Latin grammar

Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood. The inflections are often changes in the ending of a word, but can be more complicated, especially with verbs.

Thus verbs can take any of over 100 different endings to express different meanings, for example regō "I rule", regor "I am ruled", regere "to rule", regī "to be ruled", rēxisset "he would have ruled", and so on. Regular verbs are classified into four different groups known as conjugations, according to whether the infinitive ends with -āre, -ēre, -ere, or -īre. There are also irregular verbs such as sum "I am".

There is no definite or indefinite article in Latin, so that rēx can mean "king", "a king", or "the king" according to context.

Nouns belong to one of three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). The gender of a noun is shown by the adjectives and pronouns that refer to it: e.g., hic vir "this man", haec mulier "this woman", hoc nōmen "this name". There are also two numbers: singular (mulier "woman") and plural (mulierēs "women").

As well as having gender and number, nouns have different endings according to their function in the sentence. These different endings are called cases. For example, masculine and feminine nouns have different forms depending on whether they are the subject or the object of the verb: rēx videt "the king sees", but rēgem videt "he sees the king". These two are called the nominative and accusative cases respectively of the word. (In neuter nouns the nominative and accusative cases are identical.) Nouns also have a genitive case, meaning "of" (rēgis "of the king"), a dative case, meaning "to" or "for" (rēgī "to/for the king"), and an ablative case, meaning "with" (rēge "with the king"). A sixth case, the vocative, is used for addressing. With most nouns it is identical with the nominative, e.g. ō rēx "o king!". A seventh case, the locative, has marginal use, and is mostly found with the names of towns and cities, e.g. Rōmae "in Rome".

Pronouns, adjectives and the numbers one to three also show case and number to agree with the noun they refer to. Thus haec tertia pars "this third part" changes to hanc tertiam partem when accusative.^[1]

Nouns differ from one another in their case endings: for example, the genitive of puella "girl" is puellae "of the girl" but the genitive of servus "slave" is servī "of the slave". Nouns are therefore classified into five different groups called declensions according to the pattern of their endings. Those like puella with genitive -ae are said to belong to the 1st declension, while those like servus with genitive -ī are 2nd declension, and so on.

Priscian, or the Grammar, marble cameo panel dated 1437–1439 from the bell tower of Florence, Italy, by Luca della Robbia. The scene is an allegory of grammar and, by implication, all of education. Note the opening door in the background and the unshod feet of the first pupil.

Latin word order is commonly subject–object–verb. However, other word orders are common. Different word orders can also be used to express subtle nuances, even in prose. (See Latin word order.)

In Latin an adjective can come either before or after a noun, e.g. vir bonus or bonus vir "a good man". Overall, the position before the noun is more frequent, although some kinds of adjectives, such as adjectives of nationality (vir Rōmānus "a Roman man") usually follow the noun. The adjective may also be separated from its noun by other words, especially in poetry. Prepositions, such as in ("in" or "into") or ex ("from" or "out of"), usually precede the noun, except sometimes in poetry.

Latin usually omits pronouns as the subject except for emphasis; so for example amās by itself means "you love" without the need to add the pronoun tū "you". (A language with this characteristic is known as a pro-drop language.) Latin also exhibits verb framing in which the path of motion is encoded into the verb rather than shown by a separate word or phrase. For example, the Latin verb exit (a compound of ex and it) means "he/she/it goes out".

Verbs

Nouns

Articles, determiners and personal pronouns

There is no indefinite article or definite article (the, a, an). Sometimes the weak determiner is, ea, id (English that, this) can serve for the definite article:

Persuāsīt populō ut eā pecuniā classis aedificārētur (Nepos)^[2]

'"He persuaded the people that a fleet should be built with the money (with that money)"

Latin also has demonstratives, such as hic, haec, hoc (masculine, feminine and neuter proximal, corresponding to English this or this one near me), ille, illa, illud (distal, English that), iste, ista, istud (medial, "that one of yours"),^[3] and is, ea, id ("weak" demonstrative, he, she, it).

These words, like all Latin third person pronouns can be used either as adjectives or as pronouns:

Hic homō sānus nōn est (Plautus)^[4]

"This man is not sane"

Hic, putō, sānus erat (Martial)^[5]

"This (man), I think, was sane"

Personal pronouns also exist, for first and second person, in both singular and plural: ego, nos (I, we) in the first, tu, vos (you, you all) in the second. A pronoun is rarely used for the subject of a verb, the function being served by the inflection of the verb.

Adverbs

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs by indicating time, place or manner. Latin adverbs are indeclinable and invariable. Like adjectives, adverbs have positive, comparative and superlative forms.

The positive form of an adverb can be formed from an adjective by appending an adverbial suffix to the base, typically -e, -er, -iter, -itus, more rarely -o, or -um. The adjective clārus, -a, -um, which means bright, can be contrasted to the adverb clārē, which means brightly.

The comparative form of an adverb, formed from third declension adjectives, is very simple: it is the same as the neuter nominative singular form of a comparative adjective and usually ends in -ius. Instead of the adjective clārior, which mean brighter, the adverb is clārius, which means more brightly.

The superlative adverb is also very simple: it has the same base as the superlative adjective and always ends in a long -e. Instead of the adjective clārissimus, which mean brightest, the adverb is clārissimē, which means most brightly.

Prepositions

A prepositional phrase in Latin is made up of a preposition followed by (except for a few postpositives) a noun phrase in an oblique case (ablative, accusative and rarely genitive). The preposition determines the case that is used, with some prepositions allowing different cases depending on the meaning. For example, Latin in takes the accusative case when it indicates motion (English into) and the ablative case when it indicates position (English on or inside):

• in urbem = "into the city" (accusative)
• in urbe = "in the city" (ablative)

Other prepositions take one case only. For example, all those that mean "from", "by", or "with" take the ablative:

• ex urbe = "out of the city"
• ab urbe = "(away) from the city"
• cum Caesare = "with Caesar"

Other prepositions take only the accusative:

• extra urbem = "outside the city"
• ad urbem = "to/near the city"
• per urbem = "through(out) the city"
• circum urbem = "around the city"

Numerals and numbers

Only the first three numbers have masculine, feminine and neuter forms fully declined as if they were normal adjectives.

• ūnus, ūna, ūnum (1)
• duo, duae, duo (2)
• trēs, trēs, tria (3)

ūnus (one) has mostly first- and second-declension endings, but -īus is the normal genitive singular and -ī the normal dative singular ending (all three genders). duo (two) has an irregular declension. On the other hand, trēs, tria (three) is a regular third-declension adjective with the stem tr-.

The numbers quattuor (four) through decem (ten) are not declined:

• quattuor (4)
• quīnque (5)
• sex (6)
• septem (7)
• octō (8)
• novem (9)
• decem (10)

The "tens" numbers are also not declined:

• vīgintī (20)
• trīgintā (30)
• quadrāgintā (40)
• quīnquāgintā (50)
• sexāgintā (60)
• septuāgintā (70)
• octōgintā (80)
• nōnāgintā (90)

The numbers 11 to 17 are formed by affixation of the corresponding digit to the base -decim, hence ūndecim, duodecim, tredecim, quattuordecim, quīndecim, sēdecim, septendecim. The numbers 18 and 19 are formed by subtracting 2 and 1, respectively, from 20: duodēvīgintī and ūndēvīgintī. For the numbers 21 to 27, the digits either follow or are added to 20 by the conjunction et: vīgintī ūnus or ūnus et vīgintī, vīgintī duo or duo et vīgintī etc. The numbers 28 and 29 are again formed by subtraction: duodētrīgintā and ūndētrīgintā. Each group of ten numerals through 100 follows the patterns of the 20s but 99 is nōnāgintā novem rather than *ūndēcentum.

Compounds ending in 1 2 and 3 are the only ones to decline:

I saw 20 blackbirds = vīgintī merulās vīdī

I saw 22 blackbirds = vīgintī duās merulās vīdī (where duās changes to agree with merulās)

The "hundreds" numbers are the following:

• centum (indeclinable)
• ducentī, -ae, -a (200)
• trecentī, -ae, -a (300)
• quadringentī, -ae, -a (400)
• quīngentī, -ae, -a (500)
• sēscentī, -ae, -a (600)
• septingentī, -ae, -a (700)
• octingentī, -ae, -a (800)
• nōngentī, -ae, -a (900)

However, 1000 is mille, an indeclinable adjective, but multiples such as duo mīlia (2000) have mīlia as a neuter plural substantive followed by a partitive genitive:

I saw a thousand lions = mīlle leōnēs vīdī

I saw three thousand lions = tria mīlia leōnum vīdī

Ordinal numbers are all adjectives with regular first- and second-declension endings. Most are built off of the stems of cardinal numbers (for example, trīcēsimus, -a, -um (30th) from trīgintā (30), sēscentēsimus, -a, -um nōnus, -a, -um (609th) for sēscentī novem (609). However, "first" is prīmus, -a, -um, and "second" is secundus, -a, -um (literally "following" the first; sequi means "to follow").

Word order

Latin allows a very flexible word order because of its inflectional syntax. Ordinary prose tended to follow the pattern of subject, direct object, indirect object, adverbial words or phrases, verb (with the proviso that when noun and verb make a compound, as impetum facio 'I attack / make an attack' the noun is generally placed close to the verb).^[6] Any extra but subordinate verb, such as an infinitive, is placed before the main verb. Adjectives and participles usually directly follow nouns unless they are adjectives of beauty, size, quantity, goodness, or truth, in which case they usually precede the noun being modified. However, departures from these rules are frequent.

Relative clauses are commonly placed after the antecedent that the relative pronoun describes. Since grammatical function in a sentence is based not on word order but on inflection, the usual word order in Latin was often abandoned with no detriment to understanding but with various changes in emphasis.

While these patterns of word order were the most frequent in Classical Latin prose, they were frequently varied. The strongest surviving evidence suggests that the word order of colloquial Latin was mostly Subject-Object-Verb. That can be found in some very conservative Romance languages, such as Sardinian and Sicilian in which the verb is still often placed at the end of the sentence (see Vulgar Latin). On the other hand, subject-verb-object word order was probably also common in ancient Latin conversation, as it is prominent in the Romance languages, which evolved from Latin.^[7]

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. One must bear in mind that poets in the Roman world wrote primarily for the ear, not 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 nōs cēdāmus amōrī!: Love conquers all, let us too yield to love!. The words omnia (all), amor (love) and amōrī (to love) are thrown into relief by their unusual position in their respective phrases.

The ending of the common Roman name Marcus is different in each of the following pairs of examples because of its grammatical usage in each pair. The ordering in the second sentence of each pair would be correct in Latin and clearly understood, whereas in English it is awkward, at best, and meaningless, at worst:

• Marcus ferit Cornēliam: Marcus hits Cornelia. (subject–verb–object)
• Marcus Cornēliam ferit: Marcus Cornelia hits. (subject–object–verb)
• Cornēlia dedit Marcō dōnum: Cornelia has given Marcus a gift. (subject–verb–indirect object–direct object)
• Cornēlia Marcō dōnum dedit: Cornelia (to) Marcus a gift has given. (subject–indirect object–direct object–verb)

See also

• Declension of Greek nouns in Latin
• Latin syntax
• Latin mnemonics
• William Whitaker's Words

Notes

References

• Bennett, Charles Edwin (1895). Latin Grammar. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

External links

• New Latin Grammar by Charles E. Bennet (free ebook) (1895, 3rd edition 1918)
• Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges (1903) (public domain book)
• Online version of Gildersleeve & Lodge's Latin Grammar (full version, 1903)
• Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar: School Edition (1905) (Google book)
• "Textkit.com" Website containing links to useful resources for learners of Latin.
• Ablative Absolute from Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar
• Ablative Absolute by William Harris
• Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid from Notre Dame.
• A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language; with Perpetual Exercises in Speaking and Writing: For the Use of Schools, Colleges, and Private Learners, by George J. Adler
• Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum: complete texts and full bibliography
• Legible Latin A multi-platform interface for Whitaker's Words dictionary (free).
• A Digital Dictionary A Latin Dictionary that will work as the default dictionary on a Kindle reading device.