Chapter 2

I. Grammar

A. Important Grammatical Terms

1. Declension. As with the word "conjugation," the word "declension" means both a process and a group.
2. Gender. The distinction of grammatical genders runs very deep in IE culture and language. The three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) are manifested in one way or another in most IE languages. However, not all nouns show their gender in their form; to reveal gender, some rely on attached adjectives which more regularly show gender explicitly. Stress to students that grammatical gender has little to do with natural gender. This was recognized by early grammarians who gave this noun group the name "neuter", meaning not "without gender" but "not (ne-) belonging to either (-uter) of the other two genders." Originally, the application of gender to inanimate things may have reflected a general personification of material objects, but there is surely more to it than that. That some words ended in a certain form (e.g. -a), which by coincidence was also associated with a natural-gender group (e.g. women), may explain how a random assortment of inanimate objects were apparently given gender. But this is mere speculation. The origin of gender is lost in remote history.
3. Number. Latin has only two numbers (singular and plural), whereas IE had three, including a dual which Latin preserves only in isolated forms, such as duo and ambo.
4. Case. Indo-European had eight cases (the six known in Latin, plus a separate locative and instrumental). Review with students the definition and major uses of the cases in Latin (these uses are mentioned on the insert designed to be inserted into the front of the book):
   • NOMINATIVE: Subject (the actor/doer in a sentence or clause); predicate nominative (noun/adjective).
   • GENITIVE: Possession [translation = "of", "X's", "Xs'"—note to students the difference between the singular (X's) and the plural (Xs'), also irregular forms (his, hers, its[no apostrophe!], their(s).]
   • DATIVE: Indirect Object, which is really a subgroup of the true function of the case which is reference [translation = "to/for", but NOT the directional "to/toward"!].
   • ACCUSATIVE: Direct Object (receiver of action not necessarily in main sentence—can also be the object of infinitives and participles); object of certain prepositions (ad, in, post, etc.), often showing "motion towards."
   • ABLATIVE: Many "adverbial" uses (delimiting or modifying action of a sentence): means/instrument (with what), manner (how), accompaniment (with whom), agent (by whom), separation (from where), and time (when). Students will learn these uses gradually. The ablative has no simple corresponding form in English. It is useful to remember the most frequent translations of the ablative: "by, with, from, in, on, at."
   • VOCATIVE: Direct address, most often identical in form to the nominative.
   • [LOCATIVE: Place where; used only with specific forms (see Chapter 37).]

   [NOTE: Tell students that these are only the major uses of the cases and that later in the course they will learn further and more complicated uses for the cases.]

   In Latin, the locative and instrumental cases merged into the ablative, although the old locative ending -i survived into classical Latin in isolated forms, such as domi and humi. The merging of cases, called "case syncretism," continued after Classical Latin and led to the almost universal reduction of the case system for nouns and its complete abandonment in some Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish). Cases were in part replaced by prepositions. Latin was in the process of replacing cases with prepositions at the time we study it—the locative is an early casuality, replaced by the preposition "in." A fixed word order in sentences also made the case system dispensable. In general, the prepositions and a fixed word order were simpler than the case system and, to that extent, preferred by speakers of Romance languages.

5. Article. There is no article ("the, a") in Latin.

B. The History of the First Declension

First declension represents IE â-stem nouns. The IE endings were:

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-â	-âs
Genitive	-âs	-âsôm
Dative	-âi	-âbhos
Accusative	-âm	-âns(?)
Ablative	-âs	-âbhos
Vocative	-a, -ai	-âs
Instrumental	-âbhi, -â	-âbhis
Locative	-âi	-âsu

Nominative. In the singular, the Latin short a was originally long and became short by a process known as "iambic shortening" (the tendency in Latin to shorten final long syllables, especially in iambic ( o - ) words, cf. bene, male, nisi, mihi, ibi). In the plural, IE -as was replaced by -ae through a rather indirect path: IE masculine pronouns in the nom. pl. ended -oi and that ending was generalized to o-stem (masc.) nouns in both Latin and Greek, displacing the original -os. On the analogy of the masc. nom. pl. -oi, the fem. nom. pl. was changed from -as to -âi. Whereas in the masculine the short o (of -oi) was absorbed by the i which was then lengthened to show the loss of the o, in the feminine the a was long and contracted into the diphthong -ai, later written -ae.

Genitive. The IE -as genitive singular can be seen in Latin frozen phrases, like pater familias. Again on the analogy of o-stem (second-declension) masculine forms, the feminine gen. sing. became -âi, later shortened to -ae. The genitive plural -arum also derives ultimately from a pronominal ending (-âsôm) extrapolated to noun endings. In Latin this ending was "rhotacized" to -arum.

Dative. Like in the nom. pl., the dat. sing. -âi ultimately became -ae. It is interesting to note that early Latin inscriptions preserve a dative singular ending -â, representing an alternate development of the diphthong along the analogy of the masc. dat. sing., where -oi collapses to -ô. The fem. dat. pl. follows much the same roundabout path as the nom. pl.: the masc. (second-declension) dat. pl. borrowed the instrumental pl. form (-ôis) and shortened the diphthong (-ois), and later the fem. (first-declension) dat. pl. copied the form substituting an -â- for the -ô-. The diphthong then in both genders collapsed into -îs. The irregular forms, deabus and filiabus, are not inherited forms but later creations, which were intended to distinguish fem. and masc. forms (deabus vs. deîs) and borrowed from third-declension endings.

Accusative. The -â- of the singular is shortened as in the nominative singular. In the plural, the original ending, -ans, lost its -n- early in the development of Latin. Eventually, internal -ns- was also reduced on the analogy of final -ns, cf. thensaurus vs. thesaurus, consul vs. cosul.

Ablative. Again the feminine form was borrowed from the masculine, this time with good reason. In IE the a-stem (feminine) genitive and ablative forms were identical. Seeking a distinction between them, early Latin borrowed a distinctive ablative singular marker from masculine o-stems (second-declension), a -d (making an -ôd or -êd ending). Thus, the feminine ending became for a while -âd. Later, final -d was lost, leaving the ablative singular as -â. The ablative plural followed the pattern of the dative plural.

C. The Formation of Nouns and Adjectives

Write up the formula, NOUN BASE + DECLENSIONAL ENDING, on the board. Show several examples of the formation of nouns in specific cases, and translate:

• puell + a = girl (subject)
• puell + â = by/with/from a girl (NOTE: no Latin article!)
• puell + arum = of the girls, the girls'
• puell + ae = (1) of the girl; (2) to/for the girl; (3) the girls (subject) [NOTE: Context will limit choices in sentences.]

The formation of adjectives follows the pattern of the formation of nouns, BASE + ENDINGS. Stress that adjectives must agree with their antecedents in NUMBER, GENDER AND CASE.

D. Sentence Structure

I tell students to construct in their minds (but on paper is a good start) a "blank sentence", such as this:

Subject	Verb	Ind Obj	Dir Obj	Prep + Obj

Then I tell them to write the proper case or form for the sentence components, as follows:

NOM		DAT	ACC	ABL
Subject	Verb	Ind Obj	Dir Obj	Prep + Obj

Now I give them a sample sentence, like Wheelock's on pp. 6 and 9, "The poet is giving (to) the girl roses without thorns," and have them write the sentence components BELOW their proper designations:

NOM		DAT	ACC	ABL
Subject	Verb	Ind Obj	Dir Obj	Prep + Obj
The poet	is giving	(to) the girl	roses	without thorns

Then I ask students to identify what case each component would be (it's directly above the component). Now, we can write in the Latin ABOVE the cases:

Poeta	dat	puellae	rosas	sine spinis
NOM		DAT	ACC	ABL
Subject	Verb	Ind Obj	Dir Obj	Prep + Obj
The poet	is giving	(to) the girl	roses	without thorns

This chart helps the students translate both ways (English to Latin and Latin to English). If they are given Latin, they start on the top line with Latin, convert it to cases, then to grammar, and finally to English. If given English, they analyze grammar first, associate the proper sentence component with the proper case, and finally put the Latin word (in its proper declensional system) into the proper form for that case.

Next, I show how one can scramble the Latin words and still determine syntax (what the subject is and what the direct object is, etc.) without relying on word order, as English does. Then I ask them to identify the scrambled sentence components. I use the question format, "What case is X and why?", for the first time here.

[NOTE: Genitives tend to follow the noun they go with, like English "of." Also as in English, prepositional phrases also tend to follow what they go with.]

E. Handout

Click here for a practice sheet on first-declension nouns and adjectives.

II. Vocabulary

[Discuss all vocabulary and focus on derivatives. Explain to students that vocabulary will always include the nom. and gen. forms of all nouns since, as they will soon see, sometimes nom. forms are irregular and do not exhibit the base of the noun used throughout the rest of the declension. Students should always derive noun bases from the gen. sing. by dropping the gen. sing. ending (here -ae). Also, point out that most but not all first-declension nouns are feminine in gender. Some are masculine (poeta, nauta, pirata, agricola), mostly representing male occupations and often borrowed from Greek, which has a full system of masculine a-stem nouns.]

• antiquus: Antiquus derives from *anticus (cf. posticus, "behind, hindermost"). The -cus ending, originally *-cos, can be seen in reciprocus ("reciprocal") < *recos-procos, "moving back and forth". [NOTE: an asterisk (*) below a linguistic form indicates that the form has been reconstructed and is not attested in ancient texts.]
• multa: Because of a peculiarity in English, Latin multa can be translated two ways: "much" (single) and "many" (plural). English is irregular here, not Latin!
• mea: No matter to whom the "my" refers—man, woman or thing—the form of meus must agree in gender with its antecedent, e.g. the mea in mea pecunia is always feminine, whether a man is speaking or a woman, because pecunia is feminine. The same is true of tua. Stress this concept.

III. Homework

Homework. Assign students to turn in at the beginning of the next class a full declension of VITA ANTIQUA. I suggest that you have them translate the forms as well (with all possible, "reasonable" translations).

IV. Sentences

Sententiae Antiquae. I prefer to focus on those sentences which demonstrate the flexibility of Latin word order, in my experience the hardest thing for beginning students to grasp at first: sentences 4, 6, and 7. I also focus on those sentences which force students to choose the correct case for a form which covers several cases (e.g. -ae): sentences 3, 8, and 15. Do as many sentences as possible, and ask students as often as feasible what case a noun is and why. Stress the formation of verbs; that is, ask students to "break apart" verbs and define each verb component, especially moods (indicative, infinitive and imperative).

English-to-Latin Sentences. Assign the English to Latin sentences (16-19, p.11) to be turned in at the beginning of the next class. Accept questions before students turn in the homework the next day.

V. Student Information Sheets

By this point (the end of the first week or beginning of the second week) your class should have settled down. There should be no new adds and few drops. Knowing that you will have this group through the semester, you can ask students for information about themselves. Each piece of information is important. Use the phone number to contact students who have been absent for a long time without notifying you, or, as I did once, to wake up a student who slept through his alarm and missed the final. Standing tells you what level of maturity generally to expect of students. Language experience tells you how quickly the student will be able to absorb the complexities of grammar and syntax (prior experience with language acquisition is invaluable in studying a new language) and what sort of difficulties you can expect (Spanish speaking students, for instance, will acquire some vocabulary easily but many points of grammar have changed slightly between Latin and Spanish and will mislead them, e.g. Spanish participles are marked -nd- (not -nt-) which will cause confusion with the Latin gerundive). Expect anything for "Why did you take Latin?" The question is as much for them to sort out their feelings and motivations as for you to find out about them. Pay no attention to trivial or foolish answers, and do not prejudge students based on their answer here.

VI. Quiz 1

After finishing Chapter 2, you should give the students a quiz, a sample of which follows below as a suggestion of the types of questions to ask and how to format them. Do not use this quiz without substituting different questions. This particular quiz has already been used and is in circulation.

In general, students should have quizzes every other lesson. They grouse, but in the long run it is better for them on at least two counts: (1) it gives them practice for tests (assuming there is the same format on quizzes as will be used on the test); (2) it takes some of the pressure off test performance by distributing the student's grade over many examinations rather than just a few tests. It is, however, not necessary to quiz students within a few days before a test. For that reason I usually give two quizzes in a six or seven lesson part of the class: one quiz after the second lesson, another after the fourth lesson and a test after the sixth lesson. I will supply sample quizzes after every lesson when ideally quizzes should be given. The next, for instance, is scheduled to follow Chapter 4. More quizzes will, of course, be required for a class having particular difficulty with some lesson(s). Under no condition give fewer than two quizzes per part of the class!