Latin/2nd Declension Lesson 2
Salvēte discipulī discipulaeque!
Today’s lesson continues with the 2nd declension of nouns. Please check out the links on the right and at the foot for previous lessons and vocabulary.
New Grammar edit
Last time we covered the nominative and accusative of nouns of the 2nd declension. These come in two varieties, masculine and neuter. It takes a while to master the different endings, so today’s sentences will continue to offer practice in nominative and accusative. But we’ll also add the ablative case. There is no difference between masculine and neuter in this case: the ablative singular ends in –o and the ablative plural ends in –is. As you may remember from the 1st declension, the ablative is used to express the object of some prepositions, but it has many other uses. It’s kind of a “junk drawer” grammar form, actually. We’ll add another two prepositions that take the ablative case for their objects.
Also, since we have learned some masculine 1st declension nouns, we use the masculine adjectives to modify them, even though the endings do not match. This is where I really look forward to using the drop-down menu to pick the right word ending, because it requires some serious thought!
| case name | sing. | pl. | typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative (m.) | -us/-r | -ī | subject or predicate noun |
| nominative (n.) | -um | -a | “ |
| genitive | -ī | -ōrum | possession, the “of” case |
| dative | -ō | -īs | indirect object, the “to/for” case |
| accusative (m.) | -um | -ōs | direct object (also some objects of preps.) |
| accusative (n.) | -um | -ā | “ |
| ablative | -ō | -īs | objects of prepositions, etc. “by/with/from” case |
New Vocabulary edit
| Latin | English | Audio (Classical) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| discipulus, i | student (male) (discipula, ae = female student) | n.b. Latin tends to use masculine plural endings in a general way when referring to a mixed group: Salvēte discipulī does not necessarily exclude the female students, but we used the more inclusive and longer form above. | |
| hortus, ī | garden | ||
| magister, magistrī | teacher, master (male) | ||
| bracchium, ī | arm | ||
| altus, a, um | high, tall, deep | ||
| longus, a, um | long | ||
| dē (prep. w. abl.) | concerning, about, from, down from | ||
| sine (prep. w. abl.) | without | ||
| -que | and | This conjunction form is an enclitic, tacked on to the end of the second word to be joined, e.g. puerī puellaeque = boys and girls. |
New Sentences edit
| Latin | English |
|---|---|
| Magister librum cum puerīs legit. | The teacher reads a book with the boys. |
| Puer cum magistrō ambulat. | The boy walks with the teacher. |
| Nauta est pulcher. | The sailor is handsome. |
| Fēminae nautās pulchrōs vident. | The women see the handsome sailors. |
| Nautae fēminās pulchrās vident. | The sailors see the beautiful women. |
| Sine aquā in perīculō sumus. | We are in danger without water. |
| Hortus meus pulcher est. | My garden is beautiful. |
| Sunt rosae in hortō. | There are roses in the garden. |
| Librum dē hortīs scribō. | I am writing a book about gardens. |
| Bracchium tuum est longum. | Your arm is long. |
| Agricola est altus et pulcher. | The farmer is tall and handsome. |
| Cum Marcō et Paulā ambulāmus. | We walk with Marcus and Paula. |
| Cum Marcō Paulāque ambulātis. | You walk with Marcus and Paula. |
| Cum virīs et fēminīs ambulō. | I walk with the men and the women. |
| Sine cibō et aquā nōn labōrātis. | You do not work without food and water. |
| Sine cibō aquāque nōn labōrant. | They do not work without food and water. |
| Agricolam altum in agrō videō. | I see the tall farmer in the field. |
| Magister magistraque dē oppidō ambulant. | The male and female teacher (or master and mistress) walk (down) from the town. |
| Parvī puerī librōs dē equīs legunt. | The small boys read books about horses. |
Practice edit
| Practice and learn the words and phrases in this lesson | |
|---|---|
| Step one | First learn the words using this lesson: |
| Step two | Next try learning and writing the sentencing using this: |
| Note that the Memrise stage covers the content for all lessons in each stage. If you are skipping previous stages you may need to manually "ignore" the words in previous levels (use the 'select all' function) | |
We hope the pace is about right and the difficulty level is neither overwhelming nor too easy. Until next time, when we will work on the genitive case, valēte!