h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The teaching researchers can use this thread to teach in and any questions and requests from learning researchers are welcome here.

What are you so big-eyed about?

katkodl I'm answering your message on the speaking thread over here, since it is a question about the language:

You're right that 'domus' is declined differently from, say, 'puer' or 'puella'. That's because it is a 4th declension feminine noun, unlike all the other nouns you mention, which fall into the 1st or 2nd declensions. The forms of 'domus' are:
nom. Domus
gen. Domus (actually with a long 'u')
dat. Domui
acc. Domum
abl. Domu

plural
nom. Domus (long 'u')
gen. Domuum
dat. Domibus
acc. Domus (long 'u')
abl. Domibus

There you are. Any more questions?

EMR

Now I remember why I thought “domus” is peculiar! Because it ends in “us”, but is feminine! That’s rare, isn’t it?


katkodl

Not for 4th declension nouns, it's not. Most 'us' nouns are, to be sure, 2nd declension, which means they're masculine, but nouns in 4th declension that end in 'us' could be masculine *or* feminine. In addition to 'domus', another 4th decl. fem. noun is 'manus', or hand.

EMR

...What's a declension?

Oh, sorry, I walk around assuming everyone knows everything...

First thing you ought to know is that instead of relying on word order to convey the meaning of a sentence, Latin uses different endings on the end of words to show the difference between subject and object, tense (for verbs) and things like that.

So when you have a sentence like 'puer puellam amat', 'the boy loves the girl', the 'am' ending on 'puellam' is showing that that's the object of the sentence, and the 't' ending on 'amat' is showing that it's a 3rd person singular verb.

Okay, now to actually answer your question: a declension is a category of nouns that share the same types of endings: for example, in the first declension singular:
nominative (subject) ends in 'a'
genitive (possessive) ends in 'ae'
dative (indirect object) also ends in 'ae'
accusative (object) ends in 'am'
ablative (used with prepositions and pretty much anything else) ends in 'long a'

There's another set of endings for 1st declension plural, and any 1st declension noun will have the same endings as any other. There are 5 declensions, and so five categories of endings. This may sound confusing to start with, but I find that once you get used to it it's a whole lot less complicated than English's system.

EMR

Shouldn’t we also learn about vocative? It could be useful for the speaking thread, maybe . (Then we could yell at each other more easily! )

katkodl

Vocative doesn't usually get talked about because in most cases it's the same as the nominative. The only exception to that rule is 2nd declension nouns ending in 'us' (eg tus). Then the vocative ends in 'e' (eg te). So if you're planning to talk to anyone whose name ends in 'us' this could be helpful, but most of ours don't, really. Not nowadays.

EMR

*whoosh*

I'm so lost...

Let me do what I can to start at the beginning, with nouns in particular. WARNING: you have to know English grammar, like the difference between a subject and an object, to get what I'm about to tell you. (I'm taking my characters from my middle school textbook 'Ecce Romani' - 'Look! the Romans!' - credit where credit is due.)

Marcus Corneliae pilam dat.

The vocab:
Marcus = Marcus, 'nominative' or subject form
Corneliae = Cornelia, 'dative' or indirect object form
pilam = ball, 'accusative' or direct object form
dat = he/she/it gives, 3rd person singular form of 'dare'

Okay, so if we translate the sentence, putting the English meanings in where the Latin words are, we get 'Marcus to Cornelia the ball he/she/it gives'. This, quite obviously, makes no sense whatsoever, and that's because Latin doesn't have a word order like English does. In English, if you were to say this sentence, you would say 'Marcus gives the ball to Cornelia', and we'd know that because Marcus comes first, he's the object; and then 'gives' comes so we know it must be the predicate of the sentence; and the ball comes after so it has to be the object; and Cornelia is preceded by 'to' so we know she is an indirect object. But in Latin, instead of putting the words in a particular order, we stick endings on the ends. So because 'Marcus' ends in a 'us' (nominative case) that means it's the subject, because 'Corneliae' ends in 'ae' (dative case) that has to be the indirect object, 'pilam' ends in 'am' (accusative case) so that's the direct object, and 'dat' ends in 't' so it's 3rd person singular (he/she/it). So then we can translate the sentence, 'Marcus gave the ball to Cornelia'.

Did any of that at all make sense?

Both of you guys might want to write the following down:
1st declension noun endings(feminine)(this is a category of nouns that in their nominative singular forms end in 'a'. They are almost always feminine.)
Nominative (subject)= -a (pila)
Genitive (possessive - we'll get to this eventually)= -ae (pilae)
Dative (indirect object) -ae (pilae)
Accusative (direct object) -am (pilam)
Ablative (often used with prepositions, indicates things like how or when)= -a (pila)

2nd declension noun endings (this declension - category - has masculine and neuter nouns, but we'll just discuss the masculine ones now)
nom.= -us (Marcus)
gen.= -i (Marci)
dat.= -o (Marco)
acc.= -um (Marcum)
abl.= -o (Marco)

Present tense verbs, 1st conjugation (a conjugation is exactly like a declension, it's a category of verbs with the same endings)
model verb='do, dare', to give
1st singular= -o (do, I give)
2nd singular= -s (das, you give)
3rd singular= -t (dat, he/she/it gives)
1st plural = -mus (damus, we give)
2nd plural = -tis (datis, you (plural) give)
3rd plural = -nt (dant, they give)

I know this is very confusing, and I'll try my best to take it easy and go at a moderate pace.

NEXT LESSON/STEP (maybe tomorrow or Monday): the 5 declensions and 4 conjugations, and the way you form them as I did above.

EMR

ok, so all in all I'm screwed anyway for not knowing a hell of a lot about English language?

Not necessarily...let me give you a quick rundown:

John throws the ball to Michael.

predicate = verb of the sentence = the action (throw)
subject = thing doing the action (John)
direct object = thing receiving the action (ball)
indirect object = thing receiving the direct object (Michael)

I want an egg for lunch.
I want some eggs for lunch.

singular = one thing (egg)
plural = many things (eggs)

I throw the ball. (1st singular)
You throw the ball. (2nd singular)
He/she/it throws the ball. (3rd singular)
We throw the ball (1st plural)
You (all) throw the ball. (2nd plural)
They throw the ball. (3rd plural)

1st person = I, we
2nd person = you, you all
3rd person = he/she/it, they

Posessive = ownership (the ball of John, John's ball)

preposition = one of those little words that tells you where something is in reference to something else (in, to, on, over, etc)

Is this making things any clearer?

*is keeping a beady eye on everything*

Just in case you thought you were all safe from me

Ok, I know all fo that, except the first 4 lines. Which I don't get. The rest I already know and understand. I sort of understand what you're getting at, but i don't get how to figure it out.

Cat

Let's see...

Cornelia Marcum videt.
Cornelia sees Marcus.

Corneliam Marcus videt.
Marcus sees Cornelia.

Because of the endings, you can tell what word is the subject and which is the object, of the sentence. the 'um' (for masculine nouns) or 'am' (for feminine nouns) will tell you that the word is in the *accusative* case, and then it's the object of the sentence.

The 'us' (for masculine nouns) and 'a' (for feminine nouns) tells you that a word is in the *nominative* case, and then it's the subject of the sentence.

The 't' in the verb shows that it's only one person, referred to in the 3rd person (he, she).

So in the first sentence, we know that Cornelia is the subject (because of the 'a' ending), and Marcum (Marcus) is the object, because of the 'um' ending.

How bout you try to identify the forms in this sentence, maybe translate it?

Cornelia pilam iacit.

VOCAB:
Pilam = ball
Iacit = throw

Decide which is the subject and which is the object, and translate accordingly.

EMR

I'm sorry - I'll try to explain subject and object again:

I sang a song.

The verb, we know, is 'sang', because that's the action being done.

The *subject* is the word that's performing the action - in this case, 'I', because I'm the one singing.

The *direct object* (sometimes just referred to as the object) is the word that the action is being done to - in this case the song, because I'm singing it.

I hope that's semi-clear, because I really don't know how else to put it...

Can we learn some nice vocabularies? Some nouns, maybe?

katkodl