Agreement of Adjectives in Latin

Adjectives must agree with (i.e. match) the nouns they describe in THREE KEY WAYS:  Gender (Masculine, Feminine or Neuter)  Number (Singular or Plural)  Case (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative or Vocative)

Gender Take the phrase “good boy.” In Latin, the word for boy is puer, puerī, m. Automatically, you know since puer is masculine, any adjective describing the boy must also use a masculine form.

Number Now, if your sentence imagines a single “good boy,” you also know that boy is singular. If it were plural, it would be “good boys.” Therefore, any adjective describing boy used in the singular must also be singular.

Case Now, the case of the adjective depends on how boy is used in the sentence.  If the sentence reads “The good boy is a farmer” the word “boy” is the subject and should be in the nominative case. The adjective good should also be in the nominative case. E.g. puer bonus  If the sentence reads “We look at the house of the good boy” the word boy is the possessive and should be in the genitive case. The adjective good should also be in the genitive case. E.g. puerī bonī  If the sentence reads “Give the good boy water” the word boy is the indirect object and should be in the dative case. The adjective good should also be in the dative case. E.g. puerō bonō

ADJECTIVES AND NOUNS DO NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO MATCH ENDINGS!!! Imagine you want to describe a farmer (agricola), sailor (nauta) or poet (poeta). These are all words in the first declension that use first declension endings but are actually masculine gender.

If your sentence reads “We attack the evil sailors” the word sailors is the direct object and would be in the accusative case in the plural ending, nautās.

 Since evil describe sailors, it must agree with its gender, number and case.  Since sailor is masculine, you must use the masculine endings for adjectives, which are the second declension endings.  You would make the adjective malus, mala, malum accusative plural, masculine, malōs.  Your sentence would read as nautās malōs oppugnāmus. Even though nautās and malōs do not have identical endings, they are in appropriate agreement.

How would you say “the great charioteer” in the sentence, “We sail to Italy with the great charioteer.”

Charioteer = auriga, aurigae, m.

Ad Ītaliam navigāmus cum aurigā magnō.

Both “great” and “charioteer” are ablative, singular and masculine! Translate the italicized words into Latin:

“The big boys are standing with the little girls.”

puerī magnī (nominative case, plural – subject)

“The big boys are standing with the little girls.”

cum puellīs parvīs (ablative of accompaniment, plural)

“Many farmers live with pretty* daughters. Yeee-haw!”

*“pretty” = formōsus, formōsa, formōsum

cum fīliābus formōsīs (ablative of accompaniment, plural, irregular ending)

“I see the great hero in the battle.”

virum magnum (accusative direct object, singular) in proelīō (ablative of place where, singular) “Is that crazy* farmer going to kill us?” *crazy = insānus, insāna, insānum

agricola insānus (nominative subject, singular)

“The dinner* is good.” *dinner = cēna, cēnae, f.

cēna est bona. Why would this be translated somewhat differently? est bona cēna.