Week 2 1st, 2nd declension nouns; 1st conjugation verbs A noun, as we all remember from Grammar Rock, is a person, place or thing. Latin inflects its nouns so the trained reader of Latin can tell at a glance how the noun is being used in the sentence. Latin nouns come in 5 flavors, known as declensions. These are the first two. 1st declension nouns: Mostly feminine 1st declension nouns end in -a in the nominative singular and -ae in the genitive singular. Except for a few "professional" nouns (poet, farmer and sailor), all 1st declension nouns are feminine. Note that vocabulary lists always give the nominative and the genitive of the noun, since it is on the genitive that the other forms are based. This is not very important for 1st and 2nd declension nouns because the stems are the same in the nominative and genitive, but it becomes crucial when we get to 3rd declension. Puella, puellae: girl Singular Plural Nominative puella puellae Genitive puellae puellarum Dative puellae puellis Accusative puellam puellas Ablative puella* puellis *In the ablative singular, the final a has a long mark over it. In real life, while the ablative and nominative were pronounced differently, they were both spelled the same, so be aware that the helpful "This is an ablative!" long mark may not always be there. 2nd declension nouns: Masculine and neuter 2nd declension nouns end in -us (masculine) and -um (neuter) in the nominative singular. Except for the nominative (singular and plural) and accusative plural, they are identical throughout the declension. Gladius, gladii, m: sword Bellum, belli, n: war Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative gladius gladii bellum bella Genitive gladii gladiorum belli bellorum Dative gladio gladiis bello bellis Accusative gladium gladios bellum bella Ablative gladio gladiis bello bellis You’ll notice a lot of similarities between the 1st and 2nd declensions: the dative and ablative plurals are identical, the genitive plurals are the same general format; for masculine and feminine, the accusative plurals, the genitive singular and nominative plural follow the same patterns. The neuter nominative and accusative, singular and plural, are always exactly the same. (This holds true for EVERY neuter noun, no matter what declension it is.) Once you’ve learned the endings for 1st and 2nd declension nouns, 1st and 2nd declension adjectives are positively trivial, because they follow the noun pattern exactly. Adjective declension 1st conjugation verbs: -o, -are, -avi, -atum Verbs of the 1st conjugation are known as regular verbs, because, with only two important exceptions, they all follow exactly the same pattern, both in principle parts and through the conjugation. They are also known as the -are verbs, since their present infinitives all end in ­are. The present, imperfect, and future active indicative of all verbs are formed using the stem of the present infinitive (the second principle part), which for 1st conjugation verbs is found by dropping the ­re off, e.g. vocare, to call, present stem voca-. The first principle part is always the 1st person singular present active indicative, and doesn’t need any endings help. Present endings: -o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt I call voco we call vocamus you (s) call vocas you (pl) call vocatis he/she/it calls vocat they call vocant The imperfect is formed exactly the same way, but using imperfect endings. One way to remember the imperfect is that if you drop a bomb ("-bam") on something it becomes imperfect. Imperfect endings: -bam, -bas, -bat, -bamus, -batis, -bant I was calling vocabam we were calling vocabamus you were calling vocabas you were calling vocabatis he/she/it was calling vocabat they were calling vocabant You’ll notice that except for the first person singular, the endings are all the same as for the present, just with a b stuck in front. The future is formed similarly to the imperfect with the ­b- thing happening, but this time the very ends of the endings are different: Future endings: -bo, -bis, -bit, -bimus, -bitis, -bunt I will call vocabo we will call vocabimus you will call vocabis you will call vocabitis he/she/it will call vocabit they will call vocabunt The perfect active indicative tenses are formed using the third principle part of the verb, vocavi in this case, dropping the ­i, and adding the appropriate endings. Lovely thing about Latin: though the third principle part of a verb may be regular or may be screamingly irregular, the endings for the perfect tenses are the same IN EVERY CONJUGATION. Learn the forms here and learning all the rest of the perfect tenses is easyeasyeasy. Perfect endings: -i, -isti, -it, -imus, -istis, -erunt I have called vocavi we have called vocavimus you have called vocavisti you have called vocavistis he/she/it has called vocavit they have called vocaverunt Pluperfect endings: -eram, -eras, -erat, -eramus, -eratis, -erant I had called vocaveram we had called vocaveramus you had called vocaveras you had called vocaveratis he/she/it vocaverat they had called vocaverant Future perfect endings: -ero, -ersi, -erit, -erimus, -eritis, -erint I will have called vocavero we will have called vocaverimus you will have called vocaveris you will have called vocaveritis he/she/it will have called vocaverit they will have called vocaverint The passive voice Passive present, imperfect and future (I am called, I was being called, I will be called) are formed in exactly the same way as the active forms, just with different endings: -r, ­ris ­tur, -mur, -mini, -ntur. These paradigms are all pretty much the same as for the actives; click the link to review them. Passive paradigms Before we can go to perfect passive, we must encounter the most useful verb in any language: the verb to be. Present Perfect I am sum we are sumus I have been fui we have been fuimus you are es you are estis you have been fuisti you have been fuistis he/she/it is est they are sunt he/she/it has been fuit they have been fuerunt Imperfect Pluperfect I was eram we were eramus I had been fueram we had been fueramus you were eras you were eratis you had been fueras you had been fueratis he/she/it was erat they were erant he/she/it had been fuerat they had been fuerant Future Future Perfect I will be ero we will be erimus I will have been fuero we will have been fuerimus you will be eris you will be eritis you will have been fueris you will have been fueritis he/she/it will be erit they will be erunt he/she/it will have been fuerit they will have been fuerint You’ll notice that the endings for the perfects of to be are just as regular as all other perfects, even though the perfect stem is pretty weird, and the endings of the imperfect and future are pretty standard too. Perfect passives, now, are formed by taking the 4th principle part of the verb and adding the appropriate form of sum to it. The pattern in the same all the way through, so I’ll just give the 1st person singular and plural here. I have been called vocatus sum we have been called vocati sumus I had been called vocatus eram we had been called vocati eramus I will have been called vocatus ero we will have been called vocati erimus Notice that the 4th principle part changes depending on if the subject is singular or plural (and also masculine, feminine or neuter). The 4th principle part portion of the perfect passive verb must always agree with the subject in number and gender. Vocabulary Exercises