Chapter 9

RULE 1: -ius is the regular genitive singular ending and -i is the regular dative singular ending in pronouns.

I. Grammar

A. What is a Pronoun?

Begin by defining pronouns: "a small group of words used in place of nouns in sentences, where from context it is understood what nouns they replace." Coming from Latin pro-nomen ("in place of a noun"), pronouns save us a lot of breath. Consider for a moment where Old King Cole would be without pronouns:

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was Old King Cole,
Old King Cole called for Old King Cole's pipe,
Old King Cole called for Old King Cole's bowl,
Old King Cole called for Old King Cole's fiddlers three.

Pronouns are very common forms in language, and the more common a form the less likely it is to be regularized. Simply put, when a form is heard and spoken many times in a day, it can afford to be irregular, because its irregular forms are constantly reinforced in daily use. Verbs like "be" and "bear" can be irregular because we hear their irregular forms, "was/were/been" and "bore/borne," over and over. If for some reason they were to become uncommon, their irregular forms would, no doubt, quickly degenerate into more predictable forms, " I have be-ed" and "I have bear-ed." Verbs like "to quantize" and "to retroactivate" which are heard infrequently are simply assumed to have regular forms. After all, what good is it to memorize an irregular form for a word one will use once or twice in a lifetime? Therefore, pronouns—common forms in almost all western languages—show multiple irregularities, offering interesting challenges not only to the new student memorizing forms but also the aging linguistics professor explaining word derivations. Consider as a parallel English pronouns many of which retain archaic and irregular forms, for instance, plurals such as they/these/those; gendered forms such as he/she/it; and those which retain case endings like his, him, her, its, their, whose, and whom. [Their = they + r, where r = the old genitive (plural) ending; cf. her, also the German article der].

B. The Formation of Latin Pronouns

Review the formation of hic and ille with the students. Write the forms on the board and have students write the forms in their notes along with you. Say the forms aloud with them and focus on the harder ones to pronounce (huius, huic). Practicing pronouns out loud is one of the best ways that you can help students memorize these forms. Explain away as many of the seeming irregularities as possible. For example, point out that:

1. The genitive singular ending, -ius, is used throughout demonstrative pronoun forms and also in certain substantive adjectives often used as demonstrative pronouns (solus, alius, alter, ullus, nullus, totus, unus).
2. Likewise, the dative singular ending -i is pervasive in pronoun forms. Students should be careful not to confuse this ending with the identical ending in the genitive singular of second declension.
3. Otherwise, pronouns generally follow first- and second- declension forms, with the following exceptions:
   • a. The -c suffix seen in hic, haec, hoc is a deictic particle, a "pointer" of sorts which denotes that the speaker is indicating something nearby, cf. colloquial English "this here thing." The endings of the Latin pronoun precede the -c marker.
   • b. In the nominative singular masculine, the -e ending which shows up in ille and iste was originally seen also in hic where the earlier form was *hec.
   • c. In the nominative/accusative singular neuter, the distinctive ending -d, seen in illud and istud, is lost in hoc because of the addition of the deictic particle: hod + c(e) = hoc (sometimes spelled hocc in early Latin).
   • d. In the accusative singular masculine/feminine, ease of pronunciation demands that *hum-c and *ham-c become hunc and hanc. Likewise, when the deictic particle is added to the genitive plural horum as archaic Roman authors like Plautus sometimes do, the form becomes horunc(e).
   • e. The long mark over the -â in illâ and istâ (feminine ablative singular) is mandatory! There will, however, be no confusion with the feminine ablative singular hâc and other forms of hic haec hoc, but in the masculine/neuter ablative singular there can be confusion with other forms. Thus, the long mark over the vowel in hôc is mandatory, since it can be confused with the neuter nominative/accusative singular hoc.
   • f. The nominative/accusative plural neuter haec exhibits another deictic particle -i- (cf. Greek hodi vs. hode), inserted before the deictic -c: originally *ha/i/c.

C. Use of Pronouns

Latin has a wider range of demonstrative pronouns (hic, ille, is, iste) than English (this, that) and uses them in a variety of ways which will seem foreign to most of your students. In much the same way, they will now find it confusing that demonstrative pronouns in Latin are frequently used as substantives (e.g. hic = "this man"), even though they have encountered the concept of the substantive before. Stress to them that rather often they will have to derive the "substance" of a demonstrative pronoun from its gender, just as they have learned to do with adjectives.

D. The History of Latin Pronouns

Linguistically, pronouns are a fascinating mess. The Indo-European demonstrative pronoun, *so *sâ *tod, yielded the Greek article ho hê to, as well as an archaic series of accusative pronouns preserved in the writings of the early Latin author Ennius: som/sam (sing.), sôs/sâs (pl.). The neuter of this Indo-European demonstrative pronoun survived in Latin tum, and the locative in sic (originally, *seîc(e) = demonstrative + deictic). The genitive singular ending -ius is peculiar to Latin and difficult to explain fully. It may be as simple as Latin added the genitive singular ending -s to -esyo, the inherited genitive singular pronoun ending, but there is another possible explanation. Plautus has preserved a word quoius, -a, -um, an interrogative adjective meaning "belonging to whom." It's possible that this form replaced the genitive singular of qui, quae, quod, which was then misconstrued as quo-ius. To this new quo- base was added the regular dat. sing. ending -i, rendering quoi (later, cui). These new -ius and -i endings were then carried over to other pronoun forms.

hic. The base was originally *ghe/o-, gha-. Indo-European gh- regularly becomes h- in Latin, whereas in English it becomes g-; cf. Latin host- vs. English guest; Latin (h)anser vs. English gander. The -d found regularly in the neuter nominative/accusative singular ending of pronouns disappears in hoc (*hodc), but is maintained in istud, illud, aliud, quod and quid. In Greek this final -d was lost, rendering the familiar omicron ending in the neuter nominative/accusative singular: to, touto, auto, ekeino.

ille. The original nominative singular masculine ending was -o (cf. Greek ho), which in Latin became -e. The original base was oll-, later changed to ill- under the influence of is, iste and ipse. The origin of the form (ol + se? ol + ne?) is uncertain.

iste. It may be a compound formed from is- prefixed onto the Indo-European demonstrative pronoun *to.

II. Vocabulary

• locus: Like iocus and frenum, locus has a plural with variable gender. In Latin, neuter plural forms came to have a sense of collectivity, as they often do in Greek. Therefore, loca came to carry the connotation of "places (which are somehow connected with one another), a region," whereas loci came to mean "single places (which are separate from others), individual passages in a book." This tendency to treat neuter plurals (ending in -a) as collective nouns led to the creation in late Latin of many feminine singular (first declension) abstract nouns (which also end in -a—exactly the mistake your students make!) from what were originally neuter plurals, e.g. gaudia, whence Ital. goia, Fr. joie, Eng. joy.
• hic/ille: Unlike English, Latin does not have as strong a sense of "this" being nearby and "that" being far away. Thus, the demonstrative pronoun hic is sometimes best rendered "this," sometimes "that." The same is true of ille. Likewise, venire can betoken both "come" and "go." Besides that, hic and ille are often used in Latin where we would use third-person pronouns (he/she/it/they). In this case, the force of the Latin demonstrative falls somewhere between that of the English simple pronoun (e.g. it) and stronger demonstrative forms (e.g. that). Context, then, dictates the best translation. Also, hic can mean "the latter" (i.e. "this," what's closer to the point where one is now in the sentence) and ille "the former" (i.e. "that," what's further up the sentence).
• iste: Wheelock's attempt to render the derogatory sense inherent in iste as "that . . . of yours", as in "that ridiculous translation of yours," can be somewhat misleading, especially if students come to think that there is something innately second person about this pronoun. An expletive might have served better, e.g. "that darned cat." I think, however, a teacher of mine had an even better idea: to translate iste as "that" and growl, e.g. "that (grrrr!) Catiline." This way, you make your point without any second-person implications or implied obscenities, and at the same time give students the pleasure of growling at their teacher. I have never in all my years of teaching had a student refuse to take this opportunity to growl in front of me, if not at me.
• alter: Its genitive singular supplies the genitive singular of alius which by rule should not distinguish between the nominative masculine and genitive singular forms. Why the similar problem didn't bother the Romans in the dative singular, which is identical to the nominative plural masculine form suggests that it was unnecessary to distinguish these forms in context. Students should be encouraged to learn alius, even though it's not listed in this chapter's vocabulary. [Originally denoting "two-ness" (see propter, Chapter 5), the -ter form supplies the comparative in Greek (e.g. sophoteros, "wiser") and is cognate with English -ther (e.g. other, neither). The base al- is cognate with Greek allos from an original base *aly-.]
• nullus: Means "no" as an adjective—as in "Yes, we have no bananas!"—not "no" as the answer to a question. Students should memorize ullus with nullus, even though it's not listed in the vocabulary. [Nullus is a contract of ne + ullus; in turn, ullus is a shortened form of the diminutive unulus, "one little," cf. the colloquial expression "any old."]
• solus: The adverb solum (formed from the accusative singular form of the adjective) means "merely, only." The formula non solum . . . sed etiam ("not only . . . but also") is seen often in Latin.
• unus: There is a plural for unus, e.g. uni ex omnibus Sequani (Caesar), which means "the Sequani alone of all (the Gallic tribes)," cf. the English pluralization of "one" to create the pronoun "ones" signifying a group of individuals. [The original form in Latin was oinos, cf. Germ ein, Greek oine (a throw of one in dicing).]
• enim: A postpositive conjunction often used in an explanatory sense, sometimes ironical.
• in: Reinforce the different meanings of in when its object is ablative or accusative.

III. Sentences

Practice and Review

3. Remind students that genitives tend to follow what they go with; therefore, it's best to construe huius with vitiis.

12. A word for "man" is not necessary. Encourage students to use hic as a substantive.
13. Tell students that "that (courage) of yours" does not involve the second person in any way. Tell them to use iste for "that . . . of yours."