Latin course for the Virtual School of Languages

Grammar explanations

This page doesn't explain the Latin grammar like the lessons do,
its purpose is to make grammar terms clear. So if you stumble
upon one that you don't understand, check this page. If you
still have questions, mail them to sprachprofi@gmx.net

Ablative
Ablative is the 5th case. As far as I know, it's unknown in all
European languages except Latin. Ablative is usually used after
a preposition (see lesson 10), but it can also stand alone 
(see lesson 11) in which case the modern reader has to find the 
right connection himself.

Accusative
Accusative is the 4th case. It's used for objects.

Adjective
An adjective is the kind of word that gives you more information
about a person or a thing, for example: good, bad, beautiful, cold
happy, etc.

Adverb
An adverb is the kind of word that gives you more information
about the verb, about how something is done: well, badly,
happily, quickly, etc.

Adverbial
Adverbials tell you more about the time, the place, the frequency
or the way something is done. For example: today, here, there, 
often, suddenly, well, quickly, before Tuesday, at the airport, etc.
As you have noticed, 'adverbial' is the name for a part of the sentence,
not limited to one word.

Attribute
An attribute gives you more information about something. 
Adjectives are the most common attributes, but Genitive
nouns can be attributes, too.
Example: "Robert's beautiful wife walks down the street." 
The adjective 'beautiful' and the Genitive noun "Robert's"
give you more information about the wife, namely that 
she's Robert's wife and that she's beautiful.

Article
There are two types of articles: 
1. the definite article, "the" in English. It's "le" or "la" in 
    French; "der", "die" or "das" in German. Since articles 
    are allowed to change, the French plural article "les"
    and all variations of the German articles are also 
    considered to be articles.
2. the indefinite article, "a" or "an" in English. It's "un" or
    "une" in French; "ein" or "eine" in German. This type
     of article is allowed to change, too (see above).

Case
There are 6 cases in Latin: Nominative, Genitive, Dative,
Accusative, Ablative and Vocative. Together they form
a Declension. The case of a noun determines its role in
the sentence.

Conjugation
A 'conjugation' describes the way a verb changes when
it's put into a different person, tense, modus, whatever.

Dative
Dative is the 3rd case. It's used for objects.

Declension
A 'declension' describes the way a noun, an adjective
or a participle changes when it's put into a different case.
In a Latin declension table you'll find one or more nouns
in their Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative
(and sometimes Vocative) forms. 

Genitive
Genitive is the 2nd case. It is usually formed by adding an
apostrophe and an s in English, or by putting an "of" in front
of the word. Genitive is used to make a noun an attribute
revealing more information about something.
Example: "Paul's bike was stolen". Paul's is Genitive here,
giving more information about the bike, which is Nominative.
Another example: "I like the sound of music". Of music is
Genitive here, specifying what sound, while sound is Accusative.

Infinitive
This is the form of the verb that doesn't indicate any person.
For example: "to be" is an infinitive, while "are" isn't.

Nominative
Nominative is the 1st case. It's used for subjects.

Noun
Nouns are words for things (e. g. basket, flower), 
people (e. g. president, child) or abstract concepts (e. g.
peace, psychology, gravity). They are put into various
cases and they can have attributes, which give them a more
specific meaning. 

Object
The object is the person/thing to whom something is done.
There are two types of objects in Latin: Accusative and
Dative objects. 
Example "Marcus shows the temple to his friends."
The temple is the Accusative object here, his friends
are the Dative object here.

Participle
A participle is a verb that is used like an adjective or noun in order 
to convey more action in one sentence than just through
the predicate. E. g. "The beaten Celts retreated.". In this case
the participle is "beaten". Ponder the meaning of the sentence
without and with the participle. With the participle, the sentence
not just tells us that the Celts retreated, but also that they were
beaten (before they retreated). There are nuances in Latin 
participles that allow them to convey even whether the Celts
were beaten before they retreated (prematurely), at the same
time as they retreated (simultaneously) or after they retreated
(postmaturely). This last nuance got lost in English, so the Latin
word "morituri" has to be laboriously translated as "they who
will die".

Person
The 'person' of a verb is a vital part of its conjugation. 
In Latin, just like in most European languages, there are
6 persons: I, you (singular), he/she/it, we, you (plural),
they. Since the verb changes accordingly with each person,
one can easily determine WHO is acting just by looking at 
the verb.

Plural
Referring to several things or several people. Please look up
"Singular" for examples.

Predicate
The predicate is the conjugated verb of a sentence. That means
that it is NOT infinitive. 
Example: "Alex can swim very fast." In this sentence "can" is the
predicate, while "swim" is a verb in the infinitive.

Preposition
Prepositions are those little words that connect nouns, for
example "with", "from", "about", "on" etc.  In most languages,
the difficulty is to know which case to put on nouns that follow
a preposition, because that tends to differ depending on the
preposition or even the sense in which a preposition is to be used.
In Latin, most prepositions require the Ablative.

Pronoun
As the name says (Pro-noun = for a noun), these words stand
for a noun. Most common examples are the 
personal pronouns, which take the place of names.
Example: "Cornelia laughs" - "She laughs". If Cornelia has been
mentioned before, you can replace her name by the personal
pronoun "she". 
relative pronouns take the place of a person or a thing at the
beginning of a relative clause.
Example: "Cornelia, who hears the joke, laughs". The small word
"who" takes the place of "Cornelia" and enables us to make 
sentences more interesting than "Cornelia hears the joke. Cornelia
laughs."
possessive pronouns take the place of a person that would 
otherwise be in the Genitive case. 
Example: "Cornelia invites her friends." The word "her" takes the
place of "Cornelia's". Sentences like "Cornelia invites Cornelia's
friends." sound boring or even weird, so possessive pronouns are
very important. Possessive pronouns like "my, your, our" are even
harder to replace.
demonstrative pronouns seem to point into a direction. In
English, the demonstrative pronouns are this, that, these and those.
In Latin, there are more.

Singular
Referring to only one thing or one person. 
With regard to nouns, "mouse" would be singular, whereas "mice" 
would be plural.
With regard to verbs, "I go" and "He / she / it goes" would be
singular and "We go" and "They go" would be plural.
"You go" is ambiguous, you have to think about whether you are
addressing one person (Latin "tu") or several people (Latin "vos").
One more example: in the sentence "the mother goes", both "the mother"
and "goes" are singular (necessarily so because the predicate has to reflect
whether the subject is singular or plural); whereas in the sentence "the
mothers go", both "the mothers" and "go" are plural. 

Stem
The stem of a word is the unchanging part of it. In English, the stem
of a word is easier to find than in Latin. For example, the stem of
a verb is the same as the infinitive form in English ("hold", not "holds").
In Latin, the infinitive form takes the ending -re (e. g. "tene-re"), which 
has to be substracted before you obtain a verb stem, just like the 3rd 
person singular ending -t (e. g. "tene-t") would have to be substracted. 
In this example, the stem is "tene". 
The term stem isn't just used for verbs but also nouns and adjectives. 
One example for the use with nouns: The stem of "radius" is "radi", 
because the ending -us is taken off as soon as the noun is put into a 
different case or number. No changes are made to the stem "radi". 

Subject
The subject is the person/thing who does something.
Example: "Marcus shows the temple to his friends."
In this sentence, Marcus is the subject.
In Latin and other languages with declensions, the subject's
case is referred to as "Nominative" case. It's the case
that you'll find in dictionaries.

Tense
The 'tense' of a verb refers to the grammatical time it reflects.
Grammatical time isn't about "yesterday" or "a week ago", but
the general idea: past, present, future, possible future, past and
still going on, etc.  In Latin, most tenses are formed by adding
a suffix (extra syllable) to the verb. 

Verb
Verbs are words of action, e. g. think, run, say, see.
They can be predicate in a sentence, an infinitive or a participle,
depending on their form of Conjugation.

Vocative
The Latin Vocative case, the 6th case, is used for addressing people.
It's hardly mentioned because it grew to be just like the Nominative, 
with the exception of masculine singular words of the O-Declension 
(like amicus). In that particular case the -us becomes -e. Most 
declension tables don't include the Vocative because there's just this 
exception and it's hardly used in text (because most original Latin texts
aren't in dialogue form).