Chapter 22

RULE 1: Fifth declension represents e-stem nouns.

RULE 2: The ablative of manner may lose its preposition cum when the object is modified by an adjective.

I. Grammar

A. Fifth Declension

The fifth declension should pose no more problem to students than the fourth did. They will certainly be relieved to know that after this lesson they have covered all types of Latin nouns (and adjectives!). Henceforth, their study of Latin will focus mainly on new forms and uses of verbs and verbals.

Fifth declension is probably best approached as a combination of nouns-bases ending in -e to which are appended third-declension endings (second-declension endings in the genitive, asterisked below). Long -e dominates in almost every case.

B. History of the Fifth Declension

The fifth declension is a purely Italic creation with few parallels in other Indo-European language systems, cf. Greek chre. Lacking the usual battery of parallels, linguists have much disputed the development of e-stems in Latin.

One thing is clear: fifth declension is a mixture of nouns of different origin which the Romans have conflated into one declensional system. Some originally ended in a diphthong: *rêis > rês, *diêus > diês. Others were verbal abstracts ending -iê (aciês, faciês, maciês), some with parallel by-forms in -ia (first declension) which constitutes another type of verbal abstract (materies/materia, durities/duritia). Because most of these nouns do not exhibit full paradigms in historical Latin texts—modern grammar books fill out the declensions but ancient authority is lacking—it seems clear that the Romans during the Classical Age were in the process of creating this declension by analogy to other forms. Only dies and res show the full declension.

II. Vocabulary

For a complete list of vocabulary in Wheelock, Chapters 1-22, click here.

• dies: The name of the Roman sky god Jupiter is derived from the same base: *dye(u) > *ju- (cf. Greek Zeus); hence, *ju- + -pater (vocative) = Jupiter. From the stem used in the oblique cases, *dyeu-, comes Jov- the stem used in the oblique cases.
• fides: Can denote both a thing given as a surety (“a promise”) and the abstract concept behind the surety (“trust, faith, trustworthiness” > “credit” (in business).
• ignis: An i-stem noun.
• spes: The word originated as an old s-stem, *spes-, cf. Old Latin speres (rhotacized) and the denominative verb sperare. This base was later assumed into the fifth declension.
• inquit: Though technically a “defective” verb, inquit has a full complement of forms in the present tense: inquam (originally subjunctive, as in the parenthetic “let me say, I would add”), inquis, inquit, inquimus, inquitis, inquiunt; imperative inque. Only in other tenses does it fail to exhibit certain forms. [It is in origin a compound of sequor: *in-sequitur (“he pursues (a subject), talks”) > *in-squit > inquit.]
• tollo: Meaning literally “lift,” this verb carries many connotations, e.g. “carry off, steal” (booty/spoils), “destroy, remove, abolish” (enemies). [Since its perfect forms, tuli and latus ( < *tlatus) were borrowed by fero, it uses the perfect forms of a defunct compound, sustuli (sub- + tuli) and sublatus (sub- + *tlatus). Such a combination of different verbs is called “composite conjugation.” The present base of tollo is *tol or *tl (zero grade): the present form originated as *tol- + -n- (a nasal suffix, cf. cerno, temno) + -o > tollo, cf. *pelno > pello; and the perfect stem was originally reduplicated but later lost the reduplication, cf. tetuli (Plautus), rettuli < *retetuli.]
• medius: Means “the middle of X” as often as “the middle X” (“central”).
• quondam: = quom (classical cum, the conjunction) + -dam, literally “some-when,” “at a certain time, once.”
• alo: The perfect passive participle of this verb, altus meaning literally “nourished,” in its sense of “grown great” came to mean “high, tall.” Seen not from the ground up but looked down on, a “tall” thing is “deep,” and therefore altus also came to mean “deep,” and from there “mystical, secret, ancient.”

III. Sentences

Practice and Review

2. Inasmuch as finibus in this sentence must be an impersonal agent—no ab!—continebantur is then best taken as “were confined/enclosed.”

4. Here, tollo has a sense of “destroy.”

IV. Review for Test 4 (Final Examination)