Quick Latin - 2
Latin nouns have a gender which can be masculine, feminine or neuter. Generally the gender has to be learnt, but there are a few rules.
Adjectives in Latin
Latin adjectives have to 'agree' with the noun that they describe which means that their endings change according to the number, gender and case of the noun.
This means that Latin adjectives as well as nouns decline, and listing the possible endings of an adjective is to decline it.
Bonus (good) is an adjective and in the nominative singular declines bonus, bona, bonum. Bonus is used when it describes a masculine object, bona to describe and bonum to describe a neuter object.
Puer (boy) is masculine, and so the Latin for a good boy is puer bonus. Puella (girl) is feminine and the same clause would be puella bona, and so on.
Bonus is an example of a first and second declension adjective, and here it is declined in the singular.
Singular
| M. | F. | N. |
|---|---|---|
| bonus | bona | bonum |
| bone | bona | bonum |
| bonum | bonam | bonum |
| boni | bonae | boni |
| bono | bonae | bono |
| bono | bona | bono |
For more information on Latin Adjectives. try Declining Latin adjectives , and Third declension adjectives
An example of adjectival agreement
Many pithy phrases are written in the Latin language. Here is one :-
ars longa, vita brevis
Art is long, life is short.
Translating a Latin sentence involves breaking it down into its grammatical components otherwise known as parsing it. Remember that word order in Latin is flexible, and just because two words are adjacent does not mean that they are related.
Looking at this example.
Ars means art. It is in the nominative case and it is feminine. More pedantically, it would be found in a dictionary as ars, artis (f). Artis is the genitive and knowing this allows you to decline the noun.
Longus is an adjective with several meanings, one of which is long. The dictionary definition is long us , - a , - um and from this we can see that it is a first declension adjective. This means that it will decline as bon us , - a , - um as above .
As ars is in the nominative and is feminine, longus must use the same form to agree with the noun and so in long a.
There are two nouns and two adjectives in the phrase ars longa, vita brevis but no verb. The verb esse (meaning to be) may be left out in some sentences, especially where it is obvious from the context that it is required. This is often the case with short and pithy Latin maxim, mottoes and phrases.
esse is the infinitive and means to be.
Latin verbs conjugate and in this example, the form used would be est which can mean either he is, she is or it is depending on the context.
Verbs in Latin are either regular or irregular. Regular verbs conform to a pattern and are conjugated according to that pattern. Irregular Latin verbs do not conform to any particular pattern.