commands: "Carry this wine jar home!"

There are two voices (Latin: genus):

• Active (Latin: activum), where the verb is done by the subject: The slave carried the wine jar home.
• Passive (Latin: passivum), where the verb is done to the subject: The wine jar was carried home by the slave.

Nouns

Detailed information and declension tables can be found at Latin declension.

Nouns (including proper nouns and pronouns) have seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative, and locative; three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, which serve a grammatical function, not to distinguish the sex of the object; and two numbers: singular and plural. Declining is the process of inflecting nouns; a set of declined forms of the same word is called a declension. Most adjectives, pronouns, and participles, indicate the gender of the noun they reference or modify.

Most nouns in the 1st declension are feminine, most in the 2nd are masculine and neuter, 3rd can either be masculine, feminine, or neuter, 4th is either masculine or neuter, and 5th is usually feminine with a couple of masculine. It is necessary to learn the gender of each noun because it is often impossible to discern the gender from the word itself. One must also memorize to which declension each noun belongs in order to be able to decline it. Therefore Latin nouns are often memorized with their genitive (rex, regis) as this gives a good indication for the declension to use and reveals the stem of the word (reg, not rex).

• The nominative case, which is used to express the subject of a statement.
• The genitive case, which expresses possession, measurement, or source. In English, the preposition of is used to denote this case.
• The dative case, which expresses the recipient of an action, the indirect object of a verb. In English, the prepositions to and for most commonly denote this case.
• The accusative case, which expresses the direct object of a verb or direction or extent of motion.
• The ablative case, which expresses separation, indirection, or the means by which an action is performed. In English, the prepositions by, with, and from most commonly denote this case.
• The vocative case, which is used to address someone or something in direct speech.
• The locative case, which is used to express the place in or on which, or the time at which, an action is performed. The locative case is extremely marginal in Latin, applying only to the names of cities and small islands and to a few other isolated words, and is identical to the genitive case in the singular of the first and second declension, and the ablative case otherwise.

Determiners and personal pronouns

Detailed information and declension tables can be found at Latin declension.

In Latin there is no indefinite article or definite article, though there are demonstratives, such as hic, haec, hoc (masculine, feminine and neuter for this) and ille, illa, illud (for that). As in English, these can act as pronouns as well. There are also possessive adjectives and pronouns, cardinal and ordinal numbers, quantifiers, interrogatives, etc.

Personal pronouns also exist, for each one of the three possible persons, in both singular and plural. As in most Romance languages and English, only third-person pronouns show gender differentiation (check is, ea, id: he, she, it).

Adjectives

Detailed information and declension tables can be found at Latin declension.

In Latin, adjectives must agree with the nouns they modify in case and number and gender. Because of this, Latin adjectives must also be declined. First and second declension adjectives are declined identically to nouns of the first and second declension. Unless it's poetry, adjectives are generally placed behind the nouns they modify. Adjectives exist, like in English with positive, comparative and superlative forms. Positive and superlative adjectives are declined according to the first and second declension noun paradigm, however comparative adjectives are declined according to the third declension noun paradigm. When used in sentences, the comparative adjective may be put in the ablative or simply with the addition of 'quam'.

• Cornelia fortis puella est: Cornelia is a brave girl.
• Cornelia fortior puella est quam Flavia: Cornelia is a braver girl than Flavia.
• Cornelia fortior puella est Flaviā: Cornelia is a braver girl than Flavia.
• Cornelia fortissima puella omnium est: Cornelia is the bravest girl of all.

POSITIVE	COMPARATIVE	SUPERLATIVE
bonus, -a, -um	melior, -ius	optimus, -a, -um
māgnus, -a, -um	māior, -ius	māximus, -a, -um
malus, -a, -um	pēior, -ius	pessimus, -a, -um
multus, -a, -um	plus (only neuter); pl. plūres, plūra	plūrimus, -a, -um
parvus, -a, -um	minor, -us	minimus, -a, -um

regular adjectives

POSITIVE	COMPARATIVE	SUPERLATIVE
exterus, -a, -um	exterior, -ius	extrēmus, -a, -um
novus, -a, um	novior, -ius	novissimus, -a, -um
posterus, -a, -um	posterior, -ius	postrēmus, -a, -um
pulcher, -chra, -chrum	pulchrior, -ius	pulcherrimus, -a, -um
superus, -a, -um	superior, -ius	suprēmus

Adverbs

Detailed information and declension tables can be found at Latin declension.

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs by indicating time, place, or manner. Latin adverbs are indeclinable. Adverbs can be formed by modifying the ending of an adjective. Like adjectives, with adverbs there exist positive, comparative, and superlative degrees.

The positive form of an adverb is formed from the first and second declension adjectives, in which a long -e replaces the ending. Instead of the adjective clarus, -a, -um, which mean bright, the adverb is clare, which means brightly.

The comparative form of an adverb, formed from third declension adjectives, is extremely simple. It is exactly the same as the neuter nominative singular form of a comparative adjective and it almost always ends in -ius. Instead of the adjective clarior, which mean brighter, the adverb is clarius, which means more brightly.

The superlative form as well is extremely simple. It has exactly the same stem as the superlative adjective and it always ends in with a long -e. Instead of the adjective clarissimus, which mean brightest, the adverb is clarissime, which means most brightly.

Word order

Latin allows for a very flexible word order because of its inflectional syntax. Ordinary prose tended to follow the pattern of Subject, Indirect Object, Direct Object, Adverbial Words or Phrases, Verb. Any extra, though subordinate verbs, are placed before the main verb, for example infinitives. Adjectives and participles usually directly followed nouns, unless they were adjectives of beauty, size, goodness, or truth, in which case they preceded the noun being modified. Relative clauses are always placed after the antecedent which the relative pronoun describes. While these patterns for word order were the most frequent in Classical Latin prose, they are frequently varied; and it is important to recall that there is virtually no evidence surviving that suggests the word order of colloquial Latin (see Vulgar Latin).

In poetry, however, word order was often changed for the sake of the meter, for which vowel quantity (short vowels vs. long vowels and diphthongs) and consonant clusters, not rhyme and word stress, governed the patterns. It is, however, important to bear in mind that poets in the Roman world wrote primarily for the ear, not for the eye; many premiered their work in recitation for an audience. Hence variations in word order served a rhetorical, as well as a metrical purpose; they certainly did not prevent understanding. In Virgil's Eclogues, for example, he writes, Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori!: Love conquers all, let us yield to love!. The words omnia (all), amor (love) and amori (to love) are thrown into relief by their unusual position in their respective phrases. The meter here is dactylic hexameter, in which Virgil composed The Aeneid, Rome's national epic.

The ending of the common Roman name Marcus is different in each of the following examples due to its grammatical usage in that sentence. The ordering in the following sentences would be perfectly correct in Latin and no doubt understood with clarity, despite the fact that in English they're awkward at best and senseless at worst:

• Marcus ferit Corneliam: Marcus hits Cornelia. (Subject-Verb-Object)
• Marcus Corneliam ferit: Marcus hits Cornelia. (Subject-Object-Verb)

• Cornelia dat Marco donum: Cornelia gives Marcus a gift. (Subject, Verb, Indirect Object, Direct Object)
• Cornelia Marco donum dat: Cornelia gives Marcus a gift. (Subject, Indirect Object, Direct Object, Verb)

Ablative absolute

In Latin grammar, the ablative absolute (Latin: ablativus absolutus) is a noun phrase cast in the ablative case. More specifically it consists of a noun or pronoun and some participle (in the case of sum (to be) a zero morpheme often has to be used as the past and present participle do not exist, only the future participle), all in the ablative absolute. It indicates the time, condition, or attending circumstances of an action being described in the main sentence. It takes the place of, and translates, many phrases that would require a subordinate clause in English. The unfamiliarity of this construction makes it sometimes difficult for Latin students to grasp; however, mastery of this construction is needed to write Latin well, and its availability makes Latin prose quite concise. The closest English equivalent is the nominative absolute.

The closest translation to the Latin follows the paradigm, with the NOUN having been VERBed. This construction however can often sound awkward in English. Therefore, it is often finessed into some other, more English-like, construction. In the following examples, the first line is the direct translation from Latin, while the second has been construed to sound more at home in English.

Urbe capta, Aeneas fugit

• The city having been captured, Aeneas flees. (literal)
• With the city having been captured, Aeneas flees.
• When the city was captured, Aeneas flees.

Ovidio exule, Musae planguntur.

• Ovid having been exiled, the Muses weep. (literal)
• With Ovid having been exiled, the Muses weep.
• The Muses weep because Ovid has been exiled.

The ablative absolute indicates the time when things happened, or the circumstances when they occurred.

vivo Caesare...

• with Caesar having been alive...
• when Caesar was alive...

It also indicates the causes of things, as in:

Ira calefacta, sapientia dormit.

• With anger having been kindled, wisdom sleeps.
• Wisdom sleeps because anger is kindled.

Domino absente, fur fenestram penetravit.

• With the master being absent, a thief entered the window.
• Since the master was absent, a thief entered the window.

It can be used to add descriptions:

Passis palmis, pacem petiverunt.

• With hands outstretched, they sued for peace.
• Hands outstretched, they sued for peace.

Sometimes an infinitive or clause occurs in the ablative absolute construction, especially in Livy and later authors:

audito eum fugisse...

• with it having been heard that he had fled...
• having heard that he had fled...
• when they heard he had fled...

The ablative absolute construction is sometimes imitated in English in a construction called the nominative absolute: "The Americans, (with) their independence secured, formed a government." But the construction is rarer and less natural in English than it is in Latin. It was introduced by early modern authors heavily influenced by Latin, for example, John Milton whose Paradise Lost is an example of the construction.

See Also

Latin mnemonics

References

• Bennett, Charles E., Latin Grammar (Allyn and Bacon, 1895).
• Wheelock, Frederic, Latin: An Introduction (Collins, 6th ed., 2005) ISBN 0-06-078423-7

External links

• Ablative Absolute from Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar
• Ablative Absolute by William Harris