Latin, unlike English, has a very flexible word order because the language is highly inflected.
On the noun tables there are usually 5 (sometimes 7) cases:
Case | General Usage | Note |
---|---|---|
Nominative | Subject | |
Vocative | Direct address | Only sometimes shown as a case |
Genitive | Possessive | |
Dative | Indirect object or personal reference | |
Accusative | Direct object | Can also be the object of a preposition. |
Ablative | Varied uses | Most usages translated as prepositional expressions. |
Locative | Place for cities, towns, small islands | Only sometimes shown as a case |
There are 5 declensions ( Latin: declinationes, singular declinatio). Most nouns in the 1st are feminine, most in the 2nd are masculine and neuter (usually distinguished by the m. -us and n. -um endings), 3rd can either be masculine, feminine, or neuter, 4th is either masculine or neuter, and 5th is usually feminine with a couple masculine. It is necessary to learn the gender of each noun for it is often impossible to discern the gender from the word itself. One must also memorize to which declension each noun belongs in order to be able to decline it. Therefore latin nouns are often memorized with their genitive (rex, regis) as this gives a good indication for the declension to use and reveals the stem of the word (reg, not rex).
singular | plural | |
Nominative | puella | puellae |
Vocative | puella | puellae |
Genitive | puellae | puellārum |
Dative | puellae | puellīs |
Accusative | puellam | puellās |
Ablative | puellā | puellīs |
Note: The words dea, goddess, and fīlia, daughter, take the ending ābus instead of īs in the dative and ablative plural; otherwise they would look exactly the same as god, deīs and son, fīliīs.
singular | plural | |
Nominative | amīcus | amīcī |
Vocative | amīce | amīcī |
Genitive | amīcī | amīcōrum |
Dative | amīcō | amīcīs |
Accusative | amīcum | amīcōs |
Ablative | amīcō | amīcīs |
singular | plural | |
Nominative | verbum | verba |
Vocative | verbum | verba |
Genitive | verbī | verbōrum |
Dative | verbō | verbīs |
Accusative | verbum | verba |
Ablative | verbō | verbīs |
Note: Nominative and accusative cases of neuter nouns always end the same.
singular | plural | |
Nominative | rēx | rēgēs |
Vocative | rēx | rēgēs |
Genitive | rēgis | rēgum |
Dative | rēgī | rēgibus |
Accusative | rēgem | rēgēs |
Ablative | rēge | rēgibus |
singular | plural | |
Nominative | nōmen | nōmina |
Vocative | nōmen | nōmina |
Genitive | nōminis | nōminum |
Dative | nōminī | nōminibus |
Accusative | nōmen | nōmina |
Ablative | nōmine | nōminibus |
Note: Nominative and accusative cases of neuter nouns always end the same.
singular | plural | |
Nominative | mare | maria |
Vocative | mare | maria |
Genitive | maris | marium |
Dative | marī | maribus |
Accusative | mare | maria |
Ablative | marī | maribus |
Note: Nominative and accusative cases of neuter nouns always end the same.
singular | plural | |
Nominative | spīritus | spīritūs |
Vocative | spīritus | spīritūs |
Genitive | spīritūs | spīrituum |
Dative | spīrituī | spīritibus |
Accusative | spīritum | spīritūs |
Ablative | spīritū | spīritibus |
singular | plural | |
Nominative | cornū | cornua |
Vocative | cornū | cornua |
Genitive | cornūs | cornuum |
Dative | cornū | cornibus |
Accusative | cornū | cornua |
Ablative | cornū | cornibus |
Note: Nominative and accusative cases of neuter nouns always end the same.
The dative singular of 4th declension neuter nouns ends in -ū,
while for masculine and feminine 4th declension nouns it ends in -uī.
singular | plural | |
Nominative | diēs | diēs |
Vocative | diēs | diēs |
Genitive | diēī | diērum |
Dative | diēī | diēbus |
Accusative | diem | diēs |
Ablative | diē | diēbus |
All adjectives must agree with the noun they describe in number, case and gender. All nouns are either feminine, masculine, or neuter. Genders are grammatical, and do not necessarily correspond to the sex of the object. Adjectives are either 1/2nd declension or 3rd declension. In 1/2nd declensions, -a endings are treated as feminine and are declined like 1st declension nouns, and -us endings are treated as masculine, and -um endings are treated as neuter and both are declined like second declension nouns. For example:
In 3rd declension adjectives, for masculine and feminine, most of the time there are no changes which are needed to be made to match gender as both masculine and feminine decline the same (make note that in the ablative usually you use an -i instead of -e as most 3rd declension adjectives are -i stemmed.). Neuter has one important difference, as nominative and accusative in all declensions are the same (-um for 2nd etc.) and for plural nominative and accusative have -a (all neuters in all declensions do this as well).
Adjectives can also have comparative forms and superlative forms. Fortior is 'braver' (comparative). Fortissimus is 'bravest' (superlative). If you drop the ending (-a, -us, -um) and place -ior to get the comparative ('braver', 'quite brave', 'rather brave', 'too brave') for the masculine and feminine genders. For the neuter, you drop the ending (-a, -us, -um) and add -ius. Adding -issimus, -issima or -issimum, depending on the gender of noun being modified, to make 'most brave', 'very brave', or 'exceedingly brave' (if applicable).
Cornelia is braver than Cornelius. (quam after a comparative is 'than', otherwise it usually is feminine singular relative pronoun).
Also, there are irregular adjectives in Latin, just as there are irregular verbs and nouns. For example, the adjective meaning 'difficult' in Latin is difficilis in the positive form. In the comparative, the adjective changes into difficilior for the masculine and feminine genders, and into difficilius for the neuter. However, in the superlative, the adjective becomes difficillimus. In this case, the irregular adjective does not have the typical superlative ending. Other adjectives like bonus; melior, melius; optimus, meaning good, better, best, will not only have a different superlative form, but change their bases throughout the different levels of adjectives.
In Latin there is no indefinite article or definite article- 'a' or 'the'. They can be replaced by other adjectivals such as ille (forms of ille gradually changed into simply le or la as in the modern Romance languages today), haec, ea, id, is etc.
There are four conjugations in Latin. A verb either falls into one of these conjugations or is considered irregular. In Latin, a verb is defined by its person, number, tense, mood and voice. This gives rise to a large number of forms of each verb - 120, in fact, not counting infinitives, imperatives, or participles, or verbs that lack some forms, such as intransitive verbs that lack passive forms. They are generally learnt in groups of 6, corresponding to a particular mood, tense, and voice. Each verb has three stems - a present stem, a perfect stem, and a supine stem, to which various endings are added to make individual forms of verbs.
There are six tenses ( Latin: tempus) in Latin. They are:
There are three moods ( Latin: modus):
There are two voices ( Latin: genus):
With this information, we can sort the verbs into their groups of six, starting with the first conjugation, portare, to carry, as follows:
The stem of a verb is the infinitive (second principle part) with the -re removed, in general. The perfect stem is the third principle part with the -i removed, in general.
(With the verb porto, portare, portavi, portatum):
Present | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portō | portāmus |
2nd Person | portās | portātis |
3rd Person | portat | portant |
Present stem + personal endings
Imperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portābam | portābāmus |
2nd Person | portābās | portābātis |
3rd Person | portābat | portābant |
Present stem + -ba- + personal endings
Future | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portābō | portābimus |
2nd Person | portābis | portābitis |
3rd Person | portābit | portābunt |
Present stem + -bi- + personal endings (note that the -bi- changes to -bu- in 3rd person plural and that the construction of future tense verbs is quite different for verbs of the third, fourth, and third IO principle parts)
Perfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portāvī | portāvimus |
2nd Person | portāvistī | portāvistis |
3rd Person | portāvit | portāvērunt |
Perfect stem + perfect endings
Pluperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portāveram | portāverāmus |
2nd Person | portāverās | portāverātis |
3rd Person | portāverat | portāverant |
Perfect stem + imperfect of sum, esse
Future Perfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portāverō | portāverimus |
2nd Person | portāveris | portāveritis |
3rd Person | portāverit | portāverint |
Perfect stem + future of sum, esse (except -erint because -erunt is used in perfect tense 3rd person plural)
Present | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portem | portēmus |
2nd Person | portēs | portētis |
3rd Person | portet | portent |
Imperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portārem | portārēmus |
2nd Person | portārēs | portārētis |
3rd Person | portāret | portārent |
Perfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portāverim | portāverimus |
2nd Person | portāveris | portāveritis |
3rd Person | portāverit | portāverint |
Pluperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portāvissem | portāvissēmus |
2nd Person | portāvissēs | portāvissētis |
3rd Person | portāvisset | portāvissent |
Note that there is no Future or Future Perfect in the Subjunctive Mood.
Present | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portor | portāmur |
2nd Person | portāris | portāminī |
3rd Person | portātur | portantur |
Imperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portābar | portābāmur |
2nd Person | portābāris | portābāminī |
3rd Person | portābātur | portābantur |
Future | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portābor | portābimur |
2nd Person | portāberis | portābiminī |
3rd Person | portābitur | portābuntur |
Perfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portātus sum | portātī sumus |
2nd Person | portātus es | portātī estis |
3rd Person | portātus est | portātī sunt |
Pluperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portātus eram | portātī erāmus |
2nd Person | portātus erās | portātī erātis |
3rd Person | portātus erat | portātī erant |
Future Perfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portātus erō | portātī erimus |
2nd Person | portātus eris | portātī eritis |
3rd Person | portātus erit | portātī erunt |
Present | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | porter | portēmur |
2nd Person | portēris | portēminī |
3rd Person | portētur | portentur |
Imperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portārer | portārēmur |
2nd Person | portārēris | portārēminī |
3rd Person | portārētur | portārentur |
Perfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portātus sim | portātī sīmus |
2nd Person | portātus sīs | portātī sītis |
3rd Person | portātus sit | portātī sint |
Pluperfect | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | portātus essem | portātī essēmus |
2nd Person | portātus essēs | portātī essētis |
3rd Person | portātus esset | portātī essent |
Notice that the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect tenses passive are compound tenses, composed of the past participle and a form of esse, to be. Notice also that the participle is plural in the plural forms.
There are six additional forms of a verb, the six infinitives. These are used in the indirect statement, a very common construction in Latin. The infinitives are:
Active | Passive | |
Present | portāre | portārī |
Perfect | portāvisse | portātus esse |
Future | portāturus esse | portātum īrī |
Translation | Active | Passive |
Present | to carry | to be carried |
Perfect | to have carried | to have been carried |
Future | to be going to carry | to be going to be carried |
There are three other conjugations in Latin. Some guidelines on how to apply the rules for the first conjugation onto the others are given below.
First conjugation, portāre, to carry
Present stem: porta- (porte- in subjunctive)
Perfect stem: portāv-
Past participle: portātus
Second conjugation, docēre, to teach
Present stem: docē- (doceā- in subjunctive)
Perfect stem: docu-
Past participle: doctus
Third conjugation, trahere, to drag
Present stem: trah- (trahā- in subjunctive)
Perfect stem: trax-
Past participle: tractus
Fourth conjugation, audīre, to hear
Present stem: audī- (audiā- in subjunctive)
Perfect stem: audīv- or audi-
Past participle: audītus
The third and fourth conjugations form their Future tense differently from the first and second:
Future | Singular | Plural |
1st Person | traham | trahēmus |
2nd Person | trahēs | trahētis |
3rd Person | trahet | trahent |
audīre follows the same pattern in the Future as trahere
The Latin language has a rigid tense and subordination system and whereas many modern languages are analytic, with the grammatical role of a word is expressed by position, in Latin the syntactic role of a word is expressed by declension generating a sentence that does not depend on word order; for example, Tulliam Marcus amat, amat Marcus Tulliam, Marcus Tulliam amat, and Marcus amat Tulliam all mean "Marcus loves Tullia." Another typical feature of Latin grammar is the predominance of concrete words and expression. This in striking opposition to ancient Greek, which is a more ductile language. A sentence such as "I believe a god exists" in Latin is "credo deum esse," which literally means "I believe that there is a god" or "I believe a god to exist." But the most rigid and specific rule in Latin is the consecutio temporum, the same rule inherited by Italian but much more complex and rigid. This rule gives order to the tense relationship in subordinate sentences in order to express anteriority, contemporaneity, and posteriority. The rule orders that in the presence of a principal verb in the regent sentence, the subordinate has to use the subjunctive:
When the regent sentence has a past tense verb, the rule orders that the subordinate sentence uses the subjunctive:
Some examples: