Chapter 11

I. Grammar

A. Personal Pronouns

The problems encountered with seeming irregularities in demonstrative pronouns are only compounded with the personal pronouns in Latin. Most students will find it best simply to memorize the Latin forms for "I," "you," etc. Recitation of these forms out loud will help many. There are, however, patterns in the declension of these forms which may aid in memorization: mei vs. tui, mihi vs. tibi, me vs. te, nostrum vs. vestrum, etc. As you decline these forms on the board and recite them aloud together, call these patterns to the students' attention. [The genitive singular forms of the personal pronoun do not have the expected ending of -ius, because mei and tui were derived from the genitive singular forms of the possessive adjectives, meus and tuus.]

B. Is, Ea, Id

This pronoun is built from a simple base e-, the weakest form of the demonstrative, to which are added first/second declension endings, with the expected substitution of -ius and -i in the genitive and dative singular. The only forms which do not follow this pattern are is and id. Call to the students' attention that there is a mandatory long mark in the feminine ablative singular (eâ). Also, when you write these forms up on the board, leave enough space between them to add -dem, so that you can use this declension later to demonstrate how îdem, eadem, idem is formed.

C. Îdem, Eadem, Idem

It's relatively rare in Latin to find suffixes because they turn endings into "middlings" and that grates on the Roman ear which wants to hear syntactical information at the end of a word. Îdem is one of the few exceptions. Nevertheless, its formation is quite regular. Only a few forms of this pronoun deviate from the basic pattern, is/ea/id + -dem. Here are some important things to note:

1. The long mark in îdem (masculine nominative singular, a contraction of *is-dem) is mandatory.
2. The long mark distinguishes idem from the neuter nominative/accusative singular îdem which has a short i-. [*Id-dem was not, however, the original form. The original particle attached to the pronoun was -em (cf. quid-em, aut-em), creating in the neuter nominative/accusative singular idem which was later wrongly analyzed as i-dem. From there, the suffix was misconstrued as -dem and added to other forms.]
3. For any form of is, ea, id which ends in -m, that final -m will become -n when -dem follows it: eundem, eandem, eorundem, earundem.

Wheelock in Chapter 11 lists only the irregular forms of îdem. Show students the full declension at the back of the book on page 383. In general, it is a good idea to acquaint students as soon as possible with the Summary of Forms in the back of Wheelock (pp. 380ff.), because it is this that students will have to know how to use later when they move into reading Latin and need to refresh their memory of a certain form.

D. The Use of Pronouns in Latin

There are several important things to note about the use of the personal pronouns in Latin:

1. The nominative forms of the personal pronouns are used mainly for emphasis.
2. The genitive forms of the personal pronouns do not show possession but are used as partitive genitives (e.g. some of us) and objective genitives (love of me); see page 50, note 4. Instead, the adjectives meus, tuus, noster, and vester serve as the possessive forms of the first- and second-person pronouns.
3. Because, however, they had no possessive (non-reflexive) adjective for the third person (his, her, its, their), the Romans used the genitive of is, ea, id to show possession (eius, eorum, earum). Stress to students that the genitive forms of is, ea, id work differently from the possessive adjectives. Whereas the possessive adjectives decline and agree with their antecedents (e.g. amici mei, officia vestra), eius/eorum/earum do not (e.g. amici eius, officia eorum). Rather, just like his/her/its/their in English, eius/eorum/earum indicate the noun to which they are attached by juxtaposition, usually coming after the noun.
4. Finally, Latin does not use possessive pronouns nearly as often as English; see Wheelock page 51, note 5. That is, where we say "Rufus has his (own) book," Latin says Rufus librum habet (with no equivalent of "his" attached to librum) because possession by the subject is assumed in Latin, if not stated otherwise. Make students aware of this Latin tendency by giving some examples where English would supply a possessive form but Latin would not: He hates (his) father, he drives (his) chariot too fast, he broke (his) neck, he is digging (his) grave.

E. The History of Personal Pronouns

"The personal pronouns in the various Indo-European languages . . . show a bewildering variety of forms from which it would be idle to attempt to reconstruct precise paradigms for the parent speech." - C.D. Buck

Here are a few interesting points of comparison between Latin and English, which might make some of the seeming irregularities manifest in Latin personal pronouns seem a little less "irregular" or, at least, less foreign:

1. Ego. The Old English form of the first person singular pronoun was ic (cf. Dutch ik, German ich), showing the regular change in Germanic languages (Grimm's Law) from inherited g to k, cf. gen- > kin, gelid- > cold.
2. Tu. The modern—but perhaps archaic-sounding to us—forms of the second person singular pronoun in English, thou (subject) and thee (object), are related by Grimm's Law to Indo-European tu (or tû): t > th (mater > mother, dent- > tooth). English you develops from the second person plural pronoun, first substituted as a polite form of the singular pronoun and later generalized to other forms.
3. Nos/Vos. The Indo-European plural personal pronouns were *nes/*nos (first) and *wes/*wos (second). *Nos became uns in German and us in Old English (hence, us). In Latin, the accusative forms nôs and vôs replaced the original nominative forms which were allied to English we and ye.

II. Compound Verbs

Just as in English, prepositions in Latin can be appended to the front of a verb and used to modify its meaning. In Latin, however, the preposition is always prefixed to the front of the verb, e.g. induco, whereas in English it more often follows the verb, e.g. lead in. In both languages, the preposition simply adds its literal sense to the verb for the most part, as above ("lead in"), but sometimes the compounded verb takes on a new, figurative sense, in which the connection to the base verb may be hard to fathom (Latin induco can also mean "cover, erase, revoke, persuade, resolve and believe," cf. English make vs. make up, tank vs. tank up, screw vs. screw up).

Vowel gradation is an important principle involved in compound verbs. It is the shortening of the vowel in the verb base when a compound is prefixed, e.g. facio > conficio, capio > accipio, rapio > eripio. Most often, -a- will shorten to -i-, but -e- can as well, e.g. dis- + lego > diligo. In another important process called assimilation, the prefix may also change form before bases beginning with certain consonants, e.g., cum can become col-, com-, con-, co-; ad > ac-, al-, ap-; sub > sup-, sur-, sus-, to name but a few of the many possibilities. Advise students to identify the base verb in compounds and learn to decipher the connotation of the compound from context. By understanding the constituent elements of compound verbs, one not only comes closer to understanding Latin the way the Romans did but can also save much time memorizing verbs.

Click here for a worksheet on compound verbs.

III. Vocabulary

• nemo: A contraction of ne- and homo (in an older form *hemo). It borrows the genitive and ablative singular of nullus. I have found it useful over the years to ask students about Jules Verne's character, Captain Nemo, who is named after Odysseus in the famous Cyclops passage where he calls himself Outis ("No one") in order to trick the monster.
• carus: Can have a dative associated with it, "dear (to . . .)." If so, the dative is said to be "with carus." In the sense "expensive" (cf. French cher), carus is cognate with English whore (literally, "an expensive [woman]").
• autem: Another postpositive conjunction. See igitur, Chapter 5.
• bene: The adverb is formed from the base duen-, an older, alternate grade (having a different vowel) of the adjective bonus.

IV. Sentences

Practice and Review

5. Is Wheelock telling us what aliens said in Latin? A rare comical moment!

14. See page 52, footnote 9. Explain to students that when personal pronouns are the object of the preposition cum, cum follows the ablative form of the personal pronoun and the two are written as one word: mecum, tecum, nobiscum, vobiscum (also secum, quibuscum). This does not apply, however, to the demonstrative pronouns, e.g. cum eis.

V. Review for Test 2