STAGE 4 GRAMMAR REVIEW GUIDE
NOUNS
Nouns refer to people (e.g. man, Caecilius), places (e.g. city, Rome), things (e.g. dog, Cerberus), and ideas (e.g. peace, the Pax Romana). In Latin, like English, the subject (i.e. the noun that is performing some action, or given a state of being) is usually at the beginning of the sentence, though word order is not the end-all be-all in Latin. Instead, the ending of the noun (which we call case) will determine its function. A nominative noun will work as the subject (the main character or actor) of the sentence, while the accusative noun will work as the direct object (the person or thing acted upon by the verb) of the sentence. Additionally, nouns are grouped into three families called declensions, which determine their case endings:
1st Declension(e.g. Metella/Metellam; ancilla/ancillam) / 2nd Declension
(e.g. Caecilius/ Caecilium; servus/servum) / 3rd Declension
(e.g. Grumio/Grumionem; mercator/mercatorem)
Nominative Singular / -a / -us / [various]
Accusative Singular / -am / -um / -em
In English, the subject will often be preceded by an article, “a(n)” or “the”; because these don’t exist in Classical Latin, we will have to provide them in translation where appropriate (otherwise, we sound like cavemen). In Latin, our convention is to capitalize nouns only if they are proper; we do not start every sentence with a capital letter. We have also at this point seen nouns as prepositional objects (i.e. nouns that follow prepositions, see below).
VERBS
In Latin, there are two kinds of verbs: action verbs, which show an action (e.g. runs, jumps, swims); and linking verbs, which show a state of being (e.g. is) and can usually be thought of as an equals sign (=).
A linking verb is not capable of taking a direct object (an accusative noun); instead, it will link the subject with another nominative noun, a nominative adjective, or a prepositional phrase. Some action verbs cannot take a direct object (e.g. works, sits, sleeps); some action verbs can take a direct object (e.g. tastes, enters, praises, greets), though they don’t have to for the sentence to make sense. We will not see a direct object (accusative noun) in a sentence unless that sentence contains an action verb.
Every time we encounter a new verb in vocabulary, it will be introduced in a form that ends with –t, which tells us that the subject of this verb is 3rd person singular, i.e. the pronouns “he,” “she,” or “it,” or a nominative singular noun that can be replaced by one of those pronouns (e.g. Caecilius, Metella, or Cerberus). However, verbs in Latin conjugate (undergo certain changes) to show, among other things, who is performing the action (in much the same way that nouns decline to show their function in the sentence). Until now, we have seen verbs only with subjects that are singular. The chart is as follows:
PRESENT TENSE REGULAR VERB ENDINGS
Singular / Can be translated . . .1st Person / -ō (ego) “I” / “____,” “am ____ing,” “do ____”
2nd Person / -s (tū) “you” / “____,” “are ____ing,” “do ____”
3rd Person / -t [nominative singular] “(he/she/it)” / “____s,” “is ____ing,” “does ____”
The Latin pronouns are in parentheses because as long as the verb ends in –ō, –s, or –t, we know the subject of that verb based on its ending, even without that pronoun. It is not wrong to include the pronouns ego and tū, it is simply not necessary; most of the time, however, we will still see them appear. We have not yet met the 3rd person pronoun (he/she/it, etc.) and will not for some time. But if our verb ends with –t, we can insert the necessary pronoun for that verb; still, we will often be provided a nominative singular noun in sentences like these to use as the subject. That is why “nominative singular” is in brackets; we won’t always have it in a sentence; “he/she/it” is in parentheses because if we do have a nominative singular noun, we won’t need to provide these pronouns.
THE IRREGULAR VERB “TO BE”
Singular / Can be translated . . .1st Person / sum (ego) / “I am”
2nd Person / es (tū) / “you are”
3rd Person / est [nominative singular] / “(he/she/it) is,”
“there is”
PREPOSITIONS
Prepositions describe a relationship between two nouns in space or time. They are followed by nouns. A noun that follows a preposition will usually have a different ending than the one with which it is introduced (e.g. hortus becomes hortō when following the preposition in, meaning “in”). That’s called the ablative case, and is not something you need to worry about until Stage 14.
Latin 1A
Stage 4 Test Breakdown
· Part I: 7-line passage
o Read the story and answer the following comprehension questions. (10)
· PART II REMOVED
· Part III
o Select the answers that complete the following statements. (5)
· Part IV
o Select the verb form that correctly completes the sentence. (10)
· Part V
o Select the noun or pronoun that agrees with the verb ending. (5)
· Part VII
o Select the verb that correctly completes the sentence. (10)
· Part VI (out of order)
o Select the word(s) that most closely define(s) the underlined derivative. (10)
· Part VIII
o Select the word which completes the sentences based on the content of the stories in Stage 4. (5)
· Part IX
o Match the definition to its culture term. (10)
· Part X
o Study the picture and respond to the following statements. (9)
· Part XI
o Indicate whether the following culture statements are truly or false by marking a for true and b for false. (10)
N.B.: These guidelines are tentative; Magister Finkelstein reserves the right to remove any sections or questions therein before the test. Additionally, the current denominator (84) will be reduced to reflect any questions answered incorrectly by 50% or more of students.