Chapter 17

RULE 1: A relative pronoun agrees with its antecedent in number and gender, but not case; it derives its case from its use in its own clause.

I. Grammar

If this lesson gives students trouble, it's most often not because the Latin grammar is difficult but because they have an incomplete grasp of English grammar. While they have used—and without doubt misused—relative pronouns all their short lives, they have probably never given an iota of thought to how these pronouns work. Before and even while discussing the Latin relative pronoun, you will have to stop and review the proper use of relative pronouns in English. In light of this deficiency I have found it helpful to insist on the correct use of who and whom, although whom is rapidly becoming outdated. It's an excellent preparation for proper Latin usage.

A. The English Relative Pronoun(s)

Begin by giving a short definition of a relative pronoun and clause, illuminated by a few brief examples drawn from English usage. Note that there are no fewer than five ways to express the relative pronoun in English:

1. Who: I have a friend who eats fish.
2. Which: And I have a fish which eats friends.
3. That: It's a piranha that eats people.
4. What: What my piranha eats is none of your business.
5. Zero: Unless you're my friend, why do you care about the food my piranha eats? [The omission of the relative pronoun here is parallel to the omission of that in indirect statement: "I assure you <that> this is a friendly fish."]

B. Formation of the Latin Relative Pronoun

The formation of this pronoun in Latin is relatively simple. Point out the following things about the formation of qui, quae, quod:

1. qui is masculine nominative singular and plural;
2. quae does double duty, as expected, for feminative nominative singular and neuter nominative/accusative plural (cf. -a in first/second declension), but the same form also serves as the feminative nominative plural form (see below, The History of the Relative Pronoun);
3. like illud, aliud, istud and id, the neuter nominative/accusative singular quod ends in -d;
4. the endings, -ius and -i, of the genitive and dative singular are the expected forms for the pronoun in these cases;
5. the rest of the endings derive from first/second declension (attached to the base qu-), except for quem and quibus which have third-declension endings and quae (neuter nominative/accusative plural) which is anomalous (see below, The History of the Relative Pronoun);
6. and finally, there are no mandatory long marks.

C. Syntax

Begin by explaining that a relative clause is a type of subordinate clause. Subordinate clauses have their own "grammar" (subject, verb, possibly also objects and prepositional phrases) and, though linked into a main sentence in some way, they do not serve as part of it. A relative clause is introduced by a relative pronoun which has as its antecedent a word (usually a noun) in the main sentence, for instance:

Judge, here is the student who murdered his Latin teacher.

Bear in mind that students are being confronted here with a complex subordinate clause for the first time in their study of Latin so with this lesson you're introducing not only relative clauses but clauses in general. It's important for them to understand that, in the quote above, Here is the student is the main sentence which stands on its own grammatically and, while who murdered his Latin teacher has its own subject and verb, it is not an independent statement but a (relative) clause. This distinction relies on the presence of the relative pronoun which makes the clause dependent; students must grasp this concept before proceeding.

Some inquiring mind is sure to ask, "But, teacher, 'Who murdered the Latin teacher?' makes sense to me all by itself!," leaving you to distinguish the English interrogative and relative forms of who, a task you will have to do soon enough so it might as well be now. Tell them the who you are talking about is not the question word who but the non-question word who. The who that asks a question will be part of a main sentence; the relative who will not be. For example,

INTERROGATIVE: Who is huffing and puffing at my front door?
RELATIVE: It's the Big Bad Wolf who is huffing and puffing at my front door.

A handy way to distinguish the interrogative who from the relative who is that the interrogative who will often come at or near the beginning of the sentence and the sentence will end with a question mark, neither of which the relative who will do—well, not very often. There are exceptions—"Whom the gods love, they die young, don't they?"—but, in general, you can appeal to the students' common sense.

While strictly not part of the main sentence, a relative clause is linked to the main sentence grammatically through the relative pronoun which straddles both. The relative clause in the example above is who murdered his Latin teacher, and its antecedent is the student which it describes or modifies (i.e. the relative clause tells you more about the student). The clause has its own subject (who), verb (murdered) and direct object (teacher). The who links this mini-sentence to the antecedent (student) in the main sentence. In Latin, the verb of the relative clause and everything else in the relative clause except the relative pronoun will be constructed just as if it were in a regular sentence, so Latin students will only need to focus really on the proper formation of the relative pronoun.

Since the relative pronoun functions in both its own clause and the main sentence—it "relates" them, hence its name—it is a creature of two worlds and its loyalties are naturally divided. Pose this dilemma to the students: What case should a Latin relative pronoun take: the case of its antecedent so that like other pronouns (e.g. hic, ille, iste) it agrees in number, gender and case with the noun it goes with; or the case that its own clause requires (i.e. nominative if it's the subject)? Which loyalty is stronger, the outward pull toward its antecedent or the inward attraction of its own clause's grammar? If, as in the case of the sentence above ("Judge, here is the student . . ."), the antecedent happens to be in the same case as that which the relative clause requires, no problem! But what if it's not? Change the example above:

Judge, I accuse this student, who killed his Latin teacher, of murder in the first declension!

Now the antecedent (student) is the direct object of the main sentence and should therefore be accusative, but the relative pronoun is the subject in its own clause (who killed) and should therefore be nominative. Which case is the better choice? Considering (1) that it is often no problem in actual practice to determine what noun is the antecedent of the relative pronoun—context and common sense frequently make it clear which noun must serve as the relative pronoun's antecedent—(2) that the relative pronoun will agree with its antecedent in number and gender no matter which option is chosen and that alone will often delimit the possible antecedents considerably; and (3) that one has no other guideline for construing the use of a relative pronoun in its own clause except by its case ending, the choice must be to make the relative pronoun reflect its use in its own clause rather than take the case of its antecedent. If for some reason there is difficulty determining what noun is a relative pronoun's antecedent—the problem arises rarely in actual practice—there is an unwritten rule in Latin, just as in English, that relative clauses tend to follow their antecedents directly, as in most of the examples above.

Thus arises the rule, as stated above: "A relative pronoun agrees with its antecedent in number and gender, but not case; it derives its case from its use in its own clause." To reinforce this principle there is a worksheet (click here), which allows student to practice determining the proper form of the Latin relative pronoun in different grammatical contexts. Follow these steps for each sentence on the worksheet:

1. have students first locate the relative clause and pronoun;
2. then, have them identify the antecedent and label it by number and gender;
3. next, have them determine the use of the relative pronoun in its own clause and label the case which that use demands;
4. and, finally, have them look up in the book the correct form of the relative pronoun for that context.

Make them label each sentence in the following way:

That should do it! Practice will make perfect with "relative" ease.

D. History of the Relative Pronoun

The Latin *qu- base originated in the Indo-European indefinite-interrogative pronoun (cf. Lat. quis and (ali)quis), which is attested in all Indo-European languages, cf. Greek tis, ti. The use of this base as the relative pronoun developed early in Italic dialects; it spread only much later to other Indo-European languages, e.g. English who, which were not used as relatives until the twelfth century CE or later.

In Italic, the i-stem forms of the qu- base (quis, quid) were generally associated with the interrogative-indefinite pronouns and a-stems and o-stems (first/second declension) with relative pronouns, but few classical forms actually manifest this distinction: (1) in the nominative singular, quis, quid was used for interrogative-indefinites exclusively and qui, quae, quod for relatives; (2) the interrogative-indefinites combined masculine and feminine gender (cf. Greek. masculine/feminine tis), leaving no quae, quam or quâ in the singular; but (3) the relative pronoun borrowed the accusative masculine singular quem (< *quim) and the dative/ablative plural quibus (replacing quîs) from the interrogative-indefinite. The original accusative masculine singular of the o-stem came to be used as a subordinate conjunction (quom > cum). The instrumental singular of the i-stem, quî, became an adverb meaning "how, somehow," as did quia ("since"), originally the neuter nominative/accusative plural of this form. The forms qui and quae can be explained as exhibiting the deictic particle -i (quo +- i; qua + -i).

II. Vocabulary

• amicitia: Unlike the suffixes listed in Wheelock's Chapter 7 (page 32, note 2), -tia belongs to the first declension. It denotes an abstract concept, here "friendship."
• aut: Students expect a separate word, like "either," in the first half of the pair aut . . . aut. They should learn that, in fact, many (if not most) languages do not distinguish either and or. You might then expand their small horizons and challenge them to explain why English needs a word like either at all. [Either exhibits the same "comparative" suffix -ther seen in other and whether. Latin aut may be related to Greek au, "again, on the other hand".]
• coepi: A defective verb (i.e. it lacks usual forms, in this case all present-stem forms). Students will want to know what coepisse is. You will have to say it is the infinitive without explaining the formation of the perfect infinitive. I tell my students that they will understand the form later and for now just to know that it is translated as "to begin"; otherwise it supplies no crucial information about the verb (knowing the thematic vowel is not crucial to the formation of verbs in the perfect system the way it is in the present tenses). In fact, it's only because dictionaries regularly supply infinitives with verbs that coepisse is included at all! [Coepi was originally a compound of cum (co-) and the archaic verb *apio ("to fit" [the perfect passive participle aptus was preserved as an adjective]); it means therefore "to fit together" > "to begin." When the verb *apio fell out of general usage in Latin, coepi was no longer felt to be a compound (co-epi) and the vowels coalesced into a diphthong, coepi, cf. coegi, where the base verb (ago) was not lost and consequently the vowels did not become a diphthong.]
• incipio: While it may seem obvious to you, students might not immediately recognize that incipio = in- + capio, with vowel gradation. Just as in English, the literal Latin meaning "to take on" implies "to begin." Both incipio and coepi take a complementary infinitive. The difference in their meanings is negligible.
• neglego: A compound of ne(c) + lego ("choose"), literally "not to choose." Like intellego (another compound of lego) which has a perfect active base intellex-, neglego shows a sigmatic aorist-type perfect, neglexi. Neither of these compounds follow the model of the base verb lego (which has lêg- as its perfect active base), showing that the classical Romans no longer felt the force of lego behind these compounds.
• factum: This word presents a nice opportunity to reinforce the meaning of the perfect passive participle, "having been X-ed". Factum is the substantive of that participle in the neuter, meaning literally "a thing having been done."

III. Sentences

Practice and Review

5. Remind students that quam as an adverb means "how." It's laudably cruel of Mr. Wheelock to put this into the chapter on relative pronouns.
6. A bizarre sentence! Possibly Wheelock is thinking of Demea in Terence's Adelphoe.
7. One of my favorite Wheelock sentences. A mother throwing her sons into traffic will wake up even the sleepiest student!
8. It's best to take illa with femina, though it can be construed with pericula.

IV. Review for Test 3